Paperback
Ask a Policeman
By The Detection Club, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Gladys Mitchell and Helen Simpson
This classic crime novel by six different authors is introduced by Martin Edwards, archivist of the Detection Club, and includes a never-before-published Preface by Agatha Christie, ‘Detective Writers in England’, in which she discusses her approach to writing and her fellow writers in the Detection Club.
Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are different, all are plausible, all are on their own – and none of them can ask a policeman…
The contributors to ASK A POLICEMAN are: John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, Milward Kennedy, with Agatha Christie and Martin Edwards.
”'One of the most original - and entertaining - mysteries I have ever read… A brilliant tour de force that the most jaded fans will relish.” - R. A. J. Walters
”'A reminder of the genial heyday of the genre when the KGB other ingredients of the esurient modern thriller were barely a gleam in Stalin’s eye.” - Christopher Wordsworth, The Observer
”'A must for all connoisseurs of detective fiction.” - James Harris, Literary Review
”'This year’s most welcome reissue.” - Francis Goff, Sunday Telegraph
”'A book of irresistible charm for students of the detective story.” - Ruth Dudley Edwards, Times Literary Supplement