The Inside Scoop with Martin Edwards
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Sleuths and Sidekicks is honored to host Martin Edwards, leading expert on the Golden Age of Mystery and President of the famed Detection Club, as our first Inside Scoop guest.
Carol: How did you become an author?
Martin: Even as a small child, I loved stories and the idea of making up my own stories always enthralled me. At the age of eight I discovered Agatha Christie and my fate was sealed. From then on, I wanted to read every mystery story I could lay my hands on, and I also wanted – very clearly and specifically - to become a mystery author. I still possess the series of detective stories I wrote at the age of ten and my ambition never wavered.
I came from a very ordinary background and I don’t think I ever met a real life novelist until I was in my thirties. My parents were alarmed by my obsession, so they urged me to get a ‘proper job’. As a result I became a lawyer and have combined writing with the law ever since. Although this was demanding in the days when I was a partner in my firm with a long daily commute, the fact that I had a separate income stream meant that I was able to devote myself to writing novels I really believed in. This in turn meant that at various points during my career my writing wasn’t really in vogue. In the long run, however, I’m sure that my writing has benefited and that I’ve achieved a level of personal fulfilment that might have proved elusive if I’d simply followed the market or the dictates of editors. I’ve had a fortunate career, and I’ve enjoyed it more than I can say. I often think back to that small boy who had a crazy dream…
Carol: What was the inspiration for your sleuths? How did they reach the page?
Martin: I’ve written three series and also short stories with detective characters who may return in future. I began with a Liverpool lawyer, Harry Devlin, on the principle of ‘write what you know’. My first novel, All the Lonely People, was three or four years in the making, but I didn’t want to experience endless rejections; because becoming a published crime writer was my sole ambition, I’d have found them crushing. As things turned out, I got lucky. That book was accepted and was a runner-up to Walter Mosley’s debut novel for the CWA Dagger for best first novel, so it was worth devoting a lot of time to it.
So far I’ve written eight novels about Harry, plus eight about the Lake District cold case cop, Hannah Scarlett, and four about Rachel Savernake, a menacing version of the Golden Age ‘great detective’. The Lakes series began when a very good editor urged me to try writing a series with a rural setting. Both those series were conceived as series from the start.
I wrote Gallows Court, which introduced Rachel Savernake, as an experiment, not knowing if it would find a publisher. It was a very different type of story and evolved from my interest in Golden Age fiction. I’d written a study of the Detection Club, The Golden Age of Murder, which was well-received, so I decided to make use of my love of the classic whodunit in books that aim to give a new twist to traditions of the genre and classic tropes such as the locked room puzzle and (in later books, when the publishers asked for more about Rachel) Cluefinders.
Carol: How did your sleuths’ sidekicks come to be?
Martin: Harry doesn’t have a sidekick, but Hannah’s is Daniel Kind, a historian whose father was once Hannah’s mentor. I envisaged that, over time, a relationship would develop between Hannah and Daniel, although in the first book, The Coffin Trail, they are involved with other people. At first my idea was that Daniel would be the lead character, but I asked my friend the late and much-missed writer Peter Robinson to look at the manuscript and he felt that Hannah was really the focal point. He was right. The book was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize, along with books by Val McDermid (who won) and Ian Rankin, so I was duly encouraged!
Carol: Tell us about The Detection Club.
Martin: In 1928, Anthony Berkeley Cox, better known by his pen-names Anthony Berkeley and Francis Iles, had the idea of inviting leading detective novelists to dinner at his home. In those days, before social media and festivals, crime writers seldom knew each other. The dinners were successful, so he had the idea of forming a club, which was launched in 1930. The Detection Club has always been a very small dining club. Its membership is limited because of that – it’s not a professional or representative body like the CWA or MWA.
In the 1930s the Club became hugely prestigious and its heritage is fascinating. There are now three get-togethers a year. Currently one dinner is at the Garrick Club, there is a summer lunch at Balliol College, Oxford (the alma mater of Lord Peter Wimsey and Dr Gideon Fell, as well as Mick Herron and me), and a big autumn dinner, which last year was at the Ritz and this year will be held at the Langham Hotel. These are purely social occasions, though we do have a guest speaker at the autumn dinner; last year it was the former head of MI6.
The aim is to elect one or two good writers each year. It’s arguably a random process – you can’t apply to join. I was elected back in 2008, on the same day as my old friend Ann Cleeves, which was a great joy. The Club survives by publishing occasional books, most recently Howdunit, a masterclass in crime writing, to which almost every living member contributed – without any payment whatsoever, a show of generosity that illustrates the affection in which the Club is held by its members.
I am the eighth President, and my predecessors include G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie, so you may think that quality control has slipped a bit lately! But it was a great honour to be elected and I see my job as making sure that the Club survives, despite its precarious finances, and that members enjoy taking part in its activities – eating, drinking, and collaborating on the occasional book.
Carol: Thank you, Martin. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing your story, and that of your characters. And the Detection Club is fascinating! Who wouldn’t love to be a part of that illustrious group.
More About Martin
Martin Edwards has published twenty three novels. They include four mysteries (most recently Sepulchre Street) set in the 1930s and featuring Rachel Savernake, as well as series based in the Lake District and Liverpool (England). He has received two Edgar awards and two Macavity awards. Other honours include lifetime achievement awards for fiction (the CWA Diamond Dagger and the Dagger in the Library), scholarship (the Popular Culture Association’s George N. Dove award), non-fiction (the Poirot award) and short fiction (the Golden Derringer). He is President of the Detection Club and consultant to the bestselling British Library Crime Classics. Check out Martin’s most recent publications available in the U.S.: The Life of Crime and The Girl They All Forgot. Find Martin online on his Website, Facebook, Instagram , and Twitter
