Julian Symons

"The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes's Night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There was definitely a number of witnesses to a row between a group of Teddy Boys. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen?"--back cover.

"A Postman murdered while delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas pine growing over a forgotten homicide. A Yuletide heist gone horribly wrong. When there's as much murder as magic in the air and the facts seem to point to the impossible, it's up to the detective's trained eye to unwrap the clues and neatly tie together an explanation (preferably with a bow on top). Martin Edwards has once again gathered the best of these seasonal stories...

"The end of the First World War saw the rise of an insatiable public appetite for clever and thrilling mystery fiction and a new kind of hero – the modern crime writer. As the genre soared in popularity, so did the inventiveness of its best authors, ushering in a 'Golden Age' of detective fiction – two decades of exemplary mystery writing: the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that have thrilled...