Frank Froest & George Dilnot - The Crime Club - Collins Crime Club/The Detective Club - 2016
Reprint of book first published in 1915
Frank Froest was a former Superintendent at Scotland Yard, a detective associated with many high-profile cases of his time. In retirement he decided to turn his hand to fictional crime, aided and abetted by his friend, journalist and author George Dilnot.
The Crime Club is a short story collection I found hugely enjoyable.
It begins with a meeting of the eponymous Crime Club, detectives from around the world who meet regularly to compare cases. Having introduced that idea, Froest and Dilnot then forget about it completely, it is really just an attempt to introduce a collection of short stories featuring a variety of fictional detectives.
The stories themselves I found hugely entertaining, with the possible exception of The Mayors` Daughter, which attempts to bring in elements of American pulp fiction, not totally successfully.
At regular intervals, one or other of the author stresses that their sleuths are a world away from the super-sleuths created by other writers of the time. I`m guessing this was Frank, as George wrote a number of the Sexton Blake stories.
While it`s quite reasonable for him (or them) to stress teamwork, organisation and the determination of otherwise ordinary men to see a case through to the end, those who see these tales as containing the origins of the police procedural novel are wide of the mark. There is no gritty realism here, these stories were written to be read as entertainment.
Similarly, only one would count as a whodunnit, so if that`s your thing, this may not be the book for you.
For me, I liked this book so much I`ve already ordered their two full-length novels.
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