Andrew Forrester - The Female Detective - British Library - 2014
In the British Library Crime Classics series
Andrew Forrester is the pseudonym of James Redding Ware
Mr Forrester/Ware was a prolific author who was not specifically a crime writer but did contribute at least three titles to the genre (The Female Detective, Revelations of a Private Detective, Secret Service or Recollections of a City Detective).
If he has anything to say to us today it is more by accident than design as it seems likely he wrote for money and not for posterity !
That said, at his best he conjures up such an authentic feel that, although there were no female detectives in his day, some have suggested that he may have had some contact in the Police Force of the day whose attitudes and observations he drew on.
Unfortunately, some of the stories in this collection simply don`t represent him `at his best`. It`s true that tastes have changed and that some may have seemed more impressive to the reading public of his day, but the truth is that one or two were simply not all that good at any time.
I do think that his best work still merits our attention but overall it might have been better for the BL to have published a Best of Forrester with selections from the three books.
Having said that, if you can pick it up cheaply, this is worth having for the better stories. Mine was a charity shop purchase for 50p so I can hardly complain !
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