About this item
Who is killing the crime writers of London? Find out in this "consistently entertaining crime debut from sci-fi veteran Brown" (Kirkus Reviews) . London, 1955. When crime writer Donald Langham's literary agent asks for his help in sorting out "a delicate matter," little does Langham realize what he's getting himself into. For a nasty case of blackmail leads inexorably to murder as London's literary establishment is rocked by a series of increasingly bizarre deaths. With three members of the London Crime Writers' Association coming to sudden and violent ends, what at first appeared to be a series of suicides looks suspiciously like murder - and there seems to be something horribly familiar about the various methods of dispatch. With the help of his literary agent's assistant, the delectable Maria Dupre, Langham finds himself drawing on the skills of his fictional detective hero as he hunts a ruthless and fiendishly clever killer - a killer with old scores to settle. "A well-paced first mystery. Readers will hope a sequel is in the works." - Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Born in Haworth, West Yorkshire, Eric Brown started writing in 1975 while living in Australia, has lived in India and Greece, and has travelled extensively in the far east. He has won the British Science Fiction Award twice for his short stories, and his novel Helix Wars was shortlisted for the 2012 Philip K. Dick award. He's published over seventy books and his latest include the sixth crime novel in the Langham and Dupré series, set in the 1950s, Murder Served Cold, and the SF novel Buying Time. He has also written a dozen books for children and over a hundred and fifty short stories.His only claim to fame is that he owns Scotland's largest collection of yeast extract jars.He is owned by a red and white setter, Uther, who exercises him regularly.He writes a monthly science fiction review column for the Guardian newspaper and lives in Cockburnspath near Dunbar, Scotland.
