Golden Age Christmas Mysteries

Curl up by the fire this Christmas with the masters of cosy and seasonal crime fiction – the perfect stocking-filler for fans of Agatha Christie and the British Library Crime Classics!

A collection of Christmas-themed mysteries, written by some of the greatest Golden Age authors, including Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, John D. MacDonald, and John Dickson Carr, as well as such undiscovered writers as Norvell Page, Meredith Nicholson, and Pat Frank.

The range of subjects and styles may be surprising, ranging from truly chilling to heart-warming to hilarious to puzzling. This is no accident, of course, since genuinely talented authors have their own voices and, like snowflakes, no two are alike. Golden Age Christmas Mysteries is the perfect gift for the season, to be read on a cold, snowy night, in a comfortable chair near a blazing fire.

'For fans of classic detective fiction [...] this anthology offers a mixture of chilling plots, clever puzzles and atmospheric settings' – Crime Fiction Lover

Otto Penzler (Author)
Otto Penzler owns The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and founded the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books. He has written and edited several books, including the Edgar Award-winning Encyclopaedia of Mystery and Detection, and is the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories of the Year.

Anthony Boucher (Contributor)
Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) was an American author, editor, and critic, perhaps best known today as the namesake of the annual Bouchercon convention, an international meeting of mystery writers, fans, critics, and publishers. Born William Anthony Parker White, he wrote under various pseudonyms and published fiction in a number of genres outside of mystery, including fantasy and science fiction.

Carter Dickson (Contributor)
Carter Dickson (1906–1977) , otherwise known as John Dickson Carr, was one of the greatest writers of the American Golden Age mystery, and one of the only American authors to be included in England’s legendary Detection Club. Though he was born and died in the United States, Carr began his writing career while living in England, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Under his own name and various pseudonyms, he wrote more than seventy novels and numerous short stories, and is best known today for his locked-room mysteries. His beloved series character, Dr. Gideon Fell, was based on author G. K. Chesterton and appeared in twenty-four novels.

Stanley Ellin (Contributor)
Stanley Bernard Ellin (1916–1986) was an American mystery writer born in Brooklyn, New York. His first book, a collection of short stories titled “The Specialty of the House” appeared in 1948 in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He was a three-time winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Award, for his short stories “The House Party” in 1954 and “The Blessington Method” in 1956, and for his novel The Eighth Circle in 1959. His novels Dreadful Summit, House of Cards, and The Bind were each adapted into feature films. A longtime member of the Mystery Writers of America, Ellin was awarded the group’s Grand Master Award in 1981.

Baynard Kendrick (Contributor)
Baynard Kendrick (1894–1977) was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America, later named a Grand Master by the organization. After returning from military service in World War I, Kendrick wrote for pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective under various pseudonyms before creating the Duncan Maclain character for which he is now known. The blind detective appeared in twelve novels, several short stories, and three films.

John D. MacDonald (Contributor)
John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) was an American writer of novels and short stories, known for his thrillers. His works include the highly influential and iconic Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1972, MacDonald was named a grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America, and he won a 1980 U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Mystery for the Travis McGee title, The Green Ripper.

Ellery Queen (Contributor)
Ellery Queen was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty-two years writing the greatest puzzle-mysteries of their time, gaining the duo a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age “fair play” mystery. Eventually famous on television and radio, Queen’s first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Besides co-writing the Queen novels, Dannay founded Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired the fictional Queen upon Lee’s death.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (Contributor)
Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958) was the most beloved and best-selling mystery writer in America in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Pittsburgh to the owner of a sewing machine factory, she wrote fiction in her spare time until a stock market crash sent her and her husband into debt, forcing her to lean on her writing to pay the bills. Her first two novels, The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909), established her as a bright young talent, and it wasn’t long before she was a regular on bestseller lists. Among her dozens of novels were The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911) and The Bat (1932), which was among the inspirations for Bob Kane’s Batman. Today, Rinehart is often called an American Agatha Christie, even though she was much more popular than Christie during her heyday.

Vincent Starrett (Contributor)
Vincent Starrett (1886–1974) was a Chicago journalist who became one of the world’s foremost experts on Sherlock Holmes. A books columnist for the Chicago Tribune, he also wrote biographies of authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Ambrose Bierce, various books on books and book collecting, plus Sherlockian pastiches and numerous short stories and novels. A founding member of the Baker Street Irregulars, he is perhaps known best today for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, an imaginative biography of the great detective.