Book description
It could happen in any normal English town . . .
A young wife complains of her husband’s fussy little habits; but trying
to mend his ways leads to the gallows . . . A businessman with the best
intentions befriends an elderly old woman, with no thought of robbing
her - let alone killing her . . . A kind-hearted young man kisses a
woman out of chivalry, leading to the destruction of two lives . . . And
a lonely old woman learns a lesson of how to deal with her enemies from
the actions of her only friend - a cat . . .
Praise for Roy Vickers’ short story collections
‘Roy Vickers is one of the masters of the detective short story . . .
he has produced stories that rank with the finest contemporary crime
writing’ New York Times
‘The beauty of these meticulous tales lies in their similarity to real
life crime. Each story, you feel, could have happened’ Dublin Evening Herald
Roy Vickers was the author of over 60 crime novels and 80 short
stories, many written under the pseudonyms Sefton Kyle and David Durham.
He was born in 1889 and educated at Charterhouse School, Brasenose
College, Oxford, and enrolled as a student of the Middle Temple. He left
the University before graduating in order to join the staff of a popular
weekly. After two years of journalistic choring, which included a period
of crime reporting, he became editor of the Novel Magazine
, but eventually resigned this post so that he could develop his ideas
as a freelance. His experience in the criminal courts gave him a view of
the anatomy of crime which was the mainspring of his novels and short
stories. Not primarily interested in the professional crook, he wrote of
the normal citizen taken unawares by the latent forces of his own
temperament. His attitude to the criminal is sympathetic but
unsentimental.
Vickers is best known for his ‘Department of Dead Ends’ stories which
were originally published in Pearson’s Magazine
from 1934. Partial collections were made in 1947, 1949, and 1978,
earning him a reputation in both the UK and the US as an accomplished
writer of ‘inverted mysteries’. He also edited several anthologies for
the Crime Writers’ Association.
