Book description
Is there anything in this troubled world quite as comforting as a good
old-fashioned murder? H. R.F. Keating, doyen of modern detective
writers, has little doubt that there's nothing like a corpse in a
vicarage or country house conservatory to soothe away the tensions of
modern living. In Murder Must Appetite the creator of Inspector Ghote
makes an affectionate return journey to the halcyon days of the
detective story when Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey were young and
a touch of arsenic was still the ultimate deterrent. Apart from old
friends like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, we meet the less
well remembered pioneers of detective fiction, including E. C.R. Lorac
(alias for Edith Caroline Rivett) and her bookworm hero Inspector
Macdonald; E. R. Punshon and his water swilling Chief Constable: not to
mention Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, Gladys Mitchell's 'cacklingly
reptilian psychiatric adviser to the Home Office' and many others.
H. R.F. Keating's unashamed nostalgia is blended with the critical eye
of a master of the detective fiction craft. In fact, Mr. Keating is
uniquely equipped to act as guide and philosopher on this enthralling
tour of Britain's rich heritage of fictional murder. No self-respecting
escapist reader should fail to climb aboard. H. R. F. Keating was born
at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to Merchant Taylors,
leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a
period of service in the army, which he describes as totally
undistinguished , he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a
scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books reviewer for
The Times
for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The
Perfect Murder
, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar
Allen Poe Special Award.
