‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by The Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1923
Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1923
Introduction © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1937
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1923, 2017
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008159337
Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008159344
Version: 2017-03-07
Contents
VIII. VANDAM MAKES UP HIS MIND
XIV. INSPECTOR ROSS TAKES CHARGE
XVI. INTRODUCING SIR ANTHONY SWAYNE
XVIII. ENLIGHTENMENT AND MYSTIFICATION
THE WRITING OF A DETECTIVE NOVEL
WE are going, you and I, to write a detective novel, or so I am informed. Let us see, then, how we would set about it and what we would find ourselves up against.
Necessarily we must follow a hypothetical method, for if we asked a hundred detective-novelists how they worked, we should probably get a hundred quite different replies. And we are going to write a detective story, which we are doubtless agreed deals with detection and in which the problem is supreme: not a thriller, which depends on conflict and thrills, nor yet a crime novel, which is the history of some particular crime, usually from the criminal’s point of view.
Before we begin we must settle one or two points about our detective. Is he to be a gifted amateur, a professional private detective, or a man from the C.I.D.? Is he to be a ‘character’ or an ordinary humdrum citizen? Is he to work alone or to have a Watson? Suppose you settle these points? You have? Then let’s get down to it.
If we’re lucky we shall begin with a really good idea. This may be one of five kinds. Firstly, it may be an idea for the opening of our book: some dramatic situation or happening to excite and hold the reader’s interest. The standard way of finding a body in the first chapter, if hackneyed, is hard to beat.
Secondly, our idea may be for the closing or climax