March 20, 2006
Britain's Detection Club, founded in 1930 by such legends of the genre as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, celebrates its 75th anniversary with an all-original anthology whose strongest entries are by two living legends, P.D. James and Colin Dexter. The volume opens with James's "The Part-time Job," an ironic and concise tale of vengeance narrated from beyond the grave by the victim of a childhood bully. Inspector Morse's creator weighs in with "Between the Lines," a twisty exercise in deception related through correspondence between two friends who may have witnessed a theft on a train. Weaker stories include H.R.F. Keating's "A Toothbrush," which has a marvelous setup—a man returns home to find a strange toothbrush has mysteriously appeared in his bathroom—but a disappointingly prosaic payoff. Editor Brett provides a brief history of the Detection Club.