100 Great Detectives

Over the years, I've contributed to quite a number of reference books about crime fiction, including The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert. But the very first book for which I wrote an essay about the genre was 100 Great Detectives, edited by Maxim Jakbowski.

My subject was an amateur sleuth whose few cases I have much enjoyed, This was Francis Pettigrew, created by Cyril Hare. He is a barrister, who becomes involved in mysteries against his will. The c...