Crime on the Coast & No Flowers by Request

by John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers

Crime On the Coast brings murder and intrigue to a raucous seaside resort in this classic mystery with a strange twist, a mistaken victim, and an elusive heroine.

-written with Detection Club members: Valerie White, Laurence Meynell, Joan Fleming, Michael Cronin, and Elizabeth Ferrrars.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, 20th Century, Crime

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

AKA Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn.

John Dickson Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. It Walks by Night, his first published detective novel, featuring the Frenchman Henri Bencolin, was published in 1930. Apart from Dr Fell, whose first appearance was in Hag's Nook in 1933, Carr's other series detectives (published under the nom de plume of Carter Dickson) were the barrister Sir Henry Merrivale, who debuted in The Plague Court Murders (1934).

Reviews

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see why Dorothy L. Sayers had the reputation of treating her peers in the Detection Club of the 1950s as though she were better than they were. Because she was.

Apparently, the members of the Detection Club---a tight association of British mystery writers who met regularly for dinner and conversation that generally turned into monologues by Sayers---played with community fiction, that is, mysteries written by several of them. They broke each story up into pairs of chapters, and each author got a pair. They're short mysteries, six authors apiece. They were published in a series of volumes.

This volume contains two. And, boy, oh boy, can you tell the difference in quality as you progress from chapter to chapter!

They're fairly insipid little mysteries, and most of the authors have long since vanished from posterity.

But, still. Dorothy L. Sayers.

[Amy Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually love vintage mysteries but these two failed to work for me. I love John Dickson Carr and this was my first Dorothy Sayers but I wasn’t a fan of the other authors taking on different chapters.

[William Bibliomane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you remember the old "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" where Clive Anderson would get film & theatre styles from the audience and then have his panel act out a scene, but he would keep buzzing and changing the style? The resulting sketch could be funny, but often the storyline established in the first segment would be completely obliterated by the time the players reached the end. That was the closest analogue I could come up with for what it feels like to read these two Detective Club member-penned pieces.

Both stories start out fairly strong, to the extent that I vaguely wished that John Dickson Carr had completed "Crime on the Coast" itself, or that Dorothy L. Sayers had continued to write "No Flowers By Request." Both of those pieces were entertaining, and entirely in keeping with the normal authorial voice that I expect from Carr and Sayers' works. But within short order (specifically, two short chapters), each tale fell apart, with the jarring transition from voice to voice and emphasis to new and different emphasis. Even Gladys Mitchell, whose style I otherwise quite like, seemed almost featureless in her contribution to "Flowers". Indeed, "Crime" at least holds it together to reach some kind of ending, even if it's miles away from what Carr might have done. "Flowers" doesn't even really do that.

So as an historical curio for fans of any of these authors in particular, you might actively seek this book out to read. Otherwise? Unless you just have an hour to kill and a 120-page quota to make, you could safely give this volume a miss.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Round robin mysteries by multiple golden age mystery authors who were members of the Detection Club. It was interesting the different style changes & directions in the story like any round robin. I wonder what path earlier writers would have taken in their stories if they'd been the only one. It would also be interesting for all the writers to start with the same characters/premise/set up & then write their own novellas & then compare the different stories & see what routes the different authors would go. I think that would make for an interesting kind of book as well.

[Stephanie Martheleur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crime on the coast was great
Flowers by request, I had a hard time following

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sayers: provided a forerunner to Mrs. Pollifax, and a nice set-up. I got this for free, and it was worth the two chapters of DLS - the rest was unreadable.