Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club

by Martin Edwards (Editor)

Ninety crime writers from the world’s oldest and most famous crime writing network give tips and insights into successful crime and thriller fiction.

Howdunit offers a fresh perspective on the craft of crime writing from leading exponents of the genre, past and present. The book offers invaluable advice to people interested in writing crime fiction, but it also provides a fascinating picture of the way that the best crime writers have honed their skills over the years. Its unique construction and content mean that it will appeal not only to would-be writers but also to a very wide readership of crime fans.


The principal contributors are current members of the legendary Detection Club, including Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter James, Peter Robinson, Ann Cleeves, Andrew Taylor, Elly Griffiths, Sophie Hannah, Stella Duffy, Alexander McCall Smith, John Le Carré and many more.


Interwoven with their contributions are shorter pieces by past Detection Club members ranging from G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr to Desmond Bagley and H.R.F. Keating.


The contributions are linked by short sections written by Martin Edwards, the current President of the Club and author of the award-winning The Golden Age of Murder.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Mystery, Crime, Audiobook, History, Essays

544 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2020

About the author

Martin Edwards has been described by Richard Osman as ‘a true master of British crime writing.’ He has published twenty-three novels, which include the eight Lake District Mysteries, one of which was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year and four books featuring Rachel Savernake, including the Dagger-nominated Gallows Court and Blackstone Fell, while Gallows Court and Sepulchre Street were shortlisted for the eDunnit award for best crime novel of the year. He is also the author of two multi-award-winning histories of crime fiction, The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder. He has received three Daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and has also been nominated three times for Gold Daggers. In addition to the CWA Diamond Dagger (the highest honour in UK crime writing) he has received four other lifetime achievement awards: for his fiction, short fiction, non-fiction, and scholarship. He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics, a former Chair of the CWA, and since 2015 has been President of the Detection Club.

Reviews

[Jim Dooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

HOWDUNIT would have been considerably better for me if I had interspersed portions of it with other books for a couple of months or so. Although not poorly written by any means, the quality and usefulness of what I took from it varied widely.

Ostensibly about how to write crime fiction, the articles that I enjoyed the most (as a group) were from Detection Club members who are no longer with us. And there was a truly harrowing exploration of being a published writer and still feeling plagued by the “Imposter Syndrome.”

Of least interest for me were the initial contributions discussing why crime and mystery fiction is popular. However, as I made my way through the categories, I can’t think of a single topic that has been overlooked. Also, after reading the different lists about what a writer should Not do, I’ve been surprised to notice those things being done in a number of crime novels … and the advice is correct; it does “cheapen” the effect on the Reader.

By about the fourth day, I was dragging myself back to continue reading. Again, it was not because the writing was poor. However, I can take just so much of the “mechanical” details before my eyes gloss over. That’s why I said at the beginning that interspersing it with other books would have been a benefit. And for the novice writer of mystery and crime novels, that would truly turn the book into a Master Class by allowing works from some of the writers to be read as illustration.

[Robert Muller · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting (but very short) perspectives in this collection, but overall it's hardly a masterclass. It's kind of like a panel session with 100 panelists vying for their little bit of time on the mike and no audience questions allowed. One might find a small treasure buried in it (I did in William Ryan's piece on writing scenes), but you have to dig.

[N · Rating 2 out of 5]

A masterclass in ... how easily an anthology can go wrong.

I don't doubt the noble intent behind this collection of essays (or "essays") from members of the longstanding Detection Club of crime writers, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a bit of (a lot of) a mess. This is what it reads like:

Compiler emails Big Name Crime Writer, grovelling for a submission. Big Name Crime Writer is, understandably, a bit busy, but shoots over something they either sneezed out in 20 minutes while Love Island was playing in the background, or something mildly unsuitable that they wrote 10 years ago for a different purpose. Compiler is so grateful (and so eager to get Big Name Crime Writer's Big Name on the cover of the book) that they accept the submission without pointing out that it's absolute shite.

Okay, okay, I'm being too harsh. There are some gems in this collection, but they're few and far between. The bad stuff isn't even bad, it's just ... random. Some author rambling on about a particular book of theirs (which, of course, you haven't read, because who has read every book in the world?). Another author giving tips that range from banal to hyper-specific ("post on Instagram at the same time every day"???).

By far the worst essays are the ones that follow this format: "I think having a strong setting is important, because your setting is where your novel is set. Many books have settings. Let me name a few. Now the things those settings have in common is that they're all places, you see. Settings, if you will."

Diabolical. And not in the fun, murder-y way.

[Dimitris Passas (TapTheLine) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Crime fiction is the fiction of the desperation, and growing up poor like I did, I understand desperation intrinsically. When someone is up at three a.m., the wolf’s hour, wondering how they’re going to survive—that’s a character I might want to write about. I want to create characters who are strong enough to survive the things pressing down on them." (Shawn Cosby, author of Razorblade Tears)

Founded in 1930 and with a history that spans more than nine decades, The Detection Club is "the world's oldest social network of crime writers" and in its membership register we encounter some of the leading authors of the genre, beginning with the genre's pioneers Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ronald Knox, and stretching all the way to our era with storytellers of the magnitude of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter James, Mark Billingham and Anne Cleeves to name just a few. In 2020, the club's ninetieth birthday, the current President, Martin Edwards, had the idea to prompt the members of the club to contribute their bit in a collection of essays covering every single aspect of crime writing such as plotting, setting, characterization, research and many others, thus offering a gift to aspiring authors and the loyal readership of crime stories who opt to be entertained by gloomy stories most often involving murder. Even though the club is consisted predominantly of British scribblers, there have been some notable exceptions such as Patricia Highsmith and Ngaio Marsh who were introduced to this exclusive, membership is by invitation-only, group of crime writers.

To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/mini-r...

[Scott Butki · Rating 4 out of 5]

#59 - Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing By Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards. The title is a take-off of the Whodunit question often about asked about crime fiction. The Detection Club is the world's longest-running professional writing group, founded by authors Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and their friends. Edwards is the current president of the club.

Club members have to agree to an oath: "Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those with which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God?" I had to look up what "jiggery-pokery" meant - it means deceitful or dishonest behavior.

To celebrate the club's 90th birthday Edwards had an idea: Have 90 authors each write an essay about their craft. Thus we have 90 leading crime novelists writing about their job and what aspiring crime writers should know, everything from the important of a good opening sentence to deciding when to switch perspectives to keeping the dialogue sounding real and authentic to how to best end a crime novel.

All 90 authors are current or past members of the club. If you like crime fiction writers I can pretty much guarantee you will recognize some of the names included here, including Ian Rankin, Ngaio Marsh, Val McDermid, P.D. James, Christie and Sayers, of course, Reginald Hill, John Le Carre, Peter James, and Len Deighton, to name a few. The book is dedicated to Deighton, who was elected president of the club in 1969 and was the longest-serving member. The final essay in the book is by Deighton.

Rankin has an excellent essay titled "Why Crime Fiction Is Good for You," which made me feel better about my addiction to the genre. For example, he writes, "Crime writers throughout the world have known for years that the crime novel can be a perfect tool for the dissection of society."

Natasha Cooper addresses a pet peeve of mine. She suggests aspiring writers be careful when naming characters: "When you are considering what to call your characters, do think about the reader. Similar-looking - or similar-sounding - names can make it hard to keep each person
distinct. You will know who they are, but for the reader Dave, Dan and Dick will merge into each, as will Maeve, Steve and Niamh."

Now I should warn you of something: This book is a dense 463 pages and I have to admit at that length I did not read every line on every page, especially when it was either advice by authors I had never heard of or advice I'd read elsewhere. But what I did read was fascinating, revealing, educational and entertaining. I particularly enjoyed when authors I liked made revealing comments about why they did this or that decision in their books. I give this a 9 for mystery lovers, 8 for those not into the genre but just wanting to learn more.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Want to find out how a handful of crime writers create? Then this is for you. It was interesting, but felt interminable, so I gave up half way through.

[Terry Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now know everything needed to write a crime novel. No excuses! A brilliant collection of essays on writing from an array of top novelists.

[Kirk Hanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a vast number of essays from some of the top mystery writers of the last 9o years. No piece is longer than about 6-8 pages and most are considerably shorter. Not every entry is golden, but there are so many that even the most experienced writer is sure to pick up some valuable tips.

[Suzi]

I want to listen to this every time I can't think of what to listen to. It's full of authors adn books and commentary. Sometimes funny, sometimes, sad. I've heard of most of the authors but I wasn't interested in reading or listening to their books until now -- that I am going blind and can't type or edit my own review. I need a lot to look forward to and I found it! xxxooo

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how much I liked this book. I have no intention of writing and I planned to pick and choose essays by authors I knew, but ended up reading it cover to cover. My TBR list has increases substantially. Authors I have never read now seem like close friends.

[Jayarna ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whatever nuggets or pearls of wisdom that are in here are heavily weighed down by navel gazing and pretentious sales pitches, I ended up hate reading this at some parts. There's not a lot of good stuff here and it's about 400 pages too long

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Jus · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Howdunit - A Masterclass in Crime Writing” by Members of the Detective Club, conceived and edited by the Detective Club’s President Martin Edwards.

This book is a celebration of the detection clubs 90th birthday, and 90 of its esteemed members share their experiences, advice about the art and graft of successful crime writing. The book takes us on a guided tour through all aspects of crime writing and painful pleasures of motivation, character, setting, dialogue, perspective, humour and suspense. How do you decide on a murderer? What research should you do? When can you improvise? What do editors actually want?

- Motives
- Beginning
- People
- Places
- M.O. - “The modus operandi of crime writing involves far more than simply organising your working day. A whole range of questions arise. And even after you’ve found methods that suit you. You may feel the urge to try something fresh.”

“Let the story be the driver” - Val McDermid.
“..unreliable narrators - these books need to deliver at least one shocking moment when the reader realises that they’ve been looking at the picture the wrong way up..”

- Perspectives
- Plots
- Detectives
- Research
- Detection
- Suspense
- Action
- History
- Humour
- In Short
- Fiction and Fact
- Partners in Crime
- Adapting
- Challenges
- Ending
- Publishing
- Writing lives
1. The writing process
2. Keeping track
3. Reading for pleasure
4. DON’T GIVE UP THE DAY JOB
5. Writing to relax
6. Social media and the death of Nancy
7. The joy of writing
8. Different books; different problems; different solutions

I read this book not from page 1 to page 522, but read the chapters of the writers names I recognised first then I filled in the gaps. (Ian Rankin, Peter James, Peter Robinson, Mark Bellingham, P.D.James, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid, Agatha Christie, Sophie Hannah, Reginald Hill, John Le Carré and many more.)

[Malina.Liest_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating and inspiring collection of essays about writing crime fiction. Character building, dialogues, suspense, perspectives, publishing, … Some essays really good and interesting and others a bit boring. 7.5/10

With ups and downs

I was very excited to start reading this book because it seemed perfect for me: Authors write about their writing process, share hacks and guidelines, tips and ideas. The book started very slow with the question why crime fiction is important. For me not too interesting, as I am not particularly interested in crime fiction but way more in writing in general. But fine, after a few dozen pages the more interesting chapters began: Characters and dialogues. While reading these I would‘ve given the book a 9/10.

So you‘ll see, I guess it really depends on what I am interested in. Some essays I loved and found fascinating and inspring. And others weren‘t made for me and I found them boring. In some are lots of references or written about titles and authors I don‘t know. Maybe it is not a book to read in one go. I should‘ve just picked the interesting essays and read the others only quickly. Also, I would have loved to have a highlighter to highlight important things or write notes in the book but … it was a library book. Well, that just means I‘m gonna read it again more quickly and do it then with the version that belongs to me :)

There‘s something I don‘t like about the book: Some of the essays are extracts of a random newspaper article or essay the author once wrote, and others are specifically written for this book. This gives a strange mix of topics and does sometimes not really suit the chapter topic. I would‘ve preferred if one of the methods would‘ve been chosen.

I really like the book‘s title and idea and I‘d say I know now more about writing and am inspired for writing my next book ;)

[Craig Kingsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve ever wanted to ask some of the world’s greatest mystery writers for their advice on writing, Howdunit: A Master Class in Crime Writing by Members of The Detection Club is the book for you. Founded in the early 1920s, and it is likely the world’s foremost and most elite mystery writers organization. You must be invited to join and originally only people from the UK could be members. It’s really more like a social club than anything else as it was created as a way for the members to get together for a very nice dinner. This book however, it not simple dinner reading. With advice on every aspect of writing from motives, people, plots, and places, to writing with a partner, challenges, and publishing there is great advice in every essay. You see, each of the famous authors, including Agatha Christie, Ian Rankin, G.K. Chesterton, P.D. James, Ann Cleeves, Ngaio Marsh, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers, and many more, have written short essays full of wisdom, help, and personal stories. Whether you’ve published no books (there’s also advice on short stories) or a hundred books, there’s something here for you.

[Lilifane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really what I had expected, and kind of boring for the most part.
It's basically a book full of short essays about writing crime fiction (or thrillers, or action... or adventure... or writing in general) by a lot of crime and thriller authors. Although it covered many aspects of the writing process, most of it was superficial (due to the shortness of the texts) and very repetitive. So there were texts about constructing plot, crating characters, choosing a setting, topic, etc... but the advice can be summarized to: Research, observe, talk with experts/locals/humans and write it down. Wow. The authors referred a lot to their own books, but didn't usually go into details. I think I would have enjoyed more of the essays if I had read books from these authors. But... I haven't heard from most of them before.
There were a few essays I really really liked. Especially towards the end with topics like imposter syndrome, writer's block or publishing. It's really cool that these were also included in this collection. Although, the section about using social media as an author made me chuckle a lot.

[Claudia Sorsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A worthwhile collection of essays. As other reviewers have noted, it’s a bit uneven, but that’s to be expected with this many writers. I was already a fan of Golden Age (and earlier) mysteries, as well the American hard-boiled/noir school, but it definitely helped deepen my understanding of how mystery and crime fiction had evolved over the last hundred-plus years.

It was also nice to read essays from writers I'd read a long time ago (Desmond Bagley, for one), and have my youthful taste vindicated, as it were.

Unfortunately, I read a library copy of Howdunit, but this is definitely a book to own, because it’s a fabulous reference. I found so many authors I want to read more of…

[Brian Greiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a work of fiction, this is a series of essays by famous writers of mysteries from the last ninety (or so) years.
As has been noted in previous reviews not every essay is golden, but it is overall still a tremendous source of inspiration for any writer. In fact, I often found myself pausing to ponder upon my own writing and jot down notes about works in progress.
As I went through the book, I grabbed and read books by some of the authors whose essays were particularly thought-provoking. Interestingly, I sometimes found their notes on writing more interesting than their works of fiction ... but that's to be expected, I suppose.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am no stranger to a giant book (please see allll the 600+ page biographies I read this last year) but this was a giant book that didn't work for me, in terms of physical size. The book was uncomfortable and difficult to hold, which made for a less than pleasant reading experience. And unfortunately, the content didn't redeem the wrist strain.

Howdunit is a compilation of micro essays from members of The Detection Club, past and present, on the writing of detective fiction. There is so much wit and wisdom that these authors have to offer, but the miniscule size of each author's offering left me dissatisfied. I wanted more from Chesterton and Sayers and Christie.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the essays are more interesting than others, as is typical in any anthology, but this one was so long that I ended up skimming quite a bit. There is worthwhile insight here about crime writing and mystery stories in general, but many of the contributors wrote about the same things in very similar ways, and many of the authors make references to specific books (their own or others) without spoiling them, but also without enough explanation for anyone who hasn't read the book to understand the point they're making.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting even if one has no crime-writing ambitions. My only complaint is with the audio, where there is no tangible separation between the individual essays and Edwards' commentary (both narrated by the same male voice) and I found myself struggling to tell where the essays end. An extra narrator would have been ideal, but even a simple signal or beep or anything would have made this so much easier to understand.

[Shalene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not that helpful. I think it would have been better if someone used these ideas compiled by the detective club to write a more concise “masterclass” using the info they provided, rather than this snippet method. I’ve read the snippet method before and liked it in other books, but this topic is too broad to benefit from it. I was hoping for something that would really help set a foundation for writing crime in a better organized way.

[Mr Stephen Haunts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite disappointing considering some of the contributors. If you are looking for a masterclass on how to write good crime fiction, this book isn't it. You'd be better served by a google search, a search on YouTube, or even asking ChatGPT for advice on writing a crime novel, which would probably give you a more coherent answer.

[Mary Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this collection of essays from a century of Detection Club writers. I found lots of recommendations for authors I had never heard of, and I found a deeply reassuring case for the worthiness of crime fiction. So, I am back to work on my mystery novel!

[Aaron Jura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book as a great reference for writers of mystery. The short story lengths are especially helpful and I found a lot of gems to write in my writers notebook. I checked it out initially from the library and am definitely ordering a copy to keep.

[Claire Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read this and "How to Write a Mystery" by the American equivalent of the Detection Club, I think this is more of a book about crime fiction, rather than truly how to write it. However, it is still very enjoyable and certainly worth reading if you love mysteries.

[Ant Koplowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Thanks to Martin Edwards for collating and curating such a marvellous and eclectic collection of essays on crime fiction writing and writers.

[Marijean Miyar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A master class in crime writing!!!

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A middle of the road read. Some interesting tidbits in the middle, but it often felt disjointed and repetitive.

[David Werran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful and great to have the insight of some favourite and now newly discovered authors