23 September 2019
Not so long ago, Golden Age detective fiction was hopelessly out of fashion. Yes, Agatha Christie continued to sell, and her books were regularly televised and filmed. But she is a literary phenomenon, an exception who breaks every rule. Fans of the other Crime Queens, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham, kept the flame burning, while several good writers came and went who worked essentially in the Golden Age tradition; examples include Patricia Moyes, Dominic Devine, and Sarah Caudwell. But hundreds of writers who made their name in the Golden Age were out of print. And so far as readers and critics were concerned, it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.
