Is there anything in this troubled world quite as comforting as a good old-fashioned murder? H.R.F. Keating, doyen of modern detective writers, has little doubt that there's nothing like a corpse in a vicarage or country house conservatory to soothe away the tensions of modern living. In Murder Must Appetite the creator of Inspector Ghote makes an affectionate return journey to the halcyon days of the detective story when Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey were young and a touch of arsenic was still the ultimate deterrent. Apart from old friends like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, we meet the less well remembered pioneers of detective fiction, including E.C.R. Lorac (alias for Edith Caroline Rivett) and her bookworm hero Inspector Macdonald; E.R. Punshon and his water swilling Chief Constable: not to mention Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, Gladys Mitchell's 'cacklingly reptilian psychiatric adviser to the Home Office' and many others. H.R.F. Keating's unashamed nostalgia is blended with the critical eye of a master of the detective fiction craft. In fact, Mr. Keating is uniquely equipped to act as guide and philosopher on this enthralling tour of Britain's rich heritage of fictional murder. No self-respecting escapist reader should fail to climb aboard.

Author Biography

H. R. F. Keating was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as 'totally undistinguished', he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award.