Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards received the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing, in 2020. He has been described by Richard Osman as a ‘true master of British crime writing’, by Otto Penzler as ‘the best living practitioner of the classic detective story’ and by the British Library as ‘the leading expert on classic crime’. He is the author of twenty-three novels, most recently Blackstone Fell and Sepulchre Street. He has also edited over fifty anthologies.

The Life of Crime, a history of the crime genre, has won the Edgar award (as did The Golden Age of Murder) and he also conceived and edited Howdunit, an award-winning masterclass in crime writing by members of the legendary Detection Club. He has received the Agatha, Anthony, and Poirot awards, three H.R.F. Keating awards, three Macavity awards, the CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Prize, the CWA Short Story Dagger, the CWA Red Herring award, and the CWA Dagger in the Library, voted on by UK librarians.

In 2023 he received the Edward D. Hoch Golden Derringer award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society for lifetime achievement in the field of short stories. In the same year, he received the George N. Dove award from the US Popular Culture Association for his outstanding scholarship. He has been nominated for CWA Gold Daggers three times and twice for the Historical Dagger; he has also been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year for The Coffin Trail. He has created the Golden Age detection mystery map This Deadly Isle and an online course for crime writers: www. craftingcrime.com. As consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics series, archivist for the CWA and Detection Club, and well-known blogger, he has been responsible for the rediscovery of many long-forgotten Golden Age authors and novels. A former chair of the CWA, he has since 2015 been President of the Detection Club.