Instead of concentrating on one book or one author I’ve picked a mixture of books and authors for this week’s featured letter E in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet Community Meme.

First up is Martin Edwards, who is one of my favourite authors and bloggers (click on the links to go to his website and blog). I  ‘discovered’ him when he commented on one of my posts. I’m so glad he did.  He’s written several novels, short stories and non-fiction books as well as edited a number of anthologies. Click on the titles to see my posts on his Lake District series:

• The Coffin Trail
• The Cipher Garden
• The Arsenic Labyrinth

Another author who used to be a great favourite of mine is Ed McBain. I haven’t read anything of his for many years.  He was born Salvatore Albert Lombino in 1926 and changed his name to Evan Hunter, writing under the pseudonym Ed McBain from 1956. He died in 2005. He wrote an enormous number of books – from 1958 until his death he wrote one or two books a year as Ed McBain. The first one in his 87th precinct series is Cop Hater. You can read the beginning of chapter one on the Ed McBain website. Writing under his own name Evan Hunter, he wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, based on Daphne Du Maurier’s short story (which is very different from the film). I think it’s time to re-read some Ed McBain books!

Then there is Ellery Queen – who was actually two people writing pseudonymously. They were  cousins Daniel (David) Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee. They also used the pen name Barnaby Ross. Ellery Queen was also the chief character of their novels. A list of their books can be found on the Fantastic Fiction website. I first read Ellery Queen and Ed McBain as a teenager when I found them on my parents’ bookshelves and devoured them after I’d read all the Agatha Christie books I could find.

Umberto Eco wrote one of my favourite books The Name of the Rose. I read this when I was working in the Archives of the local County Council. It was recommended by one of the archivists and we spent many happy tea breaks discussing this novel. It is set in the Middle Ages in Italy, in which Brother William a Franciscan monk, aided by Adso a novice,  investigates several strange deaths. It’s a wonderful mix of detective fiction, historical fiction and religious history rolled into one, involving solving cryptic clues, secret codes and puzzles. 

Finally some books beginning with the letter E:

• Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (I couldn’t leave her out)
• Elephants Can Remember  by Agatha Christie – you can read my post here
• Endless Night by Agatha Christie
• Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri (which I’m currently reading)
• Exit Music by Ian Rankin – the last Inspector Rebus novel

And on that note I shall end this look at the letter E in crime fiction.