And So Say All of Us

I’m delighted to report that England’s venerable drinking and writing group called the Detection Club has decided to celebrate one of its founders’ 80th birthday with a collection of stories in his honor--The Verdict of Us All, edited by Peter Lovesey (Crippen & Landru). H.R.F. Keating, known simply as “Harry” to friends, fans and colleagues, is a rare talent, author of the Inspector Ghote series of mysteries set in India as well as less-exotic but equally sleek and sly crime novels.

Prominent club members who celebrate him here include P.D. James, Lovesey (who also does an ace job of editing this book), Reginald Hill, and Colin Dexter, along with Len Deighton, who contributes his first published story in recent memory, “Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle.” It’s a jaunty, strange, occasionally baffling tale of swindlers and publishers (though its sometimes hard to tell the difference), which, at 30 pages long, begins and anchors the collection in way that Keating must have chortled to see.