What do you think?
Rate this book
Bello: Best of British Crime
To celebrate the depth and history of British crime, this Bello omnibus brings together three talented writers in one volume.
Murder In Moscow: Foreign correspondent George Gerney investigates the murder of a member of a pro-Soviet delegation from England, in Andrew Garve’s classic Cold War thriller. Refusing to accept the official Russian explanation and better versed than most foreigners in Soviet tactics of every kind, Gerney does his own investigating – giving a shrewd and often amusing picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.
A Game of Murder: A young Scotland Yard officer is on leave when his father dies in a golfing accident but he cannot let the mystery go. Who is the young man seen on the golf links and why is everyone so interested in a dog’s collar? The twisting, turning plot drips suspense on every page, quickening into a flood of action and mystery. Francis Durbridge’s novel of his classic 1966 TV serial keeps the reader guessing unti the very end.
Prescription For Murder: When animal rights’ protesters disrupt a Closter Drug Company press conference it’s seen as no more than an embarrassment, but then one of the company directors is kidnapped. An unusual demand for ransom — that the other directors sell their company shares at a crippling loss — adds to the puzzle and it’s up to David Williams’ famous merchant banker turned investigator, Mark Treasure, to figure out what’s really happening.
Murder In Moscow: Foreign correspondent George Gerney investigates the murder of a member of a pro-Soviet delegation from England, in Andrew Garve’s classic Cold War thriller. Refusing to accept the official Russian explanation and better versed than most foreigners in Soviet tactics of every kind, Gerney does his own investigating – giving a shrewd and often amusing picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.
A Game of Murder: A young Scotland Yard officer is on leave when his father dies in a golfing accident but he cannot let the mystery go. Who is the young man seen on the golf links and why is everyone so interested in a dog’s collar? The twisting, turning plot drips suspense on every page, quickening into a flood of action and mystery. Francis Durbridge’s novel of his classic 1966 TV serial keeps the reader guessing unti the very end.
Prescription For Murder: When animal rights’ protesters disrupt a Closter Drug Company press conference it’s seen as no more than an embarrassment, but then one of the company directors is kidnapped. An unusual demand for ransom — that the other directors sell their company shares at a crippling loss — adds to the puzzle and it’s up to David Williams’ famous merchant banker turned investigator, Mark Treasure, to figure out what’s really happening.
568 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
13 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Garve
138 books11 followersAKA: Paul Somers, Roger Bax
Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Andrew Garve was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Andrew Garve was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 24, 2012
Having a collection of over 200 old green and white Penguin crime books, many of which I have read, I found this concept of republishing good, once popular, light weight , but now forgotten authors in electronic form very exiting. This is modern technology coming to the aid of those who still want to read every day fiction that was well written, even if from an era now past.
This trilogy of crime writers, published in one book, I found to be a particularly good choice as an introduction to out of print crime writing of the second half of the twentieth century. It consists of Andrew Garve, “Murder in Moscow” 1951, David Williams, “Prescription for Murder” 1990, and Francis Durbridge, “A Game of Murder,” 1975. The first two authors are new to me and the third only meant his famous creation, Paul Temple, which this is not. The order in which the stories appear in the book is interesting. If the publication dates had not been supplied at the end of the book, That is the order in which I would have assumed that they were written. To find that David Williams was writing in 1990 was surprising. Frances Durbridge in 1975 was the only book that I felt was a page turner. The construction of the story was a little looser and I really did need to see what happened next.
The first novel, “Murder in Moscow“, 1951, was a tightly controlled murder mystery, almost written to a format. The facts were all presented to the reader and concentration was required to ensure that you didn’t miss any small detail which could have been a clue to working out the mystery which the reader was intended to solve. Reading the story on an e reader with dictionary attached would have been useful, because, ashamedly, there were words which I didn’t know, which supposedly were in common usage in 1951. It’s interesting to see how our language has moved on in over half a century. I would rate this novel as second of the three because of its fascinating background of post war Moscow and Soviet life, obviously drawn from the author’s time as a foreign newspaper correspondent there. The very useful notes prefacing these novels tell us that the author varied his backgrounds based on his own experiences, from the Australian Outback, to ocean sailing, to politics and many more. Based on the authority with which he drew his now vanished background in “Murder in Moscow“, I aim to read more.
The second book, “Prescription for Murder“, has again got a formulaic feel to it. It is carefully plotted, a murder mystery for the reader to solve following all the clues that are presented. Martin Edwards in his introduction, likens the main character to that of Emma Latham’s protagonist. I didn’t enjoy those much and two was my limit there. David Williams writes well, but I found it difficult to empathise with his characters. After two period crime novels in succession I was desperate to return to 2012 and slotted in Peter James latest, “Not Dead Yet” to anchor myself in the present. Although I collect period detective fiction I have never read two novels back to back.
The last title in this omnibus volume was my favourite. Again it was well written, although by the standards of thirty seven years later it still felt a little stylised. But it’s construction seemed looser. We were being told more of a story and less of a carefully crafted who-done-it mystery to be solved, although the clues were still all there to be worked on. But emotion and psychology were not yet present. Despite the fact that the hero’s father is the first murder victim, he seems to show little distress. This was still the age of the stiff upper lip. But again, based on this book, I shall return to Francis Durbridge work.
As I worked my way through the trilogy I found that I needed to ask myself why I have for years been fascinated by these old crime novels that have fallen into obscurity. I think the answer is that through a very favourite genre, they give me a window into a society, a way pf life, that has disappeared. They were written for the mass market and so reflect the ideas and values of the time. And compared with much of modern writing, they seem extremely well written. If I have any criticism of this compendium, it is a very small one. I wanted to know clearly, as I began each book, it’s date of publication to place it in historical context. The answer is in notes on the very last page of the book, which I only found after reading two of the novels. Why not print the date on the title page ? All lovers of the crime novel, with an interest in very recent social history, who also enjoy reading a well structured English text should welcome this use of early twenty first century technology to make available again the best of twentieth century fiction.
This trilogy of crime writers, published in one book, I found to be a particularly good choice as an introduction to out of print crime writing of the second half of the twentieth century. It consists of Andrew Garve, “Murder in Moscow” 1951, David Williams, “Prescription for Murder” 1990, and Francis Durbridge, “A Game of Murder,” 1975. The first two authors are new to me and the third only meant his famous creation, Paul Temple, which this is not. The order in which the stories appear in the book is interesting. If the publication dates had not been supplied at the end of the book, That is the order in which I would have assumed that they were written. To find that David Williams was writing in 1990 was surprising. Frances Durbridge in 1975 was the only book that I felt was a page turner. The construction of the story was a little looser and I really did need to see what happened next.
The first novel, “Murder in Moscow“, 1951, was a tightly controlled murder mystery, almost written to a format. The facts were all presented to the reader and concentration was required to ensure that you didn’t miss any small detail which could have been a clue to working out the mystery which the reader was intended to solve. Reading the story on an e reader with dictionary attached would have been useful, because, ashamedly, there were words which I didn’t know, which supposedly were in common usage in 1951. It’s interesting to see how our language has moved on in over half a century. I would rate this novel as second of the three because of its fascinating background of post war Moscow and Soviet life, obviously drawn from the author’s time as a foreign newspaper correspondent there. The very useful notes prefacing these novels tell us that the author varied his backgrounds based on his own experiences, from the Australian Outback, to ocean sailing, to politics and many more. Based on the authority with which he drew his now vanished background in “Murder in Moscow“, I aim to read more.
The second book, “Prescription for Murder“, has again got a formulaic feel to it. It is carefully plotted, a murder mystery for the reader to solve following all the clues that are presented. Martin Edwards in his introduction, likens the main character to that of Emma Latham’s protagonist. I didn’t enjoy those much and two was my limit there. David Williams writes well, but I found it difficult to empathise with his characters. After two period crime novels in succession I was desperate to return to 2012 and slotted in Peter James latest, “Not Dead Yet” to anchor myself in the present. Although I collect period detective fiction I have never read two novels back to back.
The last title in this omnibus volume was my favourite. Again it was well written, although by the standards of thirty seven years later it still felt a little stylised. But it’s construction seemed looser. We were being told more of a story and less of a carefully crafted who-done-it mystery to be solved, although the clues were still all there to be worked on. But emotion and psychology were not yet present. Despite the fact that the hero’s father is the first murder victim, he seems to show little distress. This was still the age of the stiff upper lip. But again, based on this book, I shall return to Francis Durbridge work.
As I worked my way through the trilogy I found that I needed to ask myself why I have for years been fascinated by these old crime novels that have fallen into obscurity. I think the answer is that through a very favourite genre, they give me a window into a society, a way pf life, that has disappeared. They were written for the mass market and so reflect the ideas and values of the time. And compared with much of modern writing, they seem extremely well written. If I have any criticism of this compendium, it is a very small one. I wanted to know clearly, as I began each book, it’s date of publication to place it in historical context. The answer is in notes on the very last page of the book, which I only found after reading two of the novels. Why not print the date on the title page ? All lovers of the crime novel, with an interest in very recent social history, who also enjoy reading a well structured English text should welcome this use of early twenty first century technology to make available again the best of twentieth century fiction.
Displaying 1 of 1 review