IN THE QUEEN'S PARLOR

An informal audience with the Queens, this is a scrapbook of incidental pieces about the detective story, its past masters and contemporary practitioners, and its many assorted and affiliated interests. From Poe-tic justice and their admiration for the first and perhaps greatest exponent, to Rex Stout and Dashiell Hammett and John Dickson Carr, they comment on the fun of collecting, on authors' inscriptions, on the initial appearance of a female detective, on the choice of pseudonyms- and titles, and they deliberate over the best in a connoisseurs' choice of classics.... An entertaining form of shoptalk which runs to puns and does not disguise a lifelong enthusiasm that others will want to share.