Book Review: The Verdict of Us All edited by Peter Lovesey

By Angela Youngman Feb 20, 2007, 10:23 GMT

A collection of 18 brand new stories by members of The Detection Club in honour of HRF Keating's  80th birthday.  All the stories have some kind of link to HRF Keating - sometimes featuring him or his characters.  There is even  a new Keating story sneakily provided by by his wife without his knowledge. Some very unusual stories are among this collection with the best being  Colin Dexter's  The Case of Curious Quorum which features one of Dexters  famous characters. Inspector Lewis receives a mystery letter from Keating referring to a talk given by Morse  containing a conundrum - who stole Keating's chequebook? 

Initially intending to brush it off as not worth his attention; Lewis starts to look a bit more closely at the letter and  starts thinking much like Morse would have done.  The solution is certainly ingenious!  Other stories are written by the likes of Jonathan Gash, PD James, Catherine Aird, Tim Heald, Robert Barnard.  Len Deighton's contribution is a lively story called Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle involving a long hidden Sherlock Holmes masterpiece which has a lovely twist in the tail.  A good collection for anyone keen to sample different forms of writing or for any lovers of HRF Keating's work.