Discovering a New Favorite Author
How did you discover some of your favorite authors? When it comes to mystery authors, I learned about a lot of them through gifts. My parents gave me a copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes when I was pretty young, and I received a copy of And Then There Were None from relatives when I was ten. Looking for more authors who wrote in the style I liked, I looked for authors with a connection to Agatha Christie and found Dorothy L. Sayers and G.K. Chesterton.
As for Joyce Porter, I came across her totally by accident. I was visiting a BBC radio webpage, listening to some other mystery adaptations from favorite authors. Then I discovered a collection of radio plays starring “Scotland Yard’s laziest detective.” A note to one side said they were funny, so I thought I’d give them a try. I listed to five adaptations in rapid succession, and I was hooked. Soon I tracked down copies of all of the Dover books, and I was amazed that more people didn’t know about Joyce Porter’s mysteries.
So I wrote a book about her: Murder Most Grotesque.
–Chris Chan
Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, will be released on November 5th. His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7th. His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there). It is also available in a Kindle edition.
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