Bello to publish omnibus of British crime

Bello, Pan Macmillan’s digital imprint, is to publish Bello: The Best of British Crime. The omnibus will bring together three of the greatest crime writers of the twentieth century, Andrew Garve, David Williams and Francis Durbridge.

17/07/2012
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Bello: The Best of British Crime will feature Murder in Moscow by Andrew Garve (1908–2001), Prescription for Murder by David Williams (1926–2003) and A Game of Murder by Francis Durbridge (1912–1998). Hugely popular in their day, the three novelists were writing at a time when the crime fiction genre was evolving from the Golden Age of detective fiction into the modern novel that we are familiar with today.  

Award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards, who has written an introduction to the omnibus, comments:


‘The publication of this omnibus revives a trio of the lively mystery novels that have lurked in publishers’ archives for years, waiting to be rediscovered. Thanks to the enterprise of Bello, a whole host of lost gems are now being brought back to the surface.’


Francis Durbridge was an English playwright and author, best-known for his character, Paul Temple. A Game of Murder is a thriller set in London, which features a young Scotland Yard CID officer called Harry Dawson. The novel contains Durbridge’s classic mix of suspense, action and mystery and keeps the reader guessing till the very end.


Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton, who also wrote as Roger Bax and Paul Somers. He was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association. Murder in Moscow is a cold war thriller that tells the tale of foreign correspondent, George Gerney, who turns sleuth when a passenger is murdered on a train he is travelling on. The book provides an insight into life behind the Iron Curtain and displays Garve’s talent for interesting plots set in varied and unusual backgrounds.


David Williams’s most notable series featured Mark Treasure, one of crime fiction’s most likeable bankers. Prescription for Murder, a Mark Treasure mystery, demonstrates his talent for writing mystery novels that were well-crafted puzzles, marked by his characteristic good humour and charm.


Bello: The Best of British Crime will also be available in a print-on-demand (POD) edition.


Click here for more information on Macmillan’s Bello imprint.