The pit-prop syndicate Book

For a book written in 1993 it gave me a good insight into one side of crime writing both through fiction and non fiction examples of male authors.

There are some recognisable names and stories such as Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Bertolt Brecht along with many other authors and stories that I'm glad to have come across.

As an aspiring writer I was intrigued to read this book, although many of the stories I found to be repetitive and only iterated through a male narrator.

Some stories caught my eye like of course the scene provided from 'The Pictures of Dorian Gray' and, 'The Tell Tale Heart', as well as others I had never read before such as 'Under the Knife' by Isaac B. Singer and 'The Lady in the Lake' by Raymond Chandler.

The edits and comments by Michael Dibdin before each part of the book were detailed and insightful. I'll mostly be keeping the book for his words and suggestions.

I would be interested to see another version of this book updated to include different types of crime writers as so many more have become known through the years.