Margery Allingham was born in London in 1904. She sold her first story at age 8 and published her first novel before turning 20. She married the artist, journalist and editor Philip Youngman Carter in 1927.

In 1928 Allingham published her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, and the following year, in The Crime at Black Dudley, she introduced the detective who was to become the hallmark of her sophisticated crime novels and murder mysteries - Albert Campion.

Famous for her London thrillers, such as Hide My Eyes and The Tiger in the Smoke, Margery Allingham has been compared to Dickens in her evocation of the city's shady underworld. Acclaimed by crime novelists such as P.D. James, Allingham is counted alongside Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Gladys Mitchell as a pre-eminent Golden Age crime writer. Margery Allingham died in 1966.

Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. His newest book is The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes. His other recent novels include The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons, Hit Me, and A Drop Of The Hard Stuff, featuring Matthew Scudder, brilliantly embodied by Liam Neeson in the new film "A Walk Among The Tombstones."

He's well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies For Fun & Profit and Write For Your Life, and he has recently published The Crime of Our Lives, a collection of his writings about the mystery genre and its practitioners.

He has also written episodic television ("Tilt!") and the Wong Kar-wai film "My Blueberry Nights." His dozen previous anthologies include Manhattan Noir, Manhattan Noir 2, and Dark City Lights. He lives in New York.

Includes writing from various well-loved authors including Dorothy L Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ngaio Marsh, Anthony Berkeley, Ruth Rendell, John Dickson Carr, Simon Brett, and more...