Guilty Secrets: From the Crime Writers Association (Beyond and Within), edited by Martin Edwards

Review by Karen Langley

The Crime Writers’ Association was formed in 1953 by author John Creasey, with a stated aim to promote, support and celebrate crime writing, and writers of all crime fiction and non-fiction from across the globe. As well as organising the prestigious CWA Dagger Awards which celebrate the best in crime writing, they’ve also published a number of short story anthologies, and the latest is a fascinating collection of works themed around its title; Guilty Secrets. Released by Flame Tree Publishing in a handsome hardback edition with foiled cover and sprayed edges, it makes for entertaining reading.

Guilty Secrets is edited by Martin Edwards, an esteemed crime writer in his own right and editor of the CWA anthologies for some time. Known also for his work on the British Library Crime Classics series, here he turns his eye to contemporary authors, members of the CWA who submitted stories on the theme for consideration. The range of works he’s selected is impressive and as a pretty experienced reader of crime fiction, I found myself diverted all the way through the anthology.

The concept of a guilty secret is one which could be taken a number of ways, and the authors here certainly grab hold of the idea and run with it! The crimes themselves are diverse: there is, for example, a story set in the Golden Age period with shell shock (or PTSD as we would nowadays call it) as an important factor in the plot (The Follies by Martine Bailey). I Won’t Say a Word by L.C. Tyler is more of a police procedural but with a lovely twist, and a clash between older and newer methods of detection. By contrast, Siddal in Suburbia (Phil Lecomber) tackles 1970s suburbia and domestic obsession gone wrong, with a wonderfully dark ending.

The modern world is much in evidence in Confessions #99: Mine by Yvonne Eve Walus. This inventive story moves into the territory of influencers and YouTube. and it did remind me I need to question everything I see online. By contrast, Pam Plumb’s The Bitch dips into the world of professional killers where most of the characters have those guilty secrets. And Old Friends by Nick Guthrie features older protagonists, still haunted by events and secrets from their past; here, a younger character turns out to be a positive force rather than a thug!

Those are just a few of the stories which stood out, although all twenty-three collected here are striking and the quality is high. There are also, as Martin Edwards points out in his introduction, stories which experiment with form and structure, and three of these definitely deserve separate mention.

Firstly, there is Act of God by Christine Poulson; this story is constructed from printed items, emails and WhatsApp messages and is cleverly done; murder and fraud come to light in a small parish and it’s an entertaining way to tell a story. Martin Edwards’ own contribution to the book is very inventive, too, as his mystery The Scares is told in reverse, via sections given a date and time. It’s the kind of twisty story which has you going straight back to the start when you’ve finished it just to marvel at how it’s been put together and look for any clues you might have missed!

Finally, I really must mention Crimes You Optimistically Attempt by Antony Johnston. Readers of a certain age might recall “choose-your-own-adventure” style books which were all the rage for younger readers at one point. In these, you read an opening section and are given the option to choose which part to read next. Here, there are 50 different numbered paragraphs, and a hapless protagonist trying to commit a crime on behalf of a local hard man. I’ve personally had several goes at reading this, trying to choose a varying sequence of numbers to get a different ‘route’ through the story and come up with one of the better endings. Alas, so far I’ve had no success and I did wonder if the actual secret of the story was that there’s no way to survive it!

Guilty Secrets is an impressive collection of stories, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. The quality of the mysteries featured in it is consistently high, with so much diversity and variety that it can be read through without any fear of boredom. The CWA are obviously doing their bit to support crime writing and ensuring that many writers get exposure (Martin Edwards was the only one of the contributors I’d heard of). The stories are gripping, clever, funny and often thrilling, and as the book is such a lovely object in its own right, it should definitely grace the shelves of any crime fiction lover!

Karen Langley blogs at kaggsysbookishramblings and loves being bamboozled by crime fiction (www.kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com)

Guilty Secrets, edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Publishing, 2026). 978-1804177303 416pp., hardback.

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