H.C. Bailey’s Reggie Fortune and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction

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It is high time for Good Fortune again. H.C. Bailey’s fascinating detective Reggie Fortune was one of the most popular fictional detectives of the Golden Age, and Bailey was considered to be one of the Big Five of detective story authors of the period (with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, R. Austin Freeman, and Freeman Wills Crofts). Although Fortune appeared in 9 novels, it is in the 84 short stories spread over 12 books from 1920-1940 where he truly shines, combining elements of so many of the detective types popular then: eccentric Thinking Machine, Scientific, Psychological, Defender of Justice, Philosophical, Hard-Boiled. However, despite his wild popularity throughout the 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s, he is largely forgotten today.

This book, the first critical study of the Reggie Fortune stories, places them in the context of other popular Golden Age detective fiction and identifies and describes their notable and appealing qualities. Not only are these classic stories distinguished by clever well-clued puzzles, brilliant sleuthing, vivid description, and intriguing philosophy and social critique, but they evoke powerful mythological images of Don Quixote and the Arthurian Knights and the enduring human pursuit of truth and justice in the face of a sometimes uncaring world.