Celia Fremlin Archives - Criminal Element

Book Review: Vintage Crime edited by Martin Edwards

By Doreen Sheridan

August 14, 2020

The Crime Writers Association is a venerable society founded in 1953 to support, promote, and celebrate the overarching crime genre. While based in the UK, it also has many members from other nations. It is perhaps best known nowadays for awarding the prestigious CWA Dagger awards, honoring the year’s best crime writing. Since 1956, the…

The Edgar Awards Revisited: The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin (Best Novel; 1960)

By kristen lepionka

February 15, 2019

The cover of Faber’s reissued The Hours Before Dawn, which features glow-in-the-dark type that scared the bejesus out of me earlier this week, calls the book a “lost classic.” Doesn’t that sound like something of an oxymoron—the jumbo shrimp of literature? Books become classics because they are good, yes, but mostly it’s because they are…