Edward Grierson (9 March 1914 - 24 May 1975) was a

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

barrister and a writer of

crime novels Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

. His debut crime novel is the outstanding ''

Reputation for a Song ''Reputation for a Song'' is a 1952 crime novel by the British writer Edward Grierson. It is an inverted detective story, breaking with many of the traditions of the established Golden Age of Detective Fiction. A young man is placed on trial accu ...

'', a classic

inverted detective story An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describ ...

. Grierson also wrote five novels, six works of non-fiction and two plays. He also wrote as Brian Crowther and John P. Stevenson.

Works

; Crime novels * ''Shall Perish with the Sword'' (as Brian Crowther). London, Quality Press, 1949. * ''

''. London, Chatto and Windus, and New York, Knopf, 1952. See also the film '' My Lover, My Son'' * '' The Second Man''. London, Chatto and Windus, and New York, Knopf, 1956.

Gold Dagger The Gold Dagger is an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association of the United Kingdom since 1960 for the best crime novel of the year. From 1955 to 1959, the organization named their top honor as the Crossed Red Herring Award. From ...

Award (dramatised on television: 'The Second Man' on Playhouse 90 in 1959 - starred James Mason and Diana Wynyard) * '' The Massingham Affair''. London, Chatto and Windus, 1962; New York, Doubleday, 1963. * '' A Crime of One's Own''. London, Chatto and Windus, and New York, Putnam, 1967. ; Novels * ''The Lilies and the Bees''. London, Chatto and Windus, 1953; as ''The Hastening Wind'', New York, Knopf, 1953; as ''The Royalist'', New York, Bantam, 1956. * ''Far Morning''. London, Chatto and Windus, and New York, Knopf, 1955. * ''The Captain General'' (as John P. Stevenson). New York, Doubleday, 1956; (as Edward Grierson), London, Chatto and Windus, 1958. * ''Dark Torrent of Glencoe''. New York, Doubleday, 1960; London, Chatto and Windus, 1961. ; Plays * ''His Mother's Son'', with Raymond Lulham (produced Harrogate, Yorkshire, 1953). * Radio plays: ''The Ninth Legion'', 1956; ''The Second Man'', 1956; ''Mr. Curtis's Chambers'', 1959. ; Other * ''Storm Bird: The Strange Life of Georgina Weldon''. London, Chatto and Windus, 1959. * ''The Fatal Inheritance: Philip II and the Spanish Netherlands''. London, Gollancz, and New York, Doubleday, 1969. * ''The Imperial Dream: The British Commonwealth and the Empire 1775–1969''. London, Collins, 1972; as ''The Death of the Imperial Dream'', New York,

Doubleday (publisher) Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed th ...

, 1972. * ''Confessions of a Country Magistrate'', London, Gollancz, 1972. * ''King of the Two Worlds: Philip II of Spain''. London, Collins, and New York, Putnam, 1974. * ''The Companion Guide to Northumbria''. London, Collins, 1976. 1914 births 1975 deaths British crime fiction writers 20th-century English novelists People educated at St Paul's School, London {{UK-novelist-stub