''The Chelsea Murders'' (known in the USA as ''Murder Games'') is a thriller by

Lionel Davidson Lionel Davidson FRSL (31 March 192221 October 2009) was an English novelist who wrote spy thrillers. Life and career Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull in Yorkshire, one of nine children of an immigrant Jewish tailor. He left school ...

published in 1978. The book won the

Crime Writers' Association The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors’ organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its Dagger awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. T ...

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.

Plot summary

Someone is killing residents of the hip bohemian London neighborhood of

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

, home to literary giants of the past like

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

. What thread connects them in someone's mad mind? The only clue is a fragment of film, which accidentally caught images of the murderer, dressed in an outlandish costume and mask.

Television adaptation

An adaptation of the novel was broadcast in 1981, directed by Derek Bennett as a

Television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

and was released on DVD in March 2010.DVD Review: Armchair Thriller – Set 2
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References

The TV series was re- shown on Talking Pictures Channel on 01/07/2021 (3 episodes). 1978 British novels British thriller novels Novels set in London Jonathan Cape books British novels adapted into films {{1970s-thriller-novel-stub