The Man Who Could Not Sleep and Other Mysteries explained

The Man Who Could Not Sleep and Other Mysteries is a collection of radio plays by the British thriller writer Michael Gilbert, first published in 2011 by the British company Robert Hale and unpublished in the United States. It contains two long, previously uncollected radio plays, as well as synopses of two proposed stage plays that were never subsequently written. It also has an introduction by John Cooper and three appendices. The locales of the plays are mostly in London and its environs. Two of the many recurring characters that Gilbert created over his exceedingly long writing career, Nap Rumbold and Hargest Macrea, are in "The Game Called Justice". As usual with Gilbert, the tone of the stories is civilized and even occasionally light-hearted, but there are always elements of bleakness beneath the urbane surface, particularly in "The Last Chapter". "Michael was an exceptionally fine storyteller, but he's hard to classify," said one of his American publishers after his death. "He's not a hard-boiled writer in the classic sense, but there is a hard edge to him, a feeling within his work that not all of society is rational, that virtue is not always rewarded.".[1] Gilbert, who was appointed CBE in 1980, was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers' Association. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1988[2] and in 1990 he was presented Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award.[3]

Contents in order

Notes

  1. Douglas Greene of Crippen & Landrau, quoted in The New York Times, 15 February 2006
  2. News: Michael Gilbert (obituary). 13 November 2012. The Telegraph. 10 February 2006.
  3. Web site: History of Guests of Honor . Bouchercon World Mystery Convention . 5 July 2014.