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- The Murder Room
- The Murder Room
Fiction, Crime & mystery, Classic crime
'Master of the art of deception' New Statesman
It was the easiest 3,000 Nelson Ryan had ever made - but suddenly he realised he was being played for a sucker. A telephone call, seemingly innocent enough, led him to the murder of a Chinese call-girl who talked too much. It also pitched him straight into the teeming, sordid night life of colourful Hong Kong.
From now on, Ryan would stick at nothing to get the killer who'd crossed him up.
James Hadley Chase
Born RenA Brabazon Raymond in London, the son of a British colonel in the Indian Army, James Hadley Chase (1906-1985) was educated at King's School in Rochester, Kent, and left home at the age of 18. He initially worked in book sales until, inspired by the rise of gangster culture during the Depression and by reading James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, he wrote his first novel, No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Despite the American setting of many of his novels, Chase (like Peter Cheyney, another hugely successful British noir writer) never lived there, writing with the aid of maps and a slang dictionary. He had phenomenal success with the novel, which continued unabated throughout his entire career, spanning 45 years and nearly 90 novels. His work was published in dozens of languages and over thirty titles were adapted for film. He served in the RAF during World War II, where he also edited the RAF Journal. In 1956 he moved to France with his wife and son; they later moved to Switzerland, where Chase lived until his death in 1985.
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