Playing at Murder: The Collaborative Works of the Detection Club

This paper explores the inter-war collaborative works of Detection Club as a source commentary and insight on ludic dialogic nature Golden Age detective fiction. Less well known than single-authored members, multi-authored Behind Screen, The Scoop, Floating Admiral, Ask Policeman Six Against Yard capitalise upon genre's capacity for intertextual play self-conscious engagements with literary formula convention. By adopting range approaches working in different combinations, joint authors (including Berkeley, Christie, Crofts, Sayers) construct playful textual ‘spaces’ that foreground gameplay dialogism key dynamics writing reception detection discussion deals texts their games two groupings, showing appositeness Barthes' notion ‘writerly text’ Bruner's concept subjunctivity to first grouping, Bakhtinian ‘carnival’ second. Attention is thus drawn richness these illustration signature dynamic