The Man Who Could Not Sleep and Other Mysteries
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plays by the British thriller writer Michael Gilbert, first published in 2011 by the British company Robert Hale and unpublished in the United States.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 two synopses of proposed stage plays that were never subsequently written. It also has an introduction by John Cooper and three appendices. The first twelve stories feature Inspector Petrella, one of the many recurring characters that Gilbert created throughout his long career of writing both novels and short stories. Its next story has Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens, followed by four about Inspector Hazlerigg. Their locales are mostly in London and its environs. A number of them, such as "Somebody" and "Old Mr Martin", begin innocuously, then take a turn to unexpected grimness. "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] Nap Rumbold and Hargest Macrea are in "The Game Called Justice"....
Contents in order
- Introduction, page 7, by John Cooper
- The Man Who Could Not Sleep—A Serial thriller in six parts, page 14 — Henry Bohun
- The Hampstead Flat, page 15
- The Early Hours of the Morning, page 33
- Miss Tappett and Her Tortoises, page 51
- Trouble at the Law Society, page 70
- Closing the Gap, page 90
- The Traveller's Rest, page 111
- The White Slaves, page 68 — Detective Inspector Petrella, a mention of Wilfred Wetherall
- A Real Born Killer, page 81 — Detective Inspector Petrella, a brief role for Wilfred Wetherall
- A Very Special Relationship, page 192 — Chief Superintendent Morrissey
- The Smiler, page 204
- Mrs Haslet's Gone, page 216
- Appendix, page 220
- ↑ Douglas Greene of Crippen & Landrau, quoted in The New York Times, 15 February 2006
- ↑ Michael Gilbert (obituary), 10 February 2006. Retrieved on 13 November 2012.
- ↑ History of Guests of Honor. Retrieved on 5 July 2014.