Andrew Lycett

Occult Finish

The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley

By

Dedalus 699pp £25 order from our bookshop

Somewhere on my shelves stands a treasured 1936 first edition of a publication called Murder Off Miami. With the cover strapline ‘Dennis Wheatley presents a new era in crime fiction – a murder mystery planned by J G Links’, this so-called ‘crime dossier’ invited readers to solve the murder of British financier Bolitho Blane through the hands-on experience of examining facsimiles of police reports, photographs and various pieces of evidence including yacht blueprints, cigarette stubs and human hair.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'One of the reasons for its longevity is that it has virtually nothing to say about science and technology at all,… ,
    • 'The characters in many of these stories are trapped in the obsessive present tense of their own thoughts; in the m… ,
    • 'Libraries, for much of their existence, have embodied in microcosm many of the characteristics of the totalitarian… ,
    • 'Moss and Cynthia buy several properties through which to launder their ill-gotten gains, take lots of drugs, have… ,
    • 'Never mind the imperial cult. This is the cult of Boris. What happened to Rome?' From the LR archive:… ,
    • Thirty-two years ago this month, we published Muriel Spark's short story, 'A Playhouse Called Remarkable' Read it… ,
    • Time travel, bicycles and white horses populate @WomackPhilip's roundup of children's books by @marcussedgwick,… ,
    Follow Us