THEY say crime does not pay but Martin Edwards might have something to say about that.

By day he is a solicitor but by night the Lymm resident 'murders' people in his detective fiction.

Now, after 25 years and 18 novels, Martin is enjoying one of his most successful years as an author thanks to his latest book, The Golden Age of Murder.

The 60-year-old took a break from fiction to write the first book about the Detection Club, the world’s most famous and most mysterious social network of crime writers.

Martin, who is currently president of the Detection Club, looked back on how Agatha Christie and other mystery writers transformed crime fiction.

He said: "The fiction of that period – although it was very popular in its day and Agatha Christie is still very popular – had been out of fashion in recent decades.

"You still get the TV programmes but most of the authors had disappeared and the books were out of print.

"But I read it pretty extensively and I thought there was some very good stuff there that was completely forgotten.

"So I started writing about the books and researching the people who wrote them.

"It was a very interesting time. They’d gone through the First World War and they were reacting to that by playing games with the detective story.

"And then in the 1930s there was the shadow of war and you see hints of that in the books if you read them carefully.

"It was a bit like a detective story trying to figure out how these people’s lives influenced how they wrote the books.

"I found that very interesting so it was a bit of a detective exercise in itself."

The Golden Age of Murder was 10 years in the making with Martin researching the book in between his day job and crime fiction releases.

But it has been worth it with the book picking up three awards in quick succession.

At a ceremony in New York, the Mystery Writers of America voted it the best biographical book of the year.

Two days later, at the Malice Domestic Convention in Washington DC, Martin won an Agatha award after The Golden Age of Murder was named best non-fiction book of the year.

And last weekend Martin took home the H.R.F. Keating Award at CrimeFest in Bristol.

Meanwhile, the board of directors of Malice Domestic have already announced that next year, Martin will receive the Poirot award to recognise his outstanding contribution to the crime genre.

Dad-of-two Martin added: "It’s amazing. There’s another award I’m up for in America called the Anthony Awards which is in New Orleans in September so I’ll go to that just in case. It’s all just unbelievable.

"It’s very surprising. I was working on this book on and off for 10 years in between novels.

"It’s been a long term project. I put a lot of time and research into it.

"It’s something a bit different and I didn’t really know how people would react to it but I’ve been blown away by the enthusiasm for it."