Lionel Davidson Dies at Age 87

Lionel Davidson, a notable British writer of thrillers who was a three-time Gold Dagger winner – not to mention the 2001 recepient of the CWA’s Diamond Dagger – died on October 21 at his home in London. He was 87, and according to the NYT obit, the cause was lung cancer.

I’m sorry to say I never got around to reading Davidson’s work, and years of good intentions will, once again, fade away into post-mortem catch-up (thankfully, Faber & Faber has been reprinting Davidson’s eight novels over the last little while.) So I’ll urge people to take their cues from Christopher Fowler, who wrote about Davidson’s work as part of his “Forgotten Authors” column in the Independent just last month.

UPDATE, ¹¹⁄₃: Dennis Barker’s obituary appears in the Guardian.