Available Formats
The Flaxborough Crab
By (Author) Colin Watson
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
20th August 2009
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
FIC
Paperback
176
Width 126mm, Height 198mm, Spine 13mm
196g
The Flaxborough Crab was first published in 1969, although its title in the US was Just What the Doctor Ordered, and is the sixth novel in the Flaxborough series. H. R. F. Keating, in his critical study Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, praised the 'solidity of Watson's Flaxborough saga.' Watson, Keating said, 'created in his imaginary Flaxborough a place it is not preposterous to compare with the creation of Arnold Bennett in his classic Five Towns novels, or even perhaps with William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County'. All twelve of Colin Watson's 'Flaxborough Chronicles' were set in this fictional town that could be found somewhere in the East of England and it is home to 15,000 inhabitants that appear, on the surface at least, to be bland and conservative, but as the novels show appearances can be deceiving. brownish-yellow affair - Miss Pollock deliberately avoided the leading contestant's eye and looked appealingly to the further part of her audience. 'Now, what about some of you other ladies Wouldn't you like to have a try' don't want to hold that too near your dress, me dear.'
Colin Watson was born in 1920. He worked as a journalist but was most famous for his twelve 'Flaxborough' novels, set in a small fictional town in England. Four of the 'Flaxborough' novels were adapted for television by the BBC under the series title Murder Most English and Watson's Detective Inspector Purbright remains one of the most intellectual detectives in the crime genre. Colin Watson died in 1983.