The Chelsea Murders is a thriller by Lionel Davidson

Lionel Davidson

Lionel Davidson was an English novelist who wrote a number of acclaimed spy thrillers.-Life and career:Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull, Yorkshire, one of nine children of an immigrant Jewish tailor. He left school early and worked in the London offices of the Spectator magazine as an...

. The book won the Crime Writers' Association

Crime Writers' Association

The Crime Writers Association is a writers' association in the United Kingdom. Founded by John Creasey in 1953, it is currently chaired by Peter James and claims 450+ members....

's Gold Dagger

Gold Dagger

The Gold Dagger Award was an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association for the best crime novel of the year.For its first five years, the organization's top honor was known as the Crossed Red Herring Award....

 Award.

Plot summary

Someone is killing residents of the hip bohemian London neighborhood of Chelsea

Chelsea, London

Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...

, home to literary giants of the past like Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

. What thread connects them in someone's mad mind? The only clue is a fragment of film, which accidentally caught images of the murderer, dressed in an outlandish costume and mask.

Television adaption

An adaption of the novel was 1981 directed from Derek Bennett as an Television film and was released on DVD in March 2010.