Martin Edwards's Blog, page 165
February 19, 2016
Forgotten Book - Murder by Burial
Murder by Burial (1938), my Forgotten Book for today, is the one and only crime novel published by Stanley Casson. The novel was published in the US as well as in the author's native UK,and was also an early green Penguin paperback, a successful track record for a new crime writer (although he published a range of non-fiction books). So why did Casson never write another mystery?
Part of the reason may be that, although this book offers a great deal of interest, it is not a strong mystery. Casson took the basic idea from a real life accident (not a crime) involving two fellow archaeologists,but really the concept strikes me as better suited to a clever "howdunit" type of short story rather than a full length novel. There's quite a lot of padding as Casson shares his thoughts about politics - the previous year, he'd published a rather gloomy book called Progress and Catastrophe.
But another explanation is that Casson died just six years after the book was published. He was only 54, but he was serving as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Intelligence Corps - having previously fought with distinction in the First World War. He died on active service, not long after having escaped from the Nazis while serving in Europe. Obviously a brave man, and undoubtedly a man of great talent. Amongst other things, he was an archaeology don at New College, a colleague of the legendary Reverend Spooner.
The story is a simple one, but it's told amusingly and written well. A retired colonel sets up an organisation to extol the glories of the Roman influence on Britain, but soon the movement is hi-jacked for Fascist purposes. A local canon and his pretty young woman friend become involved in an archaeological excavation, but the canon falls out with the colonel, with fatal consequences. An unusual story, and certainly worth seeking out, despite its flaws.
Part of the reason may be that, although this book offers a great deal of interest, it is not a strong mystery. Casson took the basic idea from a real life accident (not a crime) involving two fellow archaeologists,but really the concept strikes me as better suited to a clever "howdunit" type of short story rather than a full length novel. There's quite a lot of padding as Casson shares his thoughts about politics - the previous year, he'd published a rather gloomy book called Progress and Catastrophe.
But another explanation is that Casson died just six years after the book was published. He was only 54, but he was serving as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Intelligence Corps - having previously fought with distinction in the First World War. He died on active service, not long after having escaped from the Nazis while serving in Europe. Obviously a brave man, and undoubtedly a man of great talent. Amongst other things, he was an archaeology don at New College, a colleague of the legendary Reverend Spooner.
The story is a simple one, but it's told amusingly and written well. A retired colonel sets up an organisation to extol the glories of the Roman influence on Britain, but soon the movement is hi-jacked for Fascist purposes. A local canon and his pretty young woman friend become involved in an archaeological excavation, but the canon falls out with the colonel, with fatal consequences. An unusual story, and certainly worth seeking out, despite its flaws.
February 16, 2016
The CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Prize
Calling all short story writers! If you like the short form as much as I do, why not try your hand at submitting an entry to the CWA Margery Allingham short story prize competition? The details about how to enter can be found here. The prize on offer is fantastic - £1000 plus a free pass to Crimefest.
The prize is sponsored by the Margery Allingham Society, and the judges are looking to find a previously unpublished story that conforms to Margery's idea of what makes a good mystery story: for her, it was "box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge", and it had four walls - a crime, a mystery, an enquiry, and a conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it.
The competition is open to established authors and newcomers alike. To give an example, I entered a story myself during the competition's first year, and so did my wife, who at that time had never published any fiction at all. We both finished up on the shortlist of ten, and my story "Acknowledgments" was the eventual winner. It was all very gratifying for us, the more so for being unexpected. And it underlines my message to people who like writing short stories - have a go, and you never know what may happen!
But you'll have to be quick. The closing date is 1 March. However, it's still plenty of time, if you can find an idea that really grabs you. There is an upper limit on the word count of 3500 words, so the story doesn't need to be, and indeed shouldn't be, an epic. Something short, snappy and a bit different is the objective. Good luck!
February 15, 2016
The Self-Publishing Debate - guest post from Kacper Nedza
The pros and cons of self-publishing continue to be hotly debated, and I'm pretty sure that debate will continue for some time to come. It's a complex subject, and also a fascinating one. My one and only experience of self-publishing, with The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, has been a positive one, so although I'm keen on continuing to be traditionally published, I'm very well aware of the attractions of the alternative.
I'm also interested in the views and experiences of others. A recent exchange of correspondence with Kacper Nezda, a long-time supporter of this blog, and the person who introduced me to that under-estimated writer Pamela Barrington, prompted me to invite Kacper to outline his own thoughts on this topic. Over to you, Kacper:
"Many thanks to Martin for this opportunity – it’s an honor to be featured here.
I’m not the most patient of people, and I suppose my adventure with self-publishing begins with impatience. In the fall of 2015, I began querying agents with my full-length, 80,000-word crime novel. This was an arduous process, and eventually I got very fed up with waiting to hear back and obsessively checking my email every five minutes for replies from agents. I also knew that even if I did secure an agent, it would likely be years before my novel hit shelves. That didn’t thrill me. I wanted to be doing something tangible with my writing now, hence my decision to write and self-publish a 20,000-word novella.
So I suppose what drew me into self-publishing was the immediacy of it. I uploaded my novella, A Late Verdict, under the name Milo Bell, to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform and it hit the Kindle store internationally within hours.
What’s great about self-publishing is the control, control over every aspect of one’s book: the content, the cover art, the marketing and publicity. The book you put out as a self-publisher is entirely your vision, and you have full control over what happens to it after it is published (except, of course, how it sells – which some might say is the most important part!)
The main drawback, of course, is the cost. Everything is pricey: cover artists, editors, publicity campaigns. If you publish traditionally, the publishing house takes care of all that, but if you self-publish, it’s all coming out of your wallet. Hence, I have a theory that all of the most successful self-published authors are those who started out with a considerable budget to invest in the book – which is not great news for those of us who are strapped for cash.
I’m very much in the midst of figuring out whether traditional or self-publishing is the way to go for my work, and I don’t believe there’s a universal answer for everyone. I’m excited, though, to have my novella out in the world, and I have every intention of continuing my adventure with self-publishing."
That point about cost strikes me as especially interesting. Is that a major concern of other self-published authors? I - and I'm sure Kacper - would be glad to know.
I'm also interested in the views and experiences of others. A recent exchange of correspondence with Kacper Nezda, a long-time supporter of this blog, and the person who introduced me to that under-estimated writer Pamela Barrington, prompted me to invite Kacper to outline his own thoughts on this topic. Over to you, Kacper:
"Many thanks to Martin for this opportunity – it’s an honor to be featured here.
I’m not the most patient of people, and I suppose my adventure with self-publishing begins with impatience. In the fall of 2015, I began querying agents with my full-length, 80,000-word crime novel. This was an arduous process, and eventually I got very fed up with waiting to hear back and obsessively checking my email every five minutes for replies from agents. I also knew that even if I did secure an agent, it would likely be years before my novel hit shelves. That didn’t thrill me. I wanted to be doing something tangible with my writing now, hence my decision to write and self-publish a 20,000-word novella.
So I suppose what drew me into self-publishing was the immediacy of it. I uploaded my novella, A Late Verdict, under the name Milo Bell, to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform and it hit the Kindle store internationally within hours.
What’s great about self-publishing is the control, control over every aspect of one’s book: the content, the cover art, the marketing and publicity. The book you put out as a self-publisher is entirely your vision, and you have full control over what happens to it after it is published (except, of course, how it sells – which some might say is the most important part!)
The main drawback, of course, is the cost. Everything is pricey: cover artists, editors, publicity campaigns. If you publish traditionally, the publishing house takes care of all that, but if you self-publish, it’s all coming out of your wallet. Hence, I have a theory that all of the most successful self-published authors are those who started out with a considerable budget to invest in the book – which is not great news for those of us who are strapped for cash.
I’m very much in the midst of figuring out whether traditional or self-publishing is the way to go for my work, and I don’t believe there’s a universal answer for everyone. I’m excited, though, to have my novella out in the world, and I have every intention of continuing my adventure with self-publishing."
That point about cost strikes me as especially interesting. Is that a major concern of other self-published authors? I - and I'm sure Kacper - would be glad to know.
February 12, 2016
Forgotten Books - Death's Darkest Face
My Forgotten Book for today is a novel I received for review no less than 25 years ago. It was written by one of my favourite crime novelists at that time,and I very much enjoyed it. A couple of years later, I had the pleasure of meeting the author a couple of times, and he duly inscribed the book to me. Re-reading it recently, having forgotten pretty much all the detail of the mystery, I was struck once again by the intelligence and unfussy elegance of the writing. Yet it's a book that has seldom been discussed, and really does seem to be forgotten. The title is Death's Darkest Face, and the author Julian Symons.
The structure of the story is unusual, and Symons takes the very bold step of introducing himself into the story, at the start and at the end. He explains how he came into the possession of a manuscript written by an actor whom he knew called Geoffrey Elder. What follows is an ingenious narrative with an unorthodox structure. Symons is writing in the present, i.e. the end of the Eighties, while Geoffrey is writing in the Sixties about events that mostly took place in the Thirties, and which he followed up three decades later.
Geoffrey is prompted to become an amateur detective by the intrusion into his life of a would-be biographer of a Thirties poet called Hugo Headley. Headley disappeared mysteriously, and it was never clear whether he had died or faked his own death and fled to escape his creditors. Could it be that, rather than committing suicide, he was murdered? Geoffrey has a personal reason to find out more.
Some of the elements of the story are quite melodramatic,but the telling of the story is very considered, which for some readers may be a drawback. It's not breathless, action-packed tale, and the large cast of characters also means that you have to pay attention from start to finish. But it's worth the effort. This really is an under-estimated novel, and in a very clever finale, we are offered a fresh way of looking at things which reminds me strongly of the books of Anthony Berkeley, whom Symons (like me) greatly admired, and who was an expert in offering multiple solutions to a mystery.
The structure of the story is unusual, and Symons takes the very bold step of introducing himself into the story, at the start and at the end. He explains how he came into the possession of a manuscript written by an actor whom he knew called Geoffrey Elder. What follows is an ingenious narrative with an unorthodox structure. Symons is writing in the present, i.e. the end of the Eighties, while Geoffrey is writing in the Sixties about events that mostly took place in the Thirties, and which he followed up three decades later.
Geoffrey is prompted to become an amateur detective by the intrusion into his life of a would-be biographer of a Thirties poet called Hugo Headley. Headley disappeared mysteriously, and it was never clear whether he had died or faked his own death and fled to escape his creditors. Could it be that, rather than committing suicide, he was murdered? Geoffrey has a personal reason to find out more.
Some of the elements of the story are quite melodramatic,but the telling of the story is very considered, which for some readers may be a drawback. It's not breathless, action-packed tale, and the large cast of characters also means that you have to pay attention from start to finish. But it's worth the effort. This really is an under-estimated novel, and in a very clever finale, we are offered a fresh way of looking at things which reminds me strongly of the books of Anthony Berkeley, whom Symons (like me) greatly admired, and who was an expert in offering multiple solutions to a mystery.
February 8, 2016
Seven Psychopaths - film review
Seven Psychopaths is a 2012 black comedy which reunites writer and director Martin McDonagh with Irish actor Colin Farrell. They worked together on In Bruges, another dark and witty crime film, which I really enjoyed. The later film is more ambitious, and certainly has entertaining moments, although I found it rather patchy in comparison to In Bruges.
The basic premise is that Farrell is a writer called Martin (naturally this predisposed me in his favour). He is based in California and working on a script called Seven Psychopaths. His pal Billy (Sam Rockwell), who offers to help him with the story, earns a crust by kidnapping dogs and earning rewards for returning them to their owners, Billy's partner, Hans (Christopher Walken) is a religious chap whose wife is suffering from cancer.
Things start to go badly wrong when Billy and Hans kidnap a dog to which a weird gangster played by Woody Harrelson is emotionally attached. In his demented quest to recover the dog, the gangster kills Hans' wife in hospital, and events spiral further out of control. This is a film where people die bloody, comic-book style deaths from the start of the film almost until its end.
The trouble with writing a screenplay about a screenplay is that self-awareness can slip into self-indulgence, and I felt that Seven Psychopaths' gleeful way with violence was sometimes at odds with more serious aspects of the story. The cast is strong, and I can see why the film has won many admirers, but it did leave me with mixed feelings.At times it seems too clever for its own good. Worth watching,yes, but for me, In Bruges is the better film.
The basic premise is that Farrell is a writer called Martin (naturally this predisposed me in his favour). He is based in California and working on a script called Seven Psychopaths. His pal Billy (Sam Rockwell), who offers to help him with the story, earns a crust by kidnapping dogs and earning rewards for returning them to their owners, Billy's partner, Hans (Christopher Walken) is a religious chap whose wife is suffering from cancer.
Things start to go badly wrong when Billy and Hans kidnap a dog to which a weird gangster played by Woody Harrelson is emotionally attached. In his demented quest to recover the dog, the gangster kills Hans' wife in hospital, and events spiral further out of control. This is a film where people die bloody, comic-book style deaths from the start of the film almost until its end.
The trouble with writing a screenplay about a screenplay is that self-awareness can slip into self-indulgence, and I felt that Seven Psychopaths' gleeful way with violence was sometimes at odds with more serious aspects of the story. The cast is strong, and I can see why the film has won many admirers, but it did leave me with mixed feelings.At times it seems too clever for its own good. Worth watching,yes, but for me, In Bruges is the better film.
February 5, 2016
Forgotten Book - Lobelia Grove
Lobelia Grove was the second novel published under the name of Anthony Rolls, a follow-up to the successful The Vicar's Experiments. The book appeared in 1932, and my copy, from the Bob Adey collection, is signed by the author and dated September 1932. It's signed in his real name, C.E. Vulliamy, rather than as Rolls. (Bob's copy of the first Rolls book is signed in both names.)
The setting is a fictitious "garden suburb", and the social life of Kipperly Park is portrayed with a great deal of sly wit. One always feels, with Rolls-Vulliamy that constructing a mystery interested him rather less than exercising his gift for satire,,but I must say I really enjoyed this one. He tackles the theme of the craving for respectability exhibited by so many English people, and he presents us with a number of incisive portraits of local characters, and how they behave when murder disrupts the serenity of their lives.
A case in point is Mr Bertie Quirtle (the author liked to give his characters unlikely names, a habit that I find a trifle irritating). Quirtle is returning home one night when he encounters a rude stranger in a hurry. Almost immediately thereafter,he stumbles across the body of one of his neighbours. Rather than doing something about it, he scuttles off and later tells a series of lies, seemingly out of fear of becoming involved.
There's a pleasingly ironic plot twist towards the end, but the real pleasure of the book comes from Vulliamy's jokes, and his ability to make shrewd points through humour. At the time he was writing, these books must have seemed refreshingly "different", and they still retain that quality. Yes, the influence of Francis Iles can be detected, but unlike Iles, Vulliamy was not someone who had written tightly structured whodunits, and this helps to explain why his novels focus more on people than on plot. He was a novelist who happened to write about crime. All the books of his that I've read are worth seeking out.. .
The setting is a fictitious "garden suburb", and the social life of Kipperly Park is portrayed with a great deal of sly wit. One always feels, with Rolls-Vulliamy that constructing a mystery interested him rather less than exercising his gift for satire,,but I must say I really enjoyed this one. He tackles the theme of the craving for respectability exhibited by so many English people, and he presents us with a number of incisive portraits of local characters, and how they behave when murder disrupts the serenity of their lives.
A case in point is Mr Bertie Quirtle (the author liked to give his characters unlikely names, a habit that I find a trifle irritating). Quirtle is returning home one night when he encounters a rude stranger in a hurry. Almost immediately thereafter,he stumbles across the body of one of his neighbours. Rather than doing something about it, he scuttles off and later tells a series of lies, seemingly out of fear of becoming involved.
There's a pleasingly ironic plot twist towards the end, but the real pleasure of the book comes from Vulliamy's jokes, and his ability to make shrewd points through humour. At the time he was writing, these books must have seemed refreshingly "different", and they still retain that quality. Yes, the influence of Francis Iles can be detected, but unlike Iles, Vulliamy was not someone who had written tightly structured whodunits, and this helps to explain why his novels focus more on people than on plot. He was a novelist who happened to write about crime. All the books of his that I've read are worth seeking out.. .
February 3, 2016
Curtain Up by Julius Green
The sub-title of Julius Green's Curtain Up is "Agatha Christie: a life in theatre", and this tells you clearly what the book is all about. Green starts as he means to go on: "This is the story of the most successful female playwright of all time. She also wrote some books." Yes, he's talking about Dame Agatha, the Queen of Crime, and he argues plausibly that "the significance of her contribution to theatre has been largely overlooked by historians."
I've seen several Christie plays over the years, although by no means all of them. I was especially interested to read here a very full account of the genesis of Fiddlers Five, which I went to see when it was on tour in Manchester. It was a birthday treat, and the cast included Colin Bean, who used to play Private Sponge in Dad's Army. The play can't, sadly, be described as a great success, and Christie later refined it into Fiddlers Three. By then, however, she was past her best as both a crime writer and as a playwright..I learned from Green (amongst many other things) that the play was originally called This Mortal Coil, and he reminded me that the tour was led by veteran actor-manager James Grant Anderson.
There is a wealth of detail in this extensively researched book. Again, I found myself especially intrigued by the parts where Green expanded my own knowledge of subjects I find interesting - such as Agatha's involvement with Frank Vosper. I also loved learning more about little-known apprentice works such as Eugenia and Eugenics. My impression is that Green is keener on the theatre than on detective fiction generally, but he makes telling points about the plotting of the plays, as well as discussing various adaptations by the likes of the prolific crime writer Gerald Verner.
One of the first points Green makes about his approach to his subject is a technical one: "As a reader I dislike footnotes and endnotes and find them an annoyance,but as a researcher I find it helpful when writers cite their sources." He explains that his method has been to offer a compromise, with sources mentioned in a website rather than in a book. There are various ways of tackling this dilemma (which is a very real one) and I dealt with it differently in The Golden Age of Murder, because my aims were different, but Green's method seems to me well suited to his material and his concerns. I'm delighted to have a copy of this book in my library, and I'm sure I'll refer to it again and again.
I've seen several Christie plays over the years, although by no means all of them. I was especially interested to read here a very full account of the genesis of Fiddlers Five, which I went to see when it was on tour in Manchester. It was a birthday treat, and the cast included Colin Bean, who used to play Private Sponge in Dad's Army. The play can't, sadly, be described as a great success, and Christie later refined it into Fiddlers Three. By then, however, she was past her best as both a crime writer and as a playwright..I learned from Green (amongst many other things) that the play was originally called This Mortal Coil, and he reminded me that the tour was led by veteran actor-manager James Grant Anderson.
There is a wealth of detail in this extensively researched book. Again, I found myself especially intrigued by the parts where Green expanded my own knowledge of subjects I find interesting - such as Agatha's involvement with Frank Vosper. I also loved learning more about little-known apprentice works such as Eugenia and Eugenics. My impression is that Green is keener on the theatre than on detective fiction generally, but he makes telling points about the plotting of the plays, as well as discussing various adaptations by the likes of the prolific crime writer Gerald Verner.
One of the first points Green makes about his approach to his subject is a technical one: "As a reader I dislike footnotes and endnotes and find them an annoyance,but as a researcher I find it helpful when writers cite their sources." He explains that his method has been to offer a compromise, with sources mentioned in a website rather than in a book. There are various ways of tackling this dilemma (which is a very real one) and I dealt with it differently in The Golden Age of Murder, because my aims were different, but Green's method seems to me well suited to his material and his concerns. I'm delighted to have a copy of this book in my library, and I'm sure I'll refer to it again and again.
February 1, 2016
Spectre - film review
Spectre, the latest James Bond film, is the fourth to feature Daniel Craig, and mixes up the familiar ingredients with enough flair to ensure that, although it runs for well over two hours, the action and interest never flag. Once again the director is Sam Mendes, and if he doesn't quite recapture the brilliance of the last Bond movie, Skyfall, which is arguably the best of them all, he comes fairly close.
The film gets off, as you'd expect, to an explosive start, with Craig in pursuit of bad guys at the Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City. When he returns to London, it is to find that things are changing in the world of the secret service. Is there any future for the lone agent with a licence to kill in an age when hi-tech global surveillance is the name of the game? Well, we know the answer to that one, but there's great fun to be had along the way to having our suspicions confirmed.
Q - the excellent Ben Whishaw - is pressed into service again, and comes up with some of his best gadgets. I loved the witty moment when Bond, having nicked 009's Aston Martin, found himself playing a Frank Sinatra song from his colleague's playlist in the midst of a breathless chase through the narrow streets of Rome. The jokes are an important part of the Bond movies, and there are some good ones in this film.
About the plot itself, possibly the less said the better: it's not a strong point. But when the confection as a whole is so entertaining, this doesn't matter as much as it would do usually. The theme song by Sam Smith, "Writing's on the Wall" makes much less of an immediate impact than Adele's brilliant theme for Skyfall, but having listened to it several times since, I've warmed to the song. Not quite up to the late, inimitable John Barry, but not at all bad. As for the film itself, it's fun viewing, and that's what a Bond movie should be.
The film gets off, as you'd expect, to an explosive start, with Craig in pursuit of bad guys at the Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City. When he returns to London, it is to find that things are changing in the world of the secret service. Is there any future for the lone agent with a licence to kill in an age when hi-tech global surveillance is the name of the game? Well, we know the answer to that one, but there's great fun to be had along the way to having our suspicions confirmed.
Q - the excellent Ben Whishaw - is pressed into service again, and comes up with some of his best gadgets. I loved the witty moment when Bond, having nicked 009's Aston Martin, found himself playing a Frank Sinatra song from his colleague's playlist in the midst of a breathless chase through the narrow streets of Rome. The jokes are an important part of the Bond movies, and there are some good ones in this film.
About the plot itself, possibly the less said the better: it's not a strong point. But when the confection as a whole is so entertaining, this doesn't matter as much as it would do usually. The theme song by Sam Smith, "Writing's on the Wall" makes much less of an immediate impact than Adele's brilliant theme for Skyfall, but having listened to it several times since, I've warmed to the song. Not quite up to the late, inimitable John Barry, but not at all bad. As for the film itself, it's fun viewing, and that's what a Bond movie should be.
January 29, 2016
Forgotten Book - Terror at Staups House
Now, this is an obscure one. Hands up, those of you who have read Frank King's Terror at Staups House....not too many of you, I suspect, well-read though readers of this blog definitely are! It's another book, signed by the author (and dated 1927, the year of publication), which I acquired from the collection of the late Bob Adey, and it's a locked room mystery.
I bought it less than a fortnight ago, and it was my major purchase at a book fair in York. I managed to limit myself to buying four books, mainly because quite a few others that I fancied were a long way out of reach financially. This book, in excellent condition but lacking a dustwrapper, was at least affordable.
I say 'lacking a dustwrapper', but it was pointed out to me that the book is very unusual, in that the publishers, Bles, were experimenting at that time with the concept of having front endpapers which reproduced the cover. It's an experiment they didn't persist with, perhaps due to cost, but from a book collecting perspective, it's a very interesting feature. (And it's rather different from the more common, and less pleasing, sight of a dustjacket that has carefully been cut up and pasted over the endpapers; I have a few of those; they can look nice, but the element of vandalism is unappealing.) I'd be glad to hear from anyone who knows more about the Bles experiment, or anything similar.
So is the book itself any good? Well, to begin with, I feared the worst. The victim is one of those loathsome old misers who were so often properly dispatched in Golden Age fiction. There's talk of voodoo, Tula knives, the Aztecs, a curse, and vengeful foreigners, and there's a manservant who speaks in excruciating dialect. But although it's a melodramatic story, it's much better than many of its kind. King wrote with pace and some verve, and although the cast of suspects is small, he keeps one guessing pretty well. And pleasingly, the manservant abandons the dialect after being unmasked as a career criminal. (Obligingly, he continues to serve meals to the other suspects after the death of his unmourned master; talk about the lower orders knowing their place.!) Tolstoy it ain't, but it's good fun.
I bought it less than a fortnight ago, and it was my major purchase at a book fair in York. I managed to limit myself to buying four books, mainly because quite a few others that I fancied were a long way out of reach financially. This book, in excellent condition but lacking a dustwrapper, was at least affordable.
I say 'lacking a dustwrapper', but it was pointed out to me that the book is very unusual, in that the publishers, Bles, were experimenting at that time with the concept of having front endpapers which reproduced the cover. It's an experiment they didn't persist with, perhaps due to cost, but from a book collecting perspective, it's a very interesting feature. (And it's rather different from the more common, and less pleasing, sight of a dustjacket that has carefully been cut up and pasted over the endpapers; I have a few of those; they can look nice, but the element of vandalism is unappealing.) I'd be glad to hear from anyone who knows more about the Bles experiment, or anything similar.
So is the book itself any good? Well, to begin with, I feared the worst. The victim is one of those loathsome old misers who were so often properly dispatched in Golden Age fiction. There's talk of voodoo, Tula knives, the Aztecs, a curse, and vengeful foreigners, and there's a manservant who speaks in excruciating dialect. But although it's a melodramatic story, it's much better than many of its kind. King wrote with pace and some verve, and although the cast of suspects is small, he keeps one guessing pretty well. And pleasingly, the manservant abandons the dialect after being unmasked as a career criminal. (Obligingly, he continues to serve meals to the other suspects after the death of his unmourned master; talk about the lower orders knowing their place.!) Tolstoy it ain't, but it's good fun.
Forgotten Book - The Case is Altered
The Case is Altered, written by William Plomer and first published in 1932, certainly qualifies as a Forgotten Book, but at the time of its original appearance, it was much admired. Plomer, in his late twenties,had moved from South Africa to London, and this was his third novel. His debut, Turbot Wolfe, was a popular story about inter-racial relationships, and he had become friendly with Leonard and Virginia Woolf, who published and promoted this novel with great enthusiasm.
It's a story about a murder, and was closely based on a real life crime. What is unique about it is that the crime in question occurred, in 1929, in the house in Bayswater where Plomer was living. James Achew murdered his partner, Sybil da Costa, in front of their small child. Achew was insanely jealous (and was ultimately reprieved from execution). He dreaded the thought that Sybil might be seduced by any man - including Plomer who (most authorities seem to agree) was gay. In the book, Achew (who is given the name James Starr) is represented by Paul Fernandez, whose attractive partner runs a boarding house; the lodgers include a young man called Alston who is, in part, based on Plomer.
Yet although this novel concerns a murder, it is first and foremost a study of the changing nature of London life and society, with particular emphasis on changes in the class system and political thinking. I found all this historically fascinating, and even though much of the political stuff is naive (contributing to a surprisingly weak ending) Plomer's liberal attitudes towards racial tensions are noteworthy. He portrays the relationships between occupants of the house in Cambodia Crescent, and people close to them, with a good deal of subtlety, and the gay and lesbian subtexts are also interesting.
In many ways, this book reminded me of the work of Patrick Hamilton - notably Hangover Square. It's not a "mystery", and it's clear that Plomer struggled with the notion of plot, but it's really well written and still highly readable. Oddly, Plomer never developed as a novelist, but he wrote libretti for Benjamin Britten and had a perhaps surprisingly warm relationship with a very different writer for whom he became editor, Ian Fleming. Fleming even dedicated Goldfinger to him. Quite something to have on your CV.
It's a story about a murder, and was closely based on a real life crime. What is unique about it is that the crime in question occurred, in 1929, in the house in Bayswater where Plomer was living. James Achew murdered his partner, Sybil da Costa, in front of their small child. Achew was insanely jealous (and was ultimately reprieved from execution). He dreaded the thought that Sybil might be seduced by any man - including Plomer who (most authorities seem to agree) was gay. In the book, Achew (who is given the name James Starr) is represented by Paul Fernandez, whose attractive partner runs a boarding house; the lodgers include a young man called Alston who is, in part, based on Plomer.
Yet although this novel concerns a murder, it is first and foremost a study of the changing nature of London life and society, with particular emphasis on changes in the class system and political thinking. I found all this historically fascinating, and even though much of the political stuff is naive (contributing to a surprisingly weak ending) Plomer's liberal attitudes towards racial tensions are noteworthy. He portrays the relationships between occupants of the house in Cambodia Crescent, and people close to them, with a good deal of subtlety, and the gay and lesbian subtexts are also interesting.
In many ways, this book reminded me of the work of Patrick Hamilton - notably Hangover Square. It's not a "mystery", and it's clear that Plomer struggled with the notion of plot, but it's really well written and still highly readable. Oddly, Plomer never developed as a novelist, but he wrote libretti for Benjamin Britten and had a perhaps surprisingly warm relationship with a very different writer for whom he became editor, Ian Fleming. Fleming even dedicated Goldfinger to him. Quite something to have on your CV.
