Martin Edwards's Blog, page 170

Forgotten Book - Bats in the Belfry

I've mentioned E.C.R. Lorac occasionally on this blog -the
Be warned, though. It's not an easy book to find. I'd never seen a copy of this particular title until I came across a rare book dealer who was offering a unique example for sale. I was lucky enough to obtain it - complete with an author signature, and a really interesting inscription from Lorac to her mother. From this I learned that the novel was written in August 1936, while Lorac and her mother were holidaying at Westward Ho! Collins Crime Club published it the following January - very fast work.

The novel does not read as though it was written in haste, and my guess is that Lorac planned the story very carefully before sitting down to write it up. The first chapter introduces us to the key characters - Bruce Attleton and his attractive but selfish wife Sybilla, their friends Thomas Burroughs, Neil Rockingham and Richard Grenville, and Bruce's ward, Elizabeth. The occasion is the funeral of Attleton's cousin, who has been killed in a car accident.

We soon learn that Attleton is being plagued by a mysterious stranger called Debrette, but the nature of the connection between them is unclear. When both Attleton and Debrette go missing, Grenville tries to find out what is going on. The London setting is very well evoked, and the mystery proves satisfyingly complex. I figured out what was going on, but only because Lorac plays very fair with her clues. A very satisfying read.

Journey's End - and a new beginning

All my life I've been fascinated by writing and the writing life. From being very young, I wanted to be a published writer, and when I discovered, in my teens, that some people who achieved that ambition gave up on writing, I was mystified. When I got to know writers personally, I began to develop a much better understanding of why people might give up, and the subject has continued to fascinate me. My interest in trying to figure out why Anthony Berkeley suddenly abandoned crime fiction after 15 years of hard work and much success was, for instance, one of the main drivers behind The Golden Age of Murder.

This subject - why authors give up - tends to be one of the untold stories of the writing life. So when Christopher West told me about the reissuing of  his books,I asked if he'd like to let me have his perspective on it. I have happy memories of a wonderful Bouchercon in Philadelphia when Chris and I were both in the early stage of our writing careers; we had a lot of fun together and he attended other conferences, promoting his enjoyable novels, until - suddenly, he moved away from the genre.

Here, he tells us why. I'm very grateful for his guest comments, and, yes, if you haven't read his books, you have a treat in store:

"Journey’s end
A crime series is a living thing.  It has a life cycle – or perhaps a ‘death cycle’ would be a better expression: there are times when it seems to be in maximum danger, others when it is relatively safe and flourishing.
The first moment of maximum threat is in its conception.  That brilliant idea of Karl Marx’s parallel career as a PI just doesn’t seem so good the next morning (annoyingly, someone else will produce a winning series with this formula a few years later).  The next is probably the first book.  Publishers like the ‘throw spaghetti at the wall and see which one sticks’ approach: if the first book bombs, book two will be a hard sell.  
If the first one does well enough, you probably have a grace period.  But if, after a few books in, things aren’t taking off, trouble looms again.  New writers are knocking on the door and you are effectively in their way.  What do you do?  Call it a day?  Rebrand?  Or soldier on, hoping things will pick up?  I remember hearing Ian Rankin say that after four moderately successful Inspector Rebus novels, he sat back and refocused the series, giving it a tougher edge.  One of the great rebrandings. 
My own experience of hitting the ‘four book’ wall was different.  My Beijing detective was still doing OK and critics still liked the books, but I didn’t sense any great picking up of sales.  I toyed with rebranding, but how, exactly?  I liked the tec and the series the way they were.  (I sense that Rankin rather fancied the idea of toughening the Rebus series – if you rebrand, it must be in a way you like, or you risk the grisly fate of being tied to a character / series you can’t stand.)  In the end, my hand was forced – luckily in a pleasant way, as another writing opportunity came up.  I said a sad farewell to the Inspector and his feisty wife, and started on a series of business books.
Now Amazon has given old series a second chance.  My detective can reappear on Kindle and reach out to a new audience.  A re-edit to make things a touch pacier for the e-reader.  A little rebranding.  A sympathetic epublisher (Pageturners).  Death of a Blue Lantern, the ebook, is just out.  It’s great to be back."

London Spy - BBC 2 - and TV crime

London Spy, which began on BBC 2 this evening, is the latest in a run of interesting TV crime shows, of varying types, offering varying degrees of entertainment. Before watching, I'd read that the author of the screenplay, Tom Rob Smith, had been interested in the "spy in the bag" case of Gareth Williams, and although he has emphasised that London Spy is not based on that tragic and mysterious real life case, I can understand why its bizarre circumstances fired his imagination.

The show has a lot going for it, including Ben Whishaw and Jim Broadbent in the cast, but for much of the first hour, it felt like a strong candidate for the Most Excruciatingly Slow Thriller of the Year award. Towards the end, things livened up, but for my taste, the Meaningful Pauses were definitely over-done.  .

From Darkness, which recently ended, was another show of considerable potential which had its moments. But really it seemed like a two-part story padded out with lots of shots of silently anguished lead characters to fill four hours. A real disappointment. In contrast, Unforgotten has gone from strength to strength. It's been my must-watch show since it started, very well written and superbly acted.

I've also admired Beck, the powerful BBC 4 series based on the Sjowall and Wahloo characters, but updated and with brand new storylines. The plots are as varied and ingenious as those in Lewis (still going strong, still a class act) and it's the most impressive Scandinavian thriller I've seen in a long time. Martin Beck's sidekick Gunvald, in particular, is compelling to watch. Beck is a series I can strongly recommend. 

Responding to Feedback

I'm returning to the topic of reviews, and how authors respond to feedback from people who read their books, a subject that fascinates me whether in the capacity of reader, reviewer or author. There's been a lot of discussion lately about fake Amazon reviews, and of course it's true that one has to assess any reviews with care, especially internet reviews, most especially if the reviewer is anonymous or in disguise. I quite understand why many authors dislike negative feedback from such individuals. But constructive reviews, written in good faith by someone who doesn't have an axe to grind (that's important), and who understands, and is reasonably sympathetic towards, what the writer was aiming to do (desirable, I think), are deserving of attention.

I've been spoiled this year by the wonderful reaction to The Golden Age of Murder, most recently from Jon L. Breen, one of the US's leading mystery critics, who said in Mystery Scene that the book was one of the most important contributions to crime fiction history in recent memory. Very pleased by that. I was fortunate to have the chance, when the book was reprinted recently, to address a few helpful points raised by reviewers and people who contacted me, and was very glad to do so.

I've also been heartened by a review last Friday of my new anthology for the British Library, Silent Nights, from Barry Turner in the Mail. In addition, Barry gave All the Lonely People the thumbs-up in his column not long ago, which was hugely gratifying, so long after the book's original publication.

As regards The Dungeon House, I set out to vary my approach - as I had done with The Frozen Shroud, but even more so. The story was set up differently, and the mystery resolved in a rather different way. This was a conscious risk, and although I'm happy (or as happy as a self-critical author ever can be) with the result, naturally I've wondered how readers would react. Early reviews have been extremely positive - for example on three leading blogs, Kiwi Crime, Mysterious Reviews, Harriet Devine's blog, and Random Jottings. There has, in addition, been a nice response from Publisher's Weekly ("engrossing") and Kirkus Reviews ("Edwards works exceptionally close to his characters"). I've also received a number of emails from readers - some who have followed the series for several years, some who have come to it afresh, and these too have encouraged me. It's nice when people take the trouble to get in touch like that..

One bit of feedback from two or three reviewers is that they noted that Daniel Kind had a smaller part to play in this story than in the others, and they expressed some regret about this. I found this very interesting. I've wondered, in recent years, whether people might be getting tired of Daniel, and might want to see more of Hannah. As it happened, the plot idea of The Dungeon House meant that I focused on two women characters, Hannah and Joanna Footit, although Daniel does make a crucial intervention late on in the story. But I'm pleased that several discerning readers are keen to see more of him, and the plot idea for the next book does mean that Daniel is likely to be much more significant.

To a large extent, this is just happenstance, but I do think carefully about what sympathetic readers and reviewers say about my books. It's quite invaluable feedback, and I'm grateful for it. Ultimately, the writer has to decide how to approach their book, and it is a mistake to worry excessively about reviews, but I am sure that many writers share my view that constructive comments and suggestions are more than welcome. . . .

Forgotten Book - The Man Whose Dreams Came True

The Man Whose Dreams Came True is a novel published by Julian Symons in 1968, and although it is a Forgotten Book, it should not be. I borrowed a copy from the local library not long after it came out, having recently discovered Symons,and I thought it was terrific. I still do. Symons' cynical wit is much in evidence, and the plot is wonderfully twisty and ironic. As with its immediate predecessor, The Man Who Killed Himself, Symons was working very much in the tradition of Anthony Berkeley/Francis Iles, while producing a novel that was distinctive and thoroughly entertaining.

Tony Jones is a good-looking but feckless young man who has plenty of ambitions, but neither the money nor the character - it seems - to realise them. When we are introduced to him, he is working for a crusty old general as his secretary, and indulging in a variety of petty fiddles as well as an affair with a local girl who is - like several characters in the book - not all that she seems.

Things don't work out for Tony in this job, and he soon drifts into an affair with an older woman, before a new job, working for the wealthy husband of a sexy woman, seems to offer him that long-awaited chance to make his dreams come true. There are numerous excellent plot complications, and plenty of surprises before Tony finds his destiny.

This is a very readable story, which stands up well nearly fifty years after it was written. Yes, the price of a flight to Venezuela has changed, and so have some of the other specifics in the storyline, but Symons describes human folly with cool insight as well as humour. Returning to this book so long after I first read it, I definitely was not disappointed, and if you track it down, I don't think you will be, either.

The Paradine Case - film review

The Paradine Case is a 1948 film by Alfred Hitchcock, in which the Master of Suspense tried his hand at a courtroom drama. It's an American film, with notable American actors in two of the leading roles, but it's set in Britain, mainly at the Old Bailey and in a somewhat thinly evoked Cumberland (where one of the locals speaks in a bizarre mixture of cod-Northern accents - dear old Hitchcock may have been a Brit, but I don't think he had much of a clue about the North of England.)

The set-up is this. A wealthy blind man has been poisoned. His attractive foreign wife (played by Alida Valli, credited simply as Valli) is charged with his murder. Charles Coburn is her solicitor, and he hires Tony Keane (Gregory Peck), a top defence barrister, to represent her. Things start to go awry when Tony unwisely falls in love with his client, much to the distress of his wife. She is played by Ann Todd, who was born in Hartford, thus making her one of the very few famous actresses to hail from my old stamping ground, Northwich!

Tony travels to the scene of the crime in the Lake District, where he encounters the deceased's moody valet (Louis Jourdan), whose bizarre behaviour seems highly suspicious.  There are various possibilities. The accused may be guilty, she may have conspired with the valet, the valet may be guilty, or the dead man may have committed suicide. The main focus, however, is not really on whodunit but on Tony's conduct of the case, and his handling, or rather mishandling, of his relationships with his client and his wife. I'm afraid, though, that I found Tony rather irritating.

The cast includes Charles Laughton as the satyr-like judge, and Leo G. Carroll (whom I  remember rather fondly from The Man From UNCLE) as counsel for the prosecution. It's quite a good film, but for me, there was far too much soap-opera standard emoting, and not enough suspense. Not typical Hitchcock, by any means. I'm glad I've seen it, but give me North by North West, Rear Window or Vertigo any day..

Down Among the Dead Men by Peter Lovesey - review

The publication of a new book by Peter Lovesey is always a cause for pleasure. I've been a fan of his work since I came across his Victorian mysteries when I was a student, and since then I've followed his career with a mixture of admiration and delight. There are so many highlights in his backlist that it's hard to pick favourites, but mine include the much-lauded The False Inspector Dew, On the Edge, Bertie and the Seven Bodies, and The Secret Hangman. A very varied group  of books, and I haven't even mentioned his brilliant short stories...

The Secret Hangman is an entry in the consistently excellent Peter Diamond series, and so is Peter's latest, Down Among the Dead Men, in which Diamond is reunited with an old acquaintance, Hen Mallin. One of the reasons why this long-running series remains so fresh is that Lovesey is constantly varying his approach. You never quite know what to expect, even though Diamond is a reassuring and likeable presence, and the blend of originality and familiarity works a treat. This is a strong entry in the series.

The first chapter is set seven years in the past. A car thief gets more than he bargained for when he nicks someone's motor, and something unexpected is found in the boot. We move rapidly to the present day, and a group of A Level students are introduced to their new art teacher, whom they instantly fancy. But what happened to his predecessor, who disappeared suddenly and without explanation?

The plot thickens as Diamond and his boss Georgina Dalloway are called in to investigate apparent serious misconduct on the part of a senior officer in another force. The case causes Diamond anguish for more than one reason, and in due course he and Georgina find themselves drawn into the mystery of the missing teacher. What's more, other people have been going missing as well...

Peter Lovesey possesses many talents as a writer, but to my mind one of his great gifts is that freshness of approach. It's easy, when writing traditional fiction, to remain in the comfort zone of formula, but Peter, like his good friends and contemporaries, the much-missed Reg Hill and Bob Barnard, has remained determined to keep trying something a little different, while making sure that his army of fans are supplied with enough ingredients to keep them satisfied, and hungry for his next story, whatever it may be.

Forgotten Book - Tidings of Joy

Today's Forgotten Book is a collaborative effort from 1936 by two writers who strike me as an interesting if slightly unlikely partnership. Tidings of Joy was one of a handful of titles co-written by George Goodchild and C.E. Bechhofer Roberts. I first came across Goodchild's detective fiction when I was a small boy, while Roberts is someone I discovered much more recently - and I was rather intrigued, and perhaps surprised, to be told by a rare book dealer that his crime fiction is enthusiastically collected by some people.

Goodchild had a long and prolific career, and is best known for his novels and short stories about Inspector McLean. When I was a young boy, my grandmother lived with us, and every week she read "The Weekly News",which I started to read too. McLean stories were a staple of "The Weekly News",and for a time I enjoyed reading them -until, aged about ten,  I realised they were becoming very formulaic indeed.

Roberts was an interesting character, an Englishman with strong German connections at a time when that probably led to a degree of ostracism. He was fascinated by criminology, among many other things. Spiritualism was a particular interest, but he became very sceptical, as is clear from his portrayal of a dodgy duo involved in spiritualism in Tidings of Joy.

The eponymous Joy is a wealthy woman with a habit of widowhood. She and her latest husband, a drunk, are involved in  a car crash, and rescued by a young British doctor called Connell. Joy takes af fancy to the doctor, which he reciprocates at first, before realising she is a dangerous woman to know. The plot thickens from there. It's a light but reasonably unorthodox mystery which I found highly readable. Sayers admired an earlier book by this pair, and I hope to be writing more about them before long.

Forgotten Book - The Red Redmaynes

The Red Redmaynes was published by Eden Philpotts in 1922, the year in which he celebrated his 60th birthday. He had come to detective fiction relatively late, and to this day he remains best known for his books set in and around his beloved Dartmoor (which also features in this story.) He is also remembered as someone who knew the young Agatha Christie, gave her advice, and was the dedicatee of one of her novels.

The Red Redmaynes isn't a tightly plotted whodunit with a large pool of suspects of the kind for which Christie, Anthony Berkeley and others would become celebrated later in the same decade, but it does boast one notable plot twist, a pleasing device that on its own suffices to lift the story out of the ordinary. Another notable feature is that the "great detective", an American called Peter Ganns, only makes an appearance in the second half of the story. There's a particular reason why Philpotts deployed this unusual structural device, but to explain why would be a spoiler.

Throughout the book we follow a likeable thirtysomething Scotland Yard man, who comes across Robert Redmayne while holidaying in the south west, and then encounters a pretty young woman who, he discovers to his dismay, is happily married. But then her husband disappears, presumably murdered by Robert Redmayne, who also goes missing.

The plot thickens nicely from that point, although by today's standards the story moves at a fairly slow pace. Its unorthodoxy kept me interested, and I'm rather surprised that Philpotts wasn't invited to join the Detection Club when it was formed a few years later. Perhaps Anthony Berkeley or Dorothy L. Sayers didn't approve of his work, but I'm not sure why that would be, given that the Club's founder members included some relatively minor talents. A little mystery about a rather interesting writer.

The Writing Life

The writer's life is often said to be a solitary one, although I guess there are plenty of people whose experience of office life makes this seem attractive rather than lonely. But I realised some time ago that one of the sub-texts of this blog is that it reflects my belief that, even for a mid-list writer who is far from being a mega-seller, the writing life can be hugely appealing. It's a belief that has survived some mishaps in my writing career, as well as many very happy moments, and one point I often make when giving talks about writing is that, in fact, the writing life offers plenty of opportunities for enjoyable socialising.

As The Golden Age of Murder explains, the Detection Club enjoyed great success because it offered the first social network for writers. Even those who prefer our own company much of the time can still relish the chance of an occasional get-together with like-minded people. Last week brought varied opportunities for me to enjoy social occasions with other writers.



These included dinner with Douglas Stewart, whom I've featured on this blog more than once before. Doug is a fellow lawyer as well as fellow crime writer, and he was stopping over at Manchester Airport on his way from the Isle of Man to Las Vegas. It was great to catch up with him, as well as with a mutual friend who was also a colleague of mine for many years. Not all social events with lawyers are fun, in my experience, but this one definitely was..

Next came a wonderful trip to Oxford in the company of Peter Gibbs, a highly successful writer for television and stage, as well as a novelist whose Settling the Score is one of the best novels ever written about professional sport. Peter introduced me to Vincent's, a sportsman's club in the heart of the city which (given my lack of sporting prowess) I never even knew existed. Fascinating. Peter was once a prominent professional cricketer, not far short of Test match standard, and I really used to enjoy watching him bat. A highlight of our trip was being shown round the cricket pavilion in the Parks where his name is emblazoned on the boards listing the Oxford cricket Blue who have played in the University match. We also attended a drinks party at Balliol hosted by the Society of Authors - an excellent organisation which provides a great deal of helpful advice to authors. If you are eligible to join, I strongly recommend membership.



And then there was a lunch in Boroughbridge for members of the Northern Chapter of the Crime Writers' Association. It was great to see there Peter N. Walker, who founded the Chapter 28 years ago. I met Peter and his wife Rhoda at that first meeting, and we've been friends ever since. By one of those strange coincidences, Peter was the author of the books on which Heartbeat was based - and the lead screenwriter for Heartbeat was,,,Peter Gibbs.It's a small world.

Again, the CWA, and its regional chapters, offer a great deal to members, and I've benefited enormously from being a part of the Northern Chapter. I very much hope that any authors who feel they'd benefit from meeting pleasant and like-minded people will consider joining up with a writers' organisation. If my experience is anything to go by, you will never regret it..





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