Martin Edwards's Blog, page 187

Golden Age reflections

A couple of days before Christmas, I was interviewed on the phone by a journalist from one of the main national newspapers. He was asking me why I thought there was such a revival of interest in Golden Age detective fiction at the moment. I came up with a number of reasons, but I'd also love to know the opinions of readers of this blog. Why - assuming that you agree there is such a revival - do you think it's happening right now? As for the journalist (someone I've often read, but never spoken to previously) I was impressed to learn that he'd just read no fewer than eight Golden Age books, including several British Library Crime Classics -  in quick succession - and he'd very much enjoyed them.

Among a number of Christmas treats was a unique one, as far as I am concerned. Someone who has a wonderful collection of Golden Age rarities allowed me the chance to read an unpublished manuscript of a novel of detection by a well-regarded Golden Age writer. Quite thrilling, and definitely a privilege. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I'm not completely sure why it was never published (though naturally I'm tempted to guess/invent a story about it.). I'd love to see the story published, and I'm in discussions about this possibility,but it's far from straightforward, and I really don't know if it will happen. I will say more about this book at a later date.

Now that my work on The Golden Age of Murder is pretty much completed, I'm also doing some more reading as I work on more anthologies for the British Library. These are aimed mainly at readers who are relatively unfamiliar with Golden Age fiction, and of course it is exceptionally difficult to find good stories that are not well-known to fans  However, I've set myself an informal goal of including in each book a minimum of two stories (preferably more) that are genuinely obscure and unlikely to have been read by more than a small number of people.

In this aim I've been assisted by a number of friends, and also one or two correspondents whom I've never met. And now, I wonder, are there any readers of this blog who can point me in the direction of an enjoyable but more or less unknown Golden Age short story (treating the Golden Age here very broadly, so as to extend beyond the inter-war period) and with a setting in a country house or the countryside generally? If so, I'd love to hear from you.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death - Sky 1 TV review

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death aired on Sky 1 this evening,with Ashley Jensen playing the eponymous Agatha. It was based on the book of the same name written by M.C. Beaton, a prolific and extremely popular author of light mysteries. She also created Hamish Macbeth, who made the transition to television almost twenty years ago. I read a couple of the Macbeth books, but I've never read the Agatha Raisin series, so I am not sure how faithful the screenplay was to the original.

It's essentially a comedy thriller, and I've seen it described in the media as something of a reaction to dark and broodiing Scandinavian dramas.(My own feeling on that score is that there is, and always should be, room for all the different types of crime stories, ranging from darkest noir to fluffiest cosy and everything in between.) There are a number of shows of this type around at present - Death in Paradise and Father Brown have both enjoyed more success than many would have expected, while Grantchester has quickly earned a loyal following. As with Father Brown and Grantchester, there's more than a touch of Midsomer about the lovely rural setting of this story.

Agatha is a hard-nosed PR expert who has made a packet and sold her company so that she can relocate to a life of peace in the Cotswolds. (I also thought I spotted a scene set at the Bristol hotel which is home to Crimefest). She does not fit in to village life,and decides to cheat her way to success in the annual quiche making contest, a plan that backfires when her quiche appears to be responsible for the death by poisoning of the judge of the contest, the local Lothario.

This was a two hour show - in other words, rather longer than episodes of Father Brown and Death in Paradise - and this enabled the scriptwriter to establish the characters, and basic situation, although to me it seemed on the long side for such a lightweight piece. There were a number of good jokes, and Ashley Jensen's performance was energetic and engaging. I can't say that it had me on the edge of my seat, and it wasn't as funny or as sharp as The Wrong Mans, which returned to the screen the other day in a two-part episode that I very much enjoyed, but it passed the time pleasantly enough..

Forgotten Book - Family Matters

Family Matters, my latest Forgotten Book, isn't set at Yuletide, but Christmas is a family time of year, so perhaps it's an appropriate choice. The novel dates from 1934. It is one of four books that C.E. Vulliamy published before the Second World War under the name Anthony Rolls, although he wrote several crime novels under his own name in later years. Way back in 2009, I wrote a blog post about his
The family of the title is the Kewdinghams (one of Vulliamy's quirks is a taste for unusual surnames; I suppose he was trying to avoid the risk of libel, but the overall effect is off-putting, at least to me.) Robert, age 47, has been unemployed since he lost his job in the Slump, and he lives increasingly in a fantasy world. His wife, Bertha, is some years younger, attractive, and fed up. She has two admirers, one of them a doctor, the other a novelist.

I don't want to say too much about the way in which the story develops, because if you read it, you'll find it a pleasure to come afresh to the central situation which makes this book very distinctive. Suffice to say that it is to do with poisons. Dorothy L. Sayers heaped praise on this book, but even she admitted that she had no idea whether what Vulliamy was saying about poisons was accurate. I didn't find it especially convincing, but that didn't matter much. It's a very, very good set-up, handled with plenty of irony and satire.

I became engrossed in the situation and the characters, but I did feel that once a death finally occurs, Vulliamy became so preoccupied with unravelling the tangle he'd created that he lost sight of the characters, and this for me was the flaw that deprives the book of the status of absolute classic. Vulliamy was influenced by Francis Iles, but in the three Iles books, the psychology of the central characters remains of critical importance from start to finish. I think that is, in part, why Iles' books, or at least the first two, have stood the test of time better. But Vulliamy was a fascinating writer, and this is a book I can warmly recommend. There is also an excellent review on the Pretty Sinister blog, and an equally good article about the author by Curtis Evans in issue 68 of CADS - Curt commented on my original post about Rolls/Vulliamy, and it remains the case today, as then, that his crime fiction deserves to be reprinted.

Ghost Stories for Christmas

Ghost stories are often told around Christmas, and I'm getting into the seasonal mood by writing one myself, for a forthcoming anthology. It's provisionally entitled "Through the Mist". I've dabbled in the genre before, and in the spring, I had the, for me, unusual experience of recording one of my own stories, the ghost story "No Flowers", for an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast. Great fun.

I've also been getting into the right frame of mind by reading more of Robert Aickman's stories of the uncanny - four collections of his stories were republished earlier this year by Faber, and they are excellent and memorable. They are, really, stories of the uncanny, rather than just ghost stories, and all sorts of strange, often inexplicable things, happen in them. Strongly recommended.

I've also started reading Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Face in the Glass, a paperback collection of stories published by the British Library, who get everywhere these days, and a very good thing too. I've written about Mrs Braddon
This is my last blog post until Boxing Day, but from then on, I'll be scheduling daily posts until early January, as I've noticed that readership of the blog usually rises quite sharply at around this time of year (an escape from seasonal merriment or just because there's more time to read? I'm not sure.) Before I go, I'd like to wish all readers of this blog a very merry Christmas, and to say thanks once again for your interest and support, your comments and your emails. Very much appreciated.

The Long Kiss Goodnight - film review

I missed The Long Kiss Goodnight when it first came out back in 1996, and only now have I caught up with it. I'm glad I did, because this is an action thriller with a difference. The Christmassy background is appealing, but what really makes the movie work is a winning combination of action and wit,with excellent performances from several very bankable actors.

Sam Caine (Geena Davis) is a schoolteacher living in Pennsylvania who is trying to solve a mystery of her own. She suffers from a severe case of amnesia (and trivia buffs will no doubt spot that her very name is a relevant anagram) and has no memory of her life prior to eight years ago. She was pregnant at the time she lost her memory, and has a young daughter, but no idea of the father's identity. She is now in love with a decent man, but has spent a lot of money on trying to find out who she is. Now she is scraping the barrel by engaging the services of Mitch, a dodgy gumshoe played by Samuel L. Jackson.

After Sam is involved in a car accident, suffering concussion, her memory starts to come back. It soon emerges that she has skills with a knife. and when she is attacked by an escaped convict who bears her a grudge, she dispatches him with deadly efficiency. Soon it becomes clear that her past life was very different, and very dangerous. With Mitch's help, she makes contact with a former colleague, played by Brian Cox, but then her past catches up with her in dramatic fashion. The excellent cast also includes Patrick Malahide, one of my favourite screen bad guys (even though he did play good old Inspector Alleyn as well).

All in all, the film stands up very well despite the passage of time since it was first screened. Part of the credit for this goes to the actors, and in particular Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. But much of the success of the film is, I think, due to the quality of the writing. There's plenty of humour in the screenplay, and a couple of twists near the end are neatly foreshadowed in earlier scenes - a sign of careful writing. Shane Black, the writer, is well-known for his action thrillers, and this accomplished story is highly entertaining.

Finishing a Book

When is a book finished? Now, I'm sure some people may think that a silly question. After all, I'm an author. If I don't know the answer, there's not much hope for me, right? Yet I don't think the answer is as obvious as it may seem. When you reach "the end", it may only be the end of the beginning. Integral to the process of writing a book is the process of revision. And that can sometimes seem an endless task.

I've "finished" two books lately, one a novel, one a non-fiction book, not to mention a handful of short stories. But I always find it rather difficult to let go, knowing that more work can, almost always, improve a piece of writing. There have to be limits, though, otherwise one would never get anything published.

My latest novel, another Lake District Mystery, is a book I'm excited about, because I feel it's the best in the series to date. Its provisional title is The Dungeon House. Yet there is always the temptation to refine a manuscript, searching for a bit more insight into character and setting, maybe one or two pithier phrases or metaphors. All the more so with a book that (as mine tend to do) has quite a large cast of characters. How can I make it easier for readers to follow what is going on, without making it too easy and the puzzles too obvious? Every day fresh ideas spring to mind. But you have to draw a line somewhere.

The same is true of The Golden Age of Murder. With non-fiction, the challenge is different but equally real. There is always more information to be discovered, more source material to find. This is a book which covers a huge amount of ground, and it is in the nature of such a book that there are gaps. I'm limited by the scope of my own reading - so why not spend more time reading around the subject, before finally sending off the manuscript? There is always more to learn...

Up to a point, such anxieties are reasonable, but any author needs to come to terms with the limits of what is realistically achievable. My answer to the question about when a book is finished is this. When I feel confident enough for readers to see it, and that is when I feel that, despite any imperfections that may remain, it's as good as I can make it within a reasonable period of time. In the end, an author does need to be willing to let go, and face up to the judgment of readers, recognising that it's impossible to please everyone. We strive, as writers, for perfection, knowing that we can never truly attain it. But if we do our best to entertain and, perhaps, inform, that's a job worth doing. And with the next book, the challenge is to make the end product even better....

And the latest runaway bestseller is....

I was truly delighted to read a terrific and very timely article in today's Independent, telling the story of Mystery in White. Sales of the book are now already at 60,000 - in a matter of weeks. I've talked
Take Scandi crime, for instance. I was reading Sjowall and Wahloo, and the (still) much less well known Poul Orum in my teens, and remember wondering why so few people seemed to take an interest in them. It's really only in the last few years that a combination of good books, good publishing, television, and a little luck have combined to make Nordic Noir seem to be omnipresent. A reaction is setting in now, possibly, but even as public tastes shift, it will remain true that there are many very fine Scandinavian novels out there - and not just those published in recent times.

In Britain and the US, and to some extent elsewhere, the "Golden Age" between the wars saw an explosion of interest in well-plotted whodunits (and some that weren't so well plotted). Countless people had a go at writing them. The reaction, when it came after the Second World War, was correspondingly severe. Apart from Christie and a few other "Crime Queens", Golden Age auhtors and their work generally fell out of favour.

I've always loved them, though, and I began thinking about the book that eventually became The Golden Age of Murder a good many years ago (so long ago, I kept a card index at one time of my researches; that "system" didn't last!) I suppose the success of the British Library Classic Crime books shows that, if one is patient for long enough, the roulette wheel of public taste will move in one's favour. It's a shame that J. J. Farjeon is not around to see how popular his book has become in the 21st century, but it's nevertheless a heart-warming story - a reminder to authors that the books we write may, just possibly, enjoy a good life long after we are gone.

Forgotten Book - Casual Slaughters

Today's Forgotten Book is a scarce title by a Golden Age author who displayed enough talent in his brief career to make one regret that he did not continue to write detective stories. The title (a good one, as so many Shakespearean titles are) is Casual Slaughters, and the author is James Quince. James Who? do you ask? Well, his reputation has certainly faded in the eighty-plus years that have passed since his last novel appeared. But he deserves to be rescued from literary oblivion.

James Quince was a pseudonym that concealed the identity of James Reginald Spittal. Spittal attended London University and Salisbury Theological College, and was ordained in 1898. He was at one time the vicar at Holy Trinity church in Lambeth, and among his various other posts, I'm sure one or two must have been rural parishes.. In 1930, he turned to detective fiction with some success. His first two books were published by Hodder, but they seem to have dropped him, and Casual Slaughters was published by a smaller firm. I find that puzzling, because it's a splendid read, and I feel lucky that my copy is signed by the author, because I suspect there aren't many such copies knocking around.

The tale makes excellent use of the author's knowledge of the type of people who become involved with a Parochial Church Council. The book opens and ends with a PCC meeting, and it's due to the PCC's decision-making that a corpse is discovered in a village graveyard. In due course, another death occurs. The book is narrated by a bachelor called Blundell, and I came up with a solution to Quince's puzzle that I thought rather ingenious. Sadly it was wrong...

The strength of this book lies in Quince's wry humour, which has worn pretty well, on the whole. The interplay of characters is very nicely done, and I'm sure he drew on his own experiences of English village life in evoking the mood and setting. The Rector, unsurprisingly, is especially well done. It's a quiet book, but fun to read, and I'm disappointed that he never wrote another. Perhaps pastoral duties became too pressing. But I've just acquired his first book, The Tin Town, and very much look forward to reading it. Even more so after reading this review by Curt Evans, which - in a coincidence so spooky that it really ought to trigger some sort of mystery plot - appeared on the same day as this review. You know how it is, you wait decades for a review of a book by James Quince, and then two turn up at once....

Niagara - movie review

Niagara is a 1953 movie, directed by Henry Hathaway, which I found tucked away on the tv schedules. It was described as "Hitchcockian" and starred Marilyn Monroe, and these twin temptations proved irresistible. And I'm glad I watched it, although it doesn't rank as a classic crime film by a long stretch. The most memorable aspect of the film is not even Marilyn, but the vivid photography of Niagara Falls, which play a key part in the story-line.

Casey Adams and Jean Peters play a honeymooning couple whose cabin at the Falls is taken by another pair, George and Rose Loomis, played by Monroe and Joseph Cotten. Monroe is young and sexy, but her husband is jealous and depressive. It soon emerges that he has plenty to be jealous and depressed about, since his wife is encouraging her lover to kill him.

There are a few pleasing plot developments, but on the whole the story is commonplace. In a sense, the story-line is that of a film noir - but Niagara is shot in glorious Technicolor. The contradiction is by no means utterly fatal to the mood of unhealthy emotional tension, but it does contribute to the slightly unrealistic "feel" of the film. You can have a "noir" film shot in sunlight and colour- the brilliant Body Heat is an example - but Niagara  isn't in the same league as Lawrence Kasdan's masterpiece.

Niagara is, perhaps, an attempt to focus more on the characters' emotional lives than the typical Hitchcock thriller. Again, though, this was much better done years later in Body Heat. When a film is described as "Hitchcockian", one expects edge-of-the-chair suspense, of the kind delivered in some of the best thrillers by Chabrol and Truffaut. Niagara is a lesser work, but still worth watching. And it does make me want to visit those Falls....

The Missing - BBC One - final episode review (no spoilers)

The Missing came to an end on BBC 1 tonight, after eight weeks of mounting tension. I don't intend to say anything in this post that amounts to a spoiler, which limits the scope of my comments. But one thing I can say is that, for me,this series was second only to the superb Happy Valley as British television crime series of the year. I said when reviewing
A great deal of credit goes to the writers, Harry and Jack Williams, as well as to an excellent cast. James Nesbitt and Frances O'Connor were brilliant as the parents whose five year old son goes missing during a holiday in France, portraying with great sensitivity the trauma of such a terrible experience,and also the different ways in which their characters struggled to deal with an almost unimaginable calamity.

I say 'almost' unimaginable,because I suspect many, perhaps most, parents have found themselves contemplating, at one time or another, what it would feel like if such a catastrophe tore their lives apart. But it's not the sort of thing one wants to dwell on for very long. For me, the emotions portrayed in some scenes of The Missing were almost too much to bear.

That's not to say it was a perfect story in terms of plotting, and I had mixed feelings about the one or two aspects of the final episode, and the final scene in particular. Some viewers, I know, have found the switches between events surrounding the disappearance and those of the present day quite hard to follow, although I felt the transitions were done quite smoothly, given the complexity of the story structure. Overall, this was a powerful and affecting drama, and one that will stay in my mind for a long time.