Martin Edwards's Blog, page 188

Bodies in the Bookshop

I've just received my author copy of Bodies in the Bookshop, edited by L.C. Tyler and Ayo Onatade, and published by Ostara Books in association with Richard Reynolds of Heffers Bookshop, Cambridge, who contributes a foreword. The idea of the book was to pay tribute to independent bookshops everywhere, and also to celebrate Heffers' annual "Bodies in the Bookshop" event.

The concept was that the stories would tackle one of four themes: books, bookshops, Cambridge, or libraries, although as things turned out, libraries do not really feature. Len, Ayo and Richard are three highly respected figures in the British crime writing community, and although I've never managed to attend the Heffers event because of day job commitments, when I was approached quite some time ago with a view to contributing a new story, I was more than happy to come up with an idea.

When time passed with no sign of the book appearing, however, I rewrote my story, and the revised version, called  "Acknowledgments", happily for me, won the CWA Margery Allingham Prize. Then, at a time when I was unsure whether the anthology would come into being, Ostara - an admirable imprint - stepped in. They took over publication, and of course I had to write something fresh. The result was "Lucky Liam", which was inspired by my trip to the North East, and Hartlepool in particular, earlier this year. I'm delighted to see it in print, and my warmest congratulations go to Len, Ayo and Richard. Suffice to say that I suspect they now share my view that producing anthologies is trickier and more time-consuming than it may seem!

The sub-title of the book is "A literary showcase of crime stories from 20 masters of the genre", and I must say that the other authors include many of my favourites, including Peter Lovesey, Andrew Taylor and Simon Brett (all CWA Diamond Dagger winners) along with Christopher Fowler, Chris Ewan, Michelle Spring, Ann Cleeves, Kate Charles and...well the list goes on and on. I'm glad to be in such prestigious company. I've not yet read the other stories, but I'm very much looking forward to doing so.

Forgotten Book - Who Was Old Willy?

Today's forgotten book is Who Was Old Willy? Ah, they don't come up with titles like that any more! The author was Milward Kennedy, and the book came out in 1940. It's possibly Kennedy's least known mystery story, and an unusual feature is that it is clearly aimed at young readers. But it's short and snappy and I found it rather quaint and appealing.

Kennedy explains that the original concept was that the story would give rise to a competition for young detectives. The question they had to answer was, indeed, about the identity of the eponymous Old Willy. The competition was a joint effort, involving The Sunday Times (for which Kennedy had been a crime reviewer), the publishers and the Junior Book Club. The newspaper was planning to hold a Book Fair, but "Hitler interfered with our plans", as Kennedy put it. The Book Fair was postponed, and so was publication of the book. The competition never happened.

But the book offers a "challenge to the reader" of essentially the same type as so many Ellery Queen novels, as well as others by the likes of Rupert Penny and Anthony Berkeley, and Kennedy is generous enough to offer a hint to would-be sleuths to help them to figure things out. It's a game, then, and one that is pleasantly contrived.

Our hero is a young boy called Harry, who befriends a mysterious and eccentric old codger, who has shut himself off from the outside world and secluded himself in a house called Woodsomes. In due course, Harry finds Willy's dead body, but this isn't a murder story. The mystery is one of identity, because it turns out that Willy was not only rich, but has left an intriguing will. Kennedy supplies several clues, and manages to strike the right note for a young readership in constructing his story. But timing is important in so many areas of life, and the unlucky timing of this book's appearance meant that it made no lasting impression. I've never seen any discussion of it anywhere, but the first time I came across a copy for sale, I snapped it up, and I'm glad I did so. I think it supplies a delightful reminder of Kennedy's talent..

Top Ten Favourite Books About Crime Fiction

Prompted by a question posed by Lisa Shevin on the very informative Golden Age Detection Facebook forum, I've put together a list of my favourite books about the crime genre. Of course, such lists should never be taken too seriously, especially when I'm responsible for them, since I'm perfectly capable of changing my mind in a matter of hours, or forgetting titles that really should be unforgettable.

I've limited myself in three ways. First, by including only one book per author. Second, by excluding any book to which I've contributed, which rules out quite a few that I'm very fond of. Third, by excluding books about Sherlock Holmes - so many exist that they deserve a list of their own. Even so, there are many excellent books that I have enjoyed and learned from, including quite a number by good friends, that aren't on the list. So, with all those caveats (but then, I am a lawyer...), here goes:

10. The Letters of Dorothy L Sayers, vol. one. Edited by the estimable Barbara Reynolds, and the first of five remarkable collections of Sayers' correspondence,this book provides great insight into the mind and life of an extraordinary writer.

9. Whodunit? ed. H.R.F. Keating. This is a likeable book, a mixture of author bios, essays by various hands, and much more besides. I referred to it constantly in the 80s and 90s and it introduced me to some terrific novels.

8. Murder for Pleasure by Howard Haycraft. An early study of the genre, which contains bags of information, but presents it in an extremely readable form (something that can't always be said of othewise excellent books.)

7. John Dickson Carr: the man who explained miracles, by Douglas G. Greene. I was first urged to read this many years ago by Peter Lovesey, and his recommendation was spot on. Excellent about Carr, and also about the Detection Club; Doug's research was most helpful when I was working on The Golden Age of Murder.

6. A Catalogue of Crime by Barzun and Taylor. This book contains pithy paragraphs about countless otherwise obscure novels, short stories and anthologies, and more besides. The opinions are sometimes maddening,and I still marvel that they thought Knutsford (more famous as the setting for Cranford than as the town of my birth) is in Ireland. But then, all books about the genre contain mistakes - a recent example is the "academic" book that describes Ronald Knox as an American. The real test of merit is whether the book enthuses the reader, and I love this one, for all its faults.

5. Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran. John's detective work in deciphering the notebooks and putting them into context is quite riveting. No book gives a more revealing insight into the creation of classic detective novels (though there's a brilliant chapter in Barbara Reynolds' biography of Dorothy L. Sayers that is also gripping.).

4. The Collector's Guide to Detective Fiction by John Cooper and Barry Pike. This contains lots of information about (mostly) Golden Age writers, and is a real treasure trove, with fantastic illustrations of old jackets that I find irresistible. The authors are two British doyens of writing about the Golden Age whose insights I've long admired, and learned from..

3. Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, ed. John Reilly. The first two voluminous editions of this book again taught me a great deal about many writers I'd never heard of before. There is some fascinating stuff here, and I devoured it in my younger days. Two later editions, with different editors, did include essays by me, but Reilly's version was in many ways definitive.

2. Locked Room Murders by Robert Adey. This is sheer fun - an account of pretty much every locked room/impossible crime story -with solutions in a separate section. I sometimes read extracts during library talks, and the audiences really enjoy the snippets. Masterly research, superbly and economically presented.

1. Bloody Murder by Julian Symons. This has to be my number one. As will be seen when The Golden Age of Murder is published, I challenge quite a few of Julian's opinions, and he is apt to be criticised by some Golden Age fans. Part of this is due to his trenchancy, more of it is due to the fact that he was covering a vast amount of material in a short span - you simply can't cover every base in a book that purports to cover even a fraction of the history of crime fiction, let alone the whole of it. But it is supremely readable and well-written, and I know many people, otherwise not really interested in books about the genre, who love it. Symons was writing for the 'typical' reader rather than the specialist (and that, to be truly successful, demands a higher level of accessibility and readability than writing for specialists) but he manages to cover a vast amount of ground with aplomb.

Writing about the Crime Genre

I'm fascinated not only by crime fiction, but also by books about the genre. This stems from my teens, when I first read Julian Symons' Bloody Murder, and learned a great deal about my favourite form of entertainment reading. One of the many strengths of the book is the pointers that Symons gives to titles worth reading (including many that took me a very long time to track down - one or two I've still never seen) and I continue to refer to it regularly. Another great merit of the book, by the way, is that Symons' prose is lean and highly readable.

The book prompted me to write a letter that was the closest I've ever come to sending a fan letter. Shortly after I left university, I had the temerity to drop Symons a line, and tell him how much I admired his book - but I questioned one or two things he'd said about Francis Iles' books, and suggested that he might have mentioned C.S. Forester's Payment Deserved, which somewhat anticipates Malice Aforethought, To my delight (and surprise) he responded with a charming and very thoughtful letter; he was well aware of Forester's book, and in fact he included it in a revised edition of Bloody Murder. He had a reputation in some quarters as being a rather grumpy chap, but I found him delightful, and did so all over again, when I  met him in person two or three times, many years later.He was clearly happy to debate opinions that conflicted with his own, as long as they were expressed in a courteous and measured way, and that is surely one of the marks of a civilised mind.

Since then, I've devoured scores and scores of books about the genre in all its aspects. On Thursday, I plan to write a post about ten favourites, but now let me just mention some new or forthcoming books by friends that are quite excellent, although like many other fine books, they are not in the list. I'll be covering B.J. Rahn's The World of Sherlock Holmes shortly, and I'm very much looking forward to an ebook reissue of Jessica Mann's Deadlier than the Male which will become available soon - details to follow.

And then there's Peter Lewis's Eric Ambler: a literary biography, a revised edition of which is now available from Endeavour Press as an ebook and via Createspace in print form..Peter contributed a
Last week, Curt Evans included on his blog an interesting piece which focused on writing about the Golden Age, and mentioned The Golden Age of Murder in very positive terms. As Curt anticipates, my views differ from those of Symons and Colin Watson (whose Snobbery With Violence is nevertheless a very good read) in numerous respects. Both men had a clear and credible point of view, but it led them to overlook some of the more interesting sub-texts in Golden Age fiction. Or at least, that's what I think, and that's what The Golden Age of Murder is -in part - about. In the run-up to publication, I'll discuss a number of aspects of my approach to writing the book. It was quite a departure for me, and one that has taken a great deal of work over a good many years. But now, thank goodness, the manuscript has been copy-edited (by another writer about popular culture, in fact) and best of all, Harper Collins have agreed to take on the task of preparing the index! .

Ringing the Changes

Anyone who has ever read and enjoyed Dorothy L. Sayers' famous detective novel The Nine Tailors is likely to be intrigued by campanology, and I'm certainly no exception. After her first few novels, Sayers set about testing the boundaries of the crime genre,and The Nine Tailors integrates plot, setting and theme with considerable subtlety. She was very good on background description, and ahead of her time in this respect, because the background is not superfluous, but relevant to the storyline.

I re-read the book when I was working on The Golden Age of Murder, and was impressed all over again with Sayers' skill. It really is a shame that she only wrote a couple of detective novels after that before turning her attention elsewhere. Had she maintained her zest for the form (and for writing about true crime) she would have left an even more remarkable legacy. Incidentally, I recently read the text of a talk by Professor B.J. Rahn about The Nine Tailors, and when it is published in due course, it will represent a worthy addition to scholarship concerning Sayers's splendid book. Speaking of which, if all goes to plan, I'll be discussing the subject of writing about the genre on this blog both tomorrow and on  Wednesday.

Despite Sayers having fired my interest, I have never actually tried my hand at bell-ringing -not until Saturday, that is. A visit to Cheadle Hulme, and Kate Ellis and her husband Roger was arranged to coincide with the local Victorian day. Our own village of Lymm has had a Dickensian Day in December for many years, and it's a very good way for a community to come together in the run-up to Christmas.

Now Kate and Roger are very experienced and accomplished bell-ringers, and they spent some time demonstrating the knack of bell-ringing to visitors, whilst attired suitably in Victorian dress. Of course, I had to have a go myself. Very enjoyable, too. As in so many areas of life, I didn't quite match up to Lord Peter Wimsey's instinctive prowess, but it is fascinating to hear the bells ring as one pulls on the rope. And I managed to avoid strangling myself with the rope, which apparently is an occupational hazard....

Forgotten Book - Birthday Party

The blog has been quiet for a few days as the death of my cousin has prompted a period of reflection on many things, not least the passage of time. Heather was someone I grew up with, and along with my other cousins, she was the dedicatee of The Frozen Shroud. The note she sent me in response is one I treasure, and to read it again now is poignant. She did a little writing herself, and I suspect that she found, as many of us do, that although writing can be challenging, it can also offer a degree of solace in difficult times.

My Forgotten Book for today was written by C.H.B. Kitchin, a talented novelist whose occasional detective novels have received well-merited praise. However, this particular book has certainly been forgotten. It never seems to be mentioned when Kitchin's crime fiction is discussed (which nowadays, admittedly, isn't very often.) It has recently been reprinted by Valancourt Books for the first time since its original appearance back in 1936. For me, the biggest mystery about Birthday Party is why it's been neglected until now, because I found it gripping.

To describe a novel as "a well-made book" is often a way of damning it with faint praise. But Birthday Party is very well-made, and that's a real strength.. It's a quiet story, and anyone seeking lots of melodramatic action should look elsewhere. But I found that the tension builds steadily, and I carried on reading until the end even when I had many other pressing things to do,because Kitchin had made me care about the characters, flawed though they are.

The story is told by four different people, and the shifting points of view are very well done. They are connected by Carlice Abbey - yes, this is a country house mystery, but with a difference. Isabel Carlice is a sharp-witted single woman who loves the Abbey garden, and continues to look after it after her brother dies in a mysterious gunroom accident - was it an accident, or (more likely) suicide? And if suicide, what was the motive? The dead man's widow, Dora, continues to live at the Abbey, while nursing a secret of her own. Her brother, Stephen, a failed novelist, decides to come to the Abbey to save himself from destitution. And meanwhile, the 21st birthday of young Ronnie is fast approaching - hence the title of the book. Ronnie is an idealistic Communist, and he has ideas of his own about what should happen when he inherits Carlice Abbey. A fifth character, a successful medical man, also plays a crucial part in the story, although he is not one of the narrators.

This story casts fascinating light on the period when it was written; Ronnie's political views were fashionable then, and people like the crime novelist Margaret Cole travelled to Russia, as Ronnie does just prior to his birthday, to marvel at the success Stalin was making of his post-revolution society. People worry in the book about an impending war,and there is a sense of doom which Kitchin conveys with many subtle touches. I like his deft way with words, as well as his ability to spring small surprises. He was a far better novelist than Margaret Cole, and, I suspect, much more perceptive, because much less opinionated and fixed in his views. This is an unusual and ironic crime novel which definitely deserves a wider readership.

Portrait of Alison - film review

Portrait of Alison is a 1956 film based on Francis Durbridge's tv serial of the previous year. In the US, the film was known as Postmark for Danger. The story was written at a time when Durbridge was at the peak of his powers, and of his fame, and the plot includes a host of the devices that one associates with Durbridge - above all, the seemingly commonplace, yet at the same time inexplicable and bizarre item that seems to connect mysterious and murderous events. In this case, the item is a postcard of a bottle of Chianti, in the hand of a woman.

A car crashes in Italy with fatal consequences. An artist working in London, Tim Forrester (Robert Beatty) is told that his brother was at the wheel, and a young woman passenger was killed with him. The bodies are so badly burned as to be unrecognisable, and you don't need to be Paul Temple (who doesn't actually feature in this story) to suspect that all may not be as it seems.

The plot thickens rapidly as Tim is asked by the father of the dead girl, Alison Ford, to paint a portrait of her from a photograph. The photo vanishes, as does Alison's dress, which the father had given to Tim, while the portrait is defaced. Tim discovers all this when he comes home one day - to find the body of his regular model, who happens to be wearing Alison's dress. What can it all mean?

The route to the solution is as twisty as usual with Durbridge. Portrait of Alison is typical of his best work, with a gripping (if unlikely) plot and limited emphasis on characterisation and setting. The performances of the lead actors are rather wooden, I'm afraid, but there is ample compensation in the supporting cast, which is full of notable British character actors of the Fifties and Sixties - the likes of Geoffrey Keen, Raymond Francis, Sam Kydd, Terence Alexander (later renowned as Charlie Hungerford in Bergerac), William Lucas and Allan Cuthbertson (once ubiquitous on the TV screen, and now perhaps best remembered for an episode of Fawlty Towers). Good light entertainment.

Not to be Forgotten Books

No Forgotten Book from me this Friday. Instead, as a tribute to P.D.James, I'd like to focus on one of her not to be forgotten books, and also on her versatility as a writer. The book in question is Devices and Desires,and it first appeared in 1989. This was just after I started reviewing crime fiction, and I remember rhapsodising over the book in a little magazine called The Criminologist, which usually focused on factual stuff about crime, but took me on for a number of years as its solitary reviewer of fiction.

Devices and Desires remains my favourite James. much as I admire books like Death of an Expert Witness, Innocent Blood, A Taste for Death and...well, many others. The plot is strong, but what has always stuck in my mind is the wonderfully atmospheric setting. Particular places inspired her fiction time and again, and here the headland on the Norfolk coast, with its nuclear power station, its ruined abbey, and its mysterious serial killer, is wonderfully well evoked. I treasure my signed copy.

Incidentally, the book I'm currently writing is not in any sense intended as a homage to James, and is very different from her work, but it too concerns a remote coastal setting, where dark deeds take place in the shadow of a nuclear power station...so perhaps there was just a smidgeon of subconscious influence at work.

One point that often is, but should never be, forgotten about James is that she was extremely versatile as a writer.She took great pains over her work, and that is why she was far from prolific in terms of the number of books that she wrote. But consider her range. Adam Dalgliesh is, of course, her most famous character, but she also created one of the best female private eyes - Cordelia Gray. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is a brilliant title, and a good book. And what about her final novel? Death Comes to Pemeberley saw her moving into Jane Austen territory, and the result was another bestseller adapted for television.

She was fascinated by true crime, and co-wrote an excellent study of the Ratcliffe Highway murders, as well as investigating afresh the classic case of Julia Wallace. She wrote a book about crime fiction which is not, in my view, as in-depth as most of her work, but nevertheless highly readable. And when she ventured into science fiction, Children of Men was so successful that it was filmed. Her short stories were few and far between, but they are splendidly fashioned and well worth seeking out. All this combines to form a remarkable span of literary achievements. One more reason to salute this remarkable writer.

P.D. James - a few thoughts

The sad news of P.D. James' death at the age of 94 has prompted heartfelt tributes from her many friends and admirers, including fellow practitioners such as her great friend Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Mark Billingham. We have lost one of the great detective novelists; there's no doubt that when future historians of the genre look back on twentieth century crime fiction, they will rank P.D. James highly. I'll say something more about her detective fiction soon, but for now I will just share a few personal thoughts about her.

I began reading her work in my teens, and soon became hooked. My first encounter with her in person came in the mid-80s, when she was on a publicity tour at the time of publication of the excellent A Taste for Death. I may be a writer now, but I've always been (and always will be) a fan, and when she came to my home town in Cheshire I was delighted to acquire a signed copy of the book. A few years later, when I'd achieved publication, I was asked to co-edit an anthology produced by the East Anglian chapter of the Crime Writers' Association, as I'd previously put together an anthology for the Northern chapter. The result was a book called Anglian Blood, and it contained a mix of fact and fiction. Phyllis was then a member of the CWA (this was before the controversy that sadly led to her resignation) and she was good enough to contribute a short piece called "Is There Arsenic Still for Tea?" A great thrill - my only regret was the book finished up with perhaps the most horrific cover artwork I've ever seen. I dread to think what she thought of it, and took care not to ask!

On the memorable night that I became a member of the Detection Club, I had the joyful experience of sitting with Phyllis, as well as two other writers I'd long admired, Jessica Mann and Simon Brett. More daunting, but also pleasurable in a different way, was the experience of delivering a talk about Golden Age fiction at St Hilda's College, with Phyllis sitting in the front row.

When Simon asked me to become the Detection Club's first archivist, Phyllis proved to be very supportive. She had long taken an interest in the genre's history - she was a passionate admirer of Dorothy L. Sayers, and author of Talking about Detective Fiction - and one day she rang me up out of the blue to tell me about something she'd discovered about the Club's early days. What's more, she promptly sent the material to me. A small thing, perhaps, but indicative of the kindness of which many who knew her better than I did have spoken. Last year, I had the great pleasure of sitting next to her at a dinner, when we discussed The Golden Age of Murder, her researches into the Wallace case (subsequently published in the Sunday Times) and her true crime book, The Maul and the Pear-Tree, co-written with a former colleague, T.A. Critchley.

That night, she and I and Sheila Keating journeyed home from the dinner in a taxi together, and Phyllis regaled us with an account of being awarded the freedom of Lyons. She was witty and convivial, interesting and interested. You'd never have guessed she was 93. A few days ago, Sheila very kindly sent her the manuscript of The Golden Age of Murder, which has just gone through a final copy edit, but the news came back that Phyllis was too frail to read a full-length book. Of course, I like to think that she would have enjoyed it, but I'll never know. What I do know is that she was not only a fine writer, but more importantly a warm and wise woman who showed a great deal of generosity to younger writers, of whom I am just one. Hers, truly, was a life well lived.      

Fight Club - movie review

Fight Club is one of those films that didn't do well at the box office when it was first released fifteen years ago, but it later gained an extensive following as its qualities came to be appreciated. Now, it's well established as a cult movie that is regarded in some quarters as a masterpiece. I'd never got round to watching it until recently, but the director, David Fincher, is someone whose work I've found myself admiring more than once - and I haven't even seen Gone Girl yet.

Edward Norton plays an unnamed young man who suffers from insomnia and works in a stultifying office environment. Failing to get medical help, he attaches himself to various support groups, pretending, amongst other things, to be a cancer sufferer. He encounters the weird but attractive Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) who is another impostor. He tries to shake her off, but she keeps coming back into his life. Another encounter, with the dashing Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) results in the formation of a "fight club". Men fight each other in secret in order (amongst others to channel their despair about their lives). Soon "fight clubs" are springing up all over the US, and a pattern of destructivenss starts to take shape.

There is a memorable plot twist in this film, and although there are spoilers all over the internet, I don't intend to add to them, so my comments about the film have to be guarded. As with Fincher's other movies, I thought there was much to admire here, especially in the acting, the dazzling photography, and a number of witty lines of dialogue. But I did think that the film went on too long, and for me, that slightly reduced its impact. The fight scenes also left me cold, simply because I've always detested the idea of people fighting. Possibly the length of the film was why it was not an instant hit. I am sure, however, that it is one of those films that will repay a second viewing.

The plot twist in Fight Club is one of the best I can remember in a movie, even though I like some of Fincher's other films better. Perhaps my all-time favourite twist is that in The Usual Suspects, and Body Heat is another candidate. Here, Fincher cleverly integrates the twist into the theme of the film. The art of the plot twist fascinates me, but again, it's a subject that is hard to discuss without spoilers. All I can say is that, although it took me far too long to get round to watching Fight Club, I'm glad I did.