Martin Edwards's Blog, page 196

Bargain Corner!

I've been lucky enough to be "featured author" on the Crime Readers' Association site this past month. The CRA is an initiative of the CWA,which is expanding its activities in a variety of ways that will, I am sure, be of benefit to crime fans, whatever their particular tastes in the genre.

To celebrate, my UK publishers Allison & Busby are giving away five copies of The Coffin Trail, the first of the Lake District Mysteries to UK based readers. The details are here. And for those who develop a taste for the Lakes books as a result, The Frozen Shroud is still available in the Amazon Summer Sale at just 99p for the Kindle version.

Forgotten Book - Sudden Death

Exceptionally, my Forgotten Book for today is a nineteenth century crime novel written by a baron, no less, who, for unexplained reasons, never revisited the genre. The author is B.C. Skottowe, and the book is Sudden Death, which has the splendid sub-title My Lady the Wolf. Britiffe Constable (what wonderful forenames!) Skottowe was born in 1857 and died in 1925, a year before the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Sudden Death was first published in 1886, the year before Sherlock Holmes made his debut, so Skottowe certainly ranks as one of our earliest crime writers and was a young man when he wrote this one. And in fact, there is a kind of youthful gusto about the story, which helps to overcome the plausibility deficit. Skottowe was educated at New College, Oxford, and had wide-ranging interests (one of his books was A Short History of Parliament), but sadly, I don't know a great deal more about him.

I first heard about the book when I read Julian Symons' marvellous Bloody Murder. Symons described the book as a particular curiosity, but unfortunately explained why this was so by summarising the story, including the solution. I shall avoid a similar spoiler here. Yet despite knowing the plot, I have wanted to read this book ever since I read what Symons said about it. Unfortunately, the book iss pretty rare, and I've only just tracked down a copy.

The story is told by Jack Buchanan, a wealthy young man, who witnesses a murder committed on  a cliff top by a mysterious woman. She escapes and cannot be traced. Three years later, Jack is spending time in Homburg with a group of equally well-off acquaintances when another murder occurs and the prime suspect - yes! - bears an uncanny resemblance to the cliff top killer. The plot thickens from there.

The prose and literary style of Sudden Death may be quite decorous (if sometimes over the top by modern standards) but the story is really all about sex and sexual ambiguity. It's a strange, uneven story, yet still very readable,and I'm really glad that my long search for it has borne fruit. Symons was right, it is a curiosity. Yes, it's the work of a youthful and inexperienced writer, rather than a mature novelist, but to anyone with a strong interest in Victorian crime fiction, I'd say it is a must-read, not least because of its historical significance. It's a real shame, and also a mystery, that Skottowe never returned to the genre. I can't summon up the same enthusiasm for his history of Parliament.

Top 10 Golden Age novels

Here, as promised, is my highly subjective and apt-to-change-in-the-blink-of-an-eye list of top ten favourite Golden Age detective novels. I've imposed some limitations - just one book per author, and I've focused on detection rather than psychological crime (hence, no room for the wonderful Malice Aforethought.) I've tended to choose books that were in some way very original. Mike Linane made a very good suggestion that I should pick novels that are not too difficult to obtain, and I've gone part of the way to doing this. The Hull book, for instance, was an old green Penguin that you often find in second hand bookshops or at book fairs, although I can't claim that it's very easy to find. The King book was republished by Collins Crime Club in the 80s, and again is not terribly rare. So I hope anyone who wants to track them down will be able to do so, even if it takes a bit of perseverance. Next week, however, I shall develop a theme which Mike put in my mind by listing ten Golden Age books that are very obscure, but in my opinion undeservedly so.

Finally, I should say that, to show how difficult this game is, I changed my mind several times during the course of writing this post. And I'll probably change it a few more times as I'm reminded of classics I've overlooked...

10. The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr - I'm a great fan of "impossible crime" mysteries, and Carr wrote several superb examples. Hard to choose just one, but I did admire this mystery.

9. Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare - several of Hare's books appeared as late as the Fifties,but like Christie's and that of Edmund Crisipin and Christianna Brand, his work belongs in spirit to the Golden Age. This is a classic study of law and crime. Very unusual.

8. Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull - a strangely under-estimated book by a writer who was always trying something different. Very clever twist on the idea of the courtroom drama.

7. Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding - a wonderfully original serial killer whodunit, with a great twist and terrific seaside setting.

6. Obelists Fly High by C. Daly King - King wrote barmily implausible books, but this one is written with such gusto, and has such a detailed "clue finder" that I find it impossible not to include it in my list.

5. Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley - this is the book that was the catalyst for the Golden Age school of writers, and it's really very well done. Elegant and memorable.

4. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers - I find it very hard to pick my favourite Sayers book. They all seem flawed to me - but usually because she was so admirably ambitious. The Nine Tailors and The Documents in the Case are really good too. I'm not a member of the Gaudy Night fan club, I'm afraid, even though again I respect what Sayers was trying to achieve.

3. Lonely Magdalen by Henry Wade - a police story, and much darker than most Golden Age books. But very impressive, and a landmark title in terms of police procedure mysteries.

2. The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley - witty and clever, this is a masterly example of the multiple solution detective mystery. Both Sayers and Christie loved it, and so do I.

1. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - as I said on Monday, this one is simply unbeatable in my opinion...

Top Agatha Christies

I've been interested in two discussions in recent days on that perenially entertaining (if subjective and inconclusive) topic of "favourite books". Those excellent bloggers Christine Poulson and Clothes in Books started a thoughtful discussion about five favourite Agatha Christies, while Mike Linane, a very knowledgable Golden Age fan, drew attention on Facebook to the thoughts of yet another leading blogger, Crimeficlover, on "top ten Golden Age novels." I couldn't resist the temptation to join in. So today I'll focus on Christie. Thoughts on ten favourites from the Golden Age will follow on Wednesday. As Christine and others have said, however, not only do different people make different choices, one's own views tend to shift on these selections. And I expect mine will before long!

With Christie, however, I'm going to vary things a bit. I really want to choose six titles, rather than five (and I was very tempted to go for ten.) In reverse order, then:

6. Five Little Pigs - this is a Christie that I first read when I was young, and it didn't work especially well for me at the tender age of about nine. I was persuaded by the late Robert Barnard to revise my opinions, and I now think that the image of the murderer watching the victim die is one of the most chilling in  Golden Age literature.

5. Cards on the Table - this is a very clever story, and it's one of those Christies (Three-Act Tragedy, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and The Sittaford Mystery are others) which strike me as surprisingly under-rated. The idea of confining the suspects to just four is a good one, and the detective work is very nicely done. Even though I don't like bridge, I've always enjoyed this book.

4. Peril at End House - a brilliant spin on a device that is now rather familiar. The clueing is excellent, and the way that suspicion shifts from one person to another - for me, that's one of the tests of a Golden Age classic - is splendidly done. I like the seaside setting, and Poirot and Hastings are in great form.

3. Curtain - because this book was posthumously published at a time when "mere ingenuity" was unfashionable, its cleverness has, I think, generally been under-rated. The central idea is fantastic and it influenced my otherwise very different book, Take My Breath Away. An extraordinary book in many ways, not least because of what Poirot does near the end.

2. The ABC Murders - the best Golden Age serial killer whodunit, and a book whose plot twist has inspired many other wirters, past and present. A gripping mystery, with neat clues and a level of tension and suspense that Christie surpassed only once, in my number one choice.

1. And Then There Were None - I've written several times about my admiration for this book. It is in many ways the ultimate Golden Age whodunit, and yet neither Poirot nor Marple appear. It was one of the first adult novels I ever read, and it made a lasting impression on me.

Yet somehow I've omitted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder is Easy, Murder at the Vicarage, and Murder on the Orient Express. And... well, go on, then - what are your favourites?

The Lookalike - movie review

The Lookalike is a very recent film - so recent, in fact, that I've not read any reviews of it. I wondered if this was a bad sign, and the fact that the cast was completely unknown to me (this is probably just my ignorance, as the actors do a very good job) didn't help. My anxieties were compounded when I gleaned that it's a story with a plot which revolves around drug dealing. I read a report of an inquest into the death of someone who died from a drug overdose recently, and found the sheer waste of lie and potential to be very sad, and deeply depressing. Drug dealers in films may be marginally less repellent than their real life equivalents, but I usually find stories, whether in the form of a novel or a screenplay, about their world utterly unappealing. So why did I decide to give the film a try?

I suppose it's because I'm fascinated by stories about identity, and the idea of lookalikes is one that has interested me for a long time. Similarly, I'm very interested in twins, especially identical twins, and the very close bond that exists between them. Some of the most interesting books and films I know concern mysteries of identity of one kind or another. I recently watched again an early episode of Taggart that made clever use of the notion of identical twins  - though during the Golden Age, Ronald Knox made clear his disapproval of plots that relied on the cheap trickery of introducing a character's twin at the last minute.

Rather to my surprise, I found The Lookalike to be, on the whole, a gripping and entertaining story. It's also convoluted, in a way that I found unexpectedly satisfying. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of giving the main twists away, but briefly two brothers who need to make money in a hurry get involved, separately, with two attractive women, whilst at the same time becoming embroiled in a scam with two very unpleasant gangsters.

One of the gangsters has accidentally killed an attractive young woman who was to be used in a sordid money-making scheme. They need to find her lookalike in order to make sure that the money comes in, and one of the brothers is given the job of finding the unlucky woman. I felt that one character behaved in a self-sacrificing way that was, to me, unbelievable, and this did weaken the film's impact. Nevertheless, it kept me watching from start to finish, and wondering how things would turn out. .Not a masterpiece, but not bad, either.

Chris Peers

I have received a message from Bob Adey, doyen of locked room experts, telling me that Chris Peers, a second hand book dealer specialising in crime fiction has just died. I don't know any more than that, but I'd like to take this opportunity to express my shock and dismay at the news, and offer condolences to his family. Chris, who I believe was in his mid-fifties, was a familiar figure at second hand book fairs up and down the country, and he will be much missed.

I've bought quite a few books from Chris over the years - his prices were always reasonable. These included
Chris also gave me some help in my researches about the Golden Age. The last time we met was at a book fair in Haydock last autumn, and he was in excellent form. Chris, like me, was a Manchester City fan who had supported the team through many dark days and who, like me, and most long-suffering City fans of similar vintage, could not quite bring himself to believe that City are currently the most successful team in Britain. We had a long chat about soccer at Haydock, as well as about Golden Age fiction,and of course I never imagined it would be the last time we'd speak.

There is a small community of second hand book dealers in Britain who specialise in crime fiction, and very friendly people they are too. Part of the pleasure for me of visiting a book fair is the chance to catch up with them,and also pick their brains about the Golden Age - as well as about the life of a second hand book dealer, research that comes in very handy when I'm writing about Marc Amos in the Lake District Mysteries. Many of the Forgotten Books that I feature are bought from this group of dealers - The Young Vanish, featured yesterday, for instance, came from the always reliable Jamie Sturgeon. This small community has lost a good man, and it's a sad day.

Forgotten Book - The Young Vanish

Today's Forgotten Book is a strange mystery novel with a strange title - it is The Young Vanish, by Francis Everton. The author explains in a prefatory note that there is in real life an inn called The Young Vanish, located in Glapwell, Derbyshire. However, the inn with the same name that features in the book is not based on it. A Google search revealed to me that The Young Vanish is still going strong today, and boasts a popular carvery. I really must sample it one day. But the book, like its author, has (perhaps appropriately, given the title) ...vanished from sight.

And that really is a pity,because although this is an eccentric book, it has plenty of plus points. For a start, the writing is, although not consistent, at times of a genuinely high standard - much better than you find in many mysteries of the Golden Age. This novel came out in 1932, and it's significant that Arnold Bennett and Dorothy L. Sayers both had a lot of time for Everton's work. Here there is a brilliant, bad-tempered, ugly little cop called Inspector Allport, who is a wonderful and memorable character. And there is plenty of action, along with many unexpected developments.

But it really is a strange story. which begins with a series of killings of trade union officials with moderate views. Is a right wing serial killer involved, or are sinister Russians to blame? I wondered if I'd stepped into an anti-Bolshie polemic, and certainly the author was no fan of socialism (or indeed of the Liberal Party, to judge by his acerbic portrayal of one Liberal MP), but the story keeps moving on in fresh directions.

The name Francis Everton concealed the identity of a businessman called Francis Stokes, who, I learn from the invaluable GADetection site, was an engineer and managing director, later chairman, of a Mansfield company called Stokes Castings Limited. You'd guess Stokes' background from this story, since it contains a good deal of stuff about engineering, the technical aspects of which went right over my head. But he cleverly integrates his know-how with the plot, and one character announces: "it is the first occasion on which metallurgical and spectographic analysis has been called in the aid of the Law." Quite apart from its storyline with a "metallurgical fingerprint", this is a highly distinctive book in many ways. My guess is that business concerns distracted Everton from his literary career, but that's a pity, because he had plenty of talent and a taste for the unusual that is rather refrehsiing. Yes, this book is flawed, in some ways, but it's very interesting indeed. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm really glad I stumbled across it.

The Writer's Life - continued....

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my decision to move out of partnership in a law firm, and focus increasingly on my life as a writer, while continuing to work on average a couple of days a week as a solicitor. I said I'd offer occasional updates about how this transition was working, and here is the first...

Coincidence it may be, but a number of good things have happened to me since I made the switch. A few days ago, the Amazon Summer Sale began, and for the first time one of my novels, The Frozen Shroud, was available at the bargain price of 99p. Hurry now while stocks last is the message! Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book suddenly zoomed up the charts. So much so, in fact, that at the time of writing is number 2 in the "international crime and mystery bestseller list", though I have to admit, I'm not very familiar with these lists, or how significant they are. I'd be interested to know the views of other readers and writers about these Kindle sales - how much of an impact do they really make, and are they worth while. My assumption is the answers are "some" and "yes", but I don't know for sure.

I've also been interviewed by two very pleasant fellow writers and bloggers.Valerie Holmes has just published her interview with me, and another, by Christine Poulson, will appear in due course. I've also featured on the Crime Readers' Association site masterminded by Lucy Santos. And I've fitted in a brief but very enjoyable trip to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, as well as attending the CWA Daggers Dinner.

These are all the sort of things I might have done before my career move, but one thing that is very different is that I've signed quite a startling number of contracts lately with regard to writing projects of various kinds. Some of these are small scale - intros to books - while others are medium scale - you can look forward to no fewer than six, and perhaps more, anthologies that I'm about to edit, over the next eighteen months, if the prospect isn't just too much to bear! (I hope it won't seem unbearable, because these are anthologies that I'm very excited about.) And I've also embarked on a large scale project which I will tell you more about on another day.

I wouldn't have had the freedom to do all of these things in the past. I'd have done as many as I could, but I am enjoying the sense of liberation enormously. Admittedly, the "two days a week" consultancy hasn't quite happened as yet - I've been working longer hours than that on legal stuff to date, mainly due to an unforeseen flurry of work. But it's bound to fluctuate, and at least I don't have to trek into the office as often. And there are other bonuses that come from a reduction in commuting. For instance, yesterday was about the hottest day of the year, and I spent lunch on the balcony, watching two swans chug around on the water, accompanied by three cygnets, and dinner following the flight path of a heron that swooped around before settling back in a tree to contemplate the world. I can't easily describe how pleasurable it is to be doing that instead of being cooped up in an office all day, the way I've spent the last thirty-odd summers. The writer's life has ups and downs, but the ups are pretty good, it seems to me.

Melodie Johnson Howe and Roderick Ramage

Today I'd like to highlight two very different books by two people whom I've known and liked for a number a years. First, Melodie Johnson Howe, whom I've mentioned once or twice before on the blog. She's an actor and writer of excellent short stories which have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but I must confess that I've never come across her novels before. That's changed, though, with City of Mirrors, which is sub-titled A Hollywood Murder Mystery. The title comes from a telling line: "If you want a friend in Hollywood, get a mirror."

Melodie has used her acting knowledge to create a very appealing series character called Diana Poole, and her inside knowledge of the seemingly glamorous world of the movies is deployed her to very good effect. "Hollywood is like smog", Diana reflects at one point, "it moves and settles wherever it wants to." In this book, Diana is at an age where the ageism of the movie world works against her, but she is not someone to give up, either in her acting life or when, not for the first time, she stumbles upon murder - this time, the victim is a fellow actor. On Melodie's impressive website you can also hear her EQMM podcast of story with the excellent title "The Talking Dead".

Roderick Ramage is a leading employment and pensions lawyer who worked as a member of my team for more years than either of us care to remember. Like another former colleague, Paul Clarke, he has now ventured into criminal territory. Perhaps I'm leading good men astray, but I must say I'm delighted by what Paul and Roderick have done. Roderick's book has been produced by a small press, and I invited him to say a bit about Mid-Stafford Murders:

"In 95 of 109 pages, one murder for each month of the year is intended to enable Stafford to compete with Midsomer’s murder rate.  In this book are sixteen deaths and one attempted murder.  None of the twelve chapters, one for each month, is connected to any other, except that, in half of them, an ordinary, commonplace (except for those involved) accident, such as might be reported in a local newspaper, is given an improbable backstory and turned into an implausible murder.  The stock of accidental deaths exhausted, the remaining months, to complete the year, are filled with one whodunit (a title called Miss Marple must have a body, prone with a knife in it), incidentally the only chapter without a solution, two with obviously deliberate deaths, one in which two youngster kill each other in a real world acting-out of a computer game, one, helped by a haunted chair, retells a real unsolved crime and another, the stock of deaths being exhausted, is a failed attempt by a resentful motorist to give the elderly driver of a beaten up old Land Rover his just deserts by blowing up the Land Rover.  In only the failed attempt do the police get their man.  The last of the twelve, actually April, tells of the suicide of a teenage girl as a result of Facebook bullying.  This story might be believed, so, in an appendix, the story is retold and its unhappy ending is averted by a love letter. Pages 96 to the end contain the epilogue, a catalogue of the settings of the stories and location maps."

Roderick's book costs £9 plus £1.50 postage in the UK, and is available from 
Etica Press LtdThe Baskervilles147 Worcester RoadMalvern       WR14 1ETinfo@eticapress.com or Roderick RamageCopehaleCoppenhallStafford       ST18 9BWroderick@copehale.net

Headhunters - film review

Headhunters is a 2011 film based on a novel written three years earlier by the prolific and much acclaimed Jo Nesbo. I've read two or three of Nesbo's books about Harry Hole, but this novel is a stand-alone, and makes a very interesting movie. At first, I thought the tone was uneven and unsatisfactory, but before long I warmed to the story, which proved to be much twistier than first appeared likely. The way that expectations are set up, only to be confounded, is one of the film's real strengths.

The protagonist (I can't bring myself to call him a hero) is Roger Brown, an ace recruitment consultant, or headhunter.He is married to a very attractive, if high-maintenance, woman, and lives far beyond his means. His wife wants to have a child, but he doesn't. He's too busy resorting to art theft as a means of supplementing his sizeable, yet still inadequate, income.

When I thought the film might be a comedy thriller about bungled art thefts, I wasn't too excited, but the action soon warms up, when Roger discovers that his wife is having an affair with a rather mysterious chap who hopes that Roger will find him a plum job. Before long, things turn very nasty indeed, and the fast-paced story wanders all over the place as, reluctantly, the audience starts to root for Roger to get out of the very deep hole he has dug himself into.

I've known, quite a number of headhunters in my working life, and members of that profession featured in my novel Take My Breath Away.In real life, I've found headhunters very good company - the nature of the job tends to make them very convivial. And suffice to say that, although recruitment consultants as a breed can definitely show plenty of imagination, and not always in a good way (charming though they invariably are), I've never met anyone in the least like Roger Brown. Just as well, really....