Martin Edwards's Blog, page 229
February 4, 2013
Dead Water by Ann Cleeves
Dead Water is Ann Cleeves' fifth Shetland novel. Originally, the series was expected to be a quartet, but the great success it has enjoyed, starting with a CWA Gold Dagger and now culminating in a very high profile upcoming TV series starring Douglas Henshall, has prompted a rethink. And, like Ann's other fans, I'm very glad about that.
Here we have a story about a journalist returning to Shetland after a period of absence. His body is discovered by the Procurator Fiscal, a woman who seems to have something to hide. The deceased, Jerry Markham, was planning an important story -what was it to be, and does it explain his death? The inquiry is headed by DI Willow Reeve, but Jimmy Perez is also involved. The build-up is steady rather than fast-paced, but that is part of the style of this series, a way of making the reader interested in the people. It's a method that suits a rural-based series, in my opinion (which is one of the reasons why my Lake District books also develop at a less rapid pace compared to,say, those set n Liverpool.)
The end of the quartet brought tragedy to Shetland. A key character died, and one challenge for the writer is how to deal with this sort of major issue in the next book in the series. You can simply ignore it - but that seems unrealistic. Ann Cleeves has opted to tackle the issue head on. The practical implication of this is that it's desirable to read the quartet before coming on to this book. But I don't think it's absolutely essential. Whether or not to read a series in order is a topic I've covered before in this blog, but although as it happens I have read this series in order, Ann has done her utmost to ensure that the novel stands alone, and the solution to the previous novel is not given away.
I read - and reviewed - Ann Cleeves' early books before I ever met her. For many years I think it's fair to say that she was pigeon-holed as a mid-list writer, and at one time,even, her books didn't always get into paperback editions. Now she is an international best-seller, with not one major TV series adapted from her books, but two. It's a dramatic transformation, but it's been hard earned and is well deserved. It just shows what can happen if you don't give up as a writer, and I'd suggest that her career, like, for instance, those of Peter Robinson and Andrew Taylor, is an excellent example to all other authors who feel frustrated that, although they write books of quality, fame and fortune proves elusive. You just never know what is around the corner.
Here we have a story about a journalist returning to Shetland after a period of absence. His body is discovered by the Procurator Fiscal, a woman who seems to have something to hide. The deceased, Jerry Markham, was planning an important story -what was it to be, and does it explain his death? The inquiry is headed by DI Willow Reeve, but Jimmy Perez is also involved. The build-up is steady rather than fast-paced, but that is part of the style of this series, a way of making the reader interested in the people. It's a method that suits a rural-based series, in my opinion (which is one of the reasons why my Lake District books also develop at a less rapid pace compared to,say, those set n Liverpool.)
The end of the quartet brought tragedy to Shetland. A key character died, and one challenge for the writer is how to deal with this sort of major issue in the next book in the series. You can simply ignore it - but that seems unrealistic. Ann Cleeves has opted to tackle the issue head on. The practical implication of this is that it's desirable to read the quartet before coming on to this book. But I don't think it's absolutely essential. Whether or not to read a series in order is a topic I've covered before in this blog, but although as it happens I have read this series in order, Ann has done her utmost to ensure that the novel stands alone, and the solution to the previous novel is not given away.
I read - and reviewed - Ann Cleeves' early books before I ever met her. For many years I think it's fair to say that she was pigeon-holed as a mid-list writer, and at one time,even, her books didn't always get into paperback editions. Now she is an international best-seller, with not one major TV series adapted from her books, but two. It's a dramatic transformation, but it's been hard earned and is well deserved. It just shows what can happen if you don't give up as a writer, and I'd suggest that her career, like, for instance, those of Peter Robinson and Andrew Taylor, is an excellent example to all other authors who feel frustrated that, although they write books of quality, fame and fortune proves elusive. You just never know what is around the corner.
February 1, 2013
Forgotten Book - Snap
My Forgotten Book for today is another from that very fine writer Jacqueline Wilson, one more of that sadly all too short sequence of crime novels she wrote in the 70s.Snap was published in 1974, when she was just 29 years old. In some ways, it reminds me of the books that Margaret Yorke started writing at around the same time - stories about very ordinary people who find themselves caught up in events that lead to murder.
There are three connected storylines in Snap. Katy is a 14 year old girl (and Wilson excels at depicting teenage girls) who has a crush on her schoolteacher. Unfortunately, it's a relationship that he encourages. It's easy to foresee that it will end badly - but how, exactly?
Meanwhile, Katy's mother, Frances (a very likeable woman) is a widow who writes romantic stories for magazines. She comes to the attention of George, a literary agent who is recently bereaved. His wife was someone he never loved, and who made his life a misery. When he meets Frances for lunch, the attraction is mutual.
Unknown to George, his secretary, Ellen,is secretly infatuated with him. When George invites her out for a drink, she seizes her chance to develop the relationship, with disastrous consequences. Wilson manages the different narratives with considerable expertise,and springs one particularly good surprise close to the end. When I looked back at the earlier chapters, I found myself admiring the skilful and subtle way she had planted the clues to that particular twist.
This is a good example of how a very short novel can be intensely gripping. One can only guess at how prominent Wilson would have become as a crime writer, had she not changed course and become a stellar children's writer instead. I think she might have given even the great Ruth Rendell a run for her money.
There are three connected storylines in Snap. Katy is a 14 year old girl (and Wilson excels at depicting teenage girls) who has a crush on her schoolteacher. Unfortunately, it's a relationship that he encourages. It's easy to foresee that it will end badly - but how, exactly?
Meanwhile, Katy's mother, Frances (a very likeable woman) is a widow who writes romantic stories for magazines. She comes to the attention of George, a literary agent who is recently bereaved. His wife was someone he never loved, and who made his life a misery. When he meets Frances for lunch, the attraction is mutual.
Unknown to George, his secretary, Ellen,is secretly infatuated with him. When George invites her out for a drink, she seizes her chance to develop the relationship, with disastrous consequences. Wilson manages the different narratives with considerable expertise,and springs one particularly good surprise close to the end. When I looked back at the earlier chapters, I found myself admiring the skilful and subtle way she had planted the clues to that particular twist.
This is a good example of how a very short novel can be intensely gripping. One can only guess at how prominent Wilson would have become as a crime writer, had she not changed course and become a stellar children's writer instead. I think she might have given even the great Ruth Rendell a run for her money.
January 29, 2013
Equus
I’m not quite sure why I have never got round to watching Peter Shaffer’s Equus before – well, in fact, it’s the film version I’ve seen, but the screenplay is by Shaffer. I suppose I was repelled by the idea of a story based upon a boy blinding horses. But although I find the act deeply repugnant, overall I’m glad I watched the film.
It’s a mainstream piece of writing, but really it borrows aspects of the crime novel, not just in the criminal subject matter, but also in terms of the detective work done by the psychiatrist, played by Richard Burton, who tries to understand the forces that drove the boy, played by Peter Firth, to act as cruelly as he did.
Peter Shaffer, with his equally gifted twin brother Antony, collaborated on a short-lived series of detective novels published in the 50s but very much in the Golden Age tradition before moving on to darker and less plot-orientated material. Those books are still enjoyable light reads, by the way.
I found the film compelling, and a reminder of what a good director the late Sidney Lumet was. A word of warning – the violence is graphic, and there is full frontal nudity. Mind you, since the nudity features both Peter Firth and Jenny Agutter, two exceptionally good-looking actors, this might just attract some viewers. The sex and violence is not gratuitous, though. It’s a serious film about a deeply serious subject.
I thought Burton’s performance superb, even though I’d have liked more insight into his character’s personal demons. The parents of the boy are also splendidly played by Joan Plowright and the utterly brilliant Colin Blakely, who died far too young.
January 28, 2013
Scott Turow's Innocent: TV movie review
Scott Turow's Innocent is one of those titles, like Agatha Christie's Marple, which causes me instinctively to be wary. It's easy to get the impression that the makers of the show are trading too heavily on the name of the author who produced the original, rather than being confident that it will stand on its own two feet as quality entertainment. Having said that, I wouldn't say no if someone wanted to make Martin Edwards' All the Lonely People, or indeed anything else I've written, so perhaps I shouldn't be too critical!
Anyway, Innocent is a 2011 movie that is very clearly aimed at a TV audience, and doesn't have the same ambitions as, say, the film that was made of Turow's first and quite brilliant novel featuring Rusty Sabich, Presumed Innocent. I remember being so gripped when I read that book that I stayed up until the middle of the night to finish it. I don't think I've been more impressed by any other legal thriller. Turow knows the American legal profession inside out, and is a very clever plotter. But he can also write extremely well, and that's the real secret of his enormous success.
I very much enjoyed Turow's second book, which focused on Sandy Stern, Rusty's defence lawyer, but for some reason I've not felt tempted to read his later books. Not sure why. However, this belated sequel to Presumed Innocent is a pretty good story, which certainly kept me entertained. Rusty is charged with murdering his wife, and has behaved badly enough for there to be plenty of incriminating evidence.
Bill Pullman plays Rusty, and Marcia Gay Harden, once an Oscar winner, the doomed Mrs Sabich. Mariana Klaveno is the glamorous aide who seduces Rusty, and then gets involved with his son, making her a possible alternative suspect in the case. All in all, a competent tv movie, lacking in magic, perhaps, but offering very watchable if slightly familiar viewing fare.
Anyway, Innocent is a 2011 movie that is very clearly aimed at a TV audience, and doesn't have the same ambitions as, say, the film that was made of Turow's first and quite brilliant novel featuring Rusty Sabich, Presumed Innocent. I remember being so gripped when I read that book that I stayed up until the middle of the night to finish it. I don't think I've been more impressed by any other legal thriller. Turow knows the American legal profession inside out, and is a very clever plotter. But he can also write extremely well, and that's the real secret of his enormous success.
I very much enjoyed Turow's second book, which focused on Sandy Stern, Rusty's defence lawyer, but for some reason I've not felt tempted to read his later books. Not sure why. However, this belated sequel to Presumed Innocent is a pretty good story, which certainly kept me entertained. Rusty is charged with murdering his wife, and has behaved badly enough for there to be plenty of incriminating evidence.
Bill Pullman plays Rusty, and Marcia Gay Harden, once an Oscar winner, the doomed Mrs Sabich. Mariana Klaveno is the glamorous aide who seduces Rusty, and then gets involved with his son, making her a possible alternative suspect in the case. All in all, a competent tv movie, lacking in magic, perhaps, but offering very watchable if slightly familiar viewing fare.
Suspension of Disbelief
One of the great challenges for any crime writer is this: how do you ensure that readers suspend their belief so as to enjoy what you've written to the full? Some writers, of course, may argue that their work is so realistic that no suspension of disbelief is needed. This may be so in a minority of cases, but I'm part of the majority whose contemporary books are meant to have a surface authenticity, but which are nevertheless definitely made-up, with invented characters and incidents. (Mind you, I still include libel disclaimers, just in case anyone gets a very wrong idea.)
As a reader, I'm more than willling to suspend my disbelief in the right circumstances. Of course, the events in a book by fine writers such as Frances Fyfield, Andrew Taylor or Ian Rankin - who all write very different types of crime fiction -are not likely to be replicated in real life. But the quality of writing is such that it draws you into the world of the story, and you are happy to believe in the events that unfold.
The same principle applies when I'm watching TV or a film..For instance, Lewis, like Inspector Morse, demands that you accept that Oxford is crawling with ingenious killers. The homicide rate almost matches Midsomer's. Yet the shows are so well done, that it doesn't really matter that in truth, bicycle theft is probably more of a problem. Skyfall definitely requires suspension of disbelief, but it's so well crafted, that it's easy to accept the various improbabilities.
All this leads me back to the BBC TV series about Father Brown. I've watched all ten episodes of the series, which ended last week. Some were good light entertainment. One or two, however, were pretty unfortunate - the episode combining radiation sickness and paedophilia springs to mind: I didn't suspend my disbelief at any point during that story.
I was sympathetic, as I've said before, to the writers' wish to do something fresh with the stories so as to appeal to a modern audience. But G.K. Chesterton persuaded his readers to suspend their disbelief - not least in some remarkable "impossible crime" stories - by focusing very cleverly on paradox and some interesting observations about human nature. In some of these episodes, I felt not enough of an attempt was made to draw out these qualities in the originals, and what was put in place instead tended to be less than compelling. This was a pity, because it is good to see classic sleuths brought back to public attention. I must say I'm glad I watched the series, but I certainly concede it could have been better. With a bit more credit given to the watching audience's readiness to engage with a good priest's take on the failings of human nature, many viewers, I suspect, would have been more willing to go along with the less likely aspects of the show's premise..
As a reader, I'm more than willling to suspend my disbelief in the right circumstances. Of course, the events in a book by fine writers such as Frances Fyfield, Andrew Taylor or Ian Rankin - who all write very different types of crime fiction -are not likely to be replicated in real life. But the quality of writing is such that it draws you into the world of the story, and you are happy to believe in the events that unfold.
The same principle applies when I'm watching TV or a film..For instance, Lewis, like Inspector Morse, demands that you accept that Oxford is crawling with ingenious killers. The homicide rate almost matches Midsomer's. Yet the shows are so well done, that it doesn't really matter that in truth, bicycle theft is probably more of a problem. Skyfall definitely requires suspension of disbelief, but it's so well crafted, that it's easy to accept the various improbabilities.
All this leads me back to the BBC TV series about Father Brown. I've watched all ten episodes of the series, which ended last week. Some were good light entertainment. One or two, however, were pretty unfortunate - the episode combining radiation sickness and paedophilia springs to mind: I didn't suspend my disbelief at any point during that story.
I was sympathetic, as I've said before, to the writers' wish to do something fresh with the stories so as to appeal to a modern audience. But G.K. Chesterton persuaded his readers to suspend their disbelief - not least in some remarkable "impossible crime" stories - by focusing very cleverly on paradox and some interesting observations about human nature. In some of these episodes, I felt not enough of an attempt was made to draw out these qualities in the originals, and what was put in place instead tended to be less than compelling. This was a pity, because it is good to see classic sleuths brought back to public attention. I must say I'm glad I watched the series, but I certainly concede it could have been better. With a bit more credit given to the watching audience's readiness to engage with a good priest's take on the failings of human nature, many viewers, I suspect, would have been more willing to go along with the less likely aspects of the show's premise..
January 25, 2013
Forgotten Book - The Ha-Ha Case
My Forgotten Book for today is another from the prolific Golden Age writer J.J. Connington. Its title in the UK was The Ha-Ha Case, but in the US it was known as The Brandon Case. Presumably the change was because ha-has were thought to be unfamiliar to American readers, but it's a pity, because The Ha-Ha Case strikes me as a rather nice title. And I love the fact that Chapter 5 is called "The Ha-Ha of Death"!
Once I'd finished the book, it was fairly clear to me how Connington set about writing it. He'd come across an arcane snippet of English law, and used that as a basis for his plot (as he did in at least one other novel I've covered in this blog). He then used his knowledge of ballistics, forgery and medical science to furnish the key plot trimmings.
These ingredients are very good. Not only are they pleasing, they are relatively unusual. The snag is that here (as compared, for instance, to the superior The Sweepstake Murders) Connington allowed plot contrivance to dominate the book. As a result it is rather awkward in construction, and the trickery used to disguised the surprise solution is not entirely satisfying. These are significant criticisms, yet the flaws did not destroy my enjoyment, because I find Connington's ambitious and sometimes unorthodox approach to be rather admirable. He was trying to do something different, yet play fair with the reader, and these are excellent aims for a writer of traditional mysteries.
Jim Brandon is concerned that his younger brother, Johnnie, is being exploited by his tutor, someone who is both rascally and idealistic (an uneasy combination, and I didn't find the tutor's characterisation too convincing). When a mysterious death occurs, the investigation is complicated by the arrival on the crime scene of an unexpected third party, who is introduced into the story in a rather witty if politically incorrect way. An ambitious police inspector struggles to find the truth, but in the end, Sir Clinton Driffield rides to the rescue, in his usual smart and sardonic way.
Once I'd finished the book, it was fairly clear to me how Connington set about writing it. He'd come across an arcane snippet of English law, and used that as a basis for his plot (as he did in at least one other novel I've covered in this blog). He then used his knowledge of ballistics, forgery and medical science to furnish the key plot trimmings.
These ingredients are very good. Not only are they pleasing, they are relatively unusual. The snag is that here (as compared, for instance, to the superior The Sweepstake Murders) Connington allowed plot contrivance to dominate the book. As a result it is rather awkward in construction, and the trickery used to disguised the surprise solution is not entirely satisfying. These are significant criticisms, yet the flaws did not destroy my enjoyment, because I find Connington's ambitious and sometimes unorthodox approach to be rather admirable. He was trying to do something different, yet play fair with the reader, and these are excellent aims for a writer of traditional mysteries.
Jim Brandon is concerned that his younger brother, Johnnie, is being exploited by his tutor, someone who is both rascally and idealistic (an uneasy combination, and I didn't find the tutor's characterisation too convincing). When a mysterious death occurs, the investigation is complicated by the arrival on the crime scene of an unexpected third party, who is introduced into the story in a rather witty if politically incorrect way. An ambitious police inspector struggles to find the truth, but in the end, Sir Clinton Driffield rides to the rescue, in his usual smart and sardonic way.
January 22, 2013
Flash Fiction and Crimefest
Sarah Hilary has asked me to mention on this blog a venture connected with this year's Crimefest, to be held in Bristol at the end of May. As regular readers will know, I'm a big fan of Crimefest and have attended each year since its inception. The panels are good, but in many ways the greatest strength of this very friendly event is the social side. There's a great deal of mingling between authors and fans, and speaking as an author who is also a fan, I find that very enjoyable indeed.
The Flashbang competition, is open to people who are not established writers (pity, I've recently developed a taste for writing flash fiction myself!). The aim is to write a story in 150 words or less,and Sarah tells me that this year the judge will be that splendid crime writer Zoe Sharp. Zoe, incidentally, is one of the most knowledgeable people I know on the subject of e-publishing, and has entered that area with her customary zest and effectiveness. She's also, among other things, a highly talented photographer and I well remember a cold day in Ilkley when Murder Squad did a photo shoot with her. I'm sure she'll be a very fair judge.
Flash fiction has gained in popularity due to the internet, I think. A short-short story is ideally suited to online publication, and there are some very good examples around. I haven't actually seen a conventional print anthology of flash crime fiction, but there may well be some around that I haven't caught up with.
Writing a very short story, say of less than 1000 words, might seem easy, but brevity demands concentration, and I'm not sure writing a really good flash fiction story is much easier than writing a good short poem. One short-short that I did have published conventionally a few years ago, as Sarah reminded me, was a story called InDex, which gave me a lot of pleasure. I hope lots of people will give the competition a go..
The Flashbang competition, is open to people who are not established writers (pity, I've recently developed a taste for writing flash fiction myself!). The aim is to write a story in 150 words or less,and Sarah tells me that this year the judge will be that splendid crime writer Zoe Sharp. Zoe, incidentally, is one of the most knowledgeable people I know on the subject of e-publishing, and has entered that area with her customary zest and effectiveness. She's also, among other things, a highly talented photographer and I well remember a cold day in Ilkley when Murder Squad did a photo shoot with her. I'm sure she'll be a very fair judge.
Flash fiction has gained in popularity due to the internet, I think. A short-short story is ideally suited to online publication, and there are some very good examples around. I haven't actually seen a conventional print anthology of flash crime fiction, but there may well be some around that I haven't caught up with.
Writing a very short story, say of less than 1000 words, might seem easy, but brevity demands concentration, and I'm not sure writing a really good flash fiction story is much easier than writing a good short poem. One short-short that I did have published conventionally a few years ago, as Sarah reminded me, was a story called InDex, which gave me a lot of pleasure. I hope lots of people will give the competition a go..
Blogger Stats
There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and I'm tempted to think that internet-related statistics are among the most unreliable of all. I'm prompted to ask a question after taking a look at Blogger stats for this blog. I've read several times that it's a good thing to monitor the statistics for one's blog or website, but I must admit I'm not totally convinced. I can see that if fewer and fewer people look at the website, there may be something going wrong, but I'm rather dubious about some of the figures that appear to look very healthy, since they may be inflated by spammers or the like.
My post on
If anyone with a better understanding of Blogger than me can enlighten me as to how figures can actually reduce in this way, I'd be very glad, because I've become intrigued and puzzled. Mind you, it leaves me all the more dubious about statistics, and the lessons that can be learned from them.
Yet you never know - perhaps my cynicism is mistaken. The crime community includes many people with a real understanding of how to make the most effective use of technology that I only wish I could emulate. So I should also be very interested to hear from others as to whether they find statistics useful, and what lessons they think can be learned.
My post on
If anyone with a better understanding of Blogger than me can enlighten me as to how figures can actually reduce in this way, I'd be very glad, because I've become intrigued and puzzled. Mind you, it leaves me all the more dubious about statistics, and the lessons that can be learned from them.
Yet you never know - perhaps my cynicism is mistaken. The crime community includes many people with a real understanding of how to make the most effective use of technology that I only wish I could emulate. So I should also be very interested to hear from others as to whether they find statistics useful, and what lessons they think can be learned.
January 21, 2013
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
A couple of years ago, I
It may be, though, that I'd been slightly spoiled by watching Skyfall, the ultimate action thriller, a while earlier. Compared to the Bond film, which so cleverly blends plot and characterisation, any other film in the same genre is likely to seem a bit unsubtle, and that is true of this movie. Having said that, Ritchie gets his ingredients broadly right: appealing, unorthodox characters and a zippy sequence of events unfolding at a pretty relentless pace. The climax was at the Reichenbach Falls, and we all know what happened there -don't we?
The plot has an international dimension, as Holmes has identified a series of seemingly unconnected "anarchist" outrages,murders and financial shenanigans as the work of his old adversary Professor Moriarty,who is due to speak at an international conference - at Reichenbach. Sherlock gets involved with a mysterious gypsy fortune teller (Noomi Rapace) whose brother is involved with Moriarty, and the plot continues to thicken. Mycroft Holmes (in the shape of the omnipresent Stephen Fry) lends a hand as Holmes races against time to save the world from war.
All in all, it's an enjoyable romp, with our two heroes vying entertainingly with each other as well as trying to catch Moriarty. I'm all in favour of Holmesian pastiches, having written several myself (although my stories are not written with tongue in cheek in the manner of Ritchie's films.) I'm sure many Sherlockians will be unconvinced by this film, but for me it worked pretty well.
It may be, though, that I'd been slightly spoiled by watching Skyfall, the ultimate action thriller, a while earlier. Compared to the Bond film, which so cleverly blends plot and characterisation, any other film in the same genre is likely to seem a bit unsubtle, and that is true of this movie. Having said that, Ritchie gets his ingredients broadly right: appealing, unorthodox characters and a zippy sequence of events unfolding at a pretty relentless pace. The climax was at the Reichenbach Falls, and we all know what happened there -don't we?
The plot has an international dimension, as Holmes has identified a series of seemingly unconnected "anarchist" outrages,murders and financial shenanigans as the work of his old adversary Professor Moriarty,who is due to speak at an international conference - at Reichenbach. Sherlock gets involved with a mysterious gypsy fortune teller (Noomi Rapace) whose brother is involved with Moriarty, and the plot continues to thicken. Mycroft Holmes (in the shape of the omnipresent Stephen Fry) lends a hand as Holmes races against time to save the world from war.
All in all, it's an enjoyable romp, with our two heroes vying entertainingly with each other as well as trying to catch Moriarty. I'm all in favour of Holmesian pastiches, having written several myself (although my stories are not written with tongue in cheek in the manner of Ritchie's films.) I'm sure many Sherlockians will be unconvinced by this film, but for me it worked pretty well.
January 18, 2013
Forgotten Book: Burglars in Bucks
The co-authors of today's Forgotten Book are those great political campaigners of the Golden Age, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole. I've been reading up about their life together and what strikes me above all is their unquenchable spirit. Time and again their crusades fell apart, yet each time they dusted themselves down, picked themselves up and started all over again. Rather like their number one sleuth, Superintendent Wilson, who resigned from the police force and became a private inquiry agent, only to resume his official career a few cases later.
I've not read any of the stories in which Wilson was not a policeman. In today's story, Burglars in Bucks, he is back in the police, but is rather on the edge of things, as here the Coles were experimenting. This is one of those stories told by gathering together bits and pieces of evidence - letters, press cuttings, telegrams, police reports and so on. It's a terrific concept, and I'd be glad to hear from readers of any similar Golden Age books they can recommend (other than, say, the Dennis Wheatley crime dossiers, which are not novels but, really, games.) The multiple viewpoint crime story has a hallowed tradition - think of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, or Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace's under-rated and noteworthy The Documents in the Case, published, like the Coles' book, in 1930.
One of the snags with this book is that there is no murder, just a burglary. And the reality is that if you are going to write a full-length novel about a much lesser crime than murder, you have to write a truly gripping story. This is a book that is highly rated by a number of judges whose opinions I greatly respect, and I was looking forward very much to reading it. But I must say that it disappointed me. Which only goes to show how subjective an experience reading is.
Intriguingly, there is a seance scene, although it is less effective than the table-turning scene in a superior book published the following year, Christie's The Sittaford Mystery. I am sure there was no question of plagiarism. Probably the ideas common to the books of Christie, Sayers and the Coles were just "in the air" at the time - it often happens, and always will. Possibly conversations over dinner at the Detection Club played a part. Certainly, Christie and Sayers executed the ideas better than the Coles did.
And I was driven almost to scream by the laborious way information about the characters was dragged in, notably in the letters between one suspect and his wife. So we get lots of lines like "You surely can't have forgotten about the Pallants so soon...Don't you remember when the old grandfather died, in 1920, wasn't it?...what you've clearly forgotten is that the villain of the piece was the same Sir Hiram Watkins you're asking about..you'd better have the whole story for reference..." And so it goes on. Such clumsy writing defeats the whole purpose of the very interesting experiment that the book might have been. The Coles were very busy people and they often rushed their writing. Margaret Cole admitted this frankly in later life. They were, though, capable of better than this, and thankfully they bounced back yet again with stories like End of an Ancient Mariner..
Weirdly, for a story set, as the title suggests, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, the US edition was called The Berkshire Mystery.How can we explain this? Did the American publishers fall asleep before they read much of it? It wouldn't come as complete surprise...
I've not read any of the stories in which Wilson was not a policeman. In today's story, Burglars in Bucks, he is back in the police, but is rather on the edge of things, as here the Coles were experimenting. This is one of those stories told by gathering together bits and pieces of evidence - letters, press cuttings, telegrams, police reports and so on. It's a terrific concept, and I'd be glad to hear from readers of any similar Golden Age books they can recommend (other than, say, the Dennis Wheatley crime dossiers, which are not novels but, really, games.) The multiple viewpoint crime story has a hallowed tradition - think of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, or Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace's under-rated and noteworthy The Documents in the Case, published, like the Coles' book, in 1930.
One of the snags with this book is that there is no murder, just a burglary. And the reality is that if you are going to write a full-length novel about a much lesser crime than murder, you have to write a truly gripping story. This is a book that is highly rated by a number of judges whose opinions I greatly respect, and I was looking forward very much to reading it. But I must say that it disappointed me. Which only goes to show how subjective an experience reading is.
Intriguingly, there is a seance scene, although it is less effective than the table-turning scene in a superior book published the following year, Christie's The Sittaford Mystery. I am sure there was no question of plagiarism. Probably the ideas common to the books of Christie, Sayers and the Coles were just "in the air" at the time - it often happens, and always will. Possibly conversations over dinner at the Detection Club played a part. Certainly, Christie and Sayers executed the ideas better than the Coles did.
And I was driven almost to scream by the laborious way information about the characters was dragged in, notably in the letters between one suspect and his wife. So we get lots of lines like "You surely can't have forgotten about the Pallants so soon...Don't you remember when the old grandfather died, in 1920, wasn't it?...what you've clearly forgotten is that the villain of the piece was the same Sir Hiram Watkins you're asking about..you'd better have the whole story for reference..." And so it goes on. Such clumsy writing defeats the whole purpose of the very interesting experiment that the book might have been. The Coles were very busy people and they often rushed their writing. Margaret Cole admitted this frankly in later life. They were, though, capable of better than this, and thankfully they bounced back yet again with stories like End of an Ancient Mariner..
Weirdly, for a story set, as the title suggests, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, the US edition was called The Berkshire Mystery.How can we explain this? Did the American publishers fall asleep before they read much of it? It wouldn't come as complete surprise...
