Martin Edwards's Blog, page 266

The Merger

I don't say much about my day job on this blog or my website – because fiction is all about forms of escapism - but of course it occupies my thoughts a lot, and explains why I don't find time to achieve all I'd like to in the world of crime fiction and blogging!

Anyway, day after day for over a year now I've been closely involved in negotiations to merge my firm with a large national practice, and I'm delighted to say that the deal finally took effect on 1 May. So after 31 years with Mace & Jones, I'm now a partner in Weightmans LLP. And after all that time working in the same building, I will soon show a streak of adventurousness by moving to Weightmans' office – which just happens to be next door to my old one....

Vera: Hidden Depths - review

Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn as DI Vera Stanhope, kicked off this evening with an adaptation of Hidden Depths. It was an interesting choice of story, because the first Vera book Ann Cleeves wrote was The Crow Trap. However, my own feeling when it came out originally was that Hidden Depths was a very strong novel, with an especially gripping opening, and this may partly explain the choice. In any event, if you haven't read them yet, the books can be read out of sequence without any difficulty or major spoilers at all.

Brenda Blethyn makes a very likeable, if at times surprisingly emotional, Vera, and the cast included Murray Head - whom I think of more as a singer, but who was excellent in his role as a catalyst for crime - and Juliet Aubrey, who played his glamorous wife. The North East locations were terrific, as good in their way as the Oxford settings in Inspector Morse. The finale was a touch melodramatic, but that is the way with television dramas, and its setting, in a spooky ruined castle, was very atmospheric.

Having followed Ann's career for so long, it was a great pleasure for me to see her work on the telly at last, so I don't suppose I am the most objective judge, but suffice to say that I thought this was a really enjoyable programme.

The timing of the show is, I think, marvellous, in that we've had a bank holiday week-end, and there is a feelgood factor around in many quarters after the Royal Wedding. I've read that the BBC have ditched Zen because there are 'too many male TV detectives'. Silly reasoning, in my opinion, but at least Vera is an original and refreshing character, as well as (much less important, I think) a woman.

One final point. I've encouraged Ann to contribute some copies of the scripts and materials to the CWA archives. At some date in the future, I hope we will have a fascinating record of the genesis of what I confidently expect to be a long running and very successful series.

Lewis: The Mind Has Mountains – review

Lewis is one of the few television shows that I watch quite often – although as from Sunday evening, I shall be adding Vera to the list. However, I have got behind with the current series and only now am I catching up. So far, the better of the two episodes that I've seen has been The Mind Has Mountains, a title taken from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The setup was very good – a psychiatrist conducting a trial of experimental drugs on a group of vulnerable people. One of the guinea pigs, a beautiful young woman, is found dead in a college quad only one morning, and needless to say, it turns out that she was murdered. Alongside the investigation runs a rather tepid subplot involving the attractive forensic pathologist, whom Lewis fancies, and who is seen by Hathaway having a cosy meal with another man.

The murder mystery was a good one, with suspicion moving nicely from one character to another. The key figure was the psychiatrist, and Douglas Henshall put in a very strong performance as an apparently unpleasant egotist who turns out in the end to have another side to his personality. Lucy Liemann was also notable in her role as his sidekick.

As ever with Lewis, the story was strengthened by the setting of Oxford at its loveliest. A reminder, as if one were needed, of the importance of setting in television shows as well as in novels. And it's also true that a particular setting influences the type of story, as does the nature of a particular detective character. For instance, at the moment, I'm thinking about ideas for a new Lake District mystery, and inevitably, they are shaped to quite an extent by the Cumbrian background, as well as by my wish to create a mystery that "suits" Hannah Scarlett.

Forgotten Book - Those Days

Edmund Clerihew Bentley remains known today as the inventor of the clerihew, a light verse form, and above all as the author of that classic novel of detection, Trent's Last Case. My choice for today's Forgotten Book is his memoir, published in 1940, Those Days.

One of the facts about Bentley's life that struck me as extraordinary was that he went to the same school as G.K. Chesterton, whom he met at the age of twelve, and with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. He admired Chesterton greatly, and it is interesting to read a contemporary's insights into the extraordinary personality of the creator of Father Brown. It is also intriguing to bear in mind that Bentley succeeded Chesterton as President of the Detection Club.

Bentley gives a detailed account of how he came to write Trent's Last Case, although I think it is true to say that he gave slightly different accounts on different occasions. However, unfortunately, he has more or less nothing else to say about his other crime fiction, giving Trent's Own Case no more than a passing mention (some people might unkindly say that is about all that particular book deserves!)

Bentley has a good deal to say about politics (he was a staunch Liberal) and quite a bit about journalism (his day job for many years) but to my regret he does not talk about the detective fiction genre in general, nor about the Detection Club. All in all, Those Days is quite interesting from a historical perspective, and that to my mind means that it certainly doesn't deserve to be forgotten. But those seeking information about the Golden Age of detective fiction won't find too much new material here.

Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey

In the course of his long and award-garlanded career, Peter Lovesey has written no fewer than four series of detective novels, all of them highly enjoyable, as well as a number of stand-alone novels and five collections of short stories. He is another of those crime writers I admired for years before he became, to my great delight, a friend. As with a good many other people - Reg Hill, Bob Barnard and Frances Fyfield are examples - I found that he is as charming, and generous, in person as he is wonderful to read.

In recent times, he has focused mainly on books featuring the appealing Bath-based cop Peter Diamond. Stagestruck, his latest entry in the series, the eleventh, I'm glad to report, is well up to standard.

The setting is the Theatre Royal in Bath, and the story opens with a dramatic misfortune suffered by Clarion Calhoun, a fading pop star who has taken the chance to re-launch her acting career in I Am a Camera. I've never seen the play, though I have heard of one famous review: 'Me no Leica!' Clarion's face is scarred and it seems that the dresser who was in charge of her make-up may have been responsible.

When the dresser goes missing, and is subsequently found dead in the theatre , one possibility is that she has committed suicide out of remorse. But Peter Diamond is not convinced, and before long, the plot thickens. While investigating the case, Diamond also has to confront a hidden and disturbing secret from his own past, with ultimately a very unexpected outcome.

The solution to the main puzzle had me fooled, and the book as a whole is excellent light entertainment. I'm tempted to write a separate post, inspired by Peter Lovesey's skill, on the art of planting clues in detective stories. Here he does it very cleverly indeed.

The Suspicons of Mr Whicher - review

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, starring Paddy Considine and based on the best-selling true crime book by Kate Summerscale, has just been screened on ITV. I enjoyed the book enormously - it read like a novel, and the light cast on the evolution of the detective in fiction was at the heart of its appeal.

I wasn't sure whether the TV version would live up to my expectations, but on the whole it was perfectly watchable, if a bit slow in places. Considine wore a pained, long-suffering expression for most of the time, but gave a decent performance as a decent man and a fine detective. However, the literary impact of the real life story was predictably sacrificed because of the needs of the television medium.

The Road House mystery is fascinating - Agatha Christie referred to it in her fiction, and Dorothy L. Sayers also had her theories about it. One of the intriguing points is that Constance Kent, following her belated confession to murder and eventual release from custody, lived to be 100 years old.

John Rhode, Sayers' friend, wrote up the case in a little-known Detection Club book called The Anatomy of Murder, and I think it's fair to say that the influence of true crime on Golden Age detective fiction, as well as on Victorian such as Wilkie Collins, was enormous, although it's not a point that Summerscale really emphasised.

Que La Bete Meure - review

In recent months, I have posted about a couple of films directed by the legendary Claude Chabrol, and now I have watched a third, Que La Bete Meure, which certainly counts as one of his major achievements. This is the, which opens in chilling fashion. A small boy is walking back to his home in a quiet French village when a car comes careering along, knocks him down and kills him.

His father, played by Michael Duchaussoy, starts to write a diary, which makes it clear that he is determined to track down the driver of the car, and take murderous revenge. The police fail to find the culprit, but a lucky chance puts the father on the right trail. He establishes that the driver was a businessman who owns a garage, and that he was accompanied by a young actress with whom he had had a fling.

The father begins a relationship with the actress, and she introduces him to the garage owner and his family. Almost everyone hates the garage owner, a selfish bully with few redeeming features, but when the father has the chance to kill the man he's pursuing so relentlessly, he does not take it. Nevertheless, in due course, justice is done – but who is responsible? The ending is ambiguous.

I enjoyed the film, and I enjoyed the book on which it is based – The Beast Must Die, by Nicholas Blake – when I read it a couple of years ago. But the two are very different. Blake's novel has a clever twist absent from the movie version, and features his regular series detective, Nigel Strangeways, whereas the film focuses on psychological suspense rather than mystification. Both book and film are, however, highly accomplished and have stood the test of time.

CADS and Curt Evans

That wonderful "irregular magazine of comments and criticism about crime and detective fiction", CADS, has just landed on my doorstep again. This is the 60th issue, a testament to the hard work of editor and publisher Geoff Bradley. As usual, it is an excellent and fascinating read. The emphasis is always on books of the past, but if you are interested in any aspect of the genre, I think you'll find something of interest in each issue.

There are many good things in this issue, including three typically enjoyable contributions by Liz Gilbey, but perhaps the highlight is a lengthy article about the "deposed crime kings" of the Golden Age, written by Curt Evans. Curt, incidentally, often contributes very well-informed comments on my posts, for which I am extremely grateful. He goes by the name of "Vegetable Duck", which is also the unlikely title of a novel by John Rhode, who is one of the authors featured in his article.

I've done quite a bit of research on the same authors, but Curt has come up with some points I wasn't aware of. For instance, he says that TS Eliot was a great fan of Freeman Wills Crofts and R. Austin Freeman, and he has discovered that Margaret Cole apparently wrote 10 of the mysteries which appeared under the names of her husband Douglas and herself on her own, while Douglas wrote 18 by himself. He also refers to one book by John Rhode which "manages to credibly employ a purple hedgehog as an instrument of death". Wow! Now that is one neglected classic that I really must track down one of these days!

He also makes the point that Crofts' work was influenced by his "religious value system", and Douglas Cole liked to bring to his work "a satirical touch, often influenced by a leftist world view". These writers, and the others whom he discusses, had some failings as prose stylists, but Curt is doing a great job at highlighting some of their under-estimated virtues.

Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn

Vera, the new TV crime series starring Brenda Blethyn, which is based on a splendid series of books by Ann Cleeves, is coming to our screens in the UK very soon. The first episode will be shown on ITV at 8 pm on Sunday, 1 May. There are to be three more episodes in succeeding weeks, and assuming the ratings are good (and I'm sure they will be great, given the strength of the cast and the storylines), another series will follow at a later date.

I'm enormously pleased about this, because I have been enjoying Ann's books since her writing (and my book reviewing) began in the late 1980s. We met through the Crime Writers' Association a few years later, and have been friends ever since. She has written many very enjoyable books, but her career really took off after she won the CWA Gold Dagger for Raven Black.

Vera Stanhope first appeared in The Crow Trap, a novel which I read and reviewed at the time of its original publication. I felt at the time that she was a wonderful character who deserved a series of her own, and although I think I'm right in saying that Ann did not originally intend Vera to be a long-running series character, I'm sure the TV series will prove that, for once at any rate, I was ahead of the game!

Forgotten Book - The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

Gladys Mitchell, one of the most prolific female detective novelists, is one of those writers whose work divides critical opinion. Philip Larkin was a huge fan, for instance, but Julian Symons did not have too much time for her. I read one or two of her books a long time ago and was not particularly impressed, but recently I decided it was time to give her another go. And my choice for today's Forgotten Book is a rather enjoyable story dating back to 1929, The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop.

This book marked the second appearance of Mitchell's remarkable detective, Mrs Bradley. She is living in a quintessentially English village, which happens also to be home to a rather unpleasant blackmailer who goes missing in mysterious circumstances. Suffice to say that you don't need me to tell you what is eventually found in the eponymous butcher's shop…

It is a mark of Mitchell's unique style that she is able to combine decapitation and dismemberment with plentiful humour. Some of the jokes do not stand the test of time, and the dialogue of the working-class characters is almost unreadable. Yet the book does have, despite various flaws, an enduring charm which explains why Vintage have reprinted half a dozen titles in the Mrs Bradley series. Mitchell offers multiple potential solutions to her mystery, with a flair worthy of Anthony Berkeley, and we are supplied with extracts from Mrs Bradley's notebook, as well as two plans and a timetable. Finally, there is a pleasing twist which sees Mrs Bradley taking a rather idiosyncratic approach to the notion of justice.

One further thing struck me about this book. Not far from the village is to be found "The Stone of Sacrifice" – and in my Lake District Mysteries, there is a Sacrifice Stone close to where Daniel Kind has his cottage. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun!