Martin Edwards's Blog, page 272

A Shock to the System

A Shock to the System is a 1990 film starring Michael Caine based on Simon Brett's stand-alone novel of the same novel. Before writing the book, Brett was associated, in the crime genre, with a string of witty whodunits featuring the actor Charles Paris, so this represented a considerable departure.

I read the book at the time, and enjoyed it. One of the interesting aspects of the book is that it can be seen as a modern spin on the idea of Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles – a put-upon chap resorts to murder to solve his problems, and various complications ensue.

A striking feature of the film is not just that the screenplay was written by Andrew Klavan, a notable thriller writer himself, but that the action was transplanted to the USA. Furthermore, the ending was completely changed. I don't know why this was done, or what Simon Brett thought about it, but it means that really one has to judge the film quite separately from the book.

On the whole, taking the film by itself, and trying to put the book out of my mind, I thought Klavan just about got away with it. Caine dominates with his usual smooth efficiency, and in effect the result is a crisp piece of black comedy that makes for pretty reasonable entertainment. Worth a watch.

Zen: Cabal and Ratkiing: review

Zen is the latest BBC cop series, starring Rufus Sewell as Michael Dibdin's Italian detective, Aurelio Zen. I've seen the second and third episodes, Cabal and Ratking. Glamour and quirkiness are the most striking features of these two shows. I read some of the Zen books years ago, and really liked them. The TV version seems rather different, but it does have a genuine appeal.

Sewell is a handsome actor and everyone in the cast seemed to be rather good-looking, not least Zen's dear old Mum. Women are very much attracted to Zen, including his lovely but troubled girlfriend, a tough female prosecutor and a suspect in Ratking. He also has two slightly cartoonish superiors in successive episodes, plus a crafty political master.

Italy is one of my favourite countries, and it provides a stunning backdrop. The plots are secondary, but Ratking was especially neatly structured. I still prefer the books, but I'd be glad to watch Zen again.

Finally, it strikes me as really poignant that Mike Dibdin didn't live to see Zen on the screen. It's rather like the late Alan Hunter, who never saw Inspector George Gently.

How long should a crime novel be?

There's little doubt that – as a generalisation – crime novels have grown fatter over the years. Jessica Mann pointed out a while back that, in days gone by, a typical crime novel was not much more than 60,000 words long; she pointed to many of the old green Penguins to illustrate her point. But things have change. Compare, for instance, the early Reginald Hill books with his more recent publications. The latter are much longer – yet equally fine, I hasten to add. But length is not always synonymous with quality.

This trend towards obesity is driven, primarily, by publishers' requirements, but no doubt the publishers would say they are only responding to consumer demand. A writer like Robert Barnard, for instance, tends to stick to relatively short books. But Stieg Larsson's success has not been hindered the bulkiness of his three novels. Some have opined, though, that Larsson's books might not have been harmed by a bit of judicious cutting. And much as I liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I think the book could easily have been shortened.

I know of one successful writer of historical mysteries whose publisher insisted that she increase the already substantial word count of her books. And a fellow lawyer once told me that he judged the value of a book by its size. Which shocked me at least as much as those who judge the quality of a novel by its cover.

Personally I have a slight prejudice as both a reader and a writer for books that are not too long. But of course there are plenty of exceptions – Reg Hill's work is but one example. All the same, I do think that the quality of plenty of crime novels might be improved by some cutting. Most stories have a natural length, and it does them no favours to increase it.

Susannah York R.I.P.

Susannah York's death, earlier today, has shocked me. It seems she had been suffering from cancer for some time; the obituaries say she was over 70, but I have a mental picture of her as someone eternally young and beautiful, as well as gifted.

Much of her most famous work was done in the 60s. One of her best films was They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Based on superb short crime novel by Horace McCoy, it is an unforgettable classic. If you haven't seen it, do give it a go. She was also excellent in The Killing of Sister George. The Battle of Britain was another film in which I enjoyed seeing her.

It's said that she found it very difficult to find suitable roles in the last twenty years or so. And there is a surprising and disappointing shortage of stories or screenplays written in which women of over 50 are the main protagonists. Not easy to understand. Why do heroines so often need to be young, or youngish? There are some crime novels that fit the bill (not counting the Marples!), but there is surely scope for more. Maybe one day, if I think I'm able to do it well enough, I'll write one myself. Meanwhile, it's a time to pay tribute to a fine actor, who will be missed.

Forgotten Book - End of an Ancient Mariner

G.D.H. and M. Cole were prolific if less than dazzling writers of the Golden Age and my choice for today's Forgotten Book is one of their 'inverted' novels, End of an Ancient Mariner, which first came out in 1933.

Philip Blakeaway has married well, and lives a comfortable life, but it comes under threat at the start of the book. The elderly seafarer of the title comes across him, and recognises him from the past. We do not know what Philip's secret is, but soon the old man is dead – shot, according to Philip, while attempt to burgle his house overlooking Hampstead Heath.

At first, it seems, Philip's story will be accepted. The police seem satisfied. But Philip is at risk, because his butler smells a rat, and the dead man's daughter – who is unaware of his fate – starts trying to track down her father. Thanks to one or two rather unlikely coincidences, Philip comes under increasing pressure, and then Superintendent Wilson, the Coles' regular cop, finally comes on the scene...

There are one or two nice touches of satire – 'the BBC cherishes an ineradicable hope that if it persistently addresses the public in good English with a cultured accent, by and by it will be as if the entire population of Great Britain had been educated at Winchester, and what nobler ideal can democracy set itself than that?' Politics gets a passing mention when Philip denies being a Socialist ('I'm far too fond of my own comfort') despite being on good terms with his chauffeur. But these little touches are few and far between – a pity, for the Coles could have written a more memorable story if they had let their hair down a bit more.

As it is, the book is certainly readable, and it held my interest throughout, while there is a pleasing touch of ambiguity about the ending. This is the best of the few Coles novels that I have read so far.

Sherlock Holmes - the movie: review

I wasn't sure whether I would care for Guy Ritchie's 2009 movie version of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert J. Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. And for sure, it's a film that will have purists wincing, as many liberties are taken with facts and the Holmes canon. Anachronisms abound and the casting of Holmes seemed like a gamble.

And yet, I must say that I enjoyed the film. I do think that film and TV adaptations of crime stories deserve to be judged on their own merits, even if I loved the original on which they were based. The real failures are those, like the recent The Secret of Chimneys, where it's impossible to see what the point of the new version was.

Here, for all its quirks, the story was exciting and the visual effects quite brilliant. The plot involved the villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong was credibly nasty in the part) who seems to be able to use occult powers with a view to taking control of the British Empire and then the world as a whole. What a cad!

The cast did a good job, with a nice take on the Holmes-Watson relationship, even if Conan Doyle would have been amazed at the re-inventing of Mary Morstan and Irene Adler. But then, the great Basil Rathbone films which first turned me on to Sherlock when I was very young were also far removed from the originals. I liked them, and slightly to my surprise, I liked this movie too.

Italian Noir and Surviving Midsome

Having recorded the BBC4 programme on Italian Noir crime fiction just before Christmas, I've finally watched it, and I did find it interesting, even though I was much less familiar with the authors discussed than with the Scandinavian writers who featured in Nordic Noir, which I talked about recently. The talking heads included Maxim Jakubowski and Barry Forshaw, who are both articulate commentators and very knowledgeable about Eurocrime.

Predictably, the major contemporary writers Camilleri and Lucarelli were considered, and interviewed, and I found myself tempted to try their work – perhaps Camilleri's in particular. But I was especially interested in mention of a writer from the inter-war years, Carlo Gaddo, whose book That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana sounded quite fascinating. I do think that crime novels of the past often cast a very significant light on crime novels of the present, and Gaddo's book sounded well worth acquiring. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has read it.

I've also watched Surviving Midsomer, an entertaining account of mayhem in the long-running Midsomer Murders series. The TV version derives from books written by Caroline Graham, a very amiable author whom I met a number of times in the 90s, but who (I think) is not at present writing any more crime fiction, no doubt in part because the massive success she has achieved has removed any financial need to do so.

I enjoyed Caroline's early books very much, and although I gave up on the TV series after a year or two, I do think that the formula that was devised, with witty methods of murder, attractive locations and the very agreeable performances of John Nettles as Barnaby, made the shows effective light entertainment. And this spin-off programme encouraged me to watch a bit more of the Midsomer saga.

Forgotten Book - Hag's Nook

My Forgotten Book today is Hag's Nook, by John Dickson Carr, the masterof the 'impossible crime'. This novel was published in 1930, when the author was only 26 – staggeringly, he had already published five detective novels. But this was the first to feature Dr Gideon Fell, who became his most famous sleuth.

Much of the story is told from the viewpoint of a young American Anglophile, Tad Rampole, whose attitudes reflected Carr's. Tad falls for Dorothy Starberth, and soon learns of the curse of the Starberth family – the Starberth men die of broken necks.

Unfortunately, the legend takes a fresh twist when Dorothy's brother Martin is found dead – with a broken neck – while engaged in a complicated family ritual that has to do with mysterious documents and a cryptogram. The obvious suspect is Martin's cousin, but we know what happens to obvious suspects in Golden Age novels, don't we?

I enjoyed this one a lot. It's a long time since I read a Carr novel, but I do aim to read more soon. He was a good writer, who used melodramatic atmosphere,history, and a romantic way of evoking suspense and setting to make his elaborate and unlikely crimes seem credible. Implausible, but not impossible, is the theme of a Carr solution. If you like elaborate mysteries of the past, this one is well worth a read. And if you do read it, you may be as impressed as I am by the fact it was written by such a young man.

Wallander - The Man Who Smiled: review

The Man Who Smiled is the first episode of Swedish TV's version of Wallander that I've seen starring Rolf Lassgard in the title role. He was the original Wallander, and is arguably closer to Hanning Mankell's character than his successors. Yet at first, I didn't really take to his portrayal of the cop as something of a fat slob who goes to bed with a prostitute and then throws her out of his room.

However, the script was rather well written, and subtleties emerged in the story and characterisation that were not immediately apparent - especially to me, as I've not read the book. Although Wallander's behaviour eventually cost him his relationship with his colleague Maja, Lassgard grew on me as the programme went on.

The story is complicated and unusual, beginning in true Henning Mankell style with an eerie and memorable scene – an old man who is driving his car in the rain, stops when he comes face to face with a mysterious South American figure. Needless to say, he does not survive the encounter.

The ending was fairly downbeat, in a way that is far from traditional, yet seemed believable. There were plenty of vivid moments throughout, and on the whole – even though I still think I prefer Krister Henriksson as Wallander - I felt this was an extremely watchable episode.

Alice and Crime

Alice in Wonderland is not only a timeless classic, but also one of my lifelong favourite books. The story has always fascinated me, and not simply because Lewis Carroll grew up not far from where I did, in Cheshire Cat country. On New Year's Eve I watched Tim Burton's film of Alice, and also had chance to reflect on the story once again.

The episodic nature of the story is one of its appeals, and Carroll's inventiveness was so rich that his work has inspired countless others. In the crime field, Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown is a super novel by a terrific writer. I haven't really talked about Brown in this blog, but I rate him very highly.

The late Edward D. Hoch contributed a short story, 'The War in Wonderland', to an anthology that I edited, and it went on to win an award, which gave me a lot of vicarious pleasure. For my own part, I have toyed with the idea of an Alice theme for a crime story, but – so far – the ingredients haven't come together to make a satisfactory whole. Maybe one day.

As for the film, it was an interesting take on the story, with a great cast including Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. The visual effects were impressive. But it didn't owe too much to the original, and whereas Carroll produced a masterpiece, Burton only managed something that, although watchable and entertaining, felt slightly unsatisfactory. He is a good film-maker, but I still prefer his Mars Attacks!, an uneven but funny movie which I've just watched and enjoyed again.