Martin Edwards's Blog, page 284

The Price of Love - review

A title like The Price of Love suggests romantic fiction, but in fact The Price of Love is simply one of the entries in a crime story collection by Peter Robinson that I've just listened to on an audio book. And it's quite a dark story, too, with nothing Mills & Boon about it at all.

'Like a Virgin' is especially noteworthy. It fills in the gaps of DCI Alan Banks' past life- the main events are told in flashback, and concern a seedy murder case which he investigated in his London days, before ...

More about The Swedish Crime Story

I mentioned recently The Swedish Crime Story by Bo Lundin, which provides a concise but useful account of the genre's highpoints up to 1980. It's a short survey, and the book contains both the Swedish text and an English translation (which reads oddly in one or two small respects, but is otherwise okay.) Bo Lundin does not exactly have the critical or literary skills of Julian Symons, but all the same, I've found Lundin's account very interesting.

Lundin highlights two distinctively Swedish...

Fingerprints

When Fiona commented on my blog post about Colin Evans' biography of Sir Bernard Spilsbury about the fascination of forensics, she suggested that I write a blog post about fingerprints. And in the spirit of interactivity and responding positively and enthusiastically to comments, I thought – good idea, I shall do just that!

Fiona mentioned a personal connection with the history of fingerprints – she knew, in her youth, the daughter of Sir Edward Henry, who developed a classification system...

Paul Johnston and Maps of Hell

I first came across Paul Johnston on a memorable evening at the Law Society in Chancery Lane – was it as long ago as 1997? - on the occasion of the CWA Awards Dinner. I was there, among other reasons, because I'd edited an anthology which yielded a couple of candidates for the short story Dagger. That evening, one of those writers, Reg Hill, won the Dagger for his brilliant story 'On the Psychiatrist's Couch', while Paul won the John Creasey Memorial Dagger for his first crime novel, The...

Forgotten Book - Green Grow the Tresses-O

Last year, I included in Patti Abbott's series of Forgotten Books the notable first novel by Stanley Hyland, Who Goes Hang? Today I'm highlighting another of his books, Green Grow the Tresses-O, which was first published in 1965, at which time Hyland lived and worked on the periphery of politics, producing political broadcasts for television, as well as being involved with a wide range of other TV shows.

Because Hyland was a busy man, he did not have much time for novel writing and he only...

Slaughter on a Snowy Morn

The Father of Forensics, the biography of Sir Bernard Spilsbury that I covered in this blog recently, has a new true crime book out, again published by Icon. Slaughter on a Snowy Morn deals with a much less familiar subject, an American case that I had never heard of before this book arrived on my doorstep.

The set-up of the story is rather intriguing. This is taken from the back cover of the book:
'Sing Sing Prison, New York, July 1916.
Charles Frederick Stielow, a 37 year old farmhand with...

The Herring in the Library

L.C.Tyler's The Herring-Seller's Apprentice attracted a good deal of well-deserved attention, introducing as it did two very entertaining characters, unsuccessful crime writer Ethelred Tressider and his long-suffering agent Elsie Thirkettle, in a story which paid agreeable homage to the Golden Age mystery. Tyler's fourth novel, and his third featuring Ethelred and Elsie, has just been published, and I've certainly enjoyed reading it.

You can tell from the pleasing title of The Herring in the...

Travelling and Dorothy L. Sayers

I'll be travelling for a few days, but I've scheduled blog posts for each day of my absence, so there will be plenty of varied reading matter for regular visitors to 'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?' However, it may be difficult for me to access a pc while I'm away, so please forgive me if I take longer than usual to post or reply to any comments.

It's been a year since I've had a real holiday and I have to say that I'm looking forward to this one, even though no doubt – as usual – it will p...

Sherlock: The Blind Banker - review

The Blind Banker, second episode in Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson, was my first encounter with the 21st century version of Conan Doyle's classic detective duo. I missed A Study in Pink last week, but reviews were very positive, and I can see why.

The idea of updating the characters but retaining key elements from the originals was the brainchild of Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss, two very good TV writers. Purists might wince at the idea, but...

In the Elecric Mist

James Lee Burke is a writer with a gift for creating atmosphere, and his work seems eminently suitable for adaptation to the big screen, so I expected great things from In the Elecric Mist, a 2009 film based on one of his Dave Robicheaux novels, and starring the excellent Tommy Lee Jones as Dave – a brilliant piece of casting.

The story-line is quite complicated. A young woman's body, sadistically mutilated, is discovered, apparently the work of a serial killer. Soon afterwards Dave has a...