Martin Edwards's Blog, page 49

Crossfire - 1947 film review

Crossfire is an intriguing film noir with an ambitious and interesting theme. It received five Oscar nominations and, three-quarters of a century on, it remains very watchable indeed. The three male stars are all called Robert; each gives a highly distinctive and impressive performance. They are Robert Young, as a smart but low-key cop called Finlay, Robert Ryan, as a seemingly amiable but in truth sociopathic soldier, and Robert Mitchum.The director was Edward Dymtryk and the screenplay by John Paxton.

From the start, we're aware that two men have beaten up a Jewish man, Samuels, and killed him. Finlay and his team soon discover that Samuels had been in the company of a group of soldiers prior to his death and it's likely that one of them (at least) is responsible for the murder. Suspicion falls on a soldier called Mitch, but it emerges, partly through flashbacks, that the killer was Ryan's character, Monty, and that his accomplice was a soldier called Floyd. 

There's no clear evidence to link Monty to the crime, but his temper and brutality mean that he is a dangerous man to know. Finlay deduces his motive and sets about laying a trap...

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that antisemitism is the motive for the crime. It's also an element in The Brick Foxhole, the book on which Paxton based his script. But in the novel, homophobia is a central issue. The movie industry in 1947 simply wasn't ready to tackle that. Nevertheless, the film delivers a very forceful message about bigotry of all kinds, as well as antisemitism in particular. The Brick Foxhole, incidentally, was an early novel written by Richard Brooks, who became a noted film director, working on movies such as Blackboard Jungle and In Cold Blood.

  

Forgotten Book - Don't Whistle 'Macbeth'

David Fletcher is an author I enjoy reading. His real name was Dulan Barber, and he was quite a prolific and versatile novelist who produced a dozen crime novels as Fletcher. He died young, of a heart attack, when he was only 48 and I think this accounts in part for the neglect into which his work has fallen. He was a talented exponent of psychological suspense.

Don't Whistle 'Macbeth', published in 1976, is rather different from the other Fletchers that I've read. It's an interesting attempt to blend a whodunit plot with an operatic background and a sort of belated 'coming of age' story involving the narrator, David Kingsley-Grieff.  A gimmick is the inclusion of 'programme notes' by Brigid Brophy, who in those days was a high profile figure in the literary world. The setting is a posh country estate which is home to a recently revived opera festival, which is about to stage Don Giovanni.

The author was an opera lover, and the background is very well-realised. The festival is put on by a rich but troublesome chap called Hugo, who has a failing marriage to Leonie and a beautiful but wayward daughter, Petronella, from a previous relationship. David has taken an admin job at the festival mainly because he is infatuated with one of the performers, a woman called Dorcas. But then murder occurs and David becomes not only a suspect but also a potential victim.

The story is capably written and the plot is quite sound, even if one or two pieces of behaviour aren't in keeping with the realistic tone of the narrative. David, I fear, is a rather irritating character. Even the dust jacket blurb acknowledges that he is priggish. So I didn't care quite as much as I should have done about his tangled love life and his attempts to solve the puzzle. I also found the explanation for the mysterious whistling of the title to be rather an anti-climax. Even so, it's a book that's worth reading and Fletcher certainly deserves not to be forgotten.

The Circle - 2017 film review

The Circle is a techno-thriller released four years ago. As I understand it, the movie was a commercial hit but didn't particularly please the critics, perhaps because they regarded it as somewhat unoriginal. However, I enjoyed the story and thought that its treatment of issues concerning personal privacy in the modern age was pretty sound, even if not as sophisticated as that of a much older film, The Conversation, which is a genuine masterpiece.

The Circle benefits from a good cast, led by Emma Watson, who plays Mae Holland. Mae's friend Annie (Karen Gillan) helps her to get a job with The Circle, a highly sophisticated social media company with more than a touch of Facebook and Youtube about it. Mae's father suffers from MS, and her parents are glad that she's got a chance of career progression, but her old friend Mercer, with whom she used to go kayaking, is less impressed.

Soon Mae comes to attention of the company's CEO Eamon Bailey. Bailey is played by Tom Hanks, whose charm makes this a very good piece of casting indeed. Bailey waxes lyrical about the benefits of accountability and transparency, especially in terms of cleaning up politics, and soon Mae is spearheading the campaign to make The Circle omnipresent in everyone's lives. But transparency comes at a cost...

I don't claim that The Circle digs really dip, either into character or the politics of privacy, but I do think that the script makes a number of good points without interfering too much with the telling of a decent story. One poignant aspect of the film is that it marked the final appearance of both the actors who play Mae's parents, Bill Paxton and Glenne Headly, both of whom gave effective performances. 

Ghosts and Ghosts from the Library

On Halloween, what better than to look at a couple of enjoyable - and very different - anthologies of ghost stories? I've always been interested in stories of the supernatural, and with a few notable exceptions I think the ghost story usually works best in the short form. I've even tried my hand at this kind of fiction, with a story called 'No Flowers' that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (and the editor Janet Hutchings even recorded me reading it a few years ago), and I may return to it before too long.

Ghosts from the Library is the latest collection edited by Tony Medawar. It's a companion volume to his Bodies from the Library series, and Tony kindly inscribed the books for me recently, when I was his guest at a fascinating crime-themed dinner in London. It's no secret that Tony and I are old friends, so naturally you'd expect me to like his books, and this latest title definitely reflects his reputation as the best in the business at finding unknown stories by leading authors of the past.

One astonishing find also happened to be my favourite story in the whole book. This is 'The Green Dress' by Anthony Berkeley. I never knew it existed, but I really enjoyed reading it - for me, that story alone justifies the book! But there's plenty more beside, including a good story by Christianna Brand, another by Edmund Crispin, and an excellent Agatha Christie that I'd previously heard in an audio version. 

Louise Welsh is someone I've never met, but I've admired her writing for a long time. Ghost is a massive anthology (with lovely cover artwork by the admirable Ed Bettison) which includes no fewer than one hundred stories, with contributions from Pliny the Younger to Fay Weldon. With so many good things included, it's impossible to pick out favourites, but I must say that I was impressed that Louise Welsh managed to find so many gems that I'd never come across before, rather than sticking to a predictable line-up. So just to whet your appetite, the author list includes Kafka, Richmal Crompton, Tove Jansson, P.G. Wodehouse, Sir Alec Guinness, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Hilary Mantel. Not to mention two of the finest short story writers of all, Shirley Jackson and William Trevor. A terrific book. 

Forgotten Book - Death of an Author

The revival of E.C.R. Lorac's reputation as a detective novelist during the past few years has given me a great deal of pleasure. As I've said in the past, I was introduced to her work by my parents, and I often think that they'd be amused and gratified to see that a writer they both enjoyed has found an extensive new readership in the twenty-first century, not only in the UK but also in the US.

Death of an Author was one of her early books, written before she moved up to Lunesdale. It was the last novel of hers published by Sampson Low before she was taken on by Collins Crime Club. An unusual feature of the novel is that Inspector Macdonald doesn't appear. Here she introduces us to a likeable pair of cops called Warner and Bond.

The early chapters are absolutely excellent. We meet a publisher called Marriott and one of his top authors, a man called Ashe. The conversation turns to a bestseller by a mysterious author called Vivian Lestrange. Ashe is fascinated by book and author and persuades Marriott to arrange a dinner at which he can meet the reclusive writer. But then he is thunderstruck to be introduced to an attractive young woman...

It's difficult to discuss this book without giving too many spoilers. Suffice to say that we are given a fascinating picture of the literary world as well as an intriguing and unorthodox mystery. I really enjoyed it and I'm pleased to say that the British Library are also keen. This is a book that is extremely rare, but it won't be for long. Next year, all being well, it will appear as a Crime Classic. 

Last Looks - 2022 film review

Last Looks is a recent entry in that challenging and often underwhelming branch of film-making, the 'comedy thriller'. Striking the right balance between comedy and thrills is a far from straightforward task. However, Tim Kirkby's film, based on a novel by Howard Michael Gould, makes a good attempt at mixing the ingredients in the correct measures.
At the start of the film, we're introduced to Charlie Waldo (played by Charlie Hunnam), who has quit the LAPD for a simple life in a trailer; he has just one hundred possessions. A glamorous old flame called Lorena (Morena Baccarin) tries to encourage him to put his detective talents to work on behalf of a famous actor, Alastair Pinch, who has been accused of murdering his wife. Waldo plays hard to get, but after Lorena disappears he finds himself drawn into the mystery. And we find out that his new home is only a bike raid away from the city....
Pinch is played by Mel Gibson, who is entertainingly awful as an entitled British actor whose main redeeming feature is his devotion to his small daughter. There are quite a lot of amusing parodic touches, including the hero's obligatory fling with a pretty blonde woman, but the script is good enough to ensure that the audience doesn't become bored or irritated. The mystery plot, despite leaning heavily on tropes of the private eye genre, is soundly constructed.
I don't recall coming across Charlie Hunnam before, but he holds the film together with a performance of considerable range and humanity. A story of this kind can easily lose momentum after a few initial surprises and jokes, but Last Looks kept me interested to the end. Very good light entertainment.

Natural Enemy - 1996 film review

Natural Enemy is a thriller starring Donald Sutherland which dates back twenty-five years. I knew nothing about the film, but Sutherland is always good value, and so I gave it a go. I was glad I did, since it's entertaining story that doesn't outstay its welcome. After watching, I discovered that it's a Canadian made for TV film, but it is of a higher standard than many made-for-telly movies, despite the fact that Kevin Bernhardt's script does have a few shortcomings.

We're thrown into the action right away. Ted (Sutherland) is a financial trader who has a good-looking young right-hand man called Jeremy (William McNamara). From the start it seems that Jeremy is slightly strange and over-the-top and it soon emerges that he has violent tendencies. Ted unwisely invites the young man to stay at his family home while he sorts out a few problems in his personal life. At first Jeremy demurs, but he changes his mind, and turns up with a girlfriend in tow: she is older, and married to someone else.

Ted lives with his glamorous second wife Sandy (Lesley Ann Warren) and his son from his first marriage, Chris (Christian Tessier). Sandy is pregnant, and the family is a happy one. However, Jeremy soon proves to be a disruptive influence and his behaviour towards his girlfriend is sadistic. It's pretty evident that there is something very wrong with him, and Ted's extreme naivete where Jeremy is concerned is one of the flaws in the story. 

Nonetheless, as events spiral towards a terrible climax, the cast handle the material with plenty of verve. It's easy to dismiss films such as this as hokum, but the quality of the acting, in particular from Sutherland and Warren, and the pace of the story meant that I was happy to suspend my disbelief.   

Forgotten Book - Murder at Liberty Hall

Years ago, I came across a lovely, jacketed first edition of Murder at Liberty Hall at a book fair. The price was out of reach, but I was intrigued to see that the author was Alan Clutton-Brock. At first I wondered if this was the same chap as Alan Brock, author of Earth to Ashes and various other rather interesting novels, but it turned out that he was someone else entirely.

Clutton-Brock (1904-76) was best-known as an art critic. He also owned Chastleton, a grand home near Moreton-in-Marsh, which is now in the care of the National Trust; despite many trips to that part of the world, I've never actually visited Chastleton, and it's an omission I must repair. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, so was definitely a pillar of the establishment. But it's clear from his novel that he had a good sense of humour. The book was published in 1941, but describes events of May 1939 and there are mentions of possible German espionage.

The title refers to a progressive school, Scrope House, which is very, very different from Eton. The narrator is James Hardwicke, a scientist who has become well-known for his researches into identical twins (spoiler alert - twins do not play a part in the plot!). He and a lady friend, Caroline, accept an invitation from a rich old woman who owns the school to investigate some instances of arson and soon finds himself in the thick of a poisoning mystery.

The mystery aspects of the story are quite competently done, although pace and tension are conspicuous by their absence. The slowest part of the book is actually the segment that I found most entertaining - a witty account of a cricket match between a conventional local school and a motley band of boys and girls from Scrope. This is, if you like cricket, really good fun. If you don't share my love of the summer game, you may find the story drags. But Clutton-Brock wrote with gentle wit and intelligence and it's rather a shame that this was his only venture into the genre. 

Pistols, Bombs and Motor Bandits by Joan Lock

I first met Joan Lock (and her late husband Bob) more years ago than either of us would care to remember, at a CWA conference. We've kept in touch through the years and for a long time Joan contributed an excellent column about police matters to 'Red Herrings', the CWA members' newsletter. She was herself a woman police officer and she has written a good deal of non-fiction as well as publishing several novels.

Her latest book is published by Robin Books. It's called Pistols, Bombs and Motor Bandits, and it has an intriguing sub-title, The Real Golden Age of Murder. Joan was kind enough to read and enjoy my own non-fiction book The Golden Age of Murder, about the classic detective fiction of the Thirties. This book makes numerous references to mine, but it is very different, an account of what was going on in the real world of policing. 

Joan's practical know-how is reflected in her direct and readable writing style and she explores, in a crisp and satisfactory way, a number of famous cases (for instance, the 'Beach' or 'Crumbles' murder) as well as several that are just as intriguing but not at all well-known. There's a good deal of material in this book that's likely to interest writers who, like me, are interested in writing historical crime fiction and, importantly, there is a useful index.

In inscribing my copy of this book, Joan was kind enough to say that The Golden Age of Murder inspired her to write it. Regardless of that, I can say unequivocally that I really enjoyed reading it and can recommend it to anyone who is interested in the realities of the history of criminal investigation in this country. 

The Rising Tide and Serpent's Point

Two friends of mine who also happen to be writers I admire have published new novels recently. It goes without saying that I recommend their work, but I thought that today I'd discuss how apparently very different approaches to writing can result in equally harmonious results. I've touched on this subject before, and I was reminded of it when conducting a recent online crime writing workshop in collaboration with another pair of interesting writers, Lucinda Hawksley and David Mark.

Ann Cleeves' The Rising Tide is the latest Vera Stanhope mystery. I had the pleasure - and it really was a pleasure - of discussing the book with Ann in conversation at a theatre in Carlisle a few weeks ago. Ann is a very consistent writer, but I think it's fair to say that this is probably my favourite among her recent books. It combines a wonderful setting (Lindisfarne) with a good mystery and interesting characterisation.

Ann has often said that she doesn't plot her books in advance. At Carlisle, she mentioned that she originally had a different starting point for the story. But her experience and skill enable her to weave various pieces of material into a pleasing pattern. We're introduced to the characters before murder strikes, and then after the investigation begins, another tragedy occurs. The closing pages, as ever, see at least one character in peril, and in this book the jeopardy is handled at least as effectively as in any of Ann's earlier bestsellers. The result is powerful.

Kate Ellis's Serpent's Point is also an entry in a long series, this time featuring Wesley Peterson. Again the setting (in Devon) is a valuable ingredient. Kate does plot her books - very meticulously - but like Ann she manages to come up with a pattern of writing, in her case a blend of a historical mystery and a contemporary crime, which is harmonious and appealing to a large number of readers. I don't want to say too much about the detail of either story, but here I was especially taken with the premise of the victim, Susan, undertaking a do-it-yourself crime investigation. Brave or foolish of her? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out...