Martin Edwards's Blog, page 64

Introducing The Underground Game by Fei Wu

When I visited Shanghai in 2019 I spent a good deal of time in the company of my host Fei Wu, a Chinese crime writer who shares my great enthusiasm for the genre. At that point, he'd just produced his first interactive mystery novel, The Lost Winner. Now he's produced a follow-up called The Underground Game. I asked him to describe the story:

'On the early morning of Christmas, a metro line disappeared from the monitor of the transportation control centre. It never happened before so the operator was alarmed and reported the situation to his boss. Soon it was proved that the train was hijacked by someone. They also learned from the driver who escaped from the train that a bomb was set up somewhere in it.

In the meantime, the passengers on the subway were being ordered to finish a task before the train, which was on a loop line, returned to its starting place.

The order was given from the broadcasting system of the train and it was very strange.

"You need to find a victim who was killed at the station, otherwise you are in big trouble."

 

How could the passengers locate a victim they might not know at all?

Why was the train hijacked?

What's the relationship between the victim and the train?

When could the police save the passengers from the moving locked room?

In the box that comes with the story, you will find puzzle pieces. They are the clues left in the compartment by the suspect. The readers should play the role of passengers and try to solve the puzzle.

Again, as my previous book, each chapter is sealed in a pocket and more clues are hidden inside. The reader will find necessary clues or tools at the right places so they can approach the truth step by step by themselves, if they want to accomplish the challenges!'

Here's a bit more about Fei himself: 

'Fei Wu, (born 1984) is a Chinese mystery and crime writer. He has a bachelor of physics degree from Fudan University and originally started working in technical sales. Before he made his mind to embark on a career as a professional writer, he worked in semiconductor industry for many years. In 2019, he became the first contributor to EQMM from China mainland, with a Christmas Eve story, 'Beijingle all the Way'. He is known for his creative idea of implementing interactive elements into mystery fiction. While reading his book, the reader can even build up the model of the crime scene with the tools and materials enclosed in the book. His first book The Lost Winner has gained a wide reputation for him since 2019.'

Crafting Crime is here!

I'm truly delighted to announce the launch of Crafting Crime, an online course for crime writers which I've put together in conjunction with the editorial consultancy Fiction Feedback, run by Dea Parkin, and Competitive Edge Advertising and Marketing. We have a website which gives lots of information about the course. If you're interested in writing a crime novel (or hoping to identify a special gift for someone!), do take a look at the introductory video on the home page, which gives an idea of how the course works. 

I've been working on the course materials for much of this year. The main inspiration sprang from the writing workshops I've been conducting up and down the country for several years now, most recently at Torquay during the International Agatha Christie Festival. I've really enjoyed the connection with aspiring writers. Even when I did an online workshop earlier this year for Wirral Libraries/Comma Press, inevitably with less of an immediate connection to the participants, I still found it motivating. And just as motivation is important for inexperienced writers, so it's important for anyone seeking to pass on a range of tips and ideas, as well as practical information about the writing life.

Another source of inspiration came from working on Howdunit with so many wonderful writers - a great experience. A well-established training organisation approached me to write a crime writing course for them, and although our thinking was different, when I talked to Dea about creating a course, it was plain that her approach was very much in tune with mine. Her skills and experience is also complementary, especially in the crucial field of critiquing manuscripts. 

We wanted to fill a gap in the market, getting away from the constraints of the classroom and presenting material in a flexible way, with downloadable materials and podcasts, which participants can access whenever they want over a six-month period. And the aim is not only to help with creativity, story structure and writing techniques, but also to give people a realistic and practical understanding of the writer's life, trying to help equip them for the ups and the downs. 

A great many wonderful crime writers from around the world - along with literary agents and British and American publishers - have been generous enough to share their thoughts for the benefit of course participants. There are all sorts of supplementary materials - research notes, sample outlines, editorial tips, and so on, to accompany the main course modules, which themselves run to a total of over 60,000 words. Rhian Waller of Gladstone's Library kindly recorded our podcasts. So there's plenty to get your teeth into. 

Every single person who signs up for the course will be able to submit the start of their novel and a synopsis within six months and receive a professional critique from Fiction Feedback (full details on the website). That critique covers the first part of the manuscript (up to 8000 words) plus a synopsis of up to 1000 words, and this is a major feature of the course. With luck, a number of those who take part will go on to enjoy illustrious careers as crime writers. And if that happens, Dea and I will be absolutely thrilled. 

Forgotten Book - No Tears for Hilda

No Tears for Hilda was Andrew Garve's first book to be published by Collins Crime Club. This was in 1950, and Garve was a new pen-name for Paul Winterton, a journalist who had previously published crime novels under the name Roger Bax (he'd later write a few books under another name, Paul Somers). Garve novels would appear regularly until 1978, when Winterton was 70. After that, he retired from the scene, although he lived until just short of his 93rd birthday. 

Garve was evidently an interesting individual, a member of the Detection Club and a founder member of the CWA. He stood for election to Parliament in 1931 as a Labour candidate, but since that was the year that Labour were wiped out in a landslide, his political career never got going. It's not easy to find out much about his personal life, though I understand that he wrote a (regrettably unpublished) autobiography. Signed Garve books are hard to come by, and when I came across his personal copy of this title on eBay, I was keen to snaffle it. Now I've read it, I'm glad I did. 

This is one of those novels in which a man is charged with murder, but someone close to him insists that he is innocent, and tried to prove it. A familiar scenario, but Garve handles it with a touch of originality, focusing on the psychological make-up of the victim. Although Francis Iles had focused on a 'murderee' almost twenty years earlier, in his extraordinary novel Before the Fact, Garve's approach is very different. The setting and storyline are in keeping with the rather grey mood of the post-war austerity era.  

George Lambert's wife Hilda is found dead. At first sight it looks as though she has gassed herself, but it's soon evident that someone killed her. George appears to be the only suspect. He has no alibi, while an affair with a young nurse gives him a motive. His war-time pal Max Easterbrook can't believe that good old George could have committed such a crime. But there are no other suspects.

To find the truth, Max needs to learn more about Hilda's personality. It soon becomes evident that nobody did shed any tears after her death and Garve's attempt to present a rounded psychological portrait of an unpleasant woman is interesting if not, to my mind, wholly successful. But Max's search for the real culprit is interesting and Garve's smooth and accessible prose style kept me turning the pages. 

The Hardboiled Apple and Raymond Chandler's L.A.

A couple of months ago I  about Caroline Crampton's attractive map of Agatha Christie's England. It's another nice idea - along with James Fleming's book, which I mentioned the other day - for a Christmas gift. And now here are a couple more ideas for those crime fans in your life. Two more maps, this time of American locations, but again produced by Herb Lester Associates. Above is a picture of one of them, The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles.

The Hardboiled Apple is, of course, a map of New York, and it's created by Jon Hammer and Karen McBurnie. No fewer than 55 criminal locations are featured, and there is also a 'Timeline of Treachery' taking us from 1845 to 2018. The authors highlighted range from S.S. Van Dine and Ellery Queen to Donald Westlake and Caleb Carr. I was pleased to see mentions for faves of mine such as Cornell Woolrich and Kenneth Fearing and intrigued by some unfamiliar names, like Stefanie Pintoff.

The Chandler-related map is less complex, but includes various points of interest, from the Sternwood Mansion (of course!) to The Cypress Club. Some of Chandler's own residences in L.A. are also featured. As you might imagine, quite a number of the highlights are in or around Hollywood Boulevard. It would look good framed, I think.

 

The Power of the Dog - 2021 film review

A few years ago Liz Gilbey recommended me to read Thomas Savage's novel The Power of the Dog, which was first published in 1967. I'd never heard of the book or the author and I was surprised when Liz told me that it was a superb crime novel - even more surprised when I bought a copy and started reading. But I soon realised that it's a terrific novel and that Liz's praise was well merited.

Now, more than fifty years after its first appearance, the book has been filmed, by Jane Campion no less. The lead character is the malevolent Montana rancher Phil Burbank and I must admit that if I'd been casting this part, I certainly wouldn't have thought of offering it to Benedict Cumberbatch. But I'd have been wrong. What a brilliant actor he is. Phil is a trick character to portray, but he does a great job.

On the surface, this is a Western, and I would not describe myself as a fan of Westerns (other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). It's also a long film, a real slow-burner. The events of the book also move at a measured pace. I do feel that I enjoyed the film more because I'd read and loved the source novel. I felt Campion did Savage justice. It's an impressive piece of work.

I don't want to say too much about the storyline, but Phil and his amiable brother George (Jesse Plemons) are wealthy men who are very different but have a close relationship. That relationship is, in Phil's eyes, threatened when George marries Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst), a widow with a teenage son who is intelligent but not exactly macho. Kodi Smit-McPhee does a great job in the role of young Peter. It's a compelling story which is watchable and indeed gripping throughout - even if, like me, you usually prefer your stories to have a bit more pace. 

  

Bond Behind the Iron Curtain: Guest post by James Fleming

In recent months, I've enjoyed a very pleasant correspondence with James Fleming, nephew of Ian and himself an author of note as well as editor of The Book Collector magazine, which Ian Fleming founded seventy years ago and is still going strong, I'm glad to say.

James' latest book is a nicely illustrated little volume which would make a lovely Christmas gift for the Bond fan in your life. It's called Bond Behind the Iron Curtain. I invited James to talk about it:

'The story is frankly sensational. Amid all their denunciations of capitalism and the west, the Politburo decides to launch an attack on Ian Fleming – in 1962, even before Broccoli and co. had finished filming Dr No. ‘Who is Mr Ian Fleming, the creator of this – to put it mildly – rubbish?’ asked Yuri Okov in Izvestiya? He answered it himself: ‘A retired spy who has turned mediocre writer.’ Why did they do it? As a cover for their nuclear adventure in Cuba? To deflect the anger of the Russian proletariat from their abysmal living conditions? (One May Day banner read: CUT KHRUSCHEV UP FOR SAUSAGES.) “We will probably never know.

Even after the Cuban crisis had been resolved, the Russians kept up their onslaught on Bond. They became obsessed by what they saw as Fleming’s attacks on socialism and Bond’s success with women (which they termed ‘pornography’). Eventually the KGB (no less!) arranged that a Bulgarian novelist, Andrei Gulyashky, who had a hero handy, should write a book in which the hero kills Bond. Gulyashky did as he was told and was then given hard currency, a minder and a visa for Britain and packed off to sell his book internationally. In London he came up against Ann Fleming – Ian’s widow – a tough lady if ever there was one, and her copyright lawyers. When it turned out that no one could legally use 007 except Fleming’s estate, Gulyashky, hilariously, called his man 07.

The KGB may have got nowhere near killing Bond, but through the Gulyashky idea, they certainly rattled the Fleming estate, which was beginning to make big money from the films and books. In order to keep their hands on the golden goose, they now got Kingsley Amis to write the first of what is, to date, thirty-eight spoof Bond books.

In Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, and probably other communist countries as well, the underground market in Bond flourished, despite the authorities trying to stamp it out – indeed, to kill him. It’s a fabulous story, completely unknown until now.'

 

James Fleming, Bond Behind the Iron Curtain, 128pp, hardback, 16 illustrations, from the Book Collector (thebookcollector.co.uk)

Forgotten Book - The Murder of the Circus Queen

Anthony Abbot published About the Murder of a Circus Queen in 1932 and the UK edition, which dropped 'About' from the title, came along three years later. It's another Thatcher Colt mystery set in New York City, and his 'Watson', Abbot himself, doesn't hold back: 'Not only was it Colt's most baffling case; it was the most glamorous and sinister'. It's certainly vivid and atmospheric, and the story was promptly filmed. I haven't seen the movie, but if Wikipedia is to be believed, the screenplay made many changes from the original, not least the identity of the culprit and the motive.

The circus has come to town, or to Madison Square Garden to be precise, and it's there, in front of seventeen thousand spectators, that an ingenious murder is committed. Colt and Abbot are present, having been warned by the circus owner and manager, Colonel Tod Robinson, that someone is determined to destroy the business. 

Abbot captures the breezy mood of circus life, but I was startled by his presentation of one of the circus acts - members of the Ubangi tribe from Equatorial Africa, complete with their own witch doctor. On doing a bit of research, I discovered that there were real life circuses in the US in the 1930s which featured such acts. Today, this seems shocking and exploitative, but on the fascinating GA Detection site, Mike Grost argues that so far as the novel is concerned, Abbot's treatment of the African characters was, by the standards of the time, progressive. 

Judged as an American Golden Age whodunit mystery, this is quite a capable piece work. Abbot shifts suspicion around his suspects and comes up with a satisfactory 'least likely culprit'. There are some touches of ingenuity, especially in the method of killing the circus queen. Colt is very much in the tradition of the Great Detective, while the extraordinary stupidity of the District Attorney makes even Inspector Japp look like Hercule Poirot. Very much a period piece.

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction

I've been deplorably slow to discuss The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction on this blog, but since the book has just been awarded the International Crime Fiction Association's 2020 Book Prize, the timing of this belated post now seems perfect...Many congratulations to the four co-editors responsible for putting this hefty volume together: Janice Allan, Jesper Guiddal, Stewart King and Andrew Pepper. Given that I contributed a chapter on 'Plotting', I take particular pleasure in the book's success!

I'm the only non-academic who wrote a chapter in this book and the reason I accepted the invitation to contribute was because I felt it would be fun to write for a genuinely scholarly tome. I'm definitely not an academic, but it amused me to impersonate one. And in my twenties, I seriously considered a career in academe, at a time when I struggled to see myself working in a solicitors' office. I went so far as to have lunch with my old tutor Don Harris to discuss the possibility, but he encouraged me not to make the change, especially given that I hadn't done a further degree (which even in those days cost a lot of money, money that I did not have). Looking back, I am sure he was right. I do have some academic leanings, but if I'm brutally honest with myself - not enough.

I have for many years been extremely keen to bridge the gap between academic writers and crime writers. I am convinced that we can learn a great deal from each other. Just before the pandemic, for instance, I had a great time with Professor Mike Wilson and his colleagues and students at Loughborough University and a few years ago I took part in a terrific set of seminars about noir fiction organised by Steven Powell at Liverpool University. More recently I also enjoyed an online conversation with Jamie Bernthal when I was a speaker at an academic conference on Golden Age fiction. Mike, Steve, and Jamie are all people after my own heart, enthusiasts for the genre. The same is true of a number of my academic friends from overseas.

What's more, in working on The Life of Crime, I've benefited enormously from comments made on the manuscript by a number of distinguished academics. Scholarly insights can be invaluable. That said, my book (like The Golden Age of Murder) tells a story and I've been very keen to resist the trappings of academic work, such as footnotes, which I think sometimes get in the way. Now that so much information is available online, I think there's a case for challenging the value of the traditional approach to academic writing. Take academic citation, for instance: is this more about demonstrating that one has done one's homework, rather than providing material of genuine value to the reader?  And what about the quality of writing? I've read one or two academic books in the past where the author didn't seem interested in the writing process, just in making some polemical point in the dullest way imaginable.

I also worry that the price of academic books puts them out of reach as far as readers without access to a university library are concerned. This is a real shame, because accessibility should surely be a priority. As a strong believer in authors' rights, I also think it's interesting that, despite huge cover prices, contributors seem almost always to be unpaid. Whether that particular publishing model is, or deserves to be, sustainable in the medium to long term, is another question ripe for discussion - and perhaps even a polemic or two?

But let me get off my hobby horse and return to The Routledge Companion. I'm not sure readers will be rushing out to buy their own copies, because the pricing is clearly aimed at university library budgets. But I hope that people do read the book, because my fellow contributors have supplied a great deal of info and analysis that I found really interesting. Given the wealth of erudition between the covers, it's hard to pick out particular chapters, but as an example, I did find the discussion of the impact of digital media on the genre especially thought-provoking. I'm grateful to the joint editors for asking me to take part, and also for their forbearance when confronted by my tendency to rebel against the constraints of academic writing. Putting together a book of this kind takes a lot of work and time and they deserve wholehearted congratulation. 

Whilst I'm discussing academic works, I'd also like to make a quick and again belated mention of another scholarly volume, Criminal Moves: Modes of Mobility in Crime Fiction?  which came out a couple of years ago. Two of the editors are Jesper and Stewart, along with Alistair Rolls, and the book explores fresh ways of looking at the genre. Not every crime fan wants to dig deeply into the minutiae of crime writing, but many do, and the growth of academic interest in this wonderful genre is, in my opinion, to be welcomed. Now the challenge for everyone is to make the academic materials more widely accessible and to see increased focus on the quality of the writing as well as the intellectual analysis.

In Praise of Spooks

Five years ago, I gave a favourable  to the film which was a spin-off from the long-running TV series Spooks, which I somehow managed to miss when it was first screened (my excuse is that in those days I was a full-time lawyer as well as a novelist). I was encouraged to indulge in a binge-watch but the fact that there are no fewer than 86 episodes of the TV show was a deterrent. Things changed, however, during lockdown and it became one of my viewing treats.

Thanks to good old Iplayer, I've now watched Spooks from start to finish and I must say that although it wasn't meant as pandemic-escapism, it worked brilliantly as far as I was concerned. Even the weakest episodes make for acceptable viewing, while at their best the scripts are razor-sharp. One thing that is very striking is the extent to which global geopolitics have changed in the years since Spooks, which was created by David Wolstencroft, first aired almost 20 years ago - long before Brexit, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Aukus defence pact. It's been suggested that one or two of the writers let their anti-Israel feelings get the better of them, but in general I thought the political material was well handled, although there were various incredible features (not least the emphasis in later series on a Home Secretary who seems responsible for everything, with the Prime Minister remaining invisible). 

The stellar cast is superb. Peter Firth appears in every episode as Harry (later Sir Harry) Pearce, while the wonderful performers who work alongside him at different times include Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Nicola Walker, Rupert Penry-Jones, Gemma Jones, Hermione Norris, Miranda Raison, and Lara Pulver. The supporting cast, including the data analysts, were just as good and the fate of Colin (Rory MacGregor) was one of the darkest and most poignant moments of the series. But right from the start, the writers were ruthless about disposing of characters. One can only ever be confident that Harry, the lynchpin, will survive.

Some critics detected a falling-off in quality in the tenth and final series. I don't agree. The negativity probably just reflects the fact that Spooks was no longer new. With few exceptions, the episodes have tremendous pace, and although the attempts to humanise the spies with soap opera type backstories weren't entirely successful, the overall standard of writing was very good. Watching this show (along with Bleak House) has been a delight. If you haven't seen it, don't leave it as long as I did before you repair the omission.

Forgotten Book - The Criminal Comedy of the Contented Couple

I first read Julian Symons' The Criminal Comedy of the Contented Couple not long after its original publication in 1985. I must admit that I found the title rather off-putting (in the US, it was retitled A Criminal Comedy) and the story didn't really strike a chord with me. I'd forgotten all about the characters and plot by the time I came to reread it the other day. And on the whole, my reaction second time around was much more favourable.

Symons felt it was one of his best books, noting in Jack Walsdorf's bibliography of his work that he found the writing of it unusually smooth, 'with none of my customary back-tracking and elimination of what seem otiose characters'. That said, although the writing is very snappy, with short scenes and multiple changes of viewpoint, there are a lot of minor characters, almost certainly more than necessary for the purpose of the plot. But they contribute to Symons' purpose, which was at least in part to offer a satirical portrayal of bourgeois English life; in that respect the novel now reads like a slice of social history. 

There are plenty of enjoyable vignettes in this story. Most of the events take place in the prosperous town of Headfield, but there are important developments in Venice and on the island of Elba. One character, Jason Durling, is interested in an obscure writer called D.M. Cruddle (here Symons was reworking his brother A.J. Symons' The Quest for Corvo) and also records some events in his diary. An extract from a newspaper article at the start of the book tells us that two mysterious deaths connected with Headfield take place in Venice, but for a long time it's really unclear where the story is heading. On first reading, this irritated me, but this time I felt more sympathetic to what Symons was trying to do. 

What strikes me very forcibly now is that, in a roundabout way, Symons was updating the classic Golden Age novel. Yes, the scourge of the Humdrums was playing the game! I don't think this has been sufficiently appreciated, either by me or by other critics. But consider the ingredients: a spate of mysterious poison pen letters; ingenious use of poison; disguise/impersonation'; literary references aplenty; an amateur detective solving a puzzle that defeats the official police; and even a thinly disguised version of the 'challenge to the reader' beloved of Ellery Queen and various other Golden Age greats, which is put forward in the newspaper article towards the end of the novel. 

To cap it all, there is a pleasingly ironic finale that I'm sure Francis Iles would have approved. I don't claim that this novel is a masterpiece - the build-up is too fragmentary for that - but it's an enjoyable and unexpected piece of work. I'm very glad I gave it a second try.