Martin Edwards's Blog, page 97

Bunny Lake is Missing - 1965 film review

Bunny Lake is Missing is a film directed by Otto Preminger (whose masterpiece was Laura) in 1965. The screenplay is written by John and Penelope Mortimer, who were married at that time, and is set in London. The story is based on a novel by Evelyn Piper, published in 1957 and set in New York. What is more, although I haven't read the book, it seems clear from reviews that there are massive differences between film and book, not least the omission of one crucial character in the book from the screenplay...

Anyway, it's the film I'm talking about today and the first thing to mention is the high calibre of the cast. Laurence Olivier, no less, stars as Superintendent Newhouse, called in when an unmarried mother, Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), panics because of the disappearance of her young daughter Bunny. Keir Dullea plays Ann's brother, while Anna Massey runs the garden school from which Bunny vanishes on her first day. The snag is that nobody seems to have seen Bunny and doubts begin to surface as to whether she actually exists....

Noel Coward, of all people, plays Ann's sleazy landlord, while Finlay Currie is an aged doll-repairer. There are parts for Clive Revill, Fred Emney, Victor Maddern, Megs Jenkins, Richard Wattis, and Adrienne Corri among others. Even the pop group The Zombies make an appearance in order to remind us that we are in the Swinging Sixties.

Paranoia and madness play a major part in this film, and in many ways (not only because it was filmed in black and white) it has a noir flavour, reminiscent of Cornell Woolrich up to a point, yet distinctive. The screenplay is, to my mind, too long and drawn out and the finale is melodramatic to say the least. But it's a film of genuine quality, even so. I gather that critical reaction was at first so-so, but Preminger's achievement is now more widely recognised. A remake is said to be in the works.

Forgotten Book - The Marriage Bureau Murders

My interest in John Bingham and his work has led me to cover quite a few of his books in this blog over the past year or so. I admire the originality of his approach to crime fiction, while his ironic storylines made him, along with Julian Symons, the most important successor to Francis Iles of his generation. It's no surprise to me that Iles the critic also admired Bingham. As novelists, they were both risk-takers. And as my regular readers will know, I do like a crime writer who is prepared to avoid formula and take a few risks. Nobody could sensibly accuse John Bingham of being formulaic. Although certain elements recur, each book he wrote strikes me as pleasingly different from its predecessor.

Taking risks doesn't, alas, necessarily pay off. Bingham could write in a very readable style, but his unorthodox plots often depend on coincidences outlandish even by the standards of our coincidence-rich genre. His literary style involves a good deal of authorial intervention: too much for my taste. And occasionally his attitudes strike me not merely as dated but also as a bit odd.

The Marriage Bureau Murders was published in 1977, when his crime writing career was more than a quarter of a century old. He should have been at his peak, but I'm afraid this is a novel of a writer whose powers are in serious decline. It's a pity, because there's a very dark and unusual idea (about a voyeur of murder) at the heart of the story which, although exceptionally tricky to handle, might drive a powerful work of crime fiction.   

This book, however, is a misfire. Sidney Shaw sets up a "friendship bureau" as a means of getting his kicks, but what happens after he chances upon a sociopath who signs up with his bureau is so odd and unlikely that I found the whole bizarre business hopelessly unconvincing. Of course it's reasonable to ask readers of a crime novel to suspend their disbelief - I do so myself in books like Gallows Court, and so do many of my colleagues - but there must be a limit. There are plenty of stabs at black humour, and I suspect that Bingham was trying for the mood of Symons' first two "Man Who..." books, but although I'm a fan of black comedy, it doesn't really work here.

So I was disappointed with this novel, and can't recommend it. Even at the time of its appearance, the critics weren't impressed. Edmund Crispin, who liked Bingham and his work, described it as a "nadir", and I'm not surprised. Despite Bingham's past achievements, it sold few copies and I don't think it's ever been reprinted. Many of his books definitely deserve a second look. This one certainly has curiosity value, but not much else.

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade is published by Faber and it's a rather lovely hardback. There isn't so much a dust jacket as a large wraparound half-jacket which reveals the attractive design of the cover  - representing the eponymous square, Mecklenburgh Square in London. The sub-title of the book is: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars. A niche subject? Well, yes and no.

Francesca Wade, a Londoner, explains that she came across the Square by chance in 2013 and was astonished to learn that five women writers lived in the Square at roughly the same time in the early part of the twentieth century. She set out to discover what drew them there, and her findings became the raw material for this book. And the women? They were: H.D., a modernist poet, Jane Ellen Harrison, a translator, Eileen Power, a historian, Virginia Woolf, and Dorothy L. Sayers. I freely admit that I was only familiar with Woolf and Sayers before coming across this book.

The author and I came into contact when she was researching Sayers and I was at once impressed with her thoughtful approach and the care with which she investigated her subject. As she mentions in a note at the end of the book, we met when she accepted my invitation to attend as a guest at a Detection Club dinner. I'm pleased to say that, having read this book, it lived up to my hopes and expectations. It's very well written and it's interested me in people of whom I was previously unaware.

As it happens, I've come across the Square myself in recent years, since it's not far from my son's flat, and very close to the Foundlings Hospital where I undertook some of my own research for Gallows Court. It's quite an impressive place, with a garden that isn't open to the public, and its history is fascinating. Francesca Wade has done an excellent job in tracing the unlikely connections between a quintet of women of distinction.

The Maltese Herring by L.C. Tyler - review

If there's one thing more difficult than writing a successful humorous crime novel, it's writing a successful series of humorous crime novels. Not too many people over the years have managed to achieve this. In Britain one thinks of Colin Watson, possibly George Bellairs, and more recently Simon Brett. Over the last decade, Len Tyler has joined the list (and, more than that, become a leading exponent of the form) with his series about the hapless crime writer Ethelred Tressider and his ravenous agent Elsie Thirkettle.

The latest entry in the series is The Maltese Herring, recently published by Allison & Busby. As you might guess from the title, Len has this time decided to doff his cap not to Agatha Christie but to Dashiell Hammett. Casper Gutman, Joel Cairo and company give way here to an assortment of Oxford dons who descend on Sussex in a hunt for a fabled golden statue.

As with Hammett (and Chandler, who is referenced several times), the discursive plot isn't the thing; it's the characters and the set-piece scenes that we remember. There is, for instance, a splendid opening at an Oxford college dinner (I hadn't actually realised, or else I'd forgotten, that Ethelred is, like his creator, an Oxford man), swiftly followed by a very funny encounter between Elsie and a fellow train passenger. And there are some great lines, several of which draw, as usual with this author, on experience of the crime writing life.

Thus we learn that Ethelred has recently joined the committee of the CWA (which Len himself chaired not long ago) and among the crime writing jokes and references there's mention of Ann Cleeves and a self-deprecating passage that alludes cleverly to one of Len Tyler's recent novels and captures his wry sense of humour perfectly:

"Well, that was a bit of an anticlimax. Not a Chandler or Christie plot, then. Who was good at anticlimax?
'L.C. Tyler,' I said to Ethelred, with a sudden flash of insight.
'Who?' he said.
'Don't worry, he's not that well known.'"

But of course he is well known, and deservedly so.

Forgotten Book - The Deep End

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Fredric Brown had a lot going for him as a crime writer. He had a flair for plotting, was strong on psychological insight, and although he wrote a successful series, he was especially good with stand-alone novels, when one can never be sure what the protagonist's fate will be. His writing was often witty, his story structures innovative, and he had a gift for the short story. What more could any crime fan wish for?

The Deep End was published in 1952, not too long after the admirable The Far Cry, but it's very, very different - and almost equally as good as that fine novel. The setting is this time a small, unnamed city rather than a remote outpost of New Mexico, and the lead character is a young journalist, Sam Evans. One thing he has in common with George Weaver in the earlier book is that his marriage is on the rocks. At the start of the story, his wife Millie has departed on a sort of trial separation.

The story has a low-key beginning, but the tension gradually rises as Sam begins to suspect a connection between a series of apparent accidents that resulted in fatalities. One of the ways that Brown builds suspense is by splitting the book into ten sections, representing the successive days over which the events of the story unfold. As with The Far Cry, the end of the story echoes the opening paragraphs, but the effect is quite different. He really was a clever writer.

Jack Seabrook's excellent biography of Brown, Martians and Misplaced Clues (a recommended read) explains that Brown based the story on an earlier novelette rejoicing in the title of "Obit for Obie". Like many writers of his era, including Chandler and Cornell Woolrich, he was a great one for reworking material that had originally appeared in the pulp magazines. In the case of lesser writers, this can be a sign of laziness or lack of imagination, but the better writers, such as Brown, often showed considerable skill in reworking ideas, and exploiting their potential more fully. Certainly, The Deep End is one of the best books of a very good crime novelist.

Happy New Year!

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Much as I've enjoyed looking back over the past year in my last three posts, it's fun to look forward to what lies ahead in 2020. I wish all my readers good health and good luck in the year ahead. I continue to believe that our shared interest in crime writing is a powerful force for connecting and uniting people across the world, whatever their backgrounds. In an age when there are so many divisions of various kinds, I draw a great deal of inspiration from meeting people who are very different from me in many ways (and who may have different opinions about a lot of stuff) but are who also excited and enthused by the world of mystery.

This year is going to see the publication of several books that mean a good deal to me. First and foremost is Mortmain Hall, the sequel to Gallows Court (which incidentally has just started a Kindle deal promotion in the US on Amazon), due out in April. I loved writing Mortmain Hall and although I know from experience that is no guarantee of big sales, it's a book that means a good deal to me.

Very different is Howdunit, by members of the Detection Club, a masterclass on the art and craft of crime writing which will give manifold insights into the writing life. It looks as though there will be no fewer than 89 contributors, including almost all the living members of the Club. There's still a bit of work to be done on this one over the next couple of weeks, but the book is out in June and I'm delighted that an ambitious concept is due to become a reality.

Three books that I've edited will be published this year. Settling Scores is a British Library anthology of sporting mysteries, and there will also be another Crime Classic collection of Christmas mysteries. I'm also putting the finishing touches to Vintage Crimes, a CWA anthology showcasing stories through the lifetime of the CWA.

In terms of my own short stories, "The Locked Cabin" will appear in a Maxim Jakubowski anthology and "Temptation Street" will feature in EQMM at some point. There may well be others, along with an essay about "Plotting" in an academic tome that sounds very interesting, though I haven't seen the rest of the contents as yet.

There are plenty of events to look forward to, at festivals around Britain and also one or two events overseas. No wonder that, just at the moment, I'm busily writing. Need to get the next Lake District Mystery written before other things take over!

In short, 2020 promises to be full of good things and I also hope that I get the chance to meet some of you in person. As always, your comments and emails are very welcome, not least as a reminder that I'm not just talking to myself...

So once again, Happy New Year! 




 

2019: People

I've enjoyed the company of some marvellous people this past year. A single blog post simply isn't sufficient to express my appreciation of everyone who has contributed to my 2019, but I would like to take the opportunity to mention some of those who have played a part in my writing life this year, helping to make it both memorable and very happy.


Let me start with my colleagues in the CWA. The Windermere conference in April was, for me, the perfect way to say goodbye as Chair of the Association and return to the ranks. In my time as Chair I benefited hugely from a very supportive set of Board members, and special mention has to be made of Dea Parkin, the Secretary, and Linda Stratmann and Maxim Jakubowski, my two Vice Chairs. At Windermere there was also the chance to take part in panels with such friends and fellow writers as Peter Lovesey, Christine Poulson, Marsali Taylor, Mike Craven, and Kate Jackson.



Alibis in the Archive was a lot of fun, with a roster of wonderful speakers, and the weather was so good on the Saturday evening we were out in the gardens until well after ten o'clock. The weekend raises funds for the CWA and also the Detection Club, which continues to flourish; I spent a good chunk of the year liaising with members over the compilation of Howdunit, a book you will hear much more about in 2020. One of the contributors to Howdunit is Peter Robinson. Because Peter spends half the year in Canada, sometimes I see very little of him, but this year was a pleasant exception; we had breakfast together at Gladstone's Library, lunch in Toronto, and a Detection Club dinner at the Garrick Club (not all on the same day...) The guest speaker at the annual dinner of the Club at the Ritz was David Brawn of HarperCollins, whose company I enjoyed on numerous occasions, not least at Bodies from the Library, where it's always a pleasure to chat to the likes of John Curran and his hard-working team of organisers, Tony Medawar, Dolores Gordon Smith, Kate Jackson, Moira Redmond, and Nigel Moss. I want to make particular mention of Nigel, whose support and encouragement for me in my various endeavours has been of great value in recent years.  Kate, Chrissie Poulson, Moira and Brad Friedmann and I had tea in the Courtauld the day before - photo below.


I'm also very appreciative of the support of my agent, James Wills and my various publishers here and overseas, including David Brawn and the team at Head of Zeus, who kindly invited me to join them at the CWA Daggers Dinner in October. It was great fun to meet the PPP and Sourcebooks team in Scottsdale and Dallas and as the year comes to a close, I'm thrilled that two more book deals with them are in the course of being concluded. As for my American writer friends, I want to say a special if necessarily very selective thank you to Verena and Shawn of Malice Domestic, Shelly Dickson Carr and her brother Wooda, and Kathy Boon Reel, all of whom have shown me numerous kindnesses.

I've often said, and I'll keep on saying, how much we owe, as book lovers, to librarians. Quite apart from Jan Macartney in Douglas who hosted my 1920s murder mystery (the photo shows me with the cast), Louisa Yates and the team at Gladstone's Library, and Rebecca, John, Jonny, Maria and Abbie at the British Library, I've enjoyed meeting a host of people working hard in libraries up and down the country in the hope of knitting communities together and spreading the joys of the written word.


Murder Squad, founded by Margaret Murphy, continues to go from strength to strength. We had a great time in the north east in the spring and next year sees the twentieth anniversary of the group. We've planned quite a few events to celebrate and who knows, the celebrations may spill over into 21st celebrations as well! It's great to see fellow Squaddies doing so well in their writing careers and I was thrilled when Kate Ellis won the Dagger in the Library. The holiday we had with Kate and her husband Roger in Puglia was thoroughly enjoyable and a return to Italy is on the cards for next year...



Then there were the whodunit fans I met on two trips on the Queen Mary 2 and in Oxford and the readers I came across at events here and overseas. To say nothing of the amazingly enthusiastic young mystery fans of Shanghai. As I say, these reminiscences are bound to be selective, but to everyone who has played a positive part in my year, and in particular to my loyal readers and family, I say a heartfelt thank you. 
 

 

2019: Places

This year I've travelled to some delightful places in connection with my writing, both in Britain and much further afield. 2019 got off to a good start with the Essex Book Festival at Southend, which also gave me the chance to visit Mersea Island, associated with crime writers such as Margery Allingham and Andrew Garve.




An event at Middlesbrough Library fitted in with a research trip for Mortmain Hall, which took me to Flamborough Head and Ravenscar on the Yorkshire coast as well as the old fishing villages of Staithes and Robin Hood's Bay. Mortmain is a fictionalised reworking of Ravenscar, a place that's always fascinated me, and the Hall is an eccentric Gothic reimagining of the old Hall (above photo).




Next, the CWA conference at Bowness. We arranged a variety of library events in the run-up to the weekend and these took me to Ulverston and Ambleside. At Ulverston I was glad to make the acquaintance of fellow crime writer Zosia Wand, with whom I spent a delightful afternoon much later in the year when I was researching south Cumbria locations for the next Lake District Mystery. The Saturday AGM marked the end of my stint as Chair of the CWA. It's a demanding but rewarding role and I handed over the Creasey Bell to an admirable successor in Linda Stratmann. A week or so later I returned to the Lakes for more location research and also an event in Cockermouth with M.W. Craven, this year's Gold Dagger winner, and Paula Daly, two of whose books were adapted for television in the late summer.






In May, Murder Squad had a weekend of events at a superb venue, The Word in South Shields, and again there was the chance for some sightseeing in places like Tynemouth and the strangely named but interesting Seaton Sluice. An invitation to speak at a festival run by the National Trust to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their acquisition of Agatha Christie's home at Greenway in Devon was irresistible and spending the ovenight in Greenway was truly memorable. So were the steam train trip and river and ferry journeys around the river Dart. We stopped off there and back with friends in Wells, giving a chance to explore Glastonbury Abbey and Tor as well as various other places in Somerset and Devon, two gorgeous rural counties.





My interest in the work of E.C.R. Lorac took me to Lunesdale in north Lancashire a couple of times, where I enjoyed meeting a wonderful lady who actually knew Lorac when she was young, as well as her family; this was a very rewarding experience. So, in a different way, was the pleasure of guiding two groups of American whodunit fans around Oxford, when I found myself doing commentaries during river cruises, leading pub crawls and various other improbable things. And I fulfilled a long-held ambition by taking a trip on the famous Settle to Carlisle railway in gorgeous sunshine.




Literary festivals are becoming increasingly popular in Britain and those I attended this year were varied and excellent. At Slaughter in Southwold I spent time with Mick Herron and Kate Ellis before venturing on a tour of Suffolk - a lovely county that I want to revisit. A trip to Newark gave me the chance to look round the old castle there as to pop over to Lincoln and see a wonderful array of Crime Classics in the local Waterstones'. The Rye Arts Festival, where I spent a day with Simon Brett, Lynne Truss, and William Shaw was brilliant, and so was the opportunity to explore parts of Sussex and Kent that I was previously unfamiliar with. One stop in Kent at a fantastic location gave me the idea for a book that may well become the follow-up to Mortmain Hall (once I've written the Lake District book!) Similarly, my long-awaited return to the Isle of Wight introduced me to some memorable places, including an old priory that sparked my literary imagination. And even some more fleeting festival engagements, such as an event with Zoe Sharp in Rochdale proved highly enjoyable (once I'd recovered from the traffic gridlock around Greater Manchester).





Having received the Dagger in the Library, I was determined to take part in as many library events as possible to show my support for these wonderful places. And I include independent libraries, such as Gladstone's Library, where I hosted the Alibis in the Archives in wonderful June weather (along with such terrific writers as Aline Templeton, Michael Ridpath, and Peter Robinson) and the British Library, where I did an interview with Christine Poulson talking about Cyril Hare. In terms of public libraries, those I visited included Wigan and Droylsden in the north west, while I was thrilled to return to the Isle of Man and host a 1920s murder mystery; this enabled me to spend time in the very pleasant company of Douglas Stewart and the Douglas librarian Jan Macartney  I'm hoping to return to Douglas next year.










As far as overseas trips were concerned, I had holidays in Sweden and Italy and working trips to New York City, Scottsdale, Dallas, and Toronto, the latter to give a lecture about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. And then there was Shanghai, an unforgettable experience which I raved about quite recently.







So I've been very fortunate to see some marvellous parts of the world, and to remind myself of the wonders of Britain as well. And after all that travelling, it's no wonder I feel the need to crack on with Hannah Scarlett's latest cold case, set partly in Bowness, partly on the evocative south coast of Cumbria...






 

2019: Publications

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It doesn't feel like it, but this year I didn't bring out either a brand new novel or a new non-fiction book. There was, however, a lot to celebrate in publication terms, starting with the UK paperback edition of Gallows Court, which was nominated for the eDunnit award and longlisted for the Historical Dagger, and subsequently published in the US, with sought-after starred reviews in Publishers' Weekly and Booklist. At the moment, the book is part of the December Kindle Deal promotion and all in all it's been my most successful novel to date. Next year will see the publication of the sequel to Gallows Court, a book I spent the first half of 2019 writing, Mortmain Hall.

Writing intros for the British Library kept me quite busy. In addition I edited two anthologies for the British Library's Crime Classics series. Deep Waters gathered 'mysteries on the waves' while The Measure of Malice was a collection of scientific mysteries. I've been pleasantly surprised by the success of the themed anthologies I've put together for the BL. In sales terms the figures are startling, while the books have introduced some interesting writers to a new generation of crime fans.

I wrote a handful of short stories during the year, some of which will come out in 2020. "The Girl on the Bandwagon", a satire on so-called domestic noir, was published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It's a story I enjoyed writing enormously. "The Sound of Secrecy" appeared in Maxim Jakubowski's anthology of historical mysteries, while "The Cap of Liberty", set in the first part of the 19th century, was included in Ra Page's book Resist, a collection of stories about protest. And I was thrilled that last year's "Strangers in a Pub" was shortlisted for the Short Story Dagger. Those four stories constitute a very diverse bunch indeed in terms of subject matter and style, and their range illustrates what I love about the short story form - its boundless possibilities.

In terms of non-fiction, I contributed various pieces to blogs and online forums, as well as a longish essay about Dr Harold Shipman, "The First of Criminals", which appeared in Mitzi Szereto's anthology of true crime essays. I also wrote an essay which is to be a chapter in an academic book, on "Plotting". This was a fascinating exercise to undertake, although the nature of academic writing, with its emphasis on footnotes and bibliographic references, doesn't greatly appeal to me. My preference when writing non-fiction is to tell a story, uncluttered by minutiae. And that's where my focus will be in future. More on that subject another day... 

Forgotten Book - The Unfinished Crime

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Why hasn't Elisabeth Sanxay Holding featured more prominently in histories of the genre? It's a mystery in itself. The late Ed Gorman, a very good novelist as well as a considerable authority on crime writing, once commented on this blog about his admiration for her work. And the more of it that I've read, the more I've come to appreciate that he was, as usual, right. So, for that matter, were other Holding fans such as Anthony Boucher and Raymond Chandler.

The Unfinished Crime was one of her earlier crime novels. It appeared in 1934, and my US edition, published by Dodd, Mead, under their Red Badge imprint, has a splendid blurb which says that the story's quality "makes the usual array of fingerprints, weapons, alibis setc, look like claptrap". Talk about not pulling your punches! And surprise, surprise, the promise of the blurb is borne out by the story.

It's a story of suburban life. Andrew Branscombe is a well-off, conventional fellow who is contemplating marriage. He's not old, but he's rather staid and selfish. At first, though, he seems decent enough. However, an encounter with his beloved's estranged husband leads to his committing a crazy act of violence. The rest of the story is about his attempt to escape the consequences of his actions.

Holding's study of criminal psychology is compelling, and she cleverly shows the effect that the crime has on Branscombe's personality, drawing out the darker side that he had kept hidden until now. There's a touch of Francis Iles about it, but really Holding was a distinctive writer who needs to be judged on her own, very considerable merits. Yes, I was impressed by this story.