Cyanide In The Sun
A review of Cyanide in the Sun, edited by Martin Edwards – 250821
Cyanide in the Sun is the second collection of short stories with a holiday theme that Martin Edwards has curated for the British Library Crime Classics series, eighteen in all, some very short, others longer, some by familiar names, others by writers who have long faded into obscurity. A sequel to Resorting To Murder, it is fascinating to note how many were originally published in newspapers, reflecting a time when a newspaper was designed to be pored over at leisure and was willing to devote space to literature rather than pursue advertising revenue.
Holidays can be a time when people’s guard are down, when the usual routine is disturbed and when you rub shoulders with people you would not usually encounter in places you do not normally frequent. Even if the specific forms of murder can be limited, a fall or a drowning, in the right hands there are opportunities for an intriguing and thought provoking mystery. As with all collections some stories are more successful than others, although there was not one that made me throw the book down in despair.
Of course, the prospect of going on holiday can fill some people with dread, a theme that Celia Fremlin, an author I had not come across before, explores in The Summer Holiday, one that comes complete with a twist that took me by surprise. Perhaps the story that comes closest to straining the theme is Will Scott’s A Holiday by the Sea, which features the tramp, Giglamps, and his morose fellow traveller, Cheery. Believing themselves to be on the track of a notorious and wanted smuggler, The Admiral, the pair hide in a furniture van that takes them to Margate, where their adventures begin. It turns out to be a wild goose chase of sorts and, as Giglamps himself observes, they did not see the sea in their eight hours there and barely smelled it. Nevertheless, it was a funny and engaging story which made me want to read more of Scott.
The collection takes its title from the Christianna Brand’s contribution, one of the more familiar names in the collection, and features a serial killer who runs wild in a seaside resort but then gets a taste of their own medicine. It is a cleverly worked tale involving a simple but effective method of dispatching their victims. The biter bit as a theme is also explored in Michael Gilbert’s Even Murderers Take Holidays.
My particular favourites included Anthony Berkeley’s Mr Bearstow Says, a clever, twisty tale, long enough to explore the complexities of the situation, but crisp enough to maintain interest throughout. The Summer Holiday Murders by Julian Symons is the longest story and finishes the collection, and comes complete with a tangled plot involving murder and deception amongst a party on a coach tour around the resorts of southern England.
Other familiar names include Michael Innes whose series detective Appleby makes an appearance in the brief Two on a Tower while any contribution from Ethel Lina White is to be welcomed, especially if it is of the standard of the sinister but ultimately heart-warming, The Holiday.
For me, though, the joy of reading a collection like this is to discover writers that are new to me. I enjoyed the book’s opener, Guy Cullingford’s Kill and Cure, so much that, rather like Victor Kiam, I rushed out and bought her first novel. And where else are you likely to come across the mysterious Christopher Bobbett, about whom no one seems to know anything, according to the authoritative introductory notes to each story, but whose The Secret of the Mountain stands the test of time? For an aficionado of Christopher Bush it was a tad disconcerting to find a sleuth by the name of Travers who predates Bobbett’s incarnation by a couple of years.
This is a collection ideal to be read in a deckchair with most of the stories of a length to barely disturb a nap. The best thing since sliced bread, you might say!
