Forgotten Book - Safe Secret

Harry Carmichael was one of the pen-names of Leopold Ognall (1908-79) a prolific writer of crime novels in the post-war era. He wrote pacy stories that didn't outstay their welcome, and was for years a fixture in the prestigious Collins Crime Club list. One of his novels, Or Be He Dead, was shortlisted for an early Crossed Red Herring Award (forerunner of the CWA Gold Dagger) but he wrote too fast for most of his books to make a major impact. However, he was a reliable purveyor of fast, entertaining reads. The late Catherine Aird was a fan of his books and, kind as ever, she gave me a number of them.

Safe Secret, which dates from 1964, is one that I acquired because I came across an inscribed American edition, and there aren't many signed Carmichaels to be found - I suspect many of his books were destined for the library market. I'd say it's probably the best of his books that I've read so far, a clever and gripping story about a robbery that doesn't go to plan. The first chapter recounts the attempts of a 'man who called himself Graham' to establish a fake identity in a hotel. This is tantalising, and a possible explanation emerges in the next chapter, when a cashier called Richard Thornton goes missing along with a great deal of cash. From that point, things get progressively more complicated.

This is a novel featuring the insurance investigator Peter Piper and the hard-drinking journalist John Quinn. Their banter can be a bit tiresome, but there isn't too much of it, and they play off against each other (and a relatively tolerant cop called Hoyle) in an interesting way. Essentially, this is a novel of amateur detection, but handled in an unusual and satisfactory way.

There is a relatively small cast of characters, and one frustration is that two of the key people in the story remain more or less unknowable to the reader. But the story bowls along with twist after twist and the murders that are committed (one of them is, for plot reasons only reported to us belatedly, which perhaps diminishes its impact) add to the convolutions of the storyline. I've not read any other reviews of this book, but I thought it was a good one.

It's all happening...

To say that this is a landmark week in my long career as a crime writer is no exaggeration. On Thursday evening - publication day! - I'm launching my latest novel, Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife, at Serenity Books in Romiley. At the time of writing there are still a few tickets left, so if you'd like to come along, please book here.

I'm truly delighted to say that there have been two more lovely reviews in advance of publication. Jeremy Black of The Critic describes the novel as 'excellent...first-rate and lots of humour...'  And there's a great review here from Jim Noy of The Invisible Event. For good measure, Jim has also released a podcast in which he and I chat for an hour about the novel, and also other crime writing topics.

But there's more. This week also sees publication of As if By Magic, my latest anthology for the British Library's Crime Classics, glowingly reviewed by Jeremy Black in the same column. This book includes my favourite classic detection short story, 'The House in Goblin Wood' by Carter Dickson.

And then there is more. In fact, And Then There Were More is the title of my latest anthology edited on behalf of the Crime Writers' Association, again published in a gorgeous edition by Flame Tree Press. This book collects some of the most enjoyable crime stories to have appeared in CWA anthologies in years gone by.

As if that wasn't enough, today sees the release of a Blu-Ray collector's edition of The Man in Black from Hammer Films. And amongst many other things, it includes as a bonus extra a film of a conversation between Andrew Taylor and me in which we discuss John Dickson Carr. We recorded this at the Lansdowne Literary Festival in January, and hugely enjoyable it was too. Not that I ever imagined I'd feature in any kind of Hammer film...

The Guest - BBC TV review

The Guest is a four-part BBC TV thriller and the laws of modern television mean that Matthew Barry's script might have worked better if it had been a two-part or three-part thriller. The cost of living isn't the only kind of inflation around these days. And the critics haven't been altogether kind ('hogwash', 'bonkers', 'unhinged' and 'codswallop' are among the phrases to be found in the national newspaper reviews: a bit harsh, I'd say). For this is not a show that's totally devoid of merit (or indeed pace). I kept watching to the end, something I find myself less inclined to do these days when a TV serial rambles on, as so many do (Suspicion, which I abandoned quite early on, is a recent example of a show that appeared to be very promising, but failed to hold my attention).

The set-up is pleasing enough. Gabrielle Creevy (who is very good in the role) plays Ria, a working class young woman who is shacked up with her deadbeat boyfriend and very short of money. Fran, played by the glamorous Eve Myles, is an extremely rich woman who offers her a job as a cleaner. Soon the two women become close, and though we do get quite a lot of tediously predictable stuff about the class divide, the relationship is intriguing.

The story is set around Cardiff, and Fran invites Ria to be a guest in her second home, which is to be found in a remote coastal spot so appealing that I really wanted to go there myself and do a bit of sight-seeing. There is a death at the end of the first episode, while a murder that is committed subsequently gives rise to many of the plot holes in the script that have irritated reviewers.

Despite its shortcomings, though, I quite liked The Guest and didn't feel I'd wasted my time watching it. The reason is that Creevy and Miles are very different but compelling actors and they do their best to camouflage the weaknesses in the storyline. By and large, I'd say they succeed. 

 

Forgotten Book - Be Shot for Sixpence

I have a vivid memory of reading Michael Gilbert's Be Shot for Sixpence (1956) for the first time. It was on a 'snow day', one of only two or three during the whole of my schooldays, when the snow in Northwich was too heavy to get to school. Because my parents were out at work themselves, I spent most of the day with friends, a brother and sister whose parents ran a corner shop across the road. But I was left to my own devices for some of the time, so I read Gilbert's book. I liked it, and one or two bits have stuck in my memory, but overall I didn't think it was as good as some Gilberts I'd read previously. Having now acquired a signed copy, I thought it was time to read it again and see what my revised verdict might be.

I don't think I realised at the tender age of thirteen or so that the 'Michael' who appears on page one was actually a jokey version of Michael Gilbert himself. But the narrator is his cousin, a chap called Philip, whose surname is never revealed (makes a change from those detectives whose first name is a closely guarded secret). Philip is courageous, and seems to have some links with the Intelligence Service, but he's also impulsive and abrasive and has a way with women which wouldn't go down too well nowadays. To be honest, I didn't find him quite as admirable as I think Gilbert intended him to be.

Philip comes across an enigmatic ad. in The Times from an old school friend called Colin, who has disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and soon finds himself - against advice and, arguably, common sense - travelling to Europe to try to track Colin down. He finds himself involved in central European politics, with curious goings-on behind the Iron Curtain.

There's a lot to enjoy in this book, as usual with Gilbert's smoothly told stories. Given that the book seems to have been written before the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, it also seems quite prescient. There are some good action scenes, although as is not unusual with Gilbert's thrillers, the climax to the story is somewhat muted. More than half a century after I first read this book, I still like it - but with reservations.

A Signing Marathon, BBC History and Shedunnit podcasts, and a LoveReading review

Last week I had the fascinating experience of signing in excess of one thousand special copies of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife - by far the biggest signing I've ever undertaken in one go. These books are destined for independent UK bookshops and the production values are terrific, with great endpapers and lovely sprayed edges. The marathon signing took place at the huge hi-tech Hachette warehouse in Didcot, an extraordinary enterprise which handles a couple of million books a week.

There is a noticeboard bearing photos of authors who have done signings there - including three members of the Detection Club, I saw - as well as a 'leader board' recording the speediest authors when it comes to signing. I didn't aim for speed because I wanted the signatures to be nicer than a mere scrawl. And the signing was the perfect opportunity for me to use a very special pen for the first time.

This is the Conway Stewart Detection Club pen - a limited edition, mine is #1, and was a lovely birthday present from Mrs Edwards - and it bears the names of all the Presidents of the Club as well as the founder members. So it was quite an occasion and I really enjoyed the whole experience.

I've done a podcast about crime fiction with BBC History and you can listen to it via these links:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/history-extra-podcast/id256580326?i=1000724036418

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2X0aergy9rnj7YGskVT0DW?si=b4096367fe054a21

HistoryExtra website (subscription needed): https://www.historyextra.com/membership/crime-fiction-history-podcast-martin-edwards/  

I've also done a podcast about Cluefinders for Shedunnit, the great show hosted by Caroline Crampton, and you can listen to it here: https://www.shedunnitshow.com/thecluefinder/

I'm looking forward to next week's launch of the book and in the meantime I'm delighted that the novel has just received a 'Star Review' from LoveReading. This is what they have to say:

'So, so wonderfully entertaining! Over the Christmas period, six members of staff from the Midwinter Trust, host and challenge six people linked to the literary crime world, to solve the murder of a fictional crime writer. Award-winning author Martin Edwards has oh-so successfully turned his masterly hand to his first festive mystery. Step right if you are an avid armchair sleuth, as you really can catch the clues here and try to solve them as you read. From the rules of the game, to the invitation, a player’s journal, letters, news articles, and maps, there is a whole host of information, as well as the novel itself to tune into and become absorbed by. I stuck by the strategy tip within the first few pages, and crowed with delight whenever my hunches played out, I will admit to missing certain clues too! This is effectively a locked room mystery, as the Midwinter Trust hamlet is snowed in, and the sense of place is immense. The characters stamp themselves onto the page, I got to know all twelve of them quickly, and didn’t have to stop to check who was who as I was reading. The plot itself is fabulously twisty, and I loved how it evolved as I read. The inclusion of the Cluefinder at the end of the novel was most sporting! This will make a super gift for a crime-fiction lover, and joins our LoveReading Star Books. Vivid and compelling, Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife is an absolute blast of a Christmas mystery, highly recommended.' 

Back from Bordeaux

I've had a hectic few days since getting back from a lovely river cruise around the wine region of Bordeaux (which is where I took this photo - a sight that really appealed to me!) Amongst other things, I just about managed to send out my August newsletter by the skin of my teeth before August became September! If you'd like to sign up, you can do so here: https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks/  And rest assured, it is completely free.

I'd been working hard on my new book (the sixth Rachel Savernake novel) as well as one or two other projects before we flew off to France, so the week-long break came at just the right time. We didn't travel too far in terms of miles, but the trip certainly felt restorative - before the holiday was over, I was getting more ideas for stories as well as for the work-in-progress. I also read three enjoyable books, which earn a mention in the newsletter.

This was the second time this year that I've been to Bordeaux, and it's a city that grows on me with each visit. We went to a couple of museums as well as a very good botanical garden and the cathedral. And the stops along the route each had distinct charm. There were, of course, wine tastings, and so much good food on board that I shall need to ease off the eating for another week or two to get back in trim. But it was worth it.

I really liked St Emilion, a gorgeous town, but other less renowned places like Cadillac, Libourne, Bourg, and Blaye all had something to recommend them. Out travel companions were Kate Ellis and her husband Roger. And the four of us won a quiz: here's a photo of us with our winnings!

  

Forgotten Book - The Hanging Woman

The Hanging Woman, first published in 1931, is a relatively elusive John Rhode title, and I'm lucky to have tracked down and acquired the Detection Club's own signed copy (the US edition, the cover of which is shown above). And this obscurity is unfortunate, because I found it was one of the most engrossing Rhodes that I've encountered. This is partly because Dr Priestley plays a more active and significant role in the story than is often the case, especially in Rhode's later books. It's also partly because there is some interesting discussion of the importance of scientific experiment, a subject on which Priestley holds characteristically strong views.

The story begins in an interesting way, with an inquest into the death, in a plane crash, of a Belgian pilot who worked for a scientist called Dr Partington. It seems like a clear case of accident, albeit an inexplicable one, but shortly afterwards a woman is found dead in a deserted country house not far away and it emerges that there was some kind of connection between her and the pilot.

The woman was found hanging in circumstances similar to those in which, ten years earlier, a servant girl killed herself in the house. It seems that history may have repeated itself, and that the deceased took her own life, but Hanslet of the Yard becomes involved with the case, and he soon forms a theory of his own. With almost charming naivete, he is keen to run it past Dr Priestley, who - as usual - is not convinced.

John Rhode rarely offers a wide choice of murder suspects in his books. With him, the focus is often on the 'how', at least as much as on the 'who'. Here, though, despite the paucity of suspects, I felt he juggled the different possibilities more effectively than in some of Dr Priestley's other cases. There is a bit of stuff about alibis and train times that is a bit routine, but overall I'd say this is a superior example of John Rhode's writing. 

Reflections on Murder: Selected Short Stories of Nedra Tyre

As I've mentioned several times before, Stark House Press are an American small press who, like Crippen & Landru and several others, do sterling work in reissuing more or less forgotten mysteries. Today I want to mention a Stark House Press book that was first published as recently as 2024 and which collects some work by a writer I've long admired, Nedra Tyre.

Reflections on Murder: Selected Short Stories of Nedra Tyre, is edited and introduced by Bill Kelly. His introduction is helpful and informative, setting the sixteen stories - written between 1955 and 1978 - in context, especially with regard to the author's years spent working in social services. Her understanding of the impulses that drive ordinary people to commit crime came, at least in part, from time she'd spent talking to such people and trying to help them.

I first came across the name of Nedra Tyre many years ago in the pages of that excellent magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and I recall being greatly impressed by 'A Nice Place to Stay', which is included here. But until now I've only been able to find a handful of her stories. There is further good news, however, in that Stark House Press have reissued some of her novels and I hope to review Hall of Death on this blog before too long. 

It's obvious from several of these stories, including the title story, that Nedra Tyre was an enthusiastic reader of detective fiction. She was quite skilled at plotting, but time and again in reading these stories, what lingers in the memory is the characterisation. She was working at much the same time as better-known writers such as Charlotte Armstrong (and, in Britain, Celia Fremlin) but she too deserves to be read and this collection is most welcome.

 

Forgotten Book - Dream of Fair Woman

I've discussed several books by Charlotte Armstrong on this blog over the past eight years or so. Armstrong (1905-69) was an Edgar-winning suspense novelist whose books often had strongly visual ingredients, making them popular sources for film and TV adaptation. My favourite of her books is Mischief, which is relatively straightforward, but genuinely gripping.

Armstrong had a number of other strengths as a writer. She didn't repeat herself - all the books of hers that I've read are very different from each other, and they often have intriguing ideas at their heart. And she had the knack of using her stories to make interesting social points. She took risks as a writer, and I find that admirable. Unfortunately, if perhaps inevitably, those risks didn't always come off.   

Dream of Fair Woman is, I think, a case in point. The book was originally published in 1966, towards the end of her career, although the copy I read was (like some of her other books) published in the interesting paperback reprint line Keyhole Crime, which flourished for a while in the early 1980s without ever really establishing a distinct identity, perhaps because the choice of authors and titles was so curiously random. 

The story begins with an intriguing premise. A mysterious but very attractive young woman rents a room with Peg Cuneen, but she is clearly unwell and soon finishes up in hospital in a coma. Who is she? This is the question that confronts Peg's son Matt and young Betty Prentiss. Betty fancies Matt, but he pays her less attention than she deserves, being fascinated by the woman in the coma who never speaks. Eventually it becomes clear that Armstrong has some interesting points to make about the role of women in society, including the way that women may be taken for granted by men. 

The trouble is that the plot - which involves identical sisters - is fairly barmy, and I began to lose interest early on. I got the impression that Armstrong had a good central idea for a book, but found it difficult to structure the material satisfactorily. And that meant that I cared about the characters much less than I should have done.    

Reversal of Fortune - 1990 film review

When Claus von Bulow died six years ago, the BBC report about his passing carried the headline: 'Socialite cleared of trying to murder his wife dies aged 92'. Well, 92 is a good innings in terms of longevity, but that isn't the greatest of epitaphs. The term 'socialite' (a common description of von Bulow) seems to me to be freighted with negative implications, and there's no doubt that his trial is what almost everyone, including me, remembers about him.

Only now, though, have I caught up with the film about the von Bulow case, Reversal of Fortune, which dates from 1990. Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for his performance as von Bulow, while Glenn Close played his wife Sunny. Sunny's real name was Martha, and in the light of what happened, the name Sunny seems tragically inapt. She was another socialite, immensely wealthy, but deeply unhappy and apparently fuelled by drink and drugs. The rich are different, for sure, but sometimes not in a good way.

The film is based on shocking events, and it's really a stranger-than-fiction story. Sunny was found at home in a diabetic coma in December 1980. A year earlier, she'd been revived after falling into another coma. At first it seemed like a domestic tragedy, sad but relatively straightforward. However, suspicions were aroused about her husband Claus, who was, to say the least, a strange individual. He was found guilty of attempted murder and hired the lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz for the (ultimately successful) appeal. The film is based on Dershowitz's book; he is played - very well, I think - by Ron Silver.

I found the way that Dershowitz and his team were portrayed to be slightly comical; they kept announcing to each other great breakthroughs that would surely have been fairly obvious in reality. The process certainly bore no resemblance to the work of any legal team I've ever encountered, but then again, I've never had any involvement with the American criminal justice system - thankfully. 

I've always found the story of what happened to Sunny von Bulow to be both sad and extraordinary. She remained in a vegetative state for almost 28 years, which seems unimaginably terrible and that's the main reason I haven't watched the film before now. I've no idea what the precise truth about the incidents that led to her death was, of course. But for all the brilliance of Jeremy Irons' portrayal of the man, I'm glad I never met Claus von Bulow.