'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?'
Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog
Friday, 14 March 2025
Forgotten Book - More Dead Than Alive
Wednesday, 12 March 2025
The Menu - 2022 film review
As anyone who knows me well will readily confirm, I'm not one of the world's great gourmets. Far from it. Give me a steak and ale pie with chips and I'm happy; exotic cuisine (with some exceptions, admittedly!) leaves me cold. But on one of my recent flights, I was tempted to watch The Menu by the presence of Ralph Fiennes in the lead role. Fiennes is not only a very good actor, he has a great range: I find him appealing in all the different roles he undertakes. Though he's far from likeable in this one, playing the part of that most irritating of creatures, the egotistical celebrity chef.
The premise is simple. A group of people travel by boat to a small private island for a very special meal served up by celeb chef Julian Slowik (Fiennes) and his staff. The guests are, by and large, an unappealing bunch and it soon emerges that the apparent protagonist, Tyler Ledford (Nicholas Hoult), is accompanied by someone who was not his originally intended guest. This is Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy, who was so good in The Queen's Gambit, and who is another actor of high-calibre).
Slowik introduces each course of the dinner with a monologue - the contents of which become increasingly disturbing. There's a dramatic moment, probably the best in the whole film, where for the third course, tortillas are served which carry laser prints depicting regrettable aspects of the guests' lives. What on earth is going on?
This is a highly regarded black comedy horror film and it's certainly watchable, not least because of the quality of the lead actors. However, I feel that it's rather over-rated. The script struck me as pretty average, with a bit too much silliness, and if there was an explanation given as to why all Slowik's staff went along with his plan, it escaped me. A case of style over substance, like so many posh meals.
Monday, 10 March 2025
Joker - 2019 film review
Friday, 7 March 2025
Forgotten Book - A Ring of Roses
But later in 1977, reversing the usual way of doing things, W.H. Allen issued the book in hardback. This time the author's name was stated to be Christianna Brand. The brief career of Mary Ann Ashe was at an end. I have no idea what the thinking was. Maybe the Ashe name was a sort of reBranding exercise and either the author or publishers had second thoughts about it. If there was a cunning commercial plan, it doesn't seem very cunning: for a start, there are characters in this novel who appear in Brand's much earlier book, Cat and Mouse, so anyone well versed in Brand's work would have figured out the author's identity and probably been rather baffled. Nor does it seem to have been successful. Copies of both paperback and hardback are rare, suggesting small print runs, especially for the hardback.
I'm lucky to have a copy of the hardback which Brand inscribed thus: 'This is frankly a potboiler...it is all set in my own bit of Wales - the farmhouse is just above our cottage...' Edmund Crispin's review said carefully: 'Miss Brand has done better than this, but she still writes a tale worth telling.' But there are positive online reviews by good judges here and here.
There are some really good ingredients in this story, including the setting, and the detective character, while Brand juggles false solutions to her puzzle with her customary dexterity. Unfortunately, there are two elements that I didn't care for. First, the inclusion of American gangsters in the plot - never a good sign. Second, the way that a disabled child is referred to time and again. Perhaps the problem was that she wrote the book too fast, and primarily as a money-making exercise. A pity, because with some reworking this might have become a first-rate mystery. As it is, I see it more as an interesting oddity.
Thursday, 6 March 2025
A holiday of a lifetime - Part 3
For the final part of our New Zealand odyssey, we travelled south, flying to Queenstown and then being driven to Te Anau, a small resort town on the shore of Lake Te Anau in the aptly named national park of Fiordland. Te Anau is a gateway to an area which is largely uninhabited wilderness and much favoured by adventure tourists braver than me. People will go tramping for days on end, often in the trickiest weather conditions - this is one of the wettest areas in the world. Much of Fiordland is remote in the extreme, but it was very pleasant to dine in the comfort of the hotel a couple of times with a fine view of the lake!
The trip from Te Anau to Milford Sound was dramatic and truly unforgettable. Milford Sound has been called the world's top travel destination, and Rudyard Kipling - of all people - described it as the Eighth Wonder of the World. The only way to get there, unless you're trekking, is along a long and winding road, hoping to avoid the avalanches. Vehicles are monitored to see if they are fire risk - you wouldn't want to be caught in a fire in the Homer Tunnel through the mountains, that is for sure. On our trip, in a small tour group in a van, the weather was astonishing. On the way out, the rain was absolutely torrential. As we drove along, by the roadside, there were dozens of 'pop-up' waterfalls created by the downpour. And yet, as the two-hour drive came to an end, the skies were clearing. We boarded a boat to explore the fiord that is Milford Sound, and had a picnic on board as the skies turned blue. There were dolphins and seals to be seen, though I didn't spot any whales or penguins - maybe the weather had deterred them! And on the way back, the weather had become close to idyllic - and most of those waterfalls had disappeared. There was a 'mirror lake' that looked as calm as a mill pond. But you'd never, ever find me trekking in that territory! An amazing trip - unique in my experience. We celebrated our survival with a couple of mocktails...
Wednesday, 5 March 2025
Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife - the cover reveal
So here it is - the cover reveal for my Christmas puzzle mystery, Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife. The novel (and it is, first and foremost, a novel, with lots of clues and puzzle ingredients) will be published by Head of Zeus in September in the UK and by Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen in the US in October. There will be translations in various languages including French (the first time my fiction has appeared in French translation), Italian, and Spanish.
I'm really pleased with the Head of Zeus cover and also with the promotional trailer - as well as with the wonderful quotes from fellow authors.
And yes, this book does have a Cluefinder!