Tuesday 22 December 2009

CADS 57


There are many, many good things in the latest issue of CADS – issue number 57, in fact, of this ‘irregular magazine of comment and criticism about crime and detective stories’ edited by Geoff Bradley, whom I first met at a Bouchercon held in London almost two decades ago.

Liz Gilbey writes about Adam Diment, a trendy and very successful writer of the Swinging Sixties, who literally disappeared from sight. What on earth happened to him? Marvin Lachman contributes a long list of obituaries concerning crime writers or those otherwise connected with the genre. There are articles on a range of tiopicesby seasoned commentators such as Philip Scowcroft, Mike Ripley and Bob Adey. B.A. Pike, who knows a great deal about Golden Age mysteries, contributes a piece about an Irish writer unknown to me, Sheila Pim, who published four novels between 1945 and 1952 – he makes them sound well worth searching for.

Pim apparently included ‘erudite footnotes’ in her work, and ‘Footnotes in Crime and Detective Stories’ is the title of a fascinating article by David Ellis. He covers footnotes in the work of Poe, and the pseudonymous early crime novelist Charles Felix, in Golden Age stories, and in modern books by the likes of Somoza and Mark Haddon.

I find articles on quirky subjects, such as Ellis’s, thoroughly enjoyable as well as informative. Geoff Bradley, the editor of CADS, does a great job in bringing these pieces together in a form where they can be widely appreciated. For anyone interested in the genre, especially in mysteries of the past, I can recommend this magazine without any reservations whatsoever.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Martin - Thanks for sharing this issue. I, too, enjoy articles like this, and as you no doubt have guessed, I'm especially fond of classic crime fiction.

Dean James said...

Rue Morgue Press in the US reprinted all four of Pim's novels; I'm not sure how many of them are still available, but they shouldn't be that hard to find. I've read one of them and found it very enjoyable.

Martin Edwards said...

Margot, I'm sure you would love CADS.
Dean, thanks - I'm a fan of Rue Morgue and I can't think how I've overlooked their versions of the Pim books. But I have, until now....

Juliet said...

Happy Christmas from the Muddy Island. Jx

Unknown said...

I well remember the enormous publicity that surrounded Adam Diment's books - not least because I was about halfway through writing a thriller in a similar vein. Having read Adam's first book I decided he was much better at it than me, and changed genres!
There's been a revival of interest in him very recently - Mike Ripley has been trying to track him down with a view to reprinting one of his books in a series which he (Mike) is editing.
See http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/2009/08/the-disappearance-of-the-author-adam-diment/
for a lot more information about Adam's (possible) present whereabouts and the reason for his disappearance in 1969.
There is also a Treasury file available in the National Archives which contains anonymous letters accusing Diment and the producer of the (unrealised) film of one Diment's books of being involved in a currency/drugs swindle. All very intriguing!
Best wishes for 2010.

Martin Edwards said...

Juliet - lovely to hear from you. Hope all is well!

Martin Edwards said...

Fetherwate - thanks very much for this info, and the link. An utterly fascinating story, isn't it?