Forgotten Book - Criminal Sentences

Next week, I will revert to my usual Friday pattern of a Forgotten Book which is a crime novel (and the author I have in mind is a very good exponent of Golden Age fiction.) Today, though, as a further tribute to the late Bob Adey, whose funeral took place this week, I'd like to talk about another "book about the books". This time it's a title from 1997, Criminal Sentences, by Steve Haste.

I've mentioned this book once or twice before, but I've yet to find anyone else who has read it. Surely there must be someone out there who shares my enthusiasm for it? The sub-title is self-explanatory: "True crime in fiction in drama." This is a book about real life cases that inspired crime fiction, a subject which, I would argue, is of great importance to any understanding of the genre's history and development. Because, from Poe, Collins and Conan Doyle onwards, crime writers have made great use of "true crime" in their fiction.

I don't claim that Haste's book is totally comprehensive. There are some notable novels inspired by fiction which are not mentioned, along with a number of rather obscure titles that have been overlooked. And there are a number of significant murder cases that are not covered either. But that is inevitable in a pioneering work of this kind. It's not possible to cover everything, and it would be futile to pretend otherwise.

Haste does a great job of summarising the cases, and then listing works of fiction derived from them. Many are Golden Age titles, but there are many others. He writes in a concise style, and that's a strength in this sort of reference book. The particular joy that comes from reading this book is the chance to seek out books of which one was previously unaware, where they fictionalise interesting crimes. If I read a "book about books", I like to be pointed to unfamiliar titles that I might enjoy reading (this is part of the reason why I've always admired Julian Symons' Bloody Murder.) Steve Haste's book does this, in an unfussy and enjoyable way. Will there ever be a second, updated edition? I have never met or had any contact with Mr Haste, but I would love to think he is contemplating a new edition.

The Truth about Emanuel - film review

The Truth about Emanuel is a 2013 which boasts a superb cast, and an unusual storyline  with a bizarre and intriguing plot twist. The cast first. There is Frances O'Connor, who was so wonderful in The Missing, here playing an American step-mother. There is Alfred Molina, always dependable, as her husband. There is Kaya Scodelario as the pretty teenage daughter of the family and Aneurin Barnard, excellent in Cilla as Bobby Willis, as her new boyfriend. Finally, there is Jessica Biel, who is always worth watching.


Now the set-up. Kaya Scodelario is the central character. She was born as her  mother died, a tragedy that has shaped her life and her outlook. Her dad remarried a year ago, and O'Connor's character makes valiant efforts to bond with the girl, but to no avail. When Biel's character becomes a neighbour, an apparently single woman with a young baby, there is an opportunity for the teenager to do some babysitting. But something very strange is going on - is the lovely woman next door all that she seems?

What could possibly go wrong? The script, is the answer. I am afraid that I felt that the writers of the story, Francesca Gregorini (who also directs) and  Sarah Maur Thorp, relied too heavily on a twist that occurs before the film is half way through. I don't want to say more about it because that would be a spoiler. After the plot twist, the film commences a slow descent to silliness, and the result is profoundly unsatisfying. A pity,because this could have been a really memorable movie.

To some extent, the failings of the screenplay are mitigated by the excellence of the acting. I though all five of the lead actors did a really good job with the material. But when I learned that the film was originally due to be called Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes, it tended to confirm my impression that Francesca Gregorini didn't have a clear idea of what to do with the resources available to her. A pity, for this film is really a missed opportunity.

Cape Fear (1962) - movie review

Cape Fear is a notable American thriller dating back just over half a century. It was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese, but until recently I hadn't seen either version. Nor had I read The Executioners by John D.MacDonald on which it is based. Now I've filled one of these lamentable gaps, by watching the original movie, and it certainly lived up to my expectations.

Those expectations were fuelled in part by the casting of two stars at the peak of their fame. Gregory Peck plays a decent lawyer (at last, a nice attorney!) while Robert Mitchum is the psychopathic ex-convict who bears him a grudge. The cast also includes Telly Savalas as a private eye, long before he too found fame, in Kojak. The film is well acted throughout, but really it's Mitchum who is the outstanding performer, making the most of his menacing role as the ruthless rapist Sam Cady.

Mitchum stalks Peck, but doesn't stop there. He poisons the family dog, and makes it clear to Peck that he is determined to rape his wife and daughter. Peck tries to buy him off, and then to have him beaten up - all to no avail. The tension builds as it becomes clear that only the most drastic measures will save Peck and the woman and child he loves.

Peck's wife is played by Polly Bergen, who died recently, and who was also a singer (her accompanist and boyfriend in the early Fifties later became a legendary composer...) Apparently she and Mitchum were both injured when they filmed a scene where they fight together, so intensely were they caught up in the story.. And the action is enhanced by a characteristically dramatic score written by another legendary composer, the great Bernard Hermann. it all adds up to a film that well deserves its high reputation.

Forgotten Book - The Heirs of Anthony Boucher

As I did last week, I've chosen as my Forgotten Book for today a book about the genre, rather than a novel, as a small tribute to the memory of the late Bob Adey. The Heirs of Anthony Boucher, by Marv Lachman,is, to be honest, really too recent to be called a "forgotten book" (it was published by Poisoned Pen Press ten years ago), but it is a unique book that is little known in the UK, and Bob is mentioned a number of times in the text, so I think it deserves to be highlighted.

The sub-text is "A History of Mystery Fandom", and that's exactly what the book is. There's an introduction by Edward D. Hoch, a wonderful and prolific short story writer, sadly no longer with us, who describes himself proudly as a mystery fan. As he says, Marv is ideally qualified to write such a book, given the breadth of his reading over many years. Ed also makes the point that many readers and writers are unaware of what has gone before in the genre, and that it's valuable to be reminded of, for instance, the history of that great convention Bouchercon.

The book gives a pithy account of the early days of fandom, including such little-known organisations as Patricia Wentworth Fan Club and the Praed Street Irregulars. There is a lot of information about Bouchercon, which began in 1970 and marked the beginning of a new era for mystery enthusiasts, as well as the formation of many long-lasting friendships, a happy tradition that continues to this day. A wide range of mytery magazines are discussed, including CADS and Mystery Scene, which are still flourishing.

I've met Marv a few times at conventions, and he's one of the most knowledgeable of all crime fiction enthusiasts. I've read segments of his latest book, about mystery plays, in Give Me That Old-Time Detection,and he also wrote an excellent book about regional American mysteries. But because of its quirky subject matter, this one is a special favourite of mine, and I commend it to anyone who is curious about the evolution of fan interest in the genre. Marv's love of the genre shines through.

Marv also makes special and gracious, mention of one of our encounters, at the 1995 Nottingham Bouchercon. On that occasion, he, Ed Hoch, Sarah J. Mason and I competed in "Mastermind", and had a great deal of fun in the process. There's even a photo of the occasion in the book. It's slightly surreal to see myself looking twenty years younger. Where did the time go? Well, some of it went in reading good books in and about the genre, and this one is definitely among my favourites.  .

Disconnect - the movie - and connecting....

Disoonnect is a 2012 film that I found very watchable. More than that, it made me think. In keeping with its title, it's a rather fragmentary piece of work, putting together three stories about people who run into trouble of various kinds thanks to their absorption with the internet. There are links between the different stories, although they are rather loose, and the human dramas are well told, and well acted,

So we have a story about cyber-bullying, where two boys pretend to be a girl and induce another boy to send a revealing photo of himself, which they promptly circulate to their circle. The victim responds by hanging himself. This is a highly topical situation, with all the publicity recently surrounding celebrities whose private photos have been hacked and publicised. It's a scenario which tells us more about the worthlessness of the hackers than anyone else, and I found this story the most powerful in the film.

Another story concerns a journalist who befriends a teenager who is, in effect, a male prostitute, while the final story is about a couple whose bank accounts are broken into by a hacker. One of the themes common to the three stories is that of impersonation. The internet makes it easy for people to disguise their identities, and the ability to pretend to be someone else - a subject that's always fascinated me as a novelist, as anyone who has read The Arsenic Labyrinth will appreciate - can be corrupting in the extreme.

Disconnect is a film I can recommend, even though its "messages" are not necessarily straightforward (and that's not a criticism -some social issues are too complex to give rise to straightforward messages.)  One issue it doesn't really touch on is that of internet trolls, and I feel sure that trolls will soon feature in a number of novels and films, because their unpleasant behaviour is, let's face it, interesting.

My own view is that it is the anonymity of trolls that is the central problem, because it facilitates and encourages a malign blend of cowardice and cruelty. If people who behave unkindly could not hide their identity, surely many of them would behave differently. Most human beings are, I like to think, instinctively decent, but the phoney comfort blanket of anonymity tempts them to hurt others for no good reason. As always, I'd be interested in your views (as long as you put your name to them!) My final reflection prompted by this thought-provoking film is this. If ever there was a suitably topical subject for a novelist, it's the question of anonymous trolling on the internet.

Gideon's Day - film review

Gideon's Day, also known as Gideon of Scotland Yard, is a late Fifties film based on a novel by J.J.Marric, which was one of John Creasey's many pseudonyms. As a small boy, I watched episodes of the TV series based on the character, George Gideon, which starred John Gregson (Gideon's Way), and when the film popped up on the schedules, I thought it was high time I caught up with it..Creasey wrote hundreds of books, but some people think that the Gideon series included much of his best work.

The film has a lot going for it. Directed by the legendary John Ford, it has a screenplay by T.E.B. Clarke, who is perhaps most renowned for that Ealing classic The Lavender Hill Mob. Gideon is played by Jack Hawkins, one of the most striking British actors of the Fifties, and there is a very good supporting cast. John Le Mesurier and Miles Malleson, two old favourites of mine, both appear in a scene at the Old Bailey, while Anna Massey, whom I once saw give a splendid performance on the stage, made her debut as Gideon's daughter.

The essence of the story is about the packed and varied day experienced by Gideon, and his hapless attempts to juggle work with his home life. He suspends a crooked subordinate (who is murdered shortly afterwards), solves a series of pay snatches (risking his life in the process), is involved in the hunt for a deranged sex killer, gives evidence in a court case, helps to save an informant from a razor gang, and catches a robber who has already killed the guard at a security deposit, Blimey! He even finds time to pop home for lunch and drop into a pub for tea, although both times he is interrupted before he can eat anything.

It's a film that must have seemed very topical at the time of its release,and like most topical stories, it now has a very dated feel. Mrs Gideon, for instance, is very much a housewife of the Fifties, and the portrayal of the police is a world away from Broadchurch or Happy Valley. During the first few minutes, I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy the film, but I did warm to it. A period piece, yes, but decent light entertainment.

Forgotten No More? Deadlier than the Male

Something a little different today. Since the sad death of Bob Adey, author of the wonderful Locked Room Murders, I've been reflecting further on books about the genre, and those that I've enjoyed over the years, including some that are not often discussed nowadays. I'm tempted to write about several of them, and today I'm going to talk about one that has just been made available again to a new generation of readers

Deadlier than the Male was originally published in 1981. Its sub-title then was: "Why are respectable English women so good at murder?" which is a question that's been given various answers over the years, not least by P.D. James. The author was a friend of Phyllis James, and herself a crime novelist of distinction, Jessica Mann. Her books often have a feminist perspective, in a way that is persuasive and appealing, and this title is no exception.

Unfortunately, this particular book has been out of print for years, and it would, I think, be fair to describe it as a Forgotten Book. Happily, we live in an age when, with a bit of luck and enterprise, forgotten books need remain forgotten no longer. And Deadlier Than the Male is now available again, as an ebook, for the modest sum of £1.99. The sub-title now is "an investigation into feminine crime writing". As the blurb says, on its original appearance, the book was described by one critic as “obligatory reading for any reader of crime fiction”, while another wrote, "I cannot recall a better work of criticism devoted to the crime story."

I bought and devoured the book a good many years before I met Jessica, and I found the coverage of the "crime queens", especially those other than Agatha Christie (about whom I'd already read plenty) informative and enjoyable. It is fair to say that the range of books in this area has greatly improved over the past thirty years, and in some cases, more information has come to light about the lives of the authors. But that does not devalue the significance or merit of this consistently interesting book, and I'm delighted that it has returned to enjoy a new life and attract a new set of readers.

Noose for a Lady - film/DVD review

Noose for a Lady is a 1953 whodunit film which seemed to have been well and truly forgotten until its recent release in DVD form. Having just watched it, I must say I'm glad it's been resurrected, because it presents a highly traditional whodunit in the space of just over 70 minutes and provides decent entertainment from start to finish. The director, Wolf Rilla, by the way, later became renowned for The Village of the Damned, based on John Wyndham's classic sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos.

The set-up is very familiar. A woman has been convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to death. An appeal fails, and her fate seems to be sealed by the time a cousin (Dennis Price, that great post-war smoothie) returns from Uganda and decides she is innocent, and must be saved. So we have a clock-race element coupled with a hunt for a killer among the genteel family and social circle of the dead man.

Suspicion shifts pleasingly from one suspect to another. Is the killer the suave doctor (Ronald Howard) or the dodgy collector of knick-knacks (Charles Lloyd Pack, father of Roger Lloyd Pack, and grandfather of Emily Lloyd)? Or perhaps a retired soldier with a discreditable past, or the local busy-body, or the pretty girl Price's character fancies? Or...well, you get the picture.

The film is based on a novel by Gerald Verner, which in turn appears to have been based on a radio serial - this would explain why it is very dialogue-heavy. I've never read anything by Verner, but he was certainly prolific, with well over one hundred novels to his credit. He also adapted Agatha Christie's Towards Zero for the stage. It seems that Edgar Wallace was a major influence on him, but this story is more in the Christie vein. It's a competently made, unpretentious film, and like so many hitherto neglected books and films, it's now enjoying a new lease of life as it becomes, happily, cheaper and easier to make such work available to a new generation of fans at modest cost.

The York Book Fair

A major book fair is held at York Racecourse in early January each year. I don't travel there every year, since a trip on the M62 in wintry conditions is not the ideal way of passing the time, but a long week-end in York this year coincided happily with the fair, so I was able to make it. And it was, as ever, fun to look at books that I'll never be able to own but which are nevertheless full of interest.

An example was a thriller called Wheels of Anarchy by Max Pemberton, which dates back to 1908. Pemberton was a well-known writer of his day, and I first came across his writing as a teenager, when a story of his appeared in Hugh Greene's brilliant anthology The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. What intrigurd me about Wheels of Anarchy was that Pemberton explains in a preface that the idea for the story came from his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who died young, shortly before it was written.

Now Robinson was also the chap who gave Conan Doyle the idea for The Hound of the Baskervilles. It must be very unusual for a writer (and Robinson did write some detective stories of his own) to give publishable ideas to not one but two friends, and still less common for one of them to become an all-time classic. He originated from Liverpool, and in fact I've had a business connection with his family's very old-established firm for many years. He was a remarkable man, and I hope to write more about him at a later date.

There were many other gems on sale, including a set of four books signed by Christopher Bush, and a couple of thrillers signed by Victor Bridge, as well as a signed first of Len Deighton's classic The IPCRESS File. The photos come from James M. Pickard's stand - two early, pseudonymous, Ellis Peters mysteries are in the top photo. All well outside my price bracket, but nice to see,all the same.

Another pleasant aspect of book fairs is the chance to catch up with a few friends. Unexpectedly  on Saturday, I met for the first time Catherine Hawley and her husband Rob, who were trading at a book fair for the very first time. Catherine blogs as Juxtabook and like me is a big fan of Josephine Tey and Reg Hill; I've been enjoying her blog for years, and can recommend it.

Forgotten Book - At the Villa Rose

At the Villa Rose is the name of a very good blog, run by Xavier Lechard. It derives its name from my Forgotten Book for today, the 1910 mystery novel written by A.E.W. Mason, which I've just re-read after very many years. And the book is as enjoyable and thought-provoking as Xavier's blog.

I was first introduced to Mason, and his detective Inspector Hanaud, when I was a schoolboy. I used to borrow from the local library titles in a Hodder series, edited by Michael Gilbert, which reprinted classics of mystery and adventure. It was through this series that I first came across Anthony Berkeley's Trial and Error, and Raymond Postgate's Verdict of Twelve. Two masterpieces. In other words, Michael Gilbert had excellent taste, and was a man whose judgment could be trusted.

I can't recall now much of what Gilbert had to say about Mason, but I do remember that he admired The House of the Arrow very much, and although that is, I think, a better book than At the Villa Rose, both are of a high calibre. It's worth noting that At the Villa Rose was published in 1910, before the "Golden Age" got under way, but it boasts a great version of the Holmes-Watson pairing in Hanaud and Julius Ricardo, and a clever plot, with numerous neat touches, plus a classy, cosmopolitan setting.

Mason based the story on a real life murder case, but he injected imagination into the true crime scenario. Where he erred, I think, was in revealing the solution too soon. Too much of the latter part of the book is devoted to explanation. This was a structural weakness absent from The House of the Arrow. All the same, At the Villa Rose is great fun, and Hanaud a truly appealing example of "the Great Detective."

Robert Adams R.I.P.

Only a day after I recorded the death of Bob Adey, I regret to say that another crime writing friend, Robert Adams, has died. Robert was, perhaps, less well known in the wider crime writing community than Bob, but I've known him for a similar length of time, more than fifteen years. We first met at the Boroughbridge lunches of the Northern Chapter of the CWA.

Robert was a gentle, softly spoken man and it came as something of a surprise when he told me that he was a former prison governor. Indeed, he was a prison officer at HMP Pentonville at the time George Blake, the spy, escaped from custody. He was also a university professor, and had a very interesting and wide-ranging CV; this obituary from the Writers' Guild gives a flavour. .

He produced a wide range of publications on a variety of subjects, but in the late Nineties, he told me he'd given up most of his academic commitments to concentrate on writing fiction. I was keen to encourage him, and with a little prompting, he wrote "The Hull Executive", which I was glad to include in an anthology produced on behalf of our chapter, Northern Blood 3. It has always been a key aim of mine, when editing anthologies, to provide a mix of well-known authors and those, like Robert, who deserve a share of attention from readers.

Robert continued to write, and in 2005, he sent me a copy of his novel Antman. I hoped that this was a sign that his career as a novelist was developing in the way he'd aimed for, but in recent years I haven't seen him at CWA events, although we kept in touch by post. This Christmas, for the first time in many years, I didn't receive a card from him, and I've now heard that he died on 31 December.

This blog is meant to strike a positive note, yet I've now written two obituaries in successive days. I am, though, very positive about my memories of Robert, and Bob Adey. Tomorrow, I shall write about a Forgotten Book that I very much enjoyed, and that I hope others will too.  

Bob Adey R.I.P.

I was so sorry to learn, a couple of days ago, that Bob Adey died on Sunday. Regular readers of this blog will recall that not long before Christmas, I listed his Locked Room Murders as one of my top two all-time favourite books about the genre.Nobody has ever known as much about "impossible crimes" as Bob, and his love of traditional crime fiction was long-lasting and deeply rooted. He was also very modest and self-deprecating.

Bob had been collecting detective fiction for a very long time, and was very generous about sharing his knowledge. Recently, I got in touch with him to ask for ideas about obscure detective stories for a forthcoming British Library anthology. Not only did come up with some very good suggestions, he even sent me a photocopy of one story so obscure that neither he nor I have been able to find out anything about the author. He said the story deserved reprinting; I agreed, and so more importantly, did the British Library. He was a reliable judge..

One memorable occasion was when I went to visit Bob and his wife at their home in Worcestershire. I'd heard a great deal about Bob's fabled collection, including the treasure trove held in his garage. Several times I asked him if he had a rare book, and he'd go off to hunt around the garage - and usually he came up with the rarity I wanted. Suffice to say that I found that the reality more than lived up to the expectation. He had amassed an extraordinary range of material. I've never seen anything quite like it in the realm of detective fiction. I look back on that sunny afternoon with great pleasure.

Bob made excellent use of the resources he'd gathered. Among many other projects, he wrote regularly for Geoff Bradley's CADS, and he supplied introductions and editorial material for a range of books. He was a long-time friend of many members of the crime writing community, including America's Doug Greene, with whom he co-produced an anthology, Death Locked In (which I recommend unreservedly) and for whose Crippen & Landru imprint he edited a very engaging collection by Joseph Commings. Recently he supplied an intro to a splendid omnibus volume of the works of the late Derek Smith. Another pal of Bob's was Jamie Sturgeon, who has kindly supplied me with the photo above, which was taken a couple of years back.

I never succeeded in persuading him to set up a website so that all his writings could be accessed via Google, but they are absolutely worth seeking out. I enjoyed our years of email correspondence, and as we are both great football fans, they usually included a soccer component (years ago he used to tease me about the form of my team compared to his; the boot had been on the other foot more recently, but this always gave us both great amusement.) My condolences go to his wife and family. He was a lovely man who will be greatly missed.

Broadchurch - season 2, episode 1, ITV 1 review

Broadchurch is back. The stand-out television crime drama of 2013 returned this evening, the storyline of season 2 a secret that writer Chris Chibnall has maintained as a closely guarded secret. The first question, of course, is whether revisiting such a superb show, is a good idea. How can it live up to the standards already set? I suppose that, in this day and age (and probably in any day and age) the crucial factor was public demand. Just as fans wouldn't let Conan Doyle kill off Holmes, so people clamoured for more of Broadchurch.

Holmes was never, though , quite the same man after he returned from the Reichenbach Falls, and the need to do something fresh but equally gripping supplied Chibnall with a huge challenge. During the first few minutes of this episode, it crossed my mind that anyone who hadn't seen season 1 would probably be feeling dissatisfied. I recall watching seasoon 2 of The Killing and, to be honest, wondering what all the fuss was about. It was okay, but didn't seem to me to be remotely close to a masterpiece.I felt missing season 1 was a definite disadvantage.

Broadchurch, however, benefits from great writing, from exceptional acting, and a compelling locale. You can't go far wrong with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman, but now we have new characters thrown into the mix, most notably Charlotte Rampling, playing a senior barrister who just happens to have retired to Broadchurch. When the presumed killer from season 1 decides to plead not guilty to murder, will Charlotte agree to the parents' request for help? We can guess the answer...

There is also a new plot strand, reaching back to the last disastrous case of Tennant's character. This seems to me to be a clever development, a really good way of refreshing interest. There were moments of improbable melodrama at the end, with an exhumation attended, bizarrely, by almost all the main characters in the story. And the defence barristers' chambers seemed pretty unrealistic to me, too. But I loved the mysterious "bluebell" clue - reminscent of Francis Durbridge! All in all, the story buzzed along, and despite some reservations, I'll certainly be watching episode two.

Bodies from the Library

Fresh and exciting evidence of the striking growth of interest in Golden Age fiction is supplied by the announcement that Bodies from the Library, a one day conference, will take place at the British Library on Saturday 20 June. The organisers have set up a website as well as a Facebook page, and I am optimistic that this venture will attract a great deal of interest.

John Curran, the pre-eminent expert on Agatha Christie, is a guiding spirit behind the setting up at the conference. It sprang from discussions at Crimefest last year about the fact that, over the years, Golden Age fiction has not been discussed very often at crime conventions (other than the Forgotten Authors panel at Crimefest and some of the papers given at St Hilda's each year). As a result, John, Mike Linane and fellow enthusiasts including Liz Cooper, Norman Home, and Susan Cooper decided it would be a good idea to set up a dedicated conference. Naturally, I think they were absolutely right. But putting on a conference, especially when starting out, is very hard work. 

John, Mike and company have done a great job, gaining enthusiastic and valuable backing from both the British Library and Harper Collins. They are in the process of finalising what will be a packed programme. The speakers include the pre-eminent publishers of Golden Age-related books, David Brawn of Harper Collins,and Rob Davies of the British Library. Other speakers include Jake Kerridge of the Daily Telegraph, and Barry Pike and Tony Medawar, two of the leading authorities on Golden Age fiction. If you like traditional fiction, the chance to hear Barry, John and Tony really should not be missed.

Contemporary novelists with a strong interest in the Golden Age will be speaking; they include Len Tyler, Dolores Gordon Smith, and me. At least one leading present day crime writer is likely to be added to the list shortly.This is a ground-breaking event, and I'm very glad to be part of it. I hope that some of the GA fans who read this blog will be able to attend. 

A few words from Mike Linane: :"Golden Age is a huge topic and to have a day where true experts talk about their favourite authors and suggest books to read as well as hearing from the publishers what they take into account before republishing out of print titles as well as finding out about todays authors who are carrying on in the GA tradition.   There's something for everyone and I am sure the entire audience will leave at the end of the day with a list of books they are desperate to read  Oh,  and there are goody bags and spot prizes as well!"


   

Before We Met - Lucie Whitehouse - review

Before We Met is a widely acclaimed psychological suspense novel by Lucie Whitehouse that was published not long ago. In the wake of all the publicity about the films of Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep., I decided to try another book in broadly the same field. Unlike Gone Girl, however, but like Louise Millar's Accidents Happen, Before We Met is set in England (apart from a few flashback scenes in the US).

I'm a fan of psychological suspense, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who is sorry that Minette Walters has not been very productive of late. Her The Sculptress is one of my all-time favourites in this genre. I also very much enjoyed A Likeness in Stone by Julia  Wallis Martin, another excellent novelist who has sadly been absent from the scene for quite a while. Nicci French, too, has moved away from superb stand-alones to the greater orthodoxy of a series. There's no shortage of other writers working in the same field, and achieving similar success. Sophie Hannah, to name but one - even though, interestingly, she has just digressed into the very different world of Hercule Poirot.

In Lucie Whitehouse's book, Hannah is a young woman who seems to have it all. She's recently married Mark,a wealthy businessman, who is devoted to her, and although she's not found a new job since marriage brought her back home from the States, that is surely only a question of time. But one day she goes to meet Mark at the airport - and he doesn't show up. What has happened, and is her lovely marriage all it seemed? No prizes, I'm afraid, for guessing the answer to the second question.

I was interested that Whitehouse chose to tell her story in the third rather than the first person. This risks some loss of immediacy, but I found the first half of the book gripping. Once one particular secret was revealed, I felt the story became relatively conventional, and certainly more orthodox than the best-sellers by Gillian Flynn and S. J. Watson, but it's still a decent read from start to finish. .

My Name is Julia Ross - film review

My Name is Julia Ross is a 1945 film based on Anthony Gilbert's novel The Woman in Red, published four years earlier. The story does not features Arthur Crook, the solicitor who usually crops up in Gilbert's novels, and the film is a "woman in jeopardy" story that I found a cut above the average. Joseph H. Lewis directs, and the screenplay is by Muriel Roy Bolton, and between them they fashioned something short, snappy, and suspenseful.

NIna Foch plays Julia Ross, an attractive young woman who has struggled to find work since recovering from ill health. She rents a room in an unlovely London house, and the man she fancies has just gone off to marry someone else. She answers an advert placed by a new employment agency, and they put her in touch immediately with a prospective employer and her son. She is offered a live-in secretarial job with suspicious rapidity, and duly accepts. When she goes back home to pack her things, she finds that the man she cared for has decided not to get married after all. They arrange to meet - but Julia doesn't show up.

In fact, Julia has been kidnapped, and finds herself the victim of a monstrous conspiracy which involves taking her off to an eerie house in Cornwall and giving her a new identity. What on earth can be going on? The answer doesn't take long to emerge, but it's fun to follow the twists and turns of the plot. The old lady is played by Liverpool-born Dame May Whitty, surely one of the more unlikely Scousers, who is best known to crime fans as Miss Froy in Hitchcock's version of another "woman in jeopardy" film, The Lady Vanishes.

 Apart from Dame May, the cast members are mainly unfamiliar to modern viewers,and the acting of the chap who played the weird son struck me as less than convincing. But overall, the film is well made,and I liked the way it raced along. Apparently, it was loosely remade by Arthur Penn in 1987 as Dead of Winter, but I haven't seen that. Whether or not you're not an Anthony Gilbert fan, I think this film is well worth a look, a period piece that is a nice blend of Gothic and British noir, and anyone seeking a more in-depth analysis might like to take a look at the excellent review by John Norris..

Forgotten Book - Disgrace to the College

I was tempted to make a new year resolution to read all the Golden Age books that I've acquired over the years, and shamefully failed to get round to reading, before I tried to add any more to my collection. But I knew it's a resolution I'd fail to keep. I did toy with the idea of listing some of them and seeking recommendations from readers of this blog as to which to prioritise, and perhaps I'll do that one of these days. In the meantime, my Forgotten Book for today is one I've laid my hands on only recently, and which has jumped the queue, partly because of its brevity.

Disgrace to the College, written by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, and first published in 1937 is unusual on at least three counts. First, it's a novella, rather than a full-length novel. Second, it's a locked room mystery; the Coles wrote one or two short stories featuring locked room puzzles, but as far as I know, this is their longest locked room story. Third, their most regular detective, Superintendent Wilson, is absent, and the detecting is done by one of their second string characters.

The book is divided into two parts. "Michaelmas Term" is set at St Mark's College, Oxford, and we are presented with a fictitious version of the Senior Common Rooms that Douglas Cole, himself an Oxford academic, knew very well. A good deal of scorn is heaped on college politics, which are presented credibly, if in a rather long-winded way. Someone who ought to know told me that, if college politics are frequently vituperative, Oxbridge college politics tend to be ten times worse, and that seems to have been Cole's view.

Two issues are vexing the College authorities. First, a South African Rhodes scholar called Sam Barrett is making waves with his misbehaviour and laziness. Second, an elderly and irascible Estates Bursar is presiding over a mysterious decline in the College's wealth. These two narrative strands occupy the first part of the book. In the second part, "Trinity Term", things have moved on, and Sam's life has undergone a remarkable change. On to the scene comes the Honourable Everard Blatchington, who features in a number of books by the Coles. His arrival conveniently coincides with a death by shooting in a locked room....

The puzzle is quite nicely done. I think it was a wise decision not to pad the story out into a full-length novel; perhaps a decision the Coles might have benefited from taking more often (but then, getting novellas published was far from easy before digital publishing changed the landscape.) The Oxford setting is captured competently, if not with dazzling flair. There is interest in the passing glances at covert homosexuality (at a time when homosexual acts were criminal offences) in college life, and the use of local pubs as brothels catering for male students who were frustrated by college rules designed to prevent hanky-panky with the opposite sex. All in all, one of the better Coles stories that I've come across (though I have numerous gaps in my reading of them.); This one was drawn to my attention some time ago by a Golden Age expert, but proved far from easy to track down. In true Oxford manner, it merits at least a middle Second, if not quite a First..  

2015: the year ahead

A very happy new year to all readers of this blog. You can never predict what a year may have in store, but one thing is for certain. 2015 will see more new books of mine, of one kind or another, than ever before in a single year. Never mind for a moment whether that's really such a good thing! Let me tell you about them.

I regard myself as a novelist, first and foremost, but the main event will be the publication in the UK and US by Harper Collins of The Golden Age of Murder. It can, I suppose, be described as "narrative non-fiction" - I've used one or two novelistic techniques to turn the factual account of the creation of the Detection Club by a small group of talented and innovative crime writers into a story that tells readers something about the people, their books, and the times in which they lived. I'm hoping above all that the book will interest people in Golden Age fiction even if they've never had much time for it previously.

Still with the Golden Age, I have three anthologies due to be published by the British Library. They are collections with differing themes, and each book includes a couple of stories, at least, which I think will be unfamiliar even to most dedicated fans. Resorting to Murder is a book of holiday mysteries, while Capital Crimes gathers stories set in London. There will also be an anthology of Christmas stories - I'm just about to finish work on this. I've also written a stack of introductions for new books in the Classic Crimes series. Not all of the titles have yet been publicly announced, but they include some very interesting novels.

Turning to fiction, The Dungeon House is ready for editing now, and I'm hoping it will see the light of day in the autumn. It's the seventh Lake District Mystery, and the setting - around the coastal village of Ravenglass - plays a key part in the story. I've structured it rather differently from other books in the series, but I'm hopeful that it will go down well. I feel it's the best book in the series so far.

During the course of the year, I'll be publishing an ebook of short stories, some old, some new, and the provisional title is The Bookbinder's Apprentice and other stories. Jessica Mann has kindly written an introduction. As it happens, I've written a number of short stories recently, and of course I'm hoping that these will find a publisher. Among other projects, I've teamed up with members of Murder Squad and some "accomplices" to write a story inspired by a photo taken by Pembrokeshire photographer David Wilson. At the time of writing this blog, I'm just revising my story, provisionally titled "Through the Mist".

Back to non-fiction. I've just written an intro to a Sherlock Holmes book, and in April, the new CWA anthology will appear. This is Truly Criminal, to be published by The History Press. We have a really good line up of original contributions, and I like to think it's the most significant anthology of true crime essays to have appeared in quite a few years. My piece deals with the "Blazing Car" murder of 1930, and several contributions feature cases that influenced novels of the Golden Age. Peter Lovesey (with a unique take on the "brides in the bath" case), Catherine Aird and Andrew Taylor are among the other authors, and there is a foreword by the best-selling author and former CWA chair, Peter James.

At the moment, I'm working on a book which includes all the detective fiction reviews that Dorothy L. Sayers wrote in a remarkable burst of activity at the height of the Golden Age This project is undertaken on behalf of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society, and we have yet to sort out publication details. But the Sayers reviews are brilliant and full of insight, and still read very well. The reviews written by Sayers and a few of her contemporaries are, incidentally, valuable sources of ideas for my Forgotten Books, and they deserve a wider readership.

There are one or two other projects in the works, including one for the Detection Club, and a very exciting non-fiction project. These will not appear in 2015, but they will take up some time during the year. And in case any of my faithful readers are wondering if I mean to fit in a holiday or two in the midst of all this activity, the answer is very definitely...yes!