CADS 70

The arrival of a new issue of CAD is always a cause for celebration, and I have just devoured issue 70 of Geoff Bradley's splendid and long-running magazine for crime fiction lovers. Once again, the contents range far and wide. If you are a fan of the genre and you don't know CADS, do check it out. I'm confident that you will be impressed.

Several long-standing contributors are again featured. They include Barry Pike, continuing his series about the Mr Fortune series of H.C.Bailey. The fact that I've developed an increasing admiration for Bailey is largely due to Barry's advocacy; I still find Bailey's style irksome, but I've been persuaded that at his best, he was a very powerful and unusual writer.  There are no fewer than three short pieces by the indefatigible Philip Scowcroft, one of them dealing with Val Gielgud, whose detective fiction is discussed surprisingly seldom. Tony Medawar contributes another "On This Day" snippet, and Mike Ripley writes about Peter Cheney, while there is a poignant final contribution from the late Bob Adey.

Geoff talks about Bob in his editorial notes, and there is also a wonderful piece by Scott Herbertson about someone else who, in a very different way, is also a huge loss to the crime fiction community, P.D. James. I very much enjoyed John Cooper's essay about Henry Wade's Inspector Poole, while Curt Evans writes about Ianthe Jerrold, two of whose detective novels are happily available again after a long gap.

I haven't written as much for CADS in recent years as I've wished, because of the demands of The Golden Age of Murder (which to my amazement has just been reviewed in, of all places, The Wall Street Journal) and other projects, but this time I've contributed an essay which talks about the influence that CADS has had on my book. As anyone who has read the book, and in particular the end notes, will see, that influence has been quite considerable and has spanned many years. Had it not been for what I have learned from CADS, I would still have written the book, but it wouldn't have had as much information in it. I'm one of many writers and crime fans who has cause to thank Geoff for his decades of hard work as editor.