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...

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. 

Strange Darling - 2023 film review

I'm not absolutely sure what to make of Strange Darling - a 2023 film that has received excellent reviews - although I do think the title is quite appropriate. To some extent, this is because it's a film which uses non-linear chronology, and I'm tempted to take another look at to see if I missed something the first time around (although, given that I anticipated the key plot twist, perhaps I didn't...)

The story is told in six chapters, plus an epilogue, and we are presented with the material in this order: chapters 3, 5, 1, 4, 2, 6 (and then the epilogue). It's a pretty good way of telling a story if you get it right, and arguably the writer-director JT Mollner does get it right. The only member of the cast I'd seen in anything previously was Barbara Hershey, who plays an ageing hippie very convincingly. However, the acting throughout is of a high standard.

This is especially true of Willa Fitzgerald, who is compelling in a role that is extremely challenging. She plays 'the Lady', a sexy but mysterious and perhaps deeply troubled young woman, while Kyle Gallner is quite menacing as a character known as 'the Demon'. I'm surprised to have read that film executives thought about replacing Fitzgerald and having the story told in a conventional, linear way, because if they'd done so, they would have sacrificed the film's strongest ingredients.

So there is plenty to admire in Strange Darling. Yet there were moments of graphic violence that didn't appeal to me one bit, and I felt that the ingenious structure masked a certain lack of subtlety in the writing. On the whole, though, I think this is a good film, even if it has been over-praised. And Willa Fitzgerald is excellent, an actor of real potential.

  

Forgotten Book - Invisible Green

John Sladek's brief but brilliant career as a writer of locked room mysteries came to an end with Invisible Green (1977). in which his Great Detective, an American living in London called Thackeray Phin, made a triumphant return after his successes in Black Aura. Apparently Sladek didn't make enough money for writing more books of this kind to be worthwhile - a real shame.

With this book, he moved publisher from Jonathan Cape, who published Black Aura, to Victor Gollancz. The front cover of the first edition bore a typical Gollancz summary: 'A real, classical detective story that might have been written in the ingenious days of the last century, or of the first quarter of this, with an amateur detective from the same mould, but a puzzle to tax the most up-to-date minds'. And this is all perfectly true.

The book begins with a Prologue set in August 1939 and featuring a group of mystery fans with the pleasing name of the Seven Unravellers. We then move forward to the present with one member of the group, Dorothea Pharaoh, planning to organise a reunion of the seven keen puzzle-solvers. When she is confronted by a troubling problem, she calls on Phin - with whom she has been playing postal chess - to help.

There are some genuinely funny moments in this story, as well as some neat mysteries to fathom. We never learn much about Phin (where does his money come from? I kept wondering) but the story moves at a brisk pace and intrigues from start to finish, and although I did figure out the culprit in good time, some aspects of the solution eluded me. Very good light entertainment and a book that deserves to be back in print.

  

A Most Wanted Man - 2014 film

A Most Wanted Man is a film from 2014 based on a novel published by John le Carre eight years earlier. I haven't read the book, but apparently it is at least in part a critique of the American policy of 'extraordinary rendition'. This aspect of the story is present in the film but somewhat downplayed, and in fact it is overall quite a low-key movie, although one that has won quite a few admirers as well as one or two less favourable reactions.

The stand-out element of the film is undoubtedly the central performance, by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in what turned out, sadly, to be his last major role before his untimely death aged 46. Hoffman plays Gunther Bachman, who runs a covert German intelligence unit, and I think that - even though he wasn't the obvious person to cast as a German spy - he is convincing, because of the humanity his nuanced performance brings to the role.

The story is about Issa Karpov, a refugee from Chechnya, who arrives illegally in Germany and is helped by an idealistic immigration lawyer, well played by Rachel McAdams. Bachman is leading an investigation into a Muslim philanthropist who is suspected of channelling money to a terrorist organisation and when it turns out that Karpov is entitled to a vast amount of money held in a German bank, Hoffman persuades the banker Tommy Brue (William Dafoe, who is always good to watch) to help him snare the bad guy. But of course, in the grubby world of espionage, especially as presented by le Carre, we can always expect there to be luckless casualties of double-dealing.

I watched this film shortly after watching The Bourne Identity for the second time, and it certainly lacks the excitement of many a more straightforward thriller. It takes an age for the story to click into gear, and I feel that the script - although certainly competent - could have been pacier. However, the later stages of the film are gripping, and in any event it's worth watching for Hoffman alone.

A book event in Wigtown and touring south west Scotland

Last year I spent a few days at the cottage of my old school friend Stephen in Monreith, which is in the Machars, a peninsula in Dumfries and Galloway and I'm just back from another trip there. One of several highlights was an evening spent in conversation with Ruth Anderson of Well Read Books in Wigtown, a sell-out event in the book town's delightful community pub, The Wigtown Ploughman. Given that pubs everywhere seem to be under threat, this kind of enterprising venture is one that I hope will become more common.

Ruth's bookshop is fun to explore, and I picked up a few titles during my trip to Wigtown, even though I tried to exercise restraint (not easy when it comes to acquiring books). I also discovered that Wigtown has a rather charming harbour area, a relic of the past before the river Cree silted up. Thanks to Stephen's hospitality I also enjoyed travelling around in the area and visiting Newton Stewart as well as the beautiful Glenwhan Gardens, villages like the Isle of Whithorn (really, a peninsula on the tip of a bigger peninsula, the Machars) and the Rhins, another peninsula which ends in the southernmost point in Scotland. I got the glimmerings of an idea for a short story set in the area - probably to be called 'The Scares', after splendidly named local rocks. The main challenge will be finding time to write it...

At the Mull of Galloway, there is a lighthouse which featured in that dark but compelling film The Vanishing, which I wrote about on this blog three years ago (in the film, the lighthouse is on an island). We were lucky with the weather and there are some delightful off-the-beaten-track places. On the way home, I enjoyed looking round Threave Gardens and the Threave Nature Reserve. A great little trip. But now it's back to writing the novel...

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife - the first review

It's an exciting time as I look forward to my puzzle mystery Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife coming out in hardback on 11 September in the UK and appearing a few weeks later in the US. I very much enjoyed my experience recording some of the audiobook and here are one or two photos taken in the studio by the lovely Head of Zeus publicity team.

I'm also excited about the UK launch at Serenity Books in Romiley. If you happen to be in the vicinity of north Cheshire, south Manchester, on the evening of 11 September, do come along. Details here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/serenity-booksellers/miss-winter-in-the-library-with-a-knife-an-evening-with-martin-edwards/e-ogzqpy

Nowadays it's becoming commoner for reviews to appear before actual publication. Goodreads, for instance, features early reviews, but in the case of this book, the reviews that have appeared so far have been of an early, advance version of the book (or, in most cases, just a part of it). So it was with some holding of breath that I awaited the first magazine review of the final version...

And a US publication, First Clue, which I gather is run by librarians, has come up with that first review, and I'm very pleased with it: 'In a clever standalone homage to Agatha Christie and other Golden Age authors, Edwards (Rachel Savernake series) invites “external observers” (i.e., readers) and “analysts” (reviewers) to participate in an interactive puzzle mystery-within-a-mystery set in a remote, snowbound Yorkshire village. The mysterious Midwinter Trust has brought six down-on-their-luck people with connections to crime fiction (including washed-out author Harry Crystal and laid-off book publicist Poppy de Lisle) to Midwinter village in the rugged Pennines to solve a fictional murder over the Christmas holidays under the close supervision of six Midwinter Trust employees. But the game soon goes awry...a fun, diverting read.'

Forgotten Book - Nightmare

Nightmare is a novel by Anne Blaisdell, but the author - who went on to enjoy a highly prolific career - is better known as Dell Shannon (not to be confused with the American pop singer) and as Lesley Egan, and her real name was Elizabeth Linington. Linington (1921-88) was a pioneering female exponent of the police procedural, but this book, which is one of her earliest, and dates from 1961, is very different. I gather that it was later published under the name Lesley Egan, as - apparently - were some later books which appeared in the UK under the Blaisdell name; her bibliography seems quite complicated.

Nightmare was published in the UK by Victor Gollancz, and the jacket was dominated by a wordy encomium from Nancy Hale, of whom I must admit I'd never heard - it turns out that she was a highly regarded short story writer of the time. The story is set in Wales and concerns an attractive young American woman, Pat Carroll, who decides to splurge her inheritance on a trip to Britain. She plans to meet the mother of her dead fiance, Stephen, but before doing so she bumps into a writer called Alan Glentower, who takes a shine to her.

She agrees to meet Glentower again, but her visit to Mrs Trefoile does not go well. The old lady (not that old - just about sixty!) turns out to be a religious fanatic who decides to imprison Pat so as to preserve her purity and who is assisted in this task by two servants whom she has been blackmailing for years. I didn't find the premise especially convincing, but the author does handle it effectively, ratcheting up the tension chapter after chapter. As a dark novel of suspense, it works pretty well. And the Welsh setting is captured competently; I only noticed one tiny bit of dialogue that struck me as pure American. On this evidence, Linington was certainly a very capable storyteller.

Nightmare was filmed in 1965 as Fanatic, which has the less than subtle alternative title of Die! Die! My Darling and benefited from a script by Richard Matheson as well as from an eclectic cast including Tallulah Bankhead, Donald Sutherland, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan - and Yootha Joyce. And the 2010 Broadway play Looped is, I gather, based on Bankhead's performance in the film. 

    

Phil Lecomber - guest blog post

 

I've met Phil Lecomber, with whom I share an agent, a number of times over the past year or so. I enjoy his company, and asked him to talk about the background to his books. Here's his guest post: 

'For inspiration for my Golden Age crime series, Piccadilly Noir, I turned to a collection of books with a distinctly local provenance. After all, unlike the American milieu of Raymond Chandler, my protagonist, George Harley, inhabits a peculiarly British world – one of grubby bedsits, all-night cafés, and Gold Flake cigarettes.

To establish the base flavour, I began with some classic London aromatics. Dickens, of course – particularly in his Sketches by Boz phase; Thomas Burke, whose problematic racial stereotypes might now obscure his otherwise fascinating depictions of the city; and that great biographer of London, Peter Ackroyd.

To bring out the interwar period flavour, I turned to Patrick Hamilton, whose novels – with their petrichor of disappointment and cast of troubled lodgers – provided a rich stock for my world-building. I added further depth with some more obscure works, including Storm Jameson’s Here Comes a Candle, Philip Allingham’s Cheapjack, and Hippo Neville’s glorious Sneak-Thief on the Road.

Now to the meat of the stew: the works of the great Gerald Kersh – chiefly Night and the City, but also Fowler’s End, Prelude to a Certain Midnight, and The Angel and the Cuckoo. Now sadly mostly forgotten, Kersh was once among Britain’s highest-paid writers, living a life as colourful as his characters. A blend of Night and the City and Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock was exactly the flavour I was aiming for when I first began creating Harley’s world.

For a little extra spice, I turned to a handful of gritty 1930s novels, including James Curtis’s The Gilt Kid; Robert Westerby’s Wide Boys Never Work; and Grierson Dickson’s Soho Racket. And so, I believed, I had arrived at the perfect recipe for a hard-boiled British noir series.'

Recording Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife

If you've read The Life of Crime, you'll know that the lives of crime writers are full of ups and downs, but it's fair to say that, in my experience, the ups far outweigh the downs. You simply never know what is around the corner. For instance, I had a brand new experience just last Tuesday. I recorded part of my own audiobook...

Some time ago, my editor Bethan suggested that I might like to record some parts of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife for the audiobook version. Given that we'd already agreed on two excellent actors, Mark Elstob and Candida Gubbins, to do the recording, this took me aback. But Bethan thought that it would be fun - and this is a book that's definitely meant to be fun - if I were to read certain parts of it, including the 'Rules of the Game' at the beginning, and the Cluefinder.

Given her confidence in me, I thought I should give it a go and so I travelled down to London to the Chatterbox studio in Camden Town, where Chris Ahjem, who has produced over 200 audiobooks, was in the studio. It's never possible to judge one's own work, especially in an unfamiliar context, but I did enjoy the whole experience, and it was nice to meet Zoe, from Head of Zeus publicity, who came along to take photos and videos as part of the publicity push surrounding the book.

Publication is drawing nearer. The book finally sees the light of day on September 11 and there will be a launch at Serenity Books in Romiley, near Stockport. If you're interested in coming along, please get in touch for detais.

Forgotten Book - Shadow Run

Desmond Lowden is a writer who interests me more as I find out more about the man and his work. He was far from prolific, publishing just eight novels between 1969 and 1990, as well as several screenplays. He achieved considerable success, and today's Forgotten Book, published in 1989, won the CWA Silver Dagger (an award that no longer exists). In other words, it was judged to be the second best crime novel of the year. When you consider that the winner was Colin Dexter (with The Wench is Dead) that is quite something. Yet after publishing just one more book, in the following year, he never published another novel. I do find that hard to understand.

The Shadow Run is a thriller which counterpoints two sets of relationships. One concerns a 'fat boy', a young lad at a private school called Joffrey, and his school friends. Joffrey has a troubled family background and he tells a lot of fibs. So when he spots blood coming from a van, nobody believes him. But this time he is telling the truth.

The other relationships involve a hardened criminal called Haskell. He's a man who uses people for his own ends and is determined to make a lot of money from an ambitious robbery. The details (which explain the title) are complex, but since they are related to the technology of the late 1980s, they are also now out of date. This lessens the impact of the later stages of the story for a modern reader, I think, as the worlds of Joffrey and Haskell converge.

The first part of the book is excellent, as Lowden establishes his characters in short, snappy chapters, with crisp dialogue and intriguing incidents. Lowden also makes good use of his great interest in music (Joffrey and some of his pals are members of a choir that sings in a cathedral). I can see why the book attracted such favourable attention at the time, but like so many books which rely on cutting-edge technical detail, it has lost a bit of its allure. Nevertheless, I was glad to read it, and I'm definitely curious as to why Lowden gave up on writing novels so soon after this one earned the Silver Dagger.

The Lake District Mysteries are back!

I'm absolutely delighted to say that Joffe Books have agreed to republish my Lake District Mysteries, and the first title in the series, The Coffin Trail, appears tomorrow, 31 July. The other titles will come out, I gather, month by month. I'm excited by this development, not least by the new artwork and the prospect of an infusion of energetic marketing and sales savvy.

I'm also very glad to say that this move reunites me with Kate Lyall Grant, who was the editor at Hodder who acquired my sixth and seventh Harry Devlin novels, The Devil in Disguise and First Cut is the Deepest, back in the late 90s. I've worked with Kate since, on a Murder Squad anthology for Severn House, but not in relation to my own novels.

The Coffin Trail was an important book in my writing career. The idea for a new rural series was suggested by David Shelley, when he was my editor at Allison & Busby, and my great friend the late Peter Robinson gave me a lot of encouragement. The novel was shortlisted for the Theakston's Prize for best first crime novel of the year - in very illustrious company, it must be said. I enjoyed creating Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind, though of course as time passed my ideas about the development of the series evolved. So, for instance, originally I thought Daniel would retain close links with Oxford, but that hasn't happened...yet.

I'm often asked if you need to start reading my series from the beginning or whether you can start with any book. I do work very hard to make sure that you can start anywhere, but I know that a lot of readers prefer to begin at the beginning. So I'm hoping that plenty of people will want to give The Coffin Trail a try. It seems quite amazing to me that it was first published twenty-one years ago, but I think that, by and large, the passage of time has been pretty kind to it, and I'm hoping that others will agree.

 

The July newsletter

My July newsletter is now available. It includes links to more information and the first part of an interview with Gold Dagger winner John Cornwell. Please do sign up if you're interested - it's free of charge. Here is the link (which can be pasted into your browser): https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks/

Ilkley Book Fair

Friday was a fun day at the Ilkley Book Fair. A couple of years ago, friends in the PBFA (Provincial Booksellers' Fairs Association) kindly invited me to have a stand at the bi-annual crime and detection book fair at Harrogate. I had a lovely time and they invited me back this year, but I was already committed elsewhere. So as an alternative Louise Harrison of TP Books generously offered me the chance to take part in Ilkley Book Fair, which I enjoyed visiting on a quite memorable day more than a decade ago.

I was also given the chance to pop into the Grove Bookshop in Ilkley - a very good shop where I once did an event to celebrate the reissue by the British Library of two of Gil North's Sergeant Cluff novels - to sign copies of Hemlock Bay. Then it was back to the fair and organising my stand. Ilkley is a generalist book fair, unlike Harrogate, so I didn't know what to expect.

As it turned out, I had the chance to talk to a lot of nice people, including old friends such as the Sherlockians John Hall and Paul Charles, and several of the excellent booksellers, notably Phil Woolley of Black Cat (who had some impressive inscribed books by Stephen Maddock, an author of thrillers whose work I'm not familiar with), Stephen Conway, Rob and Catherine Hawley, and Jeremiah Vokes. Not to forget Louise, who went to great lengths to make sure all went well.

I really enjoyed seeing a book fair from an insider's perspective. It is indeed a different experience and watching potential buyers is psychologically fascinating. The time flew by to such an extent that I didn't have much chance to look at other stalls. The setting, in the King's Hall/Winter Gardens, was pleasant and rather atmospheric. I did well in terms of selling books, which was nice (and there was, slightly to my surprise, no pattern at all to which titles were purchased) but more than that, it was good to be part of a world that has long intrigued me. Even if only for five and a half hours.  

Forgotten Book - Body Blow

Last year, I acquired a book called Body Blow by Kenneth Hopkins inscribed to John Arlott. Readers of a certain vintage may recall John Arlott as a famous (and very good) cricket commentator - his voice rippled through my younger days - but he was also a poet and bibliophile. Hopkins was a multi-talented writer, primarily a poet but, like so many poets over the years, he dabbled in detection, publishing seven books between the late fifties and early sixties along with a final book under a pen-name, Christopher Adam.

To be honest, I wasn't familiar with Hopkins, and the purchase was motivated mainly by the charming inscription, which reads 'and no prizes for recognizing the original of Dr Blow'. Dr William Blow is an elderly eccentric (and a big fan of Robert Southey) who, together with the slightly more worldly Professor Manciple, featured in three novels, of which Body Blow (1962) was the last.

The book joined the Himalayan range that is my to-be-read pile, but I was motivated to read it by a series of interesting emails from Paul Roberts. Paul was a friend of Kenneth Hopkins (who sounds like a delightful person) and he told me quite a bit about his life and work. I was, for instance, intrigued to learn that the model for Dr Blow was actually the writer E.H. Visiak, who was a good friend of Hopkins. This was yet another example of the fascinating correspondence that I'm fortunate to receive, and from which I learn so much.

The story begins with Blow buying a large quantity of books by Robert Southey at auction. But when he expects delivery, what in fact he receives is a large and heavy box containing the body of a dead woman. Strange! And it's even stranger when the box disappears again, almost immediately. There are quite a few funny lines and situations in this story, and if the plot is rather barmy, this isn't untypical of humorous crime fiction. I'm very grateful to Paul for drawing Kenneth Hopkins to my attention. 

Emily the Criminal - 2022 film review

Emily the Criminal is a fairly recent film which tells a pretty good story while also making some interesting points about modern society. It's all the more effective because those points, although made with clarity, aren't hammered home in a crude and tedious way. Emily is played, exceptionally well, by Aubrey Plaza (the inspiration for whose first name apparently came from a song by Bread). She is a flawed character, to say the least, but Plaza manages to enlist our sympathy for her.

Emily is weighed down by student debt. It's very sad that, around the world, there are many people like Emily, who have in effect been conned into taking out heavy student loans only to wind up in jobs that are less than rewarding. At the start of the film, we see Emily caught out in a lie to a prospective employer, and later in the story we see a ruthless employer trying to get her to do a six month unpaid internship.

Although Emily is driven to try to make a better life for herself, she finds herself lured into criminality in order to make it happen. We may not approve, but the script is good enough to make us understand and - at some points, anyway - root for her. John Patton Ford, who wrote and directed the movie, is a real talent.

Emily gets involved with a couple of brothers who are involved in credit card scams. She proves herself to be alarmingly adept at lying and cheating her way out of trouble, but there are occasional dark moments which get darker as the film goes on. From start to finish, we see people making 'bad choices'. I don't think this film sets out to justify crime, but it does quite a good job of showing how so many get sucked into it. Thought-provoking.

Dangerous Waters - 2023 film review

Ray Liotta was a compelling actor and he makes his presence felt in the later scenes of Dangerous Waters, a thriller which was the last movie he made before his sudden death in 2022. In many ways, though, the performance of Eric Dane is equally impressive. And so is that of a young Israeli actor, Odeya Rush, who has the central role in the story. She plays Rose, whose mother Alma (Saffron Burrows) has recently begun a new relationship with a man called Derek (Dane).

Derek has invited them to join him on a boat trip to Bermuda, but it's clear that Rose has reservations about her mother's choice of boyfriend. He works in the security business, a sector that covers a multitude of sins, but he does have a certain charm. Alma is impulsive and naive; Rose is much smarter. However, things take an unexpected turn when two villains board the ship. They kill Alma and shoot Derek. He survives, and so does Rose, who hid during the attack, but it's very clear by now that he has something to hide. What is it, though?

There's an entertaining review of this film in the Guardian by Phil Hoad, who said: 'Claustrophobic family drama, survivalist ordeal and balls-to-the-wall action barnstormer – any one of these would have amply filled out a single film. But director John Barr chucks all three into an unsubtle and faintly ludicrous outing that at least is never boring.' Faint praise, perhaps, but praise nonetheless. . I also liked Hoad's comparison of the 'offbeat intensity' of Liotta's performance to that of a 'deranged William Shatner'.

Hoad is right. Dangerous Waters isn't boring and despite the mounting implausibilities, I kept watching. This was partly because of the acting, but the script moves with pace, and that's generally essential in a thriller. Overall, I'd class this as decent, undemanding light entertainment.