Alibis in the Archive 2025

I'm back home after a wonderful ten days which began with a Murder Squad event at Halifax Central Library and then the most enjoyable of all the many great trips I've had to Scotland over the years. And in between there was the Alibis in the Archives weekend at Gladstone's Library, always a highlight in my calendar. 

Alibis began for me with an enjoyable lunch with various friends, including Paul Charles, Shelly Dickson Carr (aka Michelle Karol) and her husband Steven Karol and then a walk in the sunshine to the gardens of nearby Hawarden Castle. Andrea Russell, warden of Gladstone's Library, greeted everyone at a drinks party and there was a chance to catch up with various pals including Martin and Martine Bailey, Liz Gilbey, and Jean Briggs. After dinner I assumed the role of quizmaster for the now traditional Alibis quiz. Because one of our speakers was John Lee, the estimable publisher at the British Library, the theme was the Crime Classics. In a splendid contest, a team including Matthew Booth and John Curran narrowly pipped a team featuring Jonathan Hopson, who volunteers at the Library and does a great job there.

Saturday's programme got off to a great start with a witty and interesting talk by Orlando Murrin about Culinary Crime. John Curran's expertise is such that his time was split into two sessions, so that we could hear him talk both about Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks and also about Collins Crime Club. Then John Lee and I conversed about the Crime Classics.

Jonathan and the Library archivist Alexandra had put together a lovely exhibition as a tribute to Peter Lovesey, who was a very popular speaker at Alibis a few years back. And the Diamond Dagger was on display, much admired by all. The afternoon began with Christina Koning discussing Cambridge Crime and she was followed by Shelly, who gave a personal insight into the achievements of her legendary grandfather, John Dickson Carr, king of the locked room mystery.

On Sunday we had Alex Pavesi, bestselling author of Eight Detectives, talking about G.K. Chesterton and Metaphysical Crime Fiction, and then I was in conversation with Paul who talked about his own writing briefly before discussing our mutual friend Colin Dexter. Last but by no means least came Caroline England (whose husband Jonathan was once a legal colleague of mine) discussing psychological thrillers.

When programming Alibis, I try to offer a wide range of subjects and also presentational styles, so that everyone attending has plenty of variety and lots of interesting insights to digest. It's also important to have agreeable people who enjoy mingling with fellow readers and writers and I was very pleased with the way everything went. Special thanks to Louisa Yates and everyone at the Library for all their hard work, as well as to the delightful speakers. And next year's Alibis dates for your diary - 5-7 June 2026.

Forgotten Book - Sky High

I first read Michael Gilbert's Sky High (1955) when I was a teenager, so perhaps it's understandable that on returning to it recently I'd forgotten most of the story. What I wanted to find out was whether it was as enjoyable as I recalled - not his best book, for sure, but agreeable entertainment. The short answer is that I liked it even more the second time around, because the intervening years have given me a better understanding of writing craft. And I was able to admire Gilbert's subtle techniques for achieving his effects in a way that was beyond me all those years ago.

This is an English village mystery, though the characters make a couple of excursions into London, which isn't far away - Gilbert's British-based books were almost invariably set in the south east. It's also a story in which his great love of music comes to the fore. He doesn't draw on his legal know-how this time, but the shadow of two World Wars looms over the storyline, as it often did in Gilbert's books.

We begin with a choir rehearsal. The start is low-key and is character- rather than incident- based. Liz Artside, a widow who is in charge of the choir, and her enigmatic son Tim are key figures, and their circle includes the elderly General Paling (whose lovely grand-daughter Sue is adored by Tim) and the council chairman Bob Cleeve. Tim becomes aggrieved when Major MacMorris, also a member of the choir, takes a shine to Sue, and we also learn that there has been a long-running spate of burglaries in the area. Indeed, the US title of this book was The Country House Burglar. But the main criminal drama early on is just the theft of a couple of pounds from the offertory box in the church.

Gilbert takes these disparate and perhaps unpromising ingredients and fashions a story that gathers pace while continuing to engage and, quite often, amuse, from start to finish. There is genuine excitement in several scenes, and Gilbert's description of the use of explosives seems wholly authentic to me. This isn't one of his best-known novels, but it's a really good read. 

  

The Pale Blue Eye - 2022 film review

Edgar Allan Poe is the gift who gives on giving as far as writers and film-makers are concerned. It's not just that his stories and poems so endlessly intriguing and memorable that they continue to fascinate. His life story was equally extraordinary. I mentioned a few of the novels he'd inspired when reviewing the film The Raven on this blog eleven years back (was it really such a long time ago? Blimey). I haven't read Louis Bayard's novel The Pale Blue Eye, but I have now watched Scott Cooper's film based on it.

The first thing to say about the film is that it is, at times, visually stunning. The cast is also truly impressive. Christian Bale plays Gus Landor, a fictitious character and ace detective who acts as a mentor to the young Edgar Allan Poe (played by Harry Melling, grandson of Patrick Troughton, who was such a great Doctor Who) - the story is set at the time Poe was a cadet at West Point. But it's entirely fictitious, though there's no shortage of nods to Poe's work.

Landor, an alcoholic who has retired from detection, is called in to West Point to investigate the hanging of a cadet whose heart was removed from his corpse post mortem. The folk at West Point include a superintendent, played by Timothy Spall, and Dr Daniel Marquis, played by Toby Jones. The doctor's wife is played by Gillian Anderson and his daughter by Lucy Boynton. There are also parts for Charlotte Gainsbourg, Simon McBurney, and Robert Duvall. With a cast like that, how can you fail?

And this film doesn't fail. On the other hand, it doesn't grip quite as much as it ought to, in my opinion. Why is this? The screenplay, is the answer. The pace is at times sluggish and there are scenes towards the end that are over the top. As a result, the film didn't fully live up to my expectations, which were high. But I was glad to have watched it, and I'd be interested to read Bayard's novel, to see how it compares. 

25 Years of Stark House Press

It seems hard to believe, but Stark House Press (like Murder Squad!) recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Greg Shepard and his associates, such as Rick Ollerman, have done a great job over the years in creating a list which reprints a wide range of interesting examples of crime fiction. Along with Jeff Marks and Doug Greene of Crippen & Landru, they have done crime fans a great service.

For instance, they have republished books by authors as different as Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, a wonderful exponent of domestic suspense and a writer who remains criminally under-valued (as is Nedra Tyre, another author on the list), and Gil Brewer, whose work has a harder edge than that of Holding and Tyre, but a distinctive quality. The Red Scarf, for instance, is absolutely gripping. 

In terms of non-fiction, I can recommend, for instance, Rick Ollerman's Hardboiled, Noir and Gold Medals: essays on crime fiction writers from the 50s through the 90s. This collection of essays demonstrates Rick's insightful approach to crime criticism and is packed with interesting information. Among more recent writers, the late Ed Gorman has a Stark House 'twofer' - two novels in one book - which includes one of my favourites of his, The Night Remembers.

Another domestic suspense specialist who has been well served by Stark House is the excellent Jean Potts. I can also recommend Patrick Quentin's Death Freight and other Murderous Excursions, a collection of four novellas while Rick's advocacy on behalf of Peter Rabe, a really interesting writer, has seen publication of various Rabe novels. Recent publications include two books by a writer I don't know at all, Mary Collins, The Sister of Cain and Only the Good, which I'm about to start reading.

In short, if you're a crime fan with an interest in books of the past, you're sure to find something of interest on the Stark House list. Long may it continue to thrive.

Forgotten Book - Death and Mary Dazill

I have mixed feelings about Mary Fitt's crime fiction. Some of her books, such as Mizmaze, strike me as hopeless, but she was capable of writing very well. What is more, she had the ambition to stretch herself and try out different forms of storytelling. One of her better-known books, Death and Mary Dazill (1941) is a case in point. It's a sort of cold case mystery, with a historical crime investigated by her series characters Superintendent Mallett and Dr Fitzbown. But its great strength lies in the characterisation and atmosphere.

The story opens with Mallett and Fitzbown attending a colleague's funeral. They are struck by the sight of two elderly women carrying a wreath to someone else's grave. The vicar tells them that they are the de Boulter sisters, Lindisfarne and Arran (great names!) and they were connected with a sequence of deaths when they were on the cusp of adulthood.

Curiosity aroused, Mallett and Fitzbown want to find out what happened. The vicar's wife knows the story, because her mother Lucy was a close friend of 'Lindy' and Arran, as well as their brother Leonard and another young man called John. But their lives were torn apart when their widowed father brought into their home an attractive and seemingly demure young woman called Mary Dazill.

The story is told mainly in flashback, and on the whole I think Fitt handles a tricky structure very well indeed. The book is fairly short and although she wasn't the paciest of writers, I found it very readable. The ambiguities of the storyline weren't, to my mind, irritating, as they would be in a novel written by a less talented author. Every now and then we flip back to the present day, with Mallett operating in effect as an armchair detective. This is an unorthodox novel and as good as anything I've read from this interesting if variable author. 

The CWA Short Story Dagger

The CWA Short Story Dagger holds a special place in my heart for a number of reasons. It was the very first major award that I won for my crime writing, thanks to 'The Bookbinder's Apprentice', and I've had three other stories shortlisted for the award. But more than that, I've edited anthologies which have yielded quite a lot of stories that have made the longlist and shortlist, as well as a number of winners.

There's a real pleasure to be had from editing an anthology of new short stories (and quite a lot to be had from editing stories from days gone by for the British Library, but that's a slightly different matter). In the course of editing more than fifty collections I've had the pleasure of receiving some brilliant stories by writers from all around the world. The only downside of editing, say, the CWA anthology, is that one has to turn down a number of good stories because of constraints on space and sometimes because of the need to achieve a suitable mix of styles, settings, and storylines. It's especially hard turning down stories written by friends. It's happened to me, so I know how it feels. But you have to respect the editorial judgment and equally it's important for the editor to try to be as fair as possible to the authors as well as devoting careful thought, as I try to do, to the nature of the reader's experience on delving into the book.

I had a great time editing the most recent (and possibly most gorgeous-looking!) CWA anthology, Midsummer Mysteries, though again some good stories didn't make the cut. And I'm absolutely thrilled that no fewer than four stories from the book have reached the shortlist of six for the Short Story Dagger. Quite a result. They are all terrific stories, and indeed I can think of several others in the book that must also have been very strong contenders (judging awards is never easy, that's for sure). So warmest congratulations to Bill McCormick, Sophia Bennett, Jamie Bernthal, and Meeti Shroff Shah. And thanks to the hard-working team at Flame Tree Press who made it all possible.  

The first story I edited that won this Dagger was 'Herbert in Motion' by a talented young guy called Ian Rankin. Since then there have been John Harvey's 'Fedora' and Len Tyler's 'The Trials of Margaret' - and a special bonus came when stories written by Margaret Murphy and Cath Staincliffe for my Murder Squad anthology Best Eaten Cold shared the Dagger. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of the quartet of stories from Midsummer Mysteries will win the award - but whatever the outcome, I'm delighted that the achievements of these excellent writers have been recognised in this way.

Back in Britain

I'm back home after a short but hugely enjoyable cruise when I was a speaker - or 'conversationalist', to use the company's rather nice term - on the Seabourn Sojourn. I was introduced to Seabourn as a prospective speaker by my pals Ann Cleeves and Louise Penny, and they were absolutely right to sing the company's praises. Everyone I have dealt with has been delightful and the whole experience was very positive.

In fact, the original idea was that I'd do a cruise with Seabourn some time in 2026. However, someone dropped out, and I had a few days free in between a couple of events with Ann and my other colleagues in Murder Squad, celebrating our 25 years together. Luckily for me, all the logistics worked out, with a flight out to Bordeaux and a train trip home from Southampton.

A Seabourn cruise is a luxury experience - definitely recommended! - and the key for anyone taking part as a conversationalist is to buy into the ethos of looking after the guests on board. I was especially impressed by the care taken to look after single travellers. So in addition to two conversations - one concerning Agatha Christie and the other concerning game-playing in detective fiction - on a couple of nights I hosted tables of guests, and they proved to be really good company. When presenting, I used PowerPoint for the first time in more than twenty years (after a rather traumatic incident at work, when pitching to prospective clients and the system broke down!) and with the help of the tech team, all was well.

There were three stops, all of them appealing and full of character. The first was at Bordeaux, which I last visited many years ago, and the second at the delightful and historic port town of La Rochelle, which I found quite entrancing. Finally, there was St Helier on Jersey, a town I always enjoy visiting. I felt very fortunate to have had such a fun time as well as sharing my passion for Golden Age mysteries with a receptive and interesting audience.