Forgotten Book - Sweet Danger

My copy of Margery Allingham's Sweet Danger (1933) is a precious one, despite lacking a dust jacket, because it's inscribed by the author (and her husband Pip) to a friend. It also benefits from endpapers which have a rather splendid map labelled 'The village of Pontisbright where it all happened'. It's taken me a while to get round to reading it but I was amused to find that the prime villain rejoices in the name Savanake (so spelled differently from Rachel, whose name was inspired by Henrietta Savernake in Agatha Christie's The Hollow). 

The description often applied to Sweet Danger is 'romp' and that tells you most of what you need to know about the novel. A disputed territory in central Europe plays a significant part in the plot, so in some ways this is one of those Golden Age novels which have a Ruritanian element - rather like Christie's The Secret of Chimneys, for instance. 

Thankfully, the vast majority of the action takes place in Pontisbright, which is in Suffolk, and the story is particularly significant in the Allingham canon for introducing Albert Campion to Amanda Fitton, who at the tender age of seventeen makes a big impression on him and was to play a key role in several of Allingham's later books. Was this the influence of Sayers' success in introducing Wimsey to Harriet Vane? I tend to think so.

The storyline concerns inheritance and a coded message and it didn't make much of an impression on me. The chapter which made the greatest impact was the one in which Campion ventures to London and encounters Savanake at his HQ: this is very well done, and so is the climactic battle between the men in the mill at Pontisbright. But if anything this book reinforces me in the perhaps controversial view that much of Allingham's finest work was in the short story form, which compelled a discipline not always evident in her novels. 

Speak No Evil (2024) film review

Speak No Evil is a 2024  American remake - written and directed by the accomplished James Watkins - of a Danish film of two years earlier which I haven't seen. Both have enjoyed critical and commercial success. In essence, this is a psychological suspense story which edges into horror territory. But most of the creepier stuff, I'm glad to say, is handled subtly and by suggestion rather than directly graphic content.

The film benefits immeasurably from the presence in the cast of that fine actor James McEvoy. He has the key part of Paddy, a character with hidden (and, it must be said, foreseeably unpleasant) depths, but his ability to move seamlessly and yet with conviction from charmer to villain is impressive. A lesser actor might have struggled to make such an impact.

An American couple living in London, Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and the splendidly named Scoot McNairy) make holiday friends with Paddy and Ciara (McEvoy and Aisling Franciosi, also very good). The Daltons have a daughter, Agnes, who is very anxious, while their new pals have a young boy, Ant, who has a condition which means that he cannot speak. Dan Hough, who plays Ant, is terrific in a tricky role. He has a bright future ahead of him as an actor.

The outgoing and slightly flaky Brits invite the American couple to join them in their remote farmstead in the west country. Obviously, the Americans should run for their lives at this point, but equally obviously they don't. What follows might have been predictable, but a good script and even better acting ensures that the tension ratchets up steadily and is maintained throughout. I wish I could have warmed to Louise and Ben more than I did, but irritating though they are, they don't deserve what Paddy has in store for them.

Announcement - What the World Needs Now - a new mystery anthology

 

I'm delighted to share, at long last, news of an anthology of mine that will be published in the summer. It's called What the World Needs Now: Mysteries Inspired by the Music of Burt Bacharach and it will be published by Level Best Books. It's a very special book for me for a number of reasons, and one of them is that proceeds will go to autism charities in the UK and US. I've been advised by people with expert knowledge of the subject about suitable charities, and all contributors have been hugely generous in donating their stories for this very worthwhile cause.

And what a marvellous list of contributors, what a wonderful and diverse range of stories. We have big international bestsellers like Ragnar Jonasson, Charles Todd, Abir Mukherjee, and Sarah Hilary, alongside people better known in other fields like Simon Guerrier and Rhian Waller. Plus many others, all of them writing at top form. I'll have more to say about the contributions another day.

The foreword was kindly written by Rupert Holmes, the multi-talented crime novelist, playwright, and composer, who just so happens to come from the same Cheshire town as me. In fact, Northwich now holds a very popular annual Pina Colada Festival in Rupert's honour - named, of course, after his famous hit, 'The Pina Colada Song'. 

This is a book that has been a long time in the making. It brings together my twin passions, for Burt Bacharach's music, and for crime fiction, in a way that I'm very, very happy with. And the book is dedicated to a friend of mine from my schooldays, Elizabeth, who sadly died while this book was in the course of preparation. I told her when I visited her in the hospice that I would be dedicating the book to her, and I also promised that I'd give a mention in my own story to her old favourite pop performer from those long ago days when we spent much time together. Who was that? Well, you ought to read the book to find out!

Forgotten Book - The Second Time is Easy

Martin Russell's speciality as a crime novelist was to write about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, confronting intolerable pressures as they became ensnared in webs of deception that were sometimes of their own making. The Second Time is Easy, which dates from 1987, is a good example of his distinctive brand of domestic suspense. 

Like almost all of his books, this one appeared under the famous imprint of the Collins Crime Club. I must say, though, that the blurb writer did him no favours at all. The jacket cover gives nearly the whole story away, not the only time in Russell's career that this happened. I've got no idea why this was done. As was the fashion at the time, there was no biographical information at all about the author, and I feel this would have been rather more interesting than a potted summary of the whole book.

The story is set in Sussex - Russell seldom ventured far from the south of England in his books; here he makes clever use of hang-gliding on the Downs  - and the protagonists are a supermarket manager, Simon Pettifer, and his wife Jo. They have a daughter, Carol, to whom they are both devoted. But Simon is having an affair with a work colleague and Jo takes a shine to a builder who has been hired to build an extension to the house to accommodate Jo's mother.

That's as much as I want to say about the storyline, but it's fair to add that this isn't one of Russell's twistiest stories - there is one puzzling question, but the main focus is on what will happen to the Pettifers. I found this one readable and entertaining, even though I wasn't totally convinced by two aspects of the behaviour of the female characters in the book.  

The Gentleman - 2025 film review

Ron Perlman is a charismatic actor and his presence in the cast is enough to make The Gentleman worth a look. This recent film is set in Basque country and the script is adapted from a novel by Carlo Augustus Casas and directed by Luis Gabriel Beristain. It's a violent film, but is short enough not to outstay its welcome.

The set up is that Perlman's character, the eponymous 'Gentleman', is a retired American soldier now living in Spain. He has no family, and his closest male friend is terminally ill with cancer, but his loneliness is relieved by regular get-togethers with a young woman called Olga. He enjoys her company and pays for her time, and although she's a sex worker with an unpleasant pimp (is there any other sort) she seems to have a genuine enough liking for him.

However, Olga gets involved with a small group of lawyers (always a mistake, a cynic might say) and is murdered for pleasure. The Gentleman - we soon realise it's a term used with some irony in this film - is appalled and decides to embark on a quest for vengeance. It seems that his previous military career didn't equip him for this, and he's soon found out when spying on one of the lawyers and beaten up. But he becomes savvier and more effective in his approach, while making little effort to cover his tracks.

Meanwhile, Olga's murder is investigated by a woman detective whose marriage has fallen apart, and her sardonic sidekick, and this strand of the story culminates in a nice plot twist. The Gentleman's campaign for violence continues in the meantime, with ever more bloody results. This film isn't by any means a masterpiece, but thanks to a very strong and understated performance by Perlman, I found it surprisingly watchable despite an indifferent script which isn't without plot holes.  

Fanny Lye Deliver'd - 2019 film review

I chanced upon Fanny Lye Deliver'd on Amazon Prime, and although I'd never heard of the film, the cast was strong enough for me to give it a go. Charles Dance, Maxine Peake, Freddie Fox, what could possibly go wrong? Well, for quite a while I did wonder if I'd made a big mistake. The opening is glacially slow-paced, with a voiceover that I found less than enthralling.

Luckily, things then began to become more interesting (if quite dark). The film is set in 1657 on a remote Shropshire farm (although I didn't detect anything that was particularly relevant to Shropshire; it might have been anywhere that was deep in the countryside). This was the time when Britain was in the grip of the Puritans, before the return of Charles II and if you wanted an advertisement for the benefits of a monarchy rather than a republic, this film might be it.

Charles Dance is John Lye, a deeply religious, tough farmer, who rules his wife Fanny and young son Arthur with a rod of iron. Their lives are disrupted by the sudden arrival of two naked people, Thomas (Fox) and Rebecca (Tanya Reynolds) who claim to have been robbed. John shows them some kindness - he isn't by any means an altogether rotten person. But soon it turns out that Thomas and Rebecca are not quite what they seem...

After watching the film, I researched it, and was fascinated to find that writer and director Thomas Clay was inspired to write it after reading the work of the Marxist revolutionary historian Christopher Hill. Chris Hill was Master of Balliol when I was there and although I didn't know him well, I found him rather diffident and very pleasant, as indeed, oddly enough, have been all the (very few) revolutionaries I've known. I still have a nice postcard he sent me from France after my Finals.

The film is a mash-up of various ingredients, and it's not entirely successful. But after that slow start, it does pick up speed, and although I have some reservations about several aspects of it, it's worth a look so that you can make up your own mind.  

Spies, Lies and Deception - IWM Manchester

The sad news of Len Deighton's passing coincided with my learning that there was an exhibition at the Manchester branch of the Imperial War Museum, and so I decided to take a look. The museum is located in Salford, a short walk from the Lowry and the BBC (where University Challenge is filmed, among other shows, so a place of fond memories!) but it's a very, very long time since I last went there with my children.

The main exhibition is very good and a special treat was listening to a chap called Ray giving a fascinating talk about a friend of his, Tom Boardman, who was a prisoner of the Japanese during the war, but managed to make a ukulele with which he entertained fellow prisoners, and which is now on display. There are plenty of reminders about the long-lasting nature of the devastation caused by war, which felt very pertinent in current circumstances, as it did a couple of days later when talking to two friends who come from Iran.

The Spies, Lies and Deception exhibition was very good, and even though I've done a lot of reading about spying over the years, I still learned some new things, for example about Agent Zigzag. I went to a spying museum in Washington DC a few years ago, and that was also good, but very different. Here the focus was on the British experience.

It was fascinating, for instance, to see and hear Kim Philby being interviewed on television, and lying through his teeth in a charming way. And to see the pleasant but modest bungalow owned by the Krogers and learn where they hid their spying paraphenalia was quite memorable. One thing I did not know was that Kroger's cover was as a dealer in antiquarian books. Now that has given me an idea for a story...

Forgotten Book - Doctors Also Die

Doctors Also Die is the rather melodramatic title of D.M. Devine's second novel, originally published in 1962. I don't think it ever appeared in paperback in Britain and it's a hard to find book - I was lucky to be lent a copy by a friend. Here, Devine was tackling the notorious 'second book hurdle' after the success of My Brother's Killer, and in my opinion he surmounted that hurdle pretty well.

As so often with Devine, the story is set among Scotland's professional classes. He understood the bourgeois mindset of his characters, and his story casts interesting light on the social attitudes of the time (pre-Beatles) when there was a good deal of prudishness about and any gay man was extremely vulnerable to blackmail, as well as to criminal prosecution.

The story is narrated by Alan Turner, a G.P. whose senior partner, Henderson, died recently in rather suspicious circumstances. The official verdict was accidental death, but Alan makes clear in the very first paragraph of the novel that he sensed Henderson was murdered, though he didn't want to believe it, because he knew whodunit. Immediately, we make the assumption that he is wrong - otherwise, where would the mystery be? But even at this stage of his career, Devine was adept at plotting, and you can't take anything for granted with his storylines.

Some of the key events of the story are revealed in flashback scenes and Devine handles this sometimes cumbersome device fairly well. I did wonder why he didn't 'begin at the beginning' with a description, say, of the discovery of Henderson's body. When all is finally revealed, however, it becomes clear that he has misled us - rather cleverly, I think - about a crucial element of the storyline. This is so neatly done that one can forgive him for making Alan a rather cussed individual who is sometimes a fool to himself and therefore not always the easiest with whom to empathise. Not top-notch Devine, perhaps, but a very good mystery nonetheless.

 

Scandal - 1989 film review

Before I discuss today's film, a quick mention of The Life of Crime Premium. The latest newsletter has just gone out, and if you'd like to take a look, try this link.

'It may be false, it may be true, but nothing has been proved.' I've loved the theme song from Scandal for a long time - a great collaboration between Dusty Springfield and the Pet Shop Boys which, astonishingly, wasn't nominated for an Oscar - but I'd never seen the film, until the other day, when it was screened by Talking Pictures TV. The film is about the Profumo Affair, which was the biggest scandal in British politics until the still-unfolding story which has been filling the Press recently, and which no doubt will generate plenty of films and TV dramas in years to come.

Scandal is a terrific film, very effectively directed by Michael Caton-Jones and benefiting from a superb cast led by John Hurt (who manages to make the creepy Stephen Ward almost sympathetic) and Joanne Whalley, as Christine Keeler. Ian McKellen is Profumo and Leslie Phillips is Lord Astor, while Bridget Fonda is very good as Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the few people in the case who seems to have profited from it in the long run. The impressive supporting cast includes such excellent actors as Terence Rigby (once of Softly, Softly), Alex Norton (a future star of Taggart), Trevor Eve (Shoestring), Ronald Fraser, Iain Cuthbertson, Britt Ekland, Daniel Massey, and Keith Allen.

The script by Michael Thomas is strong, and although I'm not convinced that Ward was quite as much a victim as the film suggests, it is compelling viewing from start to finish. The story is in many ways an amazing one, but recent events have shown that this calamitous episode in British history did not spell the end of misbehaviour at the heart of the establishment.

Carl Davis composed the music for the film, but the film also makes clever use of pop songs of the era to underpin some of the central themes. Peter Bradshaw, a very good film critic, regarded Hurt's performance in Scandal as his masterpiece, and who am I to disagree?

Len Deighton R.I.P.

I was very sorry to learn of the death of Len Deighton, one of the most influential genre writers of the twentieth century, and someone whom I had the privilege (and I feel that's an appropriate word) and pleasure of getting to know personally.  

The quality of Len’s writing, and the significance of his contribution to espionage fiction (and much else besides) will be discussed extensively in the obituaries. In a future newsletter, I hope to write about his work, but in this post, I’d like to focus on the man himself.

My connection with him came about through the Detection Club. He was always enormously enthusiastic about and supportive of the Club, and Corinne Hitching tells me that over the many years she has been our assistant secretary, Len was invariably one of the first to respond to her emails with a warm message, even though the fact that he lived outside the UK (he had homes in California and Portugal, but his main base was Guernsey in the Channel Islands) meant that he hadn’t been able to join us in person for some years. 

As is well-known, Len eschewed literary and other honours. He is, as far as I'm aware, the only person who has ever declined an invitation to be honoured by the CWA with the Diamond Dagger. However, there was something about the Detection Club and its heritage, and above all the congenial and collegiate nature of our activities, that appealed greatly to him.

Len was elected to membership of the Club back in 1969, when Agatha Christie was President. He had a very entertaining story about reminding her that they’d met once before, when as a BOAC steward, he served her on a flight to the Middle East. At no time in our 96-year history (yes, the Detection Club is one year younger than Len was) has anybody else been a member of the Club for as long as Len.

I first met him at an autumn dinner of the Club at the Savoy. On checking, I find to my astonishment that it was way back in 1994, though I recall it vividly. At that point I’d only published three or four novels, and I was invited as a guest by Robert Barnard, who showed me many kindnesses from the start of my crime writing career and for the rest of his life. Knowing of my admiration for Len’s work, Bob kindly introduced me to him. I had a fine time at that dinner, and met many delightful people, but chatting with Len was undoubtedly a highlight.

Of course, in those days I never dreamed that I’d ever have any further involvement with the Club. Fast forward to 2015. When it was announced that I would succeed Simon as President, Len immediately got in touch with me. He said he wanted to offer congratulations and support, but more than that, he’d like to invite me to lunch next time he was in England so that we could get to know each other better. A very generous offer, to say the least.

Len was, famously, a gourmand, and suffice to say that our lunch wasn't any ordinary lunch. It was at Koffmann's at the Berkeley Hotel and the whole experience exceeded even my high expectations. We spent the best part of four hours chatting together, as Len – who was a great raconteur – reeled off one fascinating anecdote after another. At the end of the lunch, as you can see from the above photo, he wrote personal inscriptions in first editions of his first four books which I'd brought along, just in case he was willing to do so. It was quite incredible. I’ll never forget it. 

Len also gave a wonderful encomium to The Golden Age of Murder. I was, again, hugely grateful for his kindness. There aren't so many authors around who have had a laudatory blurb from one of the greats, and he certainly didn't have to do it. This is what he said:

'You don't have to be a fan of 'whodunits'  to enjoy this amazing story of their creators and their works. Here you will meet the Detection Club; a still existent and somewhat incongruous band of writers. Elected by secret ballot, their lives were seemingly stranger than fiction. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping, true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.

Edwards is widely read and authoritative in his analysis. He probes the psychology of writers and dissects their plots. He provides true murder cases that inspired Christie books and Hitchcock films. Best of all, he provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I found Martin Edwards' 'The Golden Age of Murder'  illuminating and entertaining; what writer could hope for more?'

And what writer could hope for a better quote than that? 

Len contributed to a number of Detection Club books over the years, and when I started work on a volume of stories in tribute to Peter Lovesey, I asked him if he'd be willing to contribute a foreword. He replied at once in the affirmative and his foreword to Motives for Murder proved to be as witty (he took no prisoners where publishers were concerned!) as it was warm.

When we began work on another book to raise funds for the Club, about the art and graft of crime writing - Howdunit - I asked Len (knowing his aversion to the limelight) if he would mind if the book was dedicated to him. He said he’d be thrilled, and that – even though he’d retired from writing fiction long ago – he would be more than happy to contribute. He duly wrote a terrific essay to conclude the book, called ‘Different Books, Different Problems, Different Solutions’, and sent me some fascinating additional material, including some photos that were included in the book.     

After that we stayed in touch mainly by email and occasional notes written in his extremely legible hand. He was very keen to see the Club continuing to flourish. One message came a couple of years ago, when he was in good spirits, He said he was extremely frail, yet extremely well cared for by his wife Ysabele. He said ‘we are very happy in our friendly little island’ (that is, Guernsey) and added: ‘I wish I could see all my old friends. But being 95 has its drawbacks.’

Rest in peace, Len. You were a terrific writer and, even more importantly, a true gentleman.

The Drop - 2014 film review

The Drop is an American crime film of high quality, thanks to an excellent combination of ingredients. First and foremost, the script is terrific. It's written by Dennis Lehane, and based on a short story of his. 'Animal Rescue'. But it doesn't feel in any way padded out. The writing is subtle and multi-layered; yes, I was impressed.

The direction by Michael R. Roskam, about whom I know little, is also first-rate. And the cast is terrific. This was the late James Gandolfini's final film role, and he is brilliant as 'Cousin Marv', a seemingly affable bar owner. Tom Hardy plays the central character, Bob Saginowski, who is Marv's cousin and works in the bar. And Naomi Rapace plays a woman called Nadia, to whom Bob - a quiet fellow, but with hidden depths - becomes increasingly attracted after finding an injured dog in a dustbin outside her home and seeking her help to nurse it back to health.

The meaning of the title is explained at the start. A 'drop' is a drop-off of a very large amount of cash overnight at a bar as part of an exercise in money laundering. We learn that Marv doesn't actually own his bar - it belongs to a bunch of Chechen gangsters who are quite prepared to use extreme violence at the least provocation. And there's a bit of mystery about Richie Whelan, who was last seen at the bar before he went missing ten years ago.

One of the merits of the screenplay is that it keeps changing direction, but the plot twists are cleverly foreshadowed. The depth of characterisation in the writing is brought out by some excellent acting. Bob's Catholic faith and the investigating cop's attitude towards him are among the elements that, although not central to the storyline, still make a very important contribution to the mood of the story and its development. In a word - marvellous.    

  

Forgotten Book - Death in a Domino

Death in a Domino is the American title of a novel originally published in the UK and US in 1932 and now reprinted in the excellent series Stark House Crime Classics. In Britain, the title of the book was It Means Mischief , but there was a more curious change between the British and American editions. Originally, the screenwriter and playwright John Hastings Turner was credited as co-author. But in the American edition, as in the reprint, the sole author named is Roland Pertwee; Turner had to be content with a prefatory note in which Pertwee expressed his gratitude to Turner, 'whose ingenuity helped me over several difficult stiles'. 

This isn't the only example of collaborators in novels of the 1930s finding their role minimised at a later stage; it happened to Robert Eustace and Henry Jellett, who collaborated on novels with high profile detective novelists, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh respectively. Pertwee (1885-1963) wasn't in the same league as Sayers or Marsh, and he only dabbled in the writing of crime novels for a short time, but he enjoyed a long career as an actor, playwright, and screenwriter, and other family members (Bill, Sean, and above all Jon) also achieved success as actors, while his son Michael was a writer.

The story makes use of three classic ingredients of Golden Age detective fiction. The victim is an unpleasant newspaper baron; such characters can be found in quite a few books, among them the Detection Club's Ask a Policeman. There is also a 'murder game', during the course of which an actual murder is committed. And finally, there is a significant false confession.

There are some amusing moments, especially when an elderly general witters on about his passion for fishing. The plot also twists quite nicely, if improbably. I was rather startled by one scene, in which a young woman is persuaded to sniff cocaine; there are plenty of Golden Age stories in which drugs play a part, but I can't immediately recall a scene quite like that. 

The writing style, as befits two screenwriters, is extremely economical. Sometimes the concision comes at the cost of character development, but the pace of the story is, overall, a strong point. The book was filmed (by the great Michael Powell at the start of his career) in 1934 as The Night of the Party, starring Leslie Banks - and both Pertwee and Turner were credited as the writers.

 

Czech Mate - 1984 TV movie

Czech Mate was a feature-film-length episode in the series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, a TV anthology series I didn't watch the series first time around, but it has quite a reasonable reputation and I thought I'd take a look at one of two of the shows. This one was written by Jeremy Burnham, an actor and screenwriter who also has a minor role in the film.

The star is Susan George, an actress whose reputation for glamorous good looks may not have done her too many favours in the long run; I think her acting skills were under-rated, and they were also limited by the roles she was given. One of the merits of Czech Mate is that the role of Vicky Duncan is a good one, and Susan George holds the story together despite some flaws in the script.

At the start of the film, Vicky is greeted outside her home by her ex-husband John (Patrick Mower, who was also a hearthrob in that era). Despite their divorce eighteen months ago, John wants to get back together again. And Vicky, who has just come out of another relationship, succumbs to temptation. He takes her to Prague (although in those Cold War days, the location filming took place in Vienna) before disappearing in mysterious circumstances. With her passport taken, Vicky is at a loss. The police are unsympathetic and she doesn't get enough help from the guy from the embassy (played, incidentally, by Richard Heffer, an extremely pleasant fellow with a strong interest in crime fiction and whom I've had the pleasure of chatting to on several occasions over the past few years).

The story develops along relatively ho-hum lines for quite a while, but I must say that the ending is very good. So good that it deserved a better build-up. It's a long time since Susan George was a box office star, but Czech Mate shows the quality of her acting and that's among the reasons why, despite its weaknesses, it's worth watching.  

The Man Between - 1953 film review

Carol Reed was a first-rate film director and The Third Man (1949) was perhaps his greatest achievement. That is a film I know well, but I wasn't familiar with The Man Between, released in 1953, until recently. This film revisits some of the issues at the heart of his earlier masterpiece, in particular the complexities of life in post-war continental Europe. The setting is Berlin, a divided city.

I first visited Berlin as a student and stayed with a nice family, the Wehmeyers, who had an apartment right next to the Berlin Wall. Occasionally, for instance while having an evening meal, you would hear shots being fired at people trying to escape to the West. It was a surreal and memorable trip, totally fascinating, and the history of Berlin has intrigued me ever since. When I visited many years later and wandered freely around the Brandenburg Gate, something that was impossible on my first visit, it was a truly moving experience.

The Man Between is set at a time before the Berlin Wall was erected, but the tensions between East and West are already apparent, with posters of Stalin everywhere on the East side, and authorities in the East determined to crack down on people trying to get away. Into this tinderbox ventures Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom), who has come to visit her brother Martin (Geoffrey Toone) and his newish German wife Bettina (Hildegard Knef). It soon becomes clear that Bettina has something to hide and that her secret concerns a German called Ivo (James Mason).

Bloom, Knef and Mason are three particularly charismatic and gifted actors, and their performances make the most of the material. The story begins extremely well, but once Bettina's secret is revealed, and Susanne finds herself mixed up with Ivo, the pace does drag a bit. The presentation of war-ravaged Berlin is excellent, and the finale poignant, and although this isn't in the same league as The Third Man, it's a very well-made movie. 

Forgotten Book - Home to Roost

Not long ago, I acquired a copy of Andrew Garve's Home to Roost (1976) and it was working its way up the to-read pile ever so slowly until Jamie Sturgeon happened to recommend it to me. I was conscious that it was Garve's penultimate novel, written when he was coming to the end of a long career, and this made me wonder if it might be a bit lacklustre. Not a bit of it. The story is interesting and definitely 'different'.

The narrator is Walter Haines, who starts with a straightforward but rather enticing opening sentence: 'This is an account of how Max Ryland got himself murdered, and what happened afterwards.'  As Haines says rather disarmingly, the build-up seems a little slow - and this may be what prompted Collins Crime Club, not for the only time, to tell a good deal of the story (too much, I'd say) on the dustwrapper blurb. But Garve writes readably and moves things along at a decent pace, so the extended build-up wasn't a problem for me.

Haines, like his creator, is a journalist who becomes a crime novelist and enjoys success. His work is filmed, as Garve's was. And when he meets the lovely Laura, who becomes his wife, all seems set fair. The snag is that Haines isn't as likeable as one might wish. Laura understandably becomes frustrated and when the couple are befriended by a famous actor, Max Ryland, one thing leads to another, and she becomes Max's lover. And then, as we've expected from that first line, Max winds up dead. But - Walter has an alibi. So he's in the clear. Or is he?   

The plot is unusual and the ending of the story is subtle. One of the online reviews of this book is by that voracious reader and thoughtful critic Kate Jackson. Her thoughts are here, and all I will say is that there is a coded interpretation of the ending which reflects my understanding of the final pages. I liked this book a lot. The sheer variety of Garve's stories was a great strength of his.

Moon - 2009 film review

I've always enjoyed science fiction, although I read and watch much less of it than crime fiction, partly because I must admit that I find a little can often go quite a long way. As a writer, I've dabbled in the genre, and I might well do so again in the future. So when I get the chance to see a well-regarded sci-fi film, I'm happy to take it. And I was pleased to catch up with Moon, a film that dates back to 2009 but which still strikes me as fresh and interesting, with some sharp social points lurking beneath the surface of a well-crafted script by Nathan Parker. The director, by the way, is Duncan Jones - son of David 'Space Oddity' Bowie.

A company called Lunar Industries has prospered by mining helium-3 and sending it back to Earth in canisters to alleviate an energy crisis. Thanks to the use of automation and AI, only one human being is required to be on the Moon to supervise this activity. He is Sam Bell (played by another Sam, Sam Rockwell) and he's coming to the end of his three-year contract.

Sam is looking forward to going back home. He gets video messages from his wife Tess, who was pregnant with their daughter when he went on his mission, but live communication isn't possible because of technical problems. Sam is, however, supported by GERTY, a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey (prior to his well-documented career implosion). Unfortunately, it seems that the lack of direct human contact for so long is having an effect, and Sam begins to experience hallucinations. Things start to go from bad to worse...

There are some good plot twists, so I don't want to say too much more about the film, other than that I enjoyed it. The story unfolds at a fairly good pace, and Sam Rockwell's performance, in a challenging role, is first-rate. He's not an actor I know much about, but I was impressed. If you like sci-fi, Moon is definitely worth watching.

BlackBerry - 2023 film review

I can remember quite vividly a partners' meeting that I attended, perhaps twenty years ago, when a corporate lawyer in my firm waxed lyrical about the virtues of the BlackBerry device. At that time, BlackBerries were much in vogue, and before long we all had one for work use. It seemed so cutting edge...but of course, with technology, the cutting edge soon gets very blunt indeed.

BlackBerry is a 2023 Canadian film, co-written by Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, and directed by Johnson, which charts the rise and fall of the company that made the device. It told me quite a bit I didn't know (although of course, the story has no doubt been significantly adjusted to make it more entertaining) and gave me no reason whatsoever to reconsider my instinctive wariness of tech barons.

The story begins twenty years ago. Two boffins who run a company called Research in Motion, Mike Lazarides and Douglas Fregin (played by Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson himself) pitch a new device which attracts the interest of a hard-nosed businessman, Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). He puts some money into the company and before long, despite a chaotic approach reflected in the cinematography, they come up with the BlackBerry and starting raking in zillions.

All goes well until the arrival of the iPhone. The success story starts to unravel and things go from bad to worse once the authorities start looking into some dodgy stock options. The weakness of the film is that we don't get much insight into the outside lives of the key players. When you're telling a story about living people who aren't short of money, you have to be very careful. But as light entertainment, BlackBerry works fairly well. And I found it almost nostalgic viewing - it's a very long time since my own BlackBerry went to the scrap heap...

The Woman in Cabin 10 - Netflix 2025 film review

Ruth Ware is a very successful writer whose novels of psychological suspense show a real talent for, and commitment to, ingenious plotting. Over the past fifteen years or so there have been many psychological thrillers that are said to have 'a jaw-dropping twist', but in some cases, I find that the finale is quite a let-down. It's one thing to come up with a brilliant premise, something else to deliver a resolution that doesn't disappoint. Ruth Ware's ability to do both is what has put her in the elite. I've never met her in person, but I did once chair an online panel on which she was a speaker, and very good she and her distinguished colleagues were too.

I read her novel The Woman in Cabin 10 several years ago, and now I've had a chance to watch the Netflix version of the book. It's a story that seems to me to be a modern version of the kind of emotional thriller at which Cornell Woolrich used to excel - in books like Phantom Lady. A protagonist comes across someone, who promptly disappears - and everyone else denies that they ever existed. This is a set-up that I love, as long as the explanation works.

The cast is very good. The consistently excellent Keira Knightley plays Lo Blacklock, a journalist invited to join a party on a superyacht owned by billionaire Anne Bulmer, who is terminally ill, and her husband Richard (Guy Pearce). The guests include a doctor played by Art Malik and a chap called Heatherley (David Morrissey). The production, equally, is top-notch.

Lo finds herself in the wrong cabin (cabin 10, next to her own) while trying to avoid her ex, a photographer who just so happens to be on board. In cabin 10, she sees a woman, to whom she apologises before making a hasty exit. But that night, someone goes overboard and Lo is convinced it's the woman in cabin 10. The snag is everyone tells her that cabin 10 was never occupied, and there's no sign of the woman she saw.

The solution to the puzzle, when it emerges, is not totally original, but that's fine - true originality is vanishingly rare. The way the story is presented works well. Of course, some suspension of disbelief is required. But I enjoyed this one. 

    

Forgotten Book - The Unicorn Murders

 'You are on holiday in Paris...There is nothing on your mind, and you are utterly at peace with all the world...Then you see walking towards you a girl you have previously known in England...[who] walks straight up to your table and veryy gravely begins to repeat a nursery rhyme. She then sits down at the table and proceeds to tell you what sounds like the most bewildering gibberish you have ever heard in your life.'

So begins The Unicorn Murders by Carter Dickson, narrated by Ken Blake (also the narrator of The Plague Court Murders) who humours the girl, Evelyn Cheyne, and thus 'became involved in a series of events which can still retrospectively give me a shiver...' It's a tantalising start to an unusual story, which blends a secret service thriller with a cerebral 'impossible crime' problem and plenty of twists in the finest tradition of whodunits.

Sir Henry Merrivale is a former employer of Ken and before long he comes on to the scene. After a series of unlikely events, Sir Henry, Ken, and Evelyn wind up in a French chateau, along with a superstar French detective and a French master criminal. But who is the detective and who is the super-criminal? And how are two murders, apparently inflicted by the horn of a unicorn, actually committed?

This is a complex mystery, so complex that Sir Henry's explanation at the end of the book is necessarily lengthy. But he does tie together all the many strands of a convoluted plot that tests one's suspension of disbelief to the limit. However, I'd say that Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr, of course) just about manages to make it all work, quite an achievement. A rollicking read.  

The Truman Show - 1998 film review

I watched The Truman Show not too long after its original release in 1998 and loved it. Now that 'reality TV' has become omnipresent on the schedules, I thought it was worth taking another look to see if it still stands up well after more than a quarter of a century. The short answer is that it does, and that it still offers far more in terms of thought-provoking entertainment than any reality TV show I've ever heard of.

The concept is brilliant in its simplicity, as well as in the fact that quite a few people will be tempted to identify with the psychology of Truman Burbank's situation. He is a young man who lives in the delightful island of Seahaven, blissfully unaware that he is the star of a globally popular reality TV show and that all the people who surround him are actors. However, the truth slowly starts to dawn on him, much to the dismay of the show's creators, who devise all kinds of (often very amusing) ways to deter him from trying to escape from the wholly artificial world - full of product placement - in which he lives.

The Truman Show is a great film because it works extremely well on more than one level. There are some genuinely funny scenes, as well as some that are quite poignant. Jim Carrey is at his very best as Truman, while Andrew Niccol;s script is excellent. Apparently the director Peter Weir persuaded Niccol to shift his approach from purely dystopian to something more nuanced and humour-laced, and this works very successfully.

I must say that I am not a fan of reality TV and I avoid it whenever I can. But of course it's hard to escape and so I have seen quite a few examples (even though I've never managed to stomach a complete episode of Big Brother or its variants). It seems to me that it's better described as 'unreality TV'. There's something unpleasant and arguably unhealthy about a lot of it; certainly real life seems to me to be too interesting and valuable to fritter much of it away on that kind of stuff. The Truman Show exposes the shallowness of this particular form of entertainment, but it does so in a way that is appealing rather than preachy. Unlike any reality TV shows that I'm aware of, this film has stood the test of time. 

Salt - 2010 film review

Salt is an action thriller starring Angelina Jolie. The writer, Kurt Wimmer, has a number of film credits, including co-writing the remake of that notable 60s film The Thomas Crown Affair, while the director, Philip Noyce, has directed such films as Dead Calm and The Bone Collector. So a strong team was involved.

The film begins with scenes in North Korea. Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is suspected of spying and after she is given some rough treatment the CIA arranges a prisoner exchange to secure her release. She is reunited with her boyfriend Mike, who has been campaigning on her behalf. He proposes marriage even though she admits to him that she is indeed a CIA operative.

After this preamble, we get into the meat of the story. Salt is interrogating a Russian defector called Orlov together with a couple of her colleagues. Orlov claims to have knowledge of a plan for Russian sleeper agents to attack the US; part of the scheme involves one of those agents assassinating the Russian president. And then he reveals the name of that agent...which is Evelyn Salt.

This is in many ways an update of the 'who can you trust?' Cold War movies of the 60s and 70s, and it has itself in some respects been superseded by more recent political developments. Angelina Jolie's charismatic screen presence makes the film watchable enough, but I felt that some of the action scenes verged on the cartoonish and that it became increasingly difficult to care whose side Evelyn Salt was really on. Not a bad film, but as far as I was concerned, a bit of a disappointment.

The Lair of the White Worm - 1988 film review

Ken Russell had many qualities as a film-maker, but I wouldn't put subtlety at the top of the list, even though I enjoyed several of the movies he directed. I've now caught up with his adaptation of Bram Stoker's story The Lair of the White Worm, and 'over the top' is barely an adequate description. You have to regard it as a comic horror film, I think, with the emphasis on 'comic', though there are a few scenes that are definitely not for the faint-hearted. But for all its absurdity, it has a certain appeal as a guilty pleasure, which is why it's achieved something of a cult reputation.

The cast is terrific. It includes the young Peter Capaldi, the young Hugh Grant, and, in a small part, Gina McKee. Stratford Johns, better known to cop show fans as Charlie Barlow, makes an unexpected appearance. And Amanda Donohoe (who else?) plays the sultry temptress Lady Sylvia Marsh. Sammi Davis is quite good as Mary Trent, although Catherine Oxenburg, playing her sister, acts as though she'd rather be doing something else.

The locations include a sinister cavern which is actually Thor's Cave, in Wetton, Staffordshire. It looks intriguing and watching the film made me want to visit the cave one day. On the assumption, of course, that there are no monsters lurking in the hidden depths of the cavern's interior...

I haven't read the book, but I've no doubt that Russell's adaptation is a very loose one. He also updates the storyline to the 1980s. Briefly, it features an old legend about a monstrous worm and it's pretty barmy throughout. But the ending is surprisingly good and, whatever else one can say about the film, it doesn't lack pace or incident. 

Forgotten Book - The Tremayne Case

Before I move on to today's Forgotten Book, can I thank everyone who has subscribed to The Life of Crime Premium, my new monthly Substack newsletter, the first issue of which came out last weekend. The response, and the comments from subscribers who have signed up, have been very motivating. The first supplementary newsletter will come out in the next few days and I'm already working on next month's main newsletter, which will give exclusive insights into and info about the British Library's Crime Classics. If you're interested, you can check it out here. 

Alan Thomas made a strong impression with his first novel, The Death of Laurence Vining, and he followed it up in 1929 with The Tremayne Case. I have a copy that he inscribed to Lady Gladstone, which has a facsimile dust jacket. I was amused to note that the front cover has the title and the publisher's name, but not the author's name, which is confined to the spine. But as you can see, on the front cover is the phrase 'a murder mystery'. Since the death in question is deemed by an inquest to be a case of suicide, this amounts to a bit of a spoiler, I'd have thought, even if the vast majority of readers will figure out that there's more to the death of the victim than meets the eye.

One extremely interesting facet of the story is that the plot involves a fake telephone call to lure someone out of the way and I'll be discussing this type of story element further in a future supplement to The Life of Crime Premium.

We see events from the point of view of a young chap called Jimmy Thurston. He falls in love with a young woman he sees at the opera and shows characteristic determination in tracking her down. He becomes friendly with her and her father, but has a rival in a man called Darcy, and also in an acquaintance called Tremayne. 

Suffice to say that this is an 'impossible crime' mystery, and the central trick is a good one in my opinion. The dust jacket blurb describes the story as 'quite definitely a masterpiece'. I wouldn't go that far, but I enjoyed reading it, even if the relentless xenophobia displayed by numerous characters including Jimmy was a bit much. Alan Thomas wrote readably and had some good ideas, making it a surprise that he's faded so far out of sight. I've now read three of his novels and I'd be glad to read more.

Still of the Night - 1982 film review

I watched Still of the Night at a cinema in central London, not too long after its release in 1982. Starring Roy Scheider, then a very big name, and Meryl Streep, who was already establishing a considerable reputation, it was a film in the Hitchcock vein. I recall enjoying it, without being absolutely bowled over by it, and I decided it was worth seeing it again. Would my reaction be very different?

The short answer is no. The film is quite stylishly made, and the quality of the acting is a real strength. The plotting? Not so much, although it's not bad. There are lots of hat-tips to the Master of Suspense, but the script, co-written by director Robert Benton and David Newman, does lack the energy of the best Hitchcock films. One bonus feature is the music, written by John Kander, whom I associate with musicals such as Cabaret.

There's a good opening scene, in which a wannabe car thief opens a car door - only for the body of a man to fall out. He's been stabbed to death. The deceased turns out to be George Bynum (Josef Sommer), a womaniser who was a senior employee at a famous auction house and a patient of psychiatrist Sam Rice (Scheider). 

The police (Joe Grifasi is good as the cop in charge of the murder investigation) visit Rice, who is less than helpful, citing patient confidentiality even though his patient is dead. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn of Bynum's affair with a junior colleague, Brooke Reynolds (Streep), and soon Rice gets to meet Brooke. It's fun to see Streep playing an icy Hitchcock blonde; needless to say, she does it well.

I didn't really warm to Scheider's character, though this is largely because the script doesn't characterise him very strongly, and I felt this was a drawback. But it's a very watchable film. Not in the same league as Body Heat (which I'd watched a year or so before), but competent entertainment. And perhaps because of the homage elements, it certainly hasn't aged as badly as some other movies made around the same time.

Dept Q - Netflix review

Dept Q is a nine-part Netflix series based on a book by Jussi Adler-Olsen. To be honest, when I realised this was a show in nine hour-long segments, I feared that it would be padded out, as quite a few series on Netflix and other platforms are. Luckily, I was wrong. This is a pacy and fascinating story which gripped me from start to finish.

The setting of the story has been transplanted to Scotland from Scandinavia. I can't judge how faithful the screenplay (by Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani) is to the original, which I haven't read, but it certainly worked for me. Episode one begins in dramatic fashion, as bantering cop Carl Morck, his partner and pal James Hardy, and a young police officer, are shot while investigating a murder. Morck is wounded, Hardly paralysed, and the young cop killed. 

When Morck finally returns to work, he is assigned to a new cold case unit, Department Q, a sort of Department of Dead Ends brought up to date. His new colleagues are a Syrian civilian called Akram and a young woman, Rose. They start to look into the case of a vanished lawyer, Merritt Lingard (a very demanding role, expertly handled by Chloe Pirrie). Morck is played quite superbly by Matthew Goode, while Alexev Manjelov is wonderful as Akram, the perfect foil. A great double act.

The story is complex but skilfully told, and the cast, which includes those consistently good performers Mark Bonnar and Kelly Macdonald, does justice to the script. This is a dark story, with some upsetting scenes and no shortage of bad language, but it works very well. Yes, you do have to suspend your disbelief from start to finish. But it's worth it.   

Forgotten Book - Crime Wave

One of the reasons why I regard Martin Russell as an interesting crime writer, a cut above many of the prolific authors who were his stable-mates in the Collins Crime Club for many years, is that he came up with a considerable number of unusual ideas for his storylines, never seeming to be content with the same-old, same-old. Couple with that his facility for writing readable prose, and you have someone who, I think, never quite received as much acclaim as he deserved.

In his early days, he wrote four books about Jim Larkin, who was (like Russell) a journalist. My guess is that eventually he found that a series character cramped his style and his imagination, and so Jim was consigned to history, or at least domestic bliss. Crime Wave (1974) was the third novel to feature him and it showcases both Russell's strengths and limitations.

The setting is Eden Village, a suburb in the green belt, to which Jim and his wife Bunty have moved. However, as you might guess, serpents have invaded Eden. A series of muggings, possibly connected with young people who are members of a local youth club, disrupts the tranquility of the place, and soon the seriousness of the crime wave begins to escalate. After a low-key start, the tension mounts. And then murder is done.

I figured out quite early one key element of what was going on, but the other major ingredient of the plot eluded me. This is, I have to say, partly due to the fact that a crucial piece of information is concealed from the reader, and I don't think Martin Russell worked quite hard enough to foreshadow his startling final twist. Had he done so, I'd have rated the book as excellent. As it is, this is a highly readable novel which supplies solid entertainment.

Lord of the Flies - BBC TV review

I was sixteen when I read Lord of the Flies for the first time, as part of a small but memorable educational experiment. I'd opted to do English as one of my four A-Level subjects, and my group had two youngish, very trendy teachers, 'Dicky' Junemann and Derek Morris. They decided to ignore the exam syllabus for the first term and introduce us to a range of novels with a view to broadening our literary horizons. At that time, it was an extraordinary thing to do, and I doubt it happened in many schools then or certainly now. But for me, it was brilliant, because broadening my horizons was exactly what it did. I've never forgotten that time, or those teachers, or the books I read (or the efforts that went into making up for much lost time with all the reading we were actually required to do for the exams!)

I loved Lord of the Flies. It's a bleak book and I suppose I didn't 'get' every nuance, but it made a great impression on me. There have always been critics who argue that the picture it presents of humanity is too dark and pessimistic. I didn't agree then, and I haven't changed my mind. Similarly, I vividly remember discussing Waiting for Godot at around the same time with a sixth former who was a year older than me; he thought it was too depressing to be a great play, but again I didn't agree. One can have a positive view of human nature, as I think I do, and still recognise the potential for very dark behaviour in the best of people, let alone the worst. Perhaps this perspective is also relevant to the appeal of crime fiction? (And of course, Lord of the Flies, although not a crime novel in any superficial sense, does deal with murder).

At that time, we were also shown Peter Brook's great film of the book (along with daring films of the time like If) and again I was impressed. So when the BBC announced a four-part series based on the book, I was very keen to watch it. And, having just watched the final episode last night, I must say that I think that screenwriter Jack Thorne and everyone else did a very good job of adapting the story, and capturing its timelessness. The music is striking, as is the cinematography, and the young actors do a great job in challenging roles; it can't have been easy for them.

Lord of the Flies was written in the 50s, but I read it in the 70s, and it felt very timely then. The 70s were a good decade for me personally, but I was conscious that a great deal was wrong with society, and that the potential for mob violence in real life, as in the book, was bubbling just beneath the surface unhappiness of those times. In the same way, screening Lord of the Flies in Britain in 2026 seems - I'm sorry to say - rather like a masterstroke. We live in unhappy times, not so very different in some respects from the 70s, and this classic story remains too meaningful, and too thought-provoking, for comfort.   

  

An Eventful Weekend

One of the pleasures of being a crime writer is being granted the opportunity to take part in events such as festivals - and therefore to meet readers, which is always a joy. One of the challenges is to figure out how much time one can devote to such events, in addition to writing. It's impossible to go everywhere and do everything. But when, last year, I was invited to take part in two crime festivals on the same weekend, they sounded so enticing that I really wanted to do both. And luckily I've managed to do just that. They were quite different, but had in common the fact that they were splendidly organised. And I've organised enough events myself to have some understanding of just how much work goes into delivering a successful festival, especially the first time around.

I've never been to Barnes (above photo) before, and the first Bloody Barnes crime festival sounded irresistibly tempting when Victoria Dowd told me about it. An added bonus was to be shortlisted for the Cob and Pen award, though other commitments meant I couldn't make the awards dinner, when the winner proved to be that splendid writer Mark Ellis. When I finally made it to Barnes the following evening, it was good to have the chance to congratulate him in person as well as attending a great conversation between Mark Billingham and Graham Bartlett. 

Anne Mullins, the highly efficient organiser of the festival, proved to be delightful in person and among other kindnesses she introduced me to the legendary Roger McGough, whom I last saw on a school trip to watch a play (was it Death of a Salesman?) at the Everyman in the theatre; I was a big fan of his in those far-off days and it was lovely to meet him in person. This was followed by an enjoyable chat in the bar between a group of us, and the only unfortunate thing was that on the way back I managed to trip up on a wet pavement; luckily the damage done looked worse than it felt, and Graham, to whom I was chatting when I slipped, ministered expertly!

My event, the following day, was a conversation with Antony Johnston hosted by Victoria. This was, predictably, great fun. Less predictable was the presence - among others - in the audience of Kathy, a fellow holidaymaker whom I last saw when we were on a yacht together in Croatia, Colin Edwards, who has given me some invaluable help on a couple of projects, Bernard O'Keeffe, with whom I was in touch by email recently, Nicholas Beale, with whom I had dinner at the Athenaeum a while back, and a nice lady who reminded me that she'd contacted me many years ago on the subject of careers in the law. Plus my agent, James Wills, whom it's always great to see, and the super-talented Vas Khan. Not to mention all the readers who came to say hello. This is what makes festivals such fun.

I'd hoped to stay for the whole of Saturday, but the accident had shaken me up a bit and that, plus news of big delays on the trains meant I left for home earlier than hoped, but at least I got a good night's rest before heading to Frodsham and the very first Cheshire Crime Festival, organised by James Caldwell from Curiosity Cat Bookshop, which is based in Frodsham. As someone who has lived in Cheshire for almost the whole of his life, this felt a bit like dream-come-true territory and it was plain from chatting to people who attended for the whole weekend that it was a huge success. Curious, too, was the fact that the last time I was at the venue, Forest Hills Hotel, was to have dinner there with my wife as a guest of the owner - many years ago - after I'd done some legal work for the hotel that had gone well. The setting is great, high on a hill where long ago there was an amusement park including a famous helter-skelter. 

James kindly interviewed me, and then followed a very interesting session with the most recent Gold Dagger winner, Anna Mazzola, and Jack Anderson. Jack is someone I hadn't met previously but he came across extremely well and I look forward to reading his book The Return of Moriarty.  

The Cheshire Crime Writing Festival will return next year on the weekend of 6-7 February 2027 and I hope and expect Bloody Barnes will also return, though whether it will be on the same weekend again, I don't know. Please do feel encouraged to give both these wonderful initiatives your support - believe me, you'll be glad you did.

By the end of Sunday, I was feeling re-energised as well as grateful to have had the chance to take part in both festivals. And special thanks to Anne Mullins and her team and James Caldwell and his. They all worked really hard and the result was that a lot of people had a very good time. Including me.  

 

Forgotten Book - The Late Bill Smith

The Late Bill Smith, first published in 1971, is not one of Andrew Garve's best-known books, but it's a typically entertaining novel of suspense, with just one slow patch, when the two main characters go on a cruise together in the middle of the book. But it's interesting to compare the description of cruising then with today's experiences. Certainly, apparently missing passengers are now treated rather more seriously than is the case in this novel.

The book begins in striking fashion. A man appears on Sue Hammond's balcony in Chelsea one warm September evening. He has a remarkable story to tell. His name is Bill Smith and he has been the subject of three failed attempts on his life. He has turned up on the balcony simply in an attempt to save himself and evade his pursuers. But he has no idea why they are pursuing him.

This is a great premise and I am pretty sure I understand the reason why Garve started the book in this way. It has the benefit that he can maintain some uncertainty in the reader's (and Sue's) mind as to whether Bill is lying and, if so, why. But there is a cost to this approach, and to be honest I'm not convinced that I would have made the same storytelling choices as Garve.

To explain why would be a spoiler, but I think it is fair to say that the pace slackens significantly after that great start and it doesn't fully recover. This is mainly because, from start to finish, we're told a lot of things instead of being shown them actually happening. I enjoyed the story, because Garve was such a wonderfully readable storyteller. In that he resembled his contemporary Michael Gilbert, although I'd say that Gilbert was a more polished writer. But there is a great idea at the heart of this novel, and although I think it could have been used even more effectively, The Late Bill Smith is still well worth reading.  

The Blog and the Newsletters - an announcement

I've managed to submit two books (one novel, one non-fiction) since Friday morning, so now I can turn my attention back to this blog - and related things. As recently as last June I was pleased to see that this blog had passed five million pageviews. Fast forward just over six months and the figure has reached seven and three quarters of a million. That's a huge increase, quite mind-blowing. As I said in June, there's no doubt that the number of visitors to this blog is on the rise; I know this is so, because of the number (plus the content) of genuine messages and emails I receive, which is now higher than ever. A leading crime writer who is a friend of mine and also very savvy about marketing has urged me to take advantage of this by taking paid adverts on the blog. It's sensible advice and tempting, but I've seen one or two good blogs disfigured by adverts and I don't want you to be put off by ads. (If you have any views for or against blog ads, do let me know). 

In any case, although I'm no tech expert, far from it, I'm also convinced that there is a lot of AI piracy going on, which partly explains this explosion in the pageview numbers. AI can bring the world great benefits, but there are also great dangers, not least to creative workers worldwide. So what can I do about it?

First things first. I love writing this blog and getting your feedback, which is never less than interesting. So it will continue, in roughly the same way as before. Last January I started a free monthly newsletter on the Substack platform, and this has gone well. So that too will continue. I very much hope that anyone who likes this blog will subscribe to it. Here's the link to paste into your browser: https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks

Substack seems to be a robust platform - it was originally recommended to me by my daughter Catherine, who is much more knowledgeable about these things than I am, and is full of good ideas - and so I think the time has come to move to the next stage. This is an additional, paid subscription newsletter. I've been encouraged in the past year by the number of people from around the world who pledged to subscribe if I started one, and also by the reaction in the last few days, since I announced in my newsletter that I was going to start a paid newsletter.

This approach will give me the chance to write about specific topics in more depth. In recent years, the print market for in-depth articles about crime fiction has diminished (CADS is much missed) and although I write occasionally for the national press, they don't take many in-depth articles. But I know from your messages that a great many of you love to find out more about writers and writing, not only ‘forgotten authors’ and their books, but contemporary talents, some of them emerging, some famous, as well.

A paid subscription needs to offer value, and I’m determined that The Life of Crime Premium will do just that. Paid subscribers will receive (among other good things):

·        12 newsletters a year with a wide range of exclusive content (e.g. breaking news, advance information, insights from editors, agents, and leading authors); these will be sent out monthly;

·        12 supplementary newsletters, mainly dealing with specific topics (e.g. exploring the work of forgotten authors and books in-depth, exclusive insights into my writing projects including the Crime Classics, and Q and As with leading writers that dig deeper than usual); these will be sent out at (approximately) monthly intervals during the course of the year.

·        Exclusive ‘Behind the scenes’ insights into the world of crime writing, the Detection Club, book collecting, and the publishing business

·        Exclusive images of rare books, letters, and manuscripts, many of which have never been published before

·        Occasional exclusive reduced price offers and discounts related to writing and books;

·        The opportunity to put specific questions to me about any aspect of crime writing

       One-to-one mentoring for aspiring writers.

Already I have amassed a lot of material that I'd like to share in this way, but I'd also welcome any thoughts you have, whether on the concept itself, or specifically what you feel would offer you great value in this context. 

Two final points: first, when will it start? Next week, I hope, as long as I master the technology involved...

Second, how much will it cost? In the newsletter, I proposed £6 per month and £60 for an annual subscription. Everyone who has commented so far thinks this is in the right ball-park for a professional writer, but I'm keen to get as full a picture of opinion as possible. I know that there are plenty of people, in these cash-tight times who simply can't afford payment, which is why I want to make it clear that I've no intention of putting this blog behind a paywall, even if it would take it out of reach of the AI bots. Equally, as a professional writer, you'll understand that I like to be paid for most of my work, and this plan seems to offer a chance to combine the free stuff with paid-for material in a reasonable way. 

So - I look forward to hearing from you! 

Forgotten Book - House Arrest

Abuse and exploitation of elderly people is a serious social problem that often goes under the radar. It's a big issue today, but it's not new, and over the years a number of crime writers have tackled it. Celia Dale's A Helping Hand, which appeared in 1966, is an excellent example. I wrote a short story on the subject myself - 'The Other Life'. And Martin Russell's 1988 novel House Arrest takes a similar theme and does something very different with it.

Maisie is a frail widow in her eighties who is easy prey so far as a trio of cowboy roofers are concerned. The smooth-talking Nigel ingratiates himself with her, while the menacing Dave and the sidekick Percy do the labouring. Maisie lives in a big house with extensive grounds, which she has kept after her husband's death so that her beloved Yorkshire terrier Ouncey can have the run of the place. But the bad guys are quick to spot her vulnerabilities and to exploit them.

Their campaign of financial and psychological terror is barely interrupted when Maisie's great-niece Anita comes to visit. But Anita gets a sense that something isn't quite right and, with the help of a neighbour, tries to do something about it.

House Arrest doesn't have the trademark Martin Russell twisty plot. It's a fairly straightforward suspense story, though as with all his books it's extremely readable. There's little doubt in my mind that he was trying to make an important social point about the way the police downplay concerns about the mistreatment of victims, especially older people, and he makes it quite well. However, I didn't find the villains particularly convincing. He could create strong characters, but here the most plausible character, and the most pitiable, is poor Maisie herself.