The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

On Monday I mentioned Ruth Anderson of Wigtown's Well Read Books. She's not only a great bookseller but also very generous and she gave me a gift, a book written by a fellow Wigtown bookshop owner, Shaun Bythell. Shaun, whom I haven't met, owns The Bookshop, which is Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. I've been inside twice, and it's taken a great effort of will to restrict myself to just one purchase each time. The shop has an eclectic stock, and its crime shelves carry a lot of interesting titles; I've bought books by D.M. Devine and Andrew Garve on my two visits. And - the same is true of Ruth's shop - I could have come away with many more, had I not exercised great self-restraint.

Selling things is difficult, and selling books (if you're not Amazon) is definitely very difficult, whether you're an author, a publisher, or a bookseller. So I was fascinated by Shaun's Diary of a Bookseller, which takes us through a year of his retailing life. It's funny but also packed with insights. It must be said that Shaun cultivates a grumpy old man persona, even though he started bookselling when he was pretty young, but some of his takedowns of difficult and unreasonable customers (of whom there is evidently no shortage) are highly entertaining.

There are so many gems, it's almost impossible to know where to start. I did like very much the character who confused E.L. James with M.R. James and was destined to be shocked to discover that Fifty Shades of Grey isn't a story of the supernatural. There are also some great vignettes about coachloads of visiting pensioners who never buy anything. 

You have to be made of strong stuff to run a bookshop nowadays, and it's very clear that Shaun isn't in it for the money - but he loves books, and enjoys being answerable to nobody. It's also evident that he isn't into crime fiction, so there's very little here that relates to my favourite reading. This doesn't matter in the least, because he has written a marvellous book.

Harrogate, the Lakes, and Scotland

I'm back at home after an eventful few weeks. I spent some time at Harrogate coinciding with the crime writing festival, and had some lovely meals and other get-togethers with my agent, various publishers, and fellow writers. It was mainly a business-focused trip, but there was also the chance for plenty of enjoyable conversations. And I came back in very good heart, since one of the outcomes was agreement on a new deal for my next three novels. I'm excited about the prospect, and I'll talk more about what is in store at a later date.

After that, I was on the road again almost immediately, off to the Lake District. For the very first time in its history, the Detection Club held a meeting in the north of England. This decision was taken at last year's AGM, and so the 2026 AGM was held in the pleasant surroundings of the Castle Green Hotel on the outskirts of Kendal (photo at the top of this post). I also put on an exhibition relating to Reginald Hill, who lived in and sometimes wrote about the Lake District, using materials (letters, manuscripts, books etc) mainly from my own collection but also with two or three items from the Club's own archive. The AGM was great and so was the summer lunch, which was very well attended. The success of the event means that we're almost certain to return to the north again next summer. 

The trip also gave the chance to explore the area. For the first time, perhaps surprisingly, I visited John Ruskin's old home at Brantwood, on one of those lovely fine days we've enjoyed this summer. The house and gardens are equally fascinating, while the location, on the banks of Coniston, is superb. Ruskin, who gets a few mentions in the Coniston-set The Arsenic Labyrinth, was a brilliant man, but his personal life was troubled. My sense of him is that he lived too much in the mind, in the realm of ideas and ideals, and found the real world, and relationships (especially with the women with whom he fell in love), rather difficult, and that's no doubt why his later years were marked by a sad and steep mental decline.

                                         

After that, it was up to Scotland, and the Dumfries and Galloway area, which I really like. I did an event in Wigtown to a sell-out crowd; this was organised by Ruth Anderson of Well Read Books, a quite wonderful bookshop with a terrific Crime Room. And of course I came away with quite a few books. After staying in Monreith for a couple of nights with my old mate Stephen, and visiting places like Whithorn (home to St Ninian's Priory, the old church in the photo above) we headed for Sanquhar, a nice little town with a ruined castle, a Tollbooth Museum, and the oldest post office in the world. There were two particular highlights - a visit to Crawick Multiverse, and a day spent in the splendid environs of Drumlanrig Castle. 

                                       

Wonderful trips, in wonderful company. I have returned refreshed and ready to get writing! And I've started with a new Life of Crime Premium newsletter all about codes and ciphers; you can find it here: https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks

Forgotten Book - File on Claudia Cragge

It's more than two years since I last discussed Crime Dossiers on this blog, so it's high time to take another look at one of the most enduringly thought-provoking ways of telling a story about a murder mystery. Today I'm looking at the second Dossier that was written by Q. Patrick (Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Wheeler), File on Claudia Cragge, which dates from 1938.

The interactive nature of the dossier is emphasised by the publisher. The heading on the front cover of my edition (published by Jarrolds in Britain; the American edition is slightly different) is: 'Be your own detective'. And the front cover text reads: 'Through the novel dossier form of presenting the complete case of a crime to the reader, with actual clews...a new dimension of reality has been brought to the detective-story...the realistic account of a criminal action, exactly as received at Police Headquarters. The crime was a murder. The police solved it. Can you?'

Who can resist such a challenge? Not me! But I have to admit that in this case, I didn't get close to the correct solution, as I managed to lead myself astray by focusing initially on a character to whom I thought suspiciously little attention was being paid and then on someone else whom I thought was a credible suspect; the latter assumption was logical, but I missed the vital bit of information. 

This story can be regarded as a locked room mystery, with murder committed at a seance -at which Lieutenant Timothy Trant is present. There is one extremely good visual clue in the dossier which I missed, though I wasn't quite so impressed by some of the other clues. But it's a pretty good story.

There are two noticeable differences from Q. Patrick's other crime dossier, File on Fenton and Farr. That story is longer, and I wondered whether it was originally conceived as a novel. And it was clearly inspired by a real-life case. This mystery, although it involves that classic Golden Age trope the seance, is less convoluted. The coming of the Second World War killed off enthusiasm for mysteries of this kind and Wilson and Webb never returned to this format. But the tide has turned and crime dossiers are undoubtedly attracting more attention now than in the past. And given that I've been interested in them for many years, I'm delighted about that.   

Men - 2022 film review

British folk-horror appeals to me, although it will probably be a long time before anyone tops the film that really catapulted this type of storytelling into the public eye, The Wicker Man. Men, a 2022 film written and directed by the very talented Alex Garland, is at the surreal end of the spectrum. It opens with a favourite song of mine, 'Love Song', performed by Lesley Duncan, and this is a clue to the central theme.

Jessie Buckley, who can do nothing wrong on the screen, is impressive in the role of Harper Marlowe, who has been traumatised by the apparent suicide of her husband James, after a row when he struck her after she made it clear she was going to divorce him. He'd tried emotional blackmail, threatening to end his life, reflecting a controlling attitude that, the film suggests, is a masculine characteristic. I don't go along with the generalisation, but the story is well made.

In the hope of getting over the tragedy, Harper rents a lovely country house for a fortnight, in a village called Cotson in the west country. The owner, Geoffrey, is an oddball, although apparently harmless. He's played by Rory Kinnear, and it soon becomes clear that all the men in the village are played by him. What's it all about?

I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it's fair to say that this is not a film for the squeamish. Harper finds herself stalked by a naked man, taunted by a youth, and fondled by the vicar as events build towards a tumultuous climax. This film isn't a masterpiece, but if you like folk horror, it's definitely one to watch. If only for the excellent acting of both Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear.

Affliction - 1997 film review

 

Affliction is a bleak film, a study of cyclical violence and psychological disintegration. If you're looking for something to cheer you up, this is one to avoid until you're in the right mood. But it is a very good film, directed by the accomplished Paul Schrader and based on a novel by Russell Banks, which lives up to its considerable critical reputation. It's a crime film, with a suspicious death and a troubled cop at its heart, but it's really a drama about human nature, not a mystery in the conventional sense.

Nick Nolte plays Wade Whitehouse, a cop in a small town in New Hampshire. He is divorced and his wife Lillian (Mary Beth Hurt, who was married to Schrader) has custody of their daughter Jill, to whom he is devoted, although their relationship isn't easy. He's now involved with Margie (Sissy Spacek, who is very sympathetic as she tries to cope with a disturbed lover) and he has a brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe) who provides crucial information in a voiceover at the end of the film - a device that would usually seem like a real cop-out, but which works quite well here, except for the fact that one crucial event, a killing, would surely have worked better if we were shown it, with some build-up, rather than in effect being told about it.

The death of Wade's mother means that his alcoholic and violent father Glen (James Coburn, who won an Oscar for his performance) comes to live with him and Margie. Meanwhile, Wade becomes fixated with the death of a crooked businessman called Twombley, who was shot while on a hunting trip with a local guide called Jack (Jim True). Jack claims the death was an accident, but Wade isn't convinced.

Wade's behaviour as he unravels becomes increasingly illogical and scary for those around him, and the final scenes are upsetting. I've seen this film described as a 'neo-noir crime drama', but that really doesn't convey the flavour of a movie that deals thoughtfully with the question of violent impulses. I've always had a dread of violence, and perhaps that's why I find it fascinating. So often violent movies are crass, but Affliction, although a mostly understated, slow-burn of a film, is compelling.