The IPCRESS File - ITV review

The IPCRESS File was one of the great spy novels of the 1960s. It's a book often bracketed with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, but people often forget that Len Deighton's novel came first. It was the book that first made Len's name and it became an iconic Sixties film, starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer (the protagonist whose name is not actually mentioned in the book). Now it has been made into a TV series in six parts, scripted by John Hodge, with Joe Cole as Harry.

Some critics have questioned the rationale for a new version of the story, but after a gap of more than half a century, it seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to come up with a new take on this espionage classic. The real question is: is it any good? After all, it has to be measured against the high standards of novel and film.

At first I wasn't sure about this version. As I've often said, the desire that TV people have to turn stories into six episodes when two, three, or four episodes often mean a tighter story, is regrettable. The first episode left me unimpressed, but I stayed with it and was rewarded by a steady improvement. The last couple of episodes in particular are excellent. An added bonus was that much location shooting was done in Liverpool - and in Great Budworth, the Cheshire village where I first discovered Agatha Christie! I was also amused by the fact that Agatha Christie's The Clocks features, although no real effort was made to make anything of it in the script.

Joe Cole does a good job; his performance is more nuanced than Michael Caine's, although less memorable. Lucy Boynton keeps her emotions in check as Jean Courtney, and the result is a bit uninvolving, but Tom Hollander is excellent as Dalby. Special mention for Anastasia Hille, who is quite brilliant in a supporting role. So, despite some padding in the script, this one is definitely worth watching. Alas, the music is nothing like as good as John Barry's soundtrack for the film, but that was probably inevitable! 

The Pale Horse - BBC TV review

The Pale Horse began on BBC tonight, the first episode of a two-parter based on an Agatha Christie novel and scripted by Sarah Phelps. She is one of TV's leading popular dramatists, with an enviable track record. She began as a writer on EastEnders and the disciplines learned through writing soap opera scripts must be invaluable when one turns to other projects. (And of course some crime series, albeit not Christie's, have strong soap opera elements.) But having discussed Sarah Phelps' adaptations with many crime enthusiasts, I find it tempting, if overly simplistic, to suggest that her versions of Christie are geared more to viewers who aren't natural Christie fans than to the purists.

I'm a lifelong Christie fan but I have always felt it's perfectly reasonable to make changes to the original stories for dramatic purposes - the real question is: do they actually work? I've watched all Sarah Phelps' versions of Christie stories, and my impression is that they are more effective when she digs down into the essence of the original storyline than when she goes off on a tangent of her own. When she's inventing new stories, she'd surely be better to craft her own series rather than tack them on to someone else's.

I enjoyed Phelps' And Then There Were None, and to a lesser extent Witness for the Prosecution, but felt that Ordeal by Innocence (despite a new plot ingredient that I really admired) rather missed the point of the story. The ABC Murders was a curate's egg, with some compelling elements marred by a decision to give Poirot a backstory that, for me, simply didn't carry conviction. 

These mixed experiences led me to watch The Pale Horse with an open mind, but a keen desire to enjoy the story as much as possible. The earlier adaptations have demonstrated that the quality of the opening episode is not always sustained. But I must say that I think this was a very good choice of Christie story, a rural melodrama with a looseness of structure that suits Phelps' talents better than the confines of a traditional whodunit. 

The starry cast is led by Rufus Sewell (cast as Aurelio Zen in the regrettably short-lived TV versions of Michael Dibdin's novels) who plays Mark Easterbrook. The three witches include the wonderful Rita Tushingham and Sean Pertwee is very good as the cop Lejeune. There's a strong Wicker Man feel to the village fete scene - here Phelps is paying homage not to Christie but to another screenwriter who adapted the Queen of Crime with verve, Anthony Shaffer. Will I be tuning in to part two? Yes, definitely. 

The Last Seance and Tales of the Troubled Dead

I like ghost stories, and enjoyed writing one a while back - "No Flowers", which appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and which I even recorded for their website podcast. Over the years, quite a few crime writers have dabbled in stories of the supernatural. Agatha Christie is a notable example, and now HarperCollins have had the bright idea of putting together a chunky volume of twenty of her tales of the uncanny (but not those featuring Harley Quin). It's called The Last Seance, and it's just come out.

There are one or two well-known stories here, perhaps most notably "Philomel Cottage", while  no fewer than eleven of them (including the title story) were included in The Hound of Death, an interesting and under-estimated collection. Christie is famous as an exponent of highly rational whodunit plots, but this book illustrates that she had an abiding interest in the supernatural, and quite a flair for writing about it. There is no introduction (I believe one was planned, but fell through: a pity), but there is a good bibliography.

Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History, is very different. It's a non-fiction study written by Catherine Belsey and published by Edinburgh University Press. The author is an experienced academic, and although I find academic books about popular fiction interesting, all too often I find the style of writing depressingly dense. A tendency to overload the text with cross-references (surely books written for academics should assume that the readers are capable of finding page numbers for themselves) is another recurrent weakness. Happily, this book is an exception, because Catherine Belsey writes entertainingly and with insight, and doesn't feel the need to encumber her text with tedious material designed to prove that she knows her stuff.

"Ghosts don't stay put" is the opening sentence, and perhaps my favourite illustration of Belsey's pleasing literary style can be found in an engaging chapter about Women in White: "Ghostly dress codes vary". I also liked her wry reference to Tony Blair: "The ex-premier, however, is not entirely fictitious." The book veers around its subject in a discursive way that I found agreeable. It's not in any way a text book, and all the better for that. Many other academic writers could benefit from adopting a more relaxed, less insecure approach to their writing in the manner of Belsey. 

Agatha Again

In my young days, I had a recurrent dream. It was a dream in which I discovered an Agatha Christie novel I'd never read. Yes, I'm afraid that I was so hooked, and so frustrated when I'd read her complete works (up to that point) in the genre that I yearned to find a new one. And to this day, when new Christie mysteries come to light, I'm very pleased.

I've just caught up with Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, a novella written in 1954, but not published until 2014. Christie turned the story into the novel Dead Man's Folly, a mystery for which I've always had a soft spot, even though many Christie purists assure me it's not one of her best. This edition has wonderful jacket artwork by Tom Adams, who was responsible for so many of the covers of Fontana paperback editions of Christie that I devoured in my youth. He also contributes a foreword, and in addition there are pieces by Mathew Pritchard and John Curran.

The novella is a truncated version of the novel, but I was pleased to read it. And it's a lovely production, with illustrated endpapers and a colour reproduction of Adams' artwork for Dead Man's Folly. Incidentally, if you fancy buying the original typed ms of the novella, you can pick it up on Abebooks for a mere £10,000. But if that's a bit too much of a stretch even for a completist, I can definitely recommend the Harper Collins edition!

An early and rare Christie short story is the highlight of another Harper Collins publication, this time dating from last summer. Bodies from the Library is an anthology edited by that leading researcher Tony Medawar. It comes as something of a shock to me to recall that Tony and I first met almost thirty years ago, when we both took part in a Mastermind quiz at the 1990 London Bouchercon. Since then, he's made many discoveries, often reporting them in CADS (whose editor Geoff Bradley kept score in the same quiz.) One of the most interesting is a lost Christie treasure hunt story, set on the Isle of Man and called "Manx Gold." It can be found in While the Light Lasts.

The Christie story in the book is "The Wife of the Kenite", which dates back to about 1922, and first appeared in an Australian magazine. The plot twist is one she used subsequently, not least in a splendid radio play, but this apprentice effort shows already the slickness of her storytelling. The anthology as a whole takes its title from the Bodies from the Library conference, which has become a highly enjoyable event based in the British Library over the last few years, and which will return in June.

The anthology doesn't have a connecting theme, and the stories are a random assortment from some notable names. I was pleased to see two long-time favourite stories of mine making an appearance - Cyril Hare's "The Euthanasia of Hilary's Aunt" and A.A. Milne's "Bread upon the Waters". Both are very well-crafted stories (Milne's makes me wish that he'd written more extensively in the genre), and the same is true of a Roy Vickers story I hadn't read, "The Starting-Handle Murder". This one dates from 1934, and forms part of Vickers' long-running and celebrated series of short stories about the Department of Dead Ends.

Crooked House - Channel 5 TV review

I'm not quite sure what to make of Crooked House, Channel 5's brand new version of Agatha Christie's 1949 stand-alone novel, the credits of which rolled a few minutes ago. But then, my feelings about the book, which I read as a teenager, are also equivocal. I'll always be a Christie fan, and the Queen of Crime herself made clear that this was a favourite among her novels. And yet...

All those years ago, I felt there were two problems with the book. First, there are just too many possible suspects in the death of Aristide Leonides, one of those nasty, rich old men who were constantly bumped off in Golden Age detective novels. Second, the detective, Charles Hayward, is insufficiently memorable. No wonder, I've always thought, that Christie never wrote another novel about him. On the other hand, the solution to the puzzle is an exceptionally daring example of Christie's commitment to the concept of the "least likely person" as culprit.

The same pros and cons apply to the TV film. The cast is stellar, almost inevitably: Glenn Close, Gillian Anderson, Terence Stamp (improbably playing a Scotland Yard detective), Amanda Abbington, et al. Julian Fellowes, no less, had a hand in the script (I'd like to think he wasn't responsible for the anachronisms in some pieces of dialogue). But we had so little time to appreciate all the cameos. And Max Irons, son of Jeremy, was competent but not charismatic as Charles Hayward, now reinvented as a down-on-his-luck private eye. I found the background music weirdly intrusive at times, and I was confused about when the story was meant to be set. The references to Ruth Ellis and some other oddments suggest that it had been moved to the second half of the Fifties. But if that was so, I've no idea why it was done.

Nevertheless, there were aspects that I enjoyed. This version brought out the darker aspects of Christie's worldview, and even if this was done simply because darkness is fashionable, I felt it was the right direction to take this particular story, which is grim rather than jolly. And the finale, much changed from the book's, struck me as very effective, given that the shock twist is rather hard to take. I'd be interested to hear what other viewers made of it all. .

Agatha Christie's Lost Plays

I've very much enjoyed listening to a two-CD set of Agatha Christie's Lost Plays. This comprises two pretty obscure radio plays, Butter in a Lordly Dish and Personal Call, and a radio adaptation of the Poirot short story Murder in the Mews. The plays are supplemented by rare radio recordings of Christie, and also an interview with the actor who plays a boy in Murder in the Mews and went on to win an Oscar as a set designer.

All three plays make for very good light entertainment, and Butter in a Lordly Dish I found especially impressive. It's a very good example of the way in which the nature of justice and retribution regularly plays a part in her work, a feature that critics have often under-estimated. I was also interested in that it was one of six plays written by members of the Detection Club shortly after the Second World War in an attempt to raise funds.

It was first broadcast on 13 January 1948, and it was followed by:

• The Murder at Warbeck Hall by Cyril Hare
• A Nice Cup of Tea by Anthony Gilbert
• Sweet Death by Christianna Brand
• Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble by E. C. R. Lorac
• Where Do We Go From Here? by Dorothy L. Sayers

A good list, huh? Hare's play formed the basis for his entertaining later novel An English Murder.

Personal Call is a neat story with a faint touch of the supernatural, while Murder in the Mews is a story with a cleverly contrived plot that, like so much of Christie's work, plays games with the listener's expectations. All in all, this is an excellent CD, with first class bonus extras. Recommended.

Forgotten Book - The Red Redmaynes

The Red Redmaynes was published by Eden Philpotts in 1922, the year in which he celebrated his 60th birthday. He had come to detective fiction relatively late, and to this day he remains best known for his books set in and around his beloved Dartmoor (which also features in this story.) He is also remembered as someone who knew the young Agatha Christie, gave her advice, and was the dedicatee of one of her novels.

The Red Redmaynes isn't a tightly plotted whodunit with a large pool of suspects of the kind for which Christie, Anthony Berkeley and others would become celebrated later in the same decade, but it does boast one notable plot twist, a pleasing device that on its own suffices to lift the story out of the ordinary. Another notable feature is that the "great detective", an American called Peter Ganns, only makes an appearance in the second half of the story. There's a particular reason why Philpotts deployed this unusual structural device, but to explain why would be a spoiler.

Throughout the book we follow a likeable thirtysomething Scotland Yard man, who comes across Robert Redmayne while holidaying in the south west, and then encounters a pretty young woman who, he discovers to his dismay, is happily married. But then her husband disappears, presumably murdered by Robert Redmayne, who also goes missing.

The plot thickens nicely from that point, although by today's standards the story moves at a fairly slow pace. Its unorthodoxy kept me interested, and I'm rather surprised that Philpotts wasn't invited to join the Detection Club when it was formed a few years later. Perhaps Anthony Berkeley or Dorothy L. Sayers didn't approve of his work, but I'm not sure why that would be, given that the Club's founder members included some relatively minor talents. A little mystery about a rather interesting writer.

On the Christie Trail

A family gathering in Wallingford took me to Oxfordshire for a long week-end, and gave me the chance to explore this pleasant English market town on Saturday afternoon. I'd had my eye on the second hand bookshop there, which has some very interesting books indeed, although I exercised uncharacteristic restraint. What I hadn't expected was to stumble across a local festival celebrating Agatha Christie, or to more or less gatecrash a book signing by Lucy Worsley.

The reason why Wallingford should take a special interest in Christie wasn't anything to do with the publication of Sophie Hannah's new Poirot novel. Christie lived in the town for over 40 years, and the locals have decided to make the most of the connection. And why not? Christie is as popular as ever, and the events seemed to have attracted plenty of people. I was impressed by the local museum, which had an excellent little exhibition, including people's personal memories of Christie. As usual, she was regarded as a quiet but very amiable woman, and there was a rather moving account of her kindness to a young girl who fell ill.

Christie's house backed on to the river, as does the house we were visiting. Her house had its own boathouse, and an enjoyable feature of the family gathering was a walk along the river bank on a wonderful September Sunday, with the sun shining as if it was the height of summer. Christie was very fond of her more famous home, Greenway in Devon, but I can certainly see why she also enjoyed Wallingford.

I stayed in Dorchester on Thames, a pretty village three or four miles away. Some scenes in Midsomer Murders have been shot there, and I did wonder if Christie had it in mind when she wrote about places like St Mary Mead. Suffice to say that this is a quintessentially English part of the world. One of the pleasures of my trip was to be reminded of Dame Agatha's enduring appeal. And incidentally, on the way home, I enjoyed looking round Evesham, and discovering this Victorian hearse. They don't make 'em like they used to...

Top Agatha Christies

I've been interested in two discussions in recent days on that perenially entertaining (if subjective and inconclusive) topic of "favourite books". Those excellent bloggers Christine Poulson and Clothes in Books started a thoughtful discussion about five favourite Agatha Christies, while Mike Linane, a very knowledgable Golden Age fan, drew attention on Facebook to the thoughts of yet another leading blogger, Crimeficlover, on "top ten Golden Age novels." I couldn't resist the temptation to join in. So today I'll focus on Christie. Thoughts on ten favourites from the Golden Age will follow on Wednesday. As Christine and others have said, however, not only do different people make different choices, one's own views tend to shift on these selections. And I expect mine will before long!

With Christie, however, I'm going to vary things a bit. I really want to choose six titles, rather than five (and I was very tempted to go for ten.) In reverse order, then:

6. Five Little Pigs - this is a Christie that I first read when I was young, and it didn't work especially well for me at the tender age of about nine. I was persuaded by the late Robert Barnard to revise my opinions, and I now think that the image of the murderer watching the victim die is one of the most chilling in  Golden Age literature.

5. Cards on the Table - this is a very clever story, and it's one of those Christies (Three-Act Tragedy, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and The Sittaford Mystery are others) which strike me as surprisingly under-rated. The idea of confining the suspects to just four is a good one, and the detective work is very nicely done. Even though I don't like bridge, I've always enjoyed this book.

4. Peril at End House - a brilliant spin on a device that is now rather familiar. The clueing is excellent, and the way that suspicion shifts from one person to another - for me, that's one of the tests of a Golden Age classic - is splendidly done. I like the seaside setting, and Poirot and Hastings are in great form.

3. Curtain - because this book was posthumously published at a time when "mere ingenuity" was unfashionable, its cleverness has, I think, generally been under-rated. The central idea is fantastic and it influenced my otherwise very different book, Take My Breath Away. An extraordinary book in many ways, not least because of what Poirot does near the end.

2. The ABC Murders - the best Golden Age serial killer whodunit, and a book whose plot twist has inspired many other wirters, past and present. A gripping mystery, with neat clues and a level of tension and suspense that Christie surpassed only once, in my number one choice.

1. And Then There Were None - I've written several times about my admiration for this book. It is in many ways the ultimate Golden Age whodunit, and yet neither Poirot nor Marple appear. It was one of the first adult novels I ever read, and it made a lasting impression on me.

Yet somehow I've omitted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder is Easy, Murder at the Vicarage, and Murder on the Orient Express. And... well, go on, then - what are your favourites?

Miss Marple - Nemesis (1987)- ITV review

Nemesis was one of Agatha Christie's last books, and by common consent it falls some way short of being a masterpiece. Yet, such is the power of the Christie brand that it has twice been adapted for television. I missed both of the original screenings, including the Geraldine McEwan version (and may not have been a great loss , I don't know) but I've now caught up - very, very belatedly - with the 1987 version starring the marvellous Joan Hickson as Jane Marple.

The screenplay was written by T.R. Bowen, a screenwriter very experienced in adapting Christie. Bowen avoids the mistake of making changes just for the sake of them. He tweaks the story a bit, introducing a god-son of Marple who acts as a sort of Dr Watson, but the advantage of adapting a story that is by no means a classic is that it's possible to improve on some of the weaker elements, and this Bowen does.

The premise of the story is rather odd, in that a dead millionaire sends Miss Marple on a coach tour, visiting historic houses and gardens and hoping that along the way she will find out whether or not his son really was a murderer. The son's girlfriend was murdered, and he was the prime suspect, but never tried. The plot involves a rather unlikely mistaken identity and a motive with a suppressed sexual element. Not classic Christie, then, but Bowen turns it into something very watchable.

What struck me, not for the first time with the Hickson series, was the excellence of the cast. John Horsley, a professor here, was the lecherous and inept doctor in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin. Anna Cropper, a charismatic actor who was once married to William Roache (alias Ken Barlow), is among the suspects. And Peter Copley, once a constant presence in British television shows, made the most of a small part as a vague cleric.

Finally, regular readers will have noticed that I've deviated lately from my usual pattern of blogs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and that I've been slightly more active. This is partly due to the number of good TV shows that I've seen lately and on which I wanted to say a few words. In 2014, I'm planning to producee three posts most weeks,but occasionally more. I'm back on Monday -with a review of the new Ann Cleeves novel, Harbour Street.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Big Four - ITV review

Agatha Christie's Poirot began its new run on ITV tonight with The Big Four, co-written by Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard. Among other pleasures, the episode reintroduced Hugh Fraser, Pauline Moran and Philip Jackson as Captain Hastings, Miss Lemon, and the world-weary cop Japp, all of whom played an enjoyable part in supporting the great David Suchet in the early days of the series. The main cast members attended one of the most memorable crime events I can recall, the Agatha Christie Centenary Banquet at Torquay' s English Riviera Centre in September 1990. It was a wonderful, unforgettable night, complete with a dramatic firework display over the bay.

Now, although I'm a Christie fan, I'm the first to acknowledge that not all her detective stories are masterpieces. The Big Four was published at a low point in her life, not long after her famous disappearance, and was cobbled together from a series of lurid episodes. As a result, the book is fragementary, and the plot material pretty risible. How do you adapt something like that so as to satisfy a 21st century television audience?

The answer is to do it confidently, but with respect for the strong points in Christie's writing and the characters. Mark Gatiss, a writer I admire, is well qualified to do this, and I felt he and Ian Hallard did a pretty good job, at least until the closing scenes, which were crazier in mood than the earlier part of the story. I sensed the writers' energy flagging a bit towards the end, with Hastings disappearing from the action for no good reason..But anyone who has read the original novel will surely agree that it would be a challenge to adapt.

Some people might argue that in some ways, it is easier to make a success of adapting a poor Christie book than a good one. In support of that view, I felt that, to take just one example, the TV version of The Sittaford Mystery was hugely disappointing. Having said that, the screenplay of The Secret of Chimneys, which was another Twenties thriller in broadly the same vein as The Big Four, was over the top from start to finish. Despite that faltering in the later stages, The Big Four worked better overall..

Of course, the presence of David Suchet is a huge asset to this series. Almost everyone who has responded to my post on Joan Hickson agrees she was the best Jane Marple, and I think there's even less argument about the definitive nature of Suchet's interpretation of Poirot. He was as good as usual in The Big Four.

Forgotten Book - Death Comes to Cambers

I've started to warm to the writing of E.R. Punshon, one of those Golden Age writers who enjoyed plenty of success and critical acclaim in his day, but has subsequently vanished from sight. He is rarely discussed in reference books about the genre, yet Dorothy L. Sayers was a big fan of his work.. My Forgotten Book for today is one of the early entries in his long series about Bobby Owen (the well-born Bobby is still a youthful sergeant in this book), Death Comes to Cambers.

This is a country house mystery which opens with the mysterious disappearance from her home of Lady Cambers. One of her guests at the time was - surprise, surprise! - Bobby himself. His grandmother, Lady Hirlpool, had introduced him to Lady Cambers, who was afraid of burglars. Her ladyship is soon found dead, and her jewellery is missing.

There is no shortage of suspects. In fact, the book does rather become bogged down in a seemingly endless series of interviews with the suspicious characters abounding in the vicinity - they include a fanatical cleric, an arrogant archaeologist, a sexy housemaid, a dodgy butler, and the victim's estranged husband, plus quite a few others. There are some amusing and well-written scenes. Punshon did have a sharp sense of humour and a taste for satire. But his verbosity does become a drag before the end of the book.

There are two newspaper ciphers, an ingenious alibi and plenty of opportunities for Bobby to show his sleuthing prowess. On the whole, though, I felt this a competent piece of work, but nothing more. A comparison with the light and breezy novels Agatha Christie was writing at the same time is instructive. Punshon's ideas about society and his prose style were probably quite impressive in their day, but they haven't stood the test of time as well as Christie's crisp brush strokes. She was a much more economical writer than Punshon, and in Golden Age fiction, economy of style is almost always a Good Thing..

A Mysterious Affair at Styal

Styal is a village in Cheshire where you can find one of the National Trust's great gems, Quarry Bank Mill, a wonderfully preserved and historically very important slice of Britain's industrial heritage in truly beautiful surroundings. Quarry Bank has been developed steadily in recent years,and not so long ago the garden of the old house was opened to the public. And on Saturday night, for the first time, I saw a play staged in those gardens in the open air - Agatha Christie's The Hollow.

It's a very long time since I watched a play in the open. The last one, a Noel Coward play, was well over twenty years ago. Of course, the weather is always a bit of a worry. But the weather on Saturday evening was superb, a real stroke of luck. And this, coupled with a pre-play picnic, made for a lovely way to end a great day that had begun with a trip around Blackpool's Stanley Park.

Strangely, this was the third Agatha Christie play I've seen in about three months, after not having seen one for many years. They have all been fun, even though I'm the first to admit that she was not as gifted at writing for the stage as she was at writing novels. But a large audience had a great time, not just because of the sunshine, but because Christie knew how to keep people engaged. The performances by members of the Wilmslow Green Room were very good, and I was pleased to recognise at least one of the actors who recently appeared in my own Victorian murder mystery.

The Hollow has never been one of my favourite Christie novels, I must confess. The plot, and the final twist, have never struck me as matching her best. But some of the characters are quite interesting, as is her decision to dispense with Poirot in the stage version of the story. I think that was a shrewd move, and the result was a piece of light entertainment that made for an idyllic midsummer's evening.

The Mousetrap

Call myself an Agatha Christie fan? It's a dreadful confession, but until a short time ago, I'd never even got around to watching The Mousetrap. Yes, the longest-running play of all time, by a country mile, and I'd not seen it. Thanks to an initiative of the Crime Writers' Association, and in particular of its new chair, Alison Joseph, I've finally remedied this shocking omission.

The Mousetrap is, of course, a classic Golden Age whodunit. It began life as a radio play, Three Blind Mice, but Christie, who was very keen on the theatre, adapted it for the stage. She had a mixed record as a playwright. Some of her stage plays were not particularly successful - I recall being a bit disappointed by Fiddlers Five, when I saw it on its early run in Manchester, as a birthday treat in my teens. In fact, Christie obviously realised that something was amiss, since a revised version appeared before long, called Fiddlers Three! As far as I know, it has never been published, so I have not had a chance to check on my original judgment..

Things were very different when it comes to The Mousetrap, which is now in its sixtieth year. It's become a real British institution, a must-see for tourists as well as fans of detective stories. I really did enjoy the play. It is good, unpretentious light entertainment, and the cast did a very good job with the material. Yes, it's a period piece, but that accounts for a great deal of its charm.

Alison Joseph had arranged with the management of St Martin's Theatre, a small but appealing theatre with lots of "Mousetrap memorabilia" on show in the bar, that we would have a backstage tour after the play. This was great fun. So now I know how the effects of the wind, and of the falling snow,are produced. As with the solution to the central mystery in the play, however, my lips must remain sealed...

A Caribbean Mystery Tour

I first read A Caribbean Mystery many years ago, and although Agatha Christie is not famous for her evocative descriptions of background, I was intrigued by the idea of holidaying in the Caribbean. It's taken me a long time, but I've finally followed in the footsteps of Miss Marple, with a short cruise from New Orleans. And hugely enjoyable it was, too.

First stop was Falmouth, Jamaica, which gave the chance of a horse and carriage ride to a0n old plantation dating back to the eighteenth century, and a glimpse into the colonial past of this now proudly independent island. Fascinating, and the scenery was quite stunning.

Then over to George Town, Grand Cayman, a place about which I knew nothing, but which I really liked. We had a boat trip to the mangroves, to the Seven Mile Beach (apparently it's only five miles long) and the strange volcanic-like rock formations known as Hell. A short story set in Grand Cayman should follow one of these day!

Next, Cozumel in Mexico, and after a ferry ride to the mainland, and a visit to the stunning Mayan ruins at Tulum. There's a lot to see in that part of the world, and I'd like to go back to Mexico at some future date. In the meantime, plenty of memories to savour.

With three days at sea, there was also plenty of reading time, and I got through ten books. Some of them I read on my iPad, and I'm becoming enthusiastic about reading ebooks, though for me they will never replace print copies. But the convenience of e-reading is a real advantage when travelling. I'll be reviewing the books I read in due course. Most were crime, but there was also a debut novel which I absolutely loved. More of that another day.

Forgotten Book - My Brother's Killer

D.M.Devine was in many ways a writer in the classic Golden Age tradition, although his first book did not appear until 1961. This was My Brother's Killer, which has recently been republished as an Arcturus Crime Classic. Apparently, Devine entered it for a "don's detective novel" competition run by Collins Crime Club, but having been voted the winner - by judges including Agatha Christie - he was disqualified because technically he was not a don, but a university administrator - at a senior level, at St Andrews. An unlucky start, but the book deservedly found its way into print. What's more, Christie remained a fan, and when I visited her former home Greenway in May I remember seeing at least one book by Devine on the shelves there.

The story is set around a solicitors' office. Two brothers are partners. Simon Barnett narrates the story, and on one foggy night he responds to an urgent call from his brother Oliver only to find that Oliver has been murdered in his office. Oliver was a rascally character, and there are plentiful suspects, including a third partner called Fergusson.

Simon, a solid and decent sort of chap, is shocked to learn that Olive appears to have been a blackmailer. In addition, he betrayed his disfigured wife with a series of women in a squalid house that he rented under a pseudonym. A woman whom Simon once loved is arrested, but Simon is convinced of her innocence, and turns amateur detective, assisted by two colleagues.

The plot is elaborate and very carefully worked out. It depends in part on an alibi, and also on the extreme ingenuity and callousness of the culprit. Bearing in mind this was a first novel, I thought it was very well done, and I could see why Christie admired it. Devine went on to write a dozen more books, and although he never touched the heights, he was one of the mainstays of the Collins Crime Club for almost two decades. This is an extremely worthwhile reprint.

Triangle at Rhodes

During my recent holiday in the Med, one port of call that was just possibly my favourite was the island of Rhodes. I'd never been there before, and knew little about it other than that the long vanished Colossus had been a wonder of the ancient world. What I found was a place that combined beauty with history and character in abundance.

The trip also reminded me of an Agatha Christie story, 'Triangle at Rhodes', which appears in Murder in the Mews, and which bears a strong resemblance to the plots of two of her later novels. It's a very good story, but on re-reading it, I was a little surprised that Christie said so little about the island on which she set it.

I suppose this is one of the characteristics of her work - its universality means that there isn't much scope for specific detail. I first read the story when I was about 9 or 10, and had never travelled to London, let alone overseas. It wasn't until much later that I became interested in seeing the world. So the absence of background colour didn't bother me. But now it seems a bit like a missed opportunity.

The short story I plan to write set on Santorini won't be a travelogue, but I will hope to include some feel for the place that inspired me to write it. And who knows, one of these days I might write something set on Rhodes too. I've certainly made some notes as well as taking loads of photos, of which these are just a few!

Unpleasant characters in a mystery

It’s fair to say that a good many modern crime novels seem to be populated with an array of unpleasant characters. But even where you have a book with (say) an appealing detective, it’s quite common to find that the characters you dislike are in the great majority. But is this inevitable?

In a whodunit, you need to have a range of people who might conceivably have committed the murder. Years ago, common motives were inheritance, and the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. Plenty of books featured people who seemed amiable, even though they turned out to be murderously inclined. The culprit in Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders is but one example.

But nowadays, motives are (I suggest) more often rooted in character flaws than perhaps was the case in the past. And perhaps this means that the characters themselves are unlikely to be attractive, at least below the surface.

It’s an issue that vexes me with my own books. One of my recent novels therefore was based on the premise that an appealing person might have a good reason to commit a terrible crime. But more often, I find that almost all my suspects have their dark side. This is true of The Serpent Pool , for instance. And I do wonder about the views of readers. Is it enough to have a small number of appealing characters? Or do you like the (seemingly) nice guys to be in the majority – and, if so, how do you respond when one of them turns out to be a murderer? Or does it really not matter, as long as the story holds your interest?

The Man in the Mist

I’ve watched another in the Partners in Crime series from the 80s, featuring Francesca Annis and James Warwick as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. This episode was 'The Man in the Mist', and involved the murder of an actress who is about to marry and is seeking a divorce from a reluctant husband.

The idea of the original stories which formed Partners in Crime was that Agatha Christie would conceive a mystery in the style of a popular whodunit writer of the 1920s, and Tommy and/or Tuppence would, in effect, detect in the manner of the writer’s sleuthing hero. It was a clever idea, and as far as I know has never been done in quite the same way before or since (if I’m mistaken on this, please don’t hesitate to point it out – I’m aware of plenty of mystery parodies, such as Gory Knight, but not an extensive series of linked stories forming a single book in the manner of Partners n Crime.)

In this particular story, Tommy takes on the role of G.K.Chesterton’s legendary Father Brown, and spends the episode dressed improbably as the little priest. He also leads a re-enactment of the circumstances surrounding the crime which help to reveal how it was done.

This was an enjoyable episode. It’s very light entertainment indeed, comfort viewing if you like, but done very well. Of course, the plot has limitations, but I enjoyed it. And the verve with which Annis and Warwick play their parts is central to the pleasure.

The Ambassador's Boots

A while back, in posting about The Secret Adversary featuring Francesca Annis and James Warwick as Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence, I enquired about the TV series Partners in Crime, in which the duo starred. Happily, ITV 3 has been screening some episodes from that series, and (once I realised) I managed to record some of them.

The first that I’ve seen is ‘The Ambassador’s Boots’. This is a story with a nice central idea, somehow typical of Christie. An ambassador’s boots are taken, but then returned. What can this signify?

The mystery is put to Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, who are running a detective agency, and they investigate with their customary enthusiasm. Annis and Warwick really did work very well together, splendid piece of casting. The ambassador has a mysterious valet, who commits suicide, and an advert placed by the Beresfords in a newspaper attracts a prompt response from a helpful young woman – whose story is interrupted by an unlikely foreign villain armed with a gun. When I say that the Beresfords’ young assistant Albert rescues them by capturing the foreign chap with a lasso, you will gather that the mood is insistently light-hearted, but the programme is none the worse for that.

The supporting cast in this hour-long episode was excellent. T.P. McKenna played the ambassador, Clive Merrison (known in recent times for his radio portrayal of Sherlock Holmes) was the valet, and Jennie Linden (best known as Ursula in the film of Women in Love) the helpful young woman.