Harry Devlin's 30th birthday

I find it hard - very hard - to believe, but this year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of my first novel. Yes, Harry Devlin emerged way back in 1991, in All the Lonely People. In one sense, the appearance of that novel marked a culmination - I'd only ever had one career ambition, which was to publish a detective novel - but in many other respects it represented the start of something new, the beginning of my life as a published novelist. And it's a life I've enjoyed hugely ever since.

I'm absolutely thrilled that Acorn (also known as AUK Studios), the country's leading indie digital creator, is celebrating this anniversary by reissuing the seven Harry Devlin books I wrote in the 1990s with striking new cover artwork. The revamped books are available now, not only as ebooks but also in hardcover and paperback editions. They also include introductions from leading writers such as Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, Andrew Taylor, Margaret Murphy, and Peter Lovesey.

All the Lonely People introduces Harry and he's soon in big trouble. His estranged wife Liz is murdered and he is the prime suspect. He wants to clear his name, and above all he wants to see justice done for Liz. My aim was to combine a gritty modern setting with a twisty plot in the Golden Age vein. Of course, it's no longer a modern story, but I hope it casts a little light on the way things were at the time.  

The book did well for me. It earned terrific reviews in The Times (Marcel Berlins) and The Guardian (Matthew Coady) and also from Frances Fyfield, whose review said: 'More than adequate plotting and tremendous atmospherics...all in all a grand debut, well worth supporting. Buy it.' In later years I got to know both Marcel and Matthew, while Frankie Fyfield became a good friend (she also kindly wrote an intro for the reissue of the novel!). In those early days, though, the writing life was all very new to me and the warm words of these well-established commentators was a tremendous boost to morale. 

So too was the news that the book had been nominated for the CWA's prize for the best first crime novel of the year, which has had various names over the years but which I tend to think of still as the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger. The winner was Walter Mosley and one of the great moments of my career came many years later in New York City, when I received an Edgar award on the same night that Walter was made a Grand Master of the MWA. Believe me, I never dreamed of that way back in 1991...

Gallows Court - the paperback edition

I'm delighted to share the cover artwork of the forthcoming paperback edition of Gallows Court. It will hit the shops on 4 April, and I'll be signing copies that day at Waterstones in Knutsford. Head of Zeus have devoted a lot of thought to the artwork of Gallows Court, in the original hardback edition and also the wonderful special editions, which are available in signed lettered and numbered versions. The car headlights image was tried out in various incarnations before a final decision was taken, and I think it works really well, capturing a 1930s mood in a clear yet subtle way.

Do covers matter? The received wisdom is that they certainly do. It was a point emphasised to me early in my career by publishers' sales reps, and although in those days I was reluctant to accept it, the evidence suggests they were right.

In truth, I've never before had the experience of a publisher of my novels devoting so much care and time to the artwork. It's all a bit of a contrast with my first experience, many moons ago, when All the Lonely People was published in paperback by Bantam. My very pleasant editor shared the artwork with me and asked what I thought. It was a nice enough image by a first-rate artist, and I still have a framed print. But there was something odd about it. I pointed out that the artist had placed a corpse on the Liverpool waterfront, which doesn't happen in the story (Harry Devlin's wife meets her end in a dingy back street). "Don't worry," I was told. "It really doesn't matter." Perhaps it didn't, but it seemed strange...

Anyway, I'm delighted that this book, which has meant a great deal to me, is now moving into paperback, and I'm celebrating by cracking on with a sequel, which is progressing rather well at the moment. Fingers crossed...

Bodies from the Library

I'm back from a brief but exhilarating trip to London, the highlight of which was the third Bodies from the Library event at the British Library on Saturday. The speakers and organisers had met the previous evening for a convivial meal, and I was also delighted to meet Professor Elinor Shaffer, sister-in-law of Peter and Antony Shaffer. This followed a catch-up with my former agent, Mandy Little, now retired, who had faith in  my writing before I published a single novel. It was Mandy who sold All the Lonely People, my first book, and I'll always be grateful to her.

I was asked to open and close Bodies, and between 10 am and 5.15 there was a lot happening. Jake Kerridge moderated a panel featuring Len Tyler, Seona Ford of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society and me, and we talked about aspects of the Golden Age. Tony Medawar spoke about John Rhode, Kirsten Saxton talked enthusiastically about The Incredible Crime, and John Curran about crossword puzzles and classic crime. Then Rob Davies interviewed me about The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books.

The book was on sale at the event, and upwards of 80 copies were sold. I've never sold anything like as many hardbacks on a single occasion. Plenty of copies of Taking Detective Stories Seriously were also sold - very gratifying. The afternoon events included a Sayers radio play, talks on Elizabeth Daly, Ethel Lina White, Ronald Knox and Edmund Crispin, and a panel in which the speakers talked about their favourite classic crime novels.

For me the day was something of a whirl, just as Alibis in the Archive was the previous week, I was delighted to have the chance to say hello to a lot of nice people, and even send a recorded message to fans of the Detection Club in Brazil (didn't expect that!) but of course there's never enough time during such concentrated events. The main thing was that several people expressed the view that this was the best Bodies yet, and we are all hoping that it will happen again next year. The atmosphere was hugely positive.

There being no rest for the wicked, I then hosted a CWA reception immediately afterwards, announcing that the winner of the 2017 CWA Dagger in the Library is Mari Hannah. The shortlist was very strong and so it was a particular pleasure to congratulate Mari. After dinner with a few friends,,I  must admit that I was quite exhausted. But it was worth it. A grand day.

Forgotten Book - Bury Him Darkly

Bury Him Darkly by Henry Wade (1936) is, at first glance, a Golden Age novel of a familiar type. A series of robberies take place at jewellers' shops; in the course of one of them, a man dies; a suspect has an alibi; and the police go to great lengths to break it down. It sounds like the sort of book that Freeman Wills Crofts specialised in, and there's no doubt that Crofts was an early influence on Wade. But there is more to Wade's book than meets the eye.

Crofts' books about Inspector French record meticulous police investigations into carefully engineered crimes. This book goes further. We are presented with a picture of a team of police officers, from Assistant Commissioner (Crime) to constables, working together in the common cause. Best of all, we follow the enquiries of Wade's finest character, Inspector John Poole, and learn that, for all his brilliance, he is also very human and fallible.

The details of the crime are cleverly put together, and although one can make a stab at figuring out whodunit quite early in the story, Wade keeps a number of pleasing surprises up his sleeve. On a personal note, I was fascinated when (as in at least one other Golden Age novel) a body is found on a rubbish dump. When I was writing my first book, All the Lonely People, and came up with the same idea as a plot twist, I believed I was being highly topical,as well as making a sort of social comment about the Britain of that time. Ah, the naivete of youth! It's harder to be truly original than I realised.

Wade is very good at depicting the way in which police officers interact, and does not not neglect the petty jealousies, the mistakes, and the temptations to bend the rules. It's all rather sophisticated. Wade's presentation of female characters at this point was not quite as compelling (he remedied this in Lonely Magdalen) but he really could write. Even if you find alibi-breaking dull - and it's not my favourite form of fictional detection - this book is well worth a read. And the unusual ending is also very good and very life-like.

The Edgars

The Golden Age of Murder has been nominated for an Edgar, one of the long-established awards given by the Mystery Writers of America. It's one of five books in the "best critical/biographical" category. Of course, I am delighted. I've been shortlisted for a few awards previously, in my writing and legal careers, and actually managed to win one or two, but of course something as significant as an Edgar nomination comes along rarely if ever in a British writer's life. So the key thing is to savour the moment to the full, which is exactly what I'm doing right now....

I see that, at the Edgar Awards ceremony which is to be held in New York City, that fine writer Walter Mosley is to be acclaimed as a Grand Master. This reminds me that, way back in 1992, when my first novel, All the Lonely People, was one of seven initially shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best debut crime novel of the year, the award was won (and deservedly so) by Walter for that terrific book, later filmed, Devil in a Blue Dress.

But here's the thing. I didn't even find out that my book was one of the seven nominated books until months after the event. In those days, there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no social media alerting one to such news. The first I heard about it was one day when I was visiting London and I called in at Murder One, the splendid crime bookshop that Maxim Jakubowski used to run in Charing Cross Road. He congratulated me on being shortlisted (Maxim was, and remains, a very well-informed chap, and is nowadays a colleague on the CWA committee), and it came as a complete bolt from the blue. By that time,though, the award ceremony had come and gone. Just shows how things have changed....

Responding to Feedback

I'm returning to the topic of reviews, and how authors respond to feedback from people who read their books, a subject that fascinates me whether in the capacity of reader, reviewer or author. There's been a lot of discussion lately about fake Amazon reviews, and of course it's true that one has to assess any reviews with care, especially internet reviews, most especially if the reviewer is anonymous or in disguise. I quite understand why many authors dislike negative feedback from such individuals. But constructive reviews, written in good faith by someone who doesn't have an axe to grind (that's important), and who understands, and is reasonably sympathetic towards, what the writer was aiming to do (desirable, I think), are deserving of attention.

I've been spoiled this year by the wonderful reaction to The Golden Age of Murder, most recently from Jon L. Breen, one of the US's leading mystery critics, who said in Mystery Scene that the book was one of the most important contributions to crime fiction history in recent memory. Very pleased by that. I was fortunate to have the chance, when the book was reprinted recently, to address a few helpful points raised by reviewers and people who contacted me, and was very glad to do so.

I've also been heartened by a review last Friday of my new anthology for the British Library, Silent Nights, from Barry Turner in the Mail. In addition, Barry gave All the Lonely People the thumbs-up in his column not long ago, which was hugely gratifying, so long after the book's original publication.

As regards The Dungeon House, I set out to vary my approach - as I had done with The Frozen Shroud, but even more so. The story was set up differently, and the mystery resolved in a rather different way. This was a conscious risk, and although I'm happy (or as happy as a self-critical author ever can be) with the result, naturally I've wondered how readers would react. Early reviews have been extremely positive - for example on three leading blogs, Kiwi Crime, Mysterious Reviews, Harriet Devine's blog, and Random Jottings. There has, in addition, been a nice response from Publisher's Weekly ("engrossing") and Kirkus Reviews ("Edwards works exceptionally close to his characters"). I've also received a number of emails from readers - some who have followed the series for several years, some who have come to it afresh, and these too have encouraged me. It's nice when people take the trouble to get in touch like that..

One bit of feedback from two or three reviewers is that they noted that Daniel Kind had a smaller part to play in this story than in the others, and they expressed some regret about this. I found this very interesting. I've wondered, in recent years, whether people might be getting tired of Daniel, and might want to see more of Hannah. As it happened, the plot idea of The Dungeon House meant that I focused on two women characters, Hannah and Joanna Footit, although Daniel does make a crucial intervention late on in the story. But I'm pleased that several discerning readers are keen to see more of him, and the plot idea for the next book does mean that Daniel is likely to be much more significant.

To a large extent, this is just happenstance, but I do think carefully about what sympathetic readers and reviewers say about my books. It's quite invaluable feedback, and I'm grateful for it. Ultimately, the writer has to decide how to approach their book, and it is a mistake to worry excessively about reviews, but I am sure that many writers share my view that constructive comments and suggestions are more than welcome. . . .

Memories of Hugh C. Rae

Sometimes we meet people fleetingly,who turn out to have a disproportionately significant influence on our lives. Hugh C. Rae, whom I first met more than 25 years ago, was someone in that category as far as I'm concerned, and I was sorry to read of his recent death at the age of 78.

My first encounter with Hugh came in the context of a writers' competition. There is a very good writers group in Southport, and I attended a number of their annual get-togethers in a seafront hotel in that pleasant resort. Each year, there was a competition that anyone could enter. When I heard that the competition involved writing the first chapter of a novel, I decided to submit the first chapter of the Liverpool-based detective story that I was writing at the time. In fact, I hadn't got much further than the first chapter at that stage.

My entry didn't win the prize, but Hugh made some helpful comments. He'd written thrillers himself, and said that he liked my writing. I found this very encouraging, and carried on with the book. That first chapter - much re-written, I have to say, since I took on board his advice - became the first chapter of All the Lonely People. In one of the essays that appear in the ebook version, I mention Hugh's influence on the story, and also the fact that, years later, it was a real pleasure to meet him again at a couple of CWA conferences in Scotland. He was a convivial chap, who cared passionately about writing.

He wrote under his own name and under various pseudonyms, but ironically he achieved his greatest commercial success with historical romances written as by Jessica Stirling. On meeting Hugh, a craggy Glaswegian, you would not imagine him as a writer of light popular romance, but the point was that he was a real professional, someone who could write in a range of different styles, and treat each genre he tackled on its merits. I shall continue to have fond memories of him, and the example he set, of treating a young and enthusiastic but rather unsophisticated writer with kindness and respect..

Mind the Gap - BBC 2 - Evan Davis and Crime fiction

The second of the two parts of Mind the Gap aired on BBC 2 this week. This thought-provoking programme was a documentary presented by Evan Davis analysing both the success of London and the challenges faced by the rest of Britain given the apparently relentless increase in the north-south divide, in terms of prosperity and much else. Crime fiction wasn't mentioned once, needless to say, but some of the issues discussed have genuine relevance (at least in my opinion) to contemporary crime fiction.

Economics is a subject which fascinates me, although I have long suspected that the main difference between different schools of economists may be not that some are right and some are wrong, but simply the often very distinct ways in which  they are all ultimately proved wrong. Evan Davis is a very articulate, intelligent and likeable presenter indeed, and he argued not only that London's prosperity will continue to grow because it is a hub of excellence and a magnet for talented people who want to cluster together, but also that the only chance the rest of the country has of catching up is to create a super-city of its own. He proposed Manchester as this super-city, something that won't have pleased many Liverpudlians I know, for a start.

I agreed with some of Davis' arguments - for instance, a good example of a hub that he didn't mention is Hay-on-Wye, which has reinvented itself brilliantly as a book town and home of a major literary festival. But I did wonder if, in some respects, his arguments were a bit old-fashioned. Technology - Skype, the internet, and all the rest of it - surely makes geographical proximity between like-minded people less of a "must" than it once was. And there are various powerful human factors that complicate the discussion. I sense that younger people are more concerned about the "work-life balance" than was the case, say, thirty years ago, and I'm not sure that living and working in super-cities provides the best kind of balance for a lot of people. And what about the nightmare of commuting - something  I used to hate when I was working full-time at some distance from my office, and which is becoming more stressful with every year that passes? Davis didn't say anything about the countryside, and I don't believe you can look at cities in isolation from the country as a whole.

Whatever one's views, however, we are all affected by economic realities, and therefore crime novels are inevitably affected by them too. And this is a subject which has lurked in the background of my fiction right from the outset. All the Lonely People presented a picture of Liverpool at quite a low point in its history, and later Harry Devlin books tackled the changes and improvements (and there have been many, which Mind the Gap didn't address, focusing instead on the boarded-up terraced houses) in the city in later years. The Lake District Mysteries have a sub-text about changes and challenges in rural society that are again driven by economic factors. Very few reviewers have commented on these aspects of the books, so perhaps they are not of widespread interest, but I prefer to think that it is because I don't address them in a didactic way. Like the economists, I don't have any easy solutions to offer to the economic challenges faced by places that I love, such as Liverpool and the Lakes. But I do think that those challenges provide a natural and relevant backdrop to the mysteries of character and motive that are my main concern as a crime writer..

The Craft of Writing: Originality

Originality is something to be prized in any form of writing, and certainly in crime fiction. The snag is that it is very, very difficult to be truly original. Even when you firmly believe you've come up with something absolutely fresh and new, all too often it turns out that you've been beaten to it, generally in a work that you weren't even aware of.

This sense that I needed to come up with something absolutely original held me back when, in my teens (yes, I started early) I thought about writing a detective novel. I didn't know how to create something that wasn't likely to be derivative. Inhibitions of this kind are not helpful, and I only got over them properly when I came up with the idea of writing a number of mysteries about a Liverpool lawyer. Something I knew for sure had never been done. Even then, one reviewer of my debut, All the Lonely People, thought she detected the influence of Raymond Chandler (which I wasn't conscious of, I must say, and I'm not sure she had read much Chandler or indeed much crime fiction).

I also imagined that I'd come up with a great idea for my first book that combined plot development with snappy social comment. A body would be discovered in a municipal waste heap, picked over by impoverished scavengers. Very good - except that, many years later, someone told me that G.D.H. and Margaret Cole also wrote a story about a body in a waste heap....Similarly, one of my early short stories about Harry Devlin included a plot device that I discovered, only very recently, to have been used by Gladys Mitchell.

These things can make you despair, believe me - but there's no sense in despairing. The stories by Cole and Mitchell are little known, but that's not really the point, either. The real issue is that I was trying to do something very different in those two Devlin stories than they were trying to do in their books. There have always been similarities between story ideas that appear in different books. There are said to be Russian and Swedish books that anticipate The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and one American mystery anticipated And Then There Were None. These were not, I'm sure, conscious borrowings, but rather ideas that were somehow in the air and which were developed by writers in different countries. Similarly, one of Dorothy L. Sayers' best plot ideas also occurred to Ronald Knox while she was working on her book. Another resembled an idea used (in a similar setting but in a different style of story) by Freeman Wills Crofts.

The same thing applies when there are overlaps between contemporary books. For instance, there was a vogue a few years back, after a drought in England, for crime novels in which bodies were discovered when the waters receded (very different from England 2014 - perhaps we are in for a spate of 'flood' stories...) I remember one Northern writer being rather cross that Reginald Hill had written a book about 'mystery plays' not long after she had done the same. But it was a mistake to be cross, in my opinion. The books were quite distinct, and I could give many other examples of overlaps which seem to me to be not in the least problematic. The real challenge for a writer is to come up with some element - be it voice, or character, or an aspect of setting - that is fresh. Trying to come up with at totally new storyline is wonderful when it happens - but it is rather uncommon, to say the least.

Yesterday's Papers

Is it  reasonable for writers to have favourites among their own books, or should one love them all equally? Well, my view is that books are not like children, and I certainly do have favourites. They include, for instance, my relatively little-known novel about Dr Crippen, Dancing for the Hangman. As for the Harry Devlin series, I've always had a very soft spot for Yesteday's Papers.

I've been very pleased to see this book, which dates back to the mid-90s, give a  fresh lease of life by digital publishing.The ebook version has a very nice intro from the great Peter Lovesey. And, as is the case with the other Devlin ebooks published by Andrews UK, print versions are also available. But I must admit that I'm still thrilled that a new mass market paperback edition is to be published later this year.

The book is going to feature in the Arcturus Crime Classic series, which already includes All the Lonely People, as well as some wonderful books that date back much further, written by the likes of Francis Durbridge, Erle Stanley Gardner, Anthony Berkeley and many more. It's gratifying to be in such company, especially as few other living writers are on the Arcturus list.

The first paperback edition of Yesterday's Papers was published by Bantam, and subsequently Hodder produced an edition. So the Arcturus book will be the third mass market paperback, not counting the Andrews UK edition. I'm very glad about this, because the story was great fun to write. It dwells heavily on Liverpool's Beatles era, and there are some plot twists I really enjoyed concocting. In some ways, it might just be my most complex mystery from a plot perspective, with three different strands to the storyline. The Lake District Mysteries are, deliberately, less heavily plotted, and one of the benefits of having different series is the chance to tackle the crime novel in various different ways. So much more satisfying than constantly repeating oneself. 

Murder in the Library

I've been meaning for ages to visit the British Library, and I finally achieved this ambition the other day, although I only had time to pop in very quickly before catching a train from nearby Euston. However, the brief visit was not only long enough to whet my appetite for this impressive place, but also to allow me to look round a small but interesting exhibition, Murder in the Library: an A to Z of Crime Fiction.

As the title suggests, the exhibition is organised on alphabetical lines, rather than thematically or chronologically. This is a perfectly sensible idea for a small-scale look at the genre. It goes without saying that it cannot hope to be comprehenive - even a multi-volume set of books about the genre could not be. But I found it entertainingly and sympathetically presented, with some fascinating items and rare manuscripts, including one from Conan Doyle..

Above all, I was pleased to discover a number of items that were completely unfamiliar to me. These included The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, and a modern Georgian equivalent of the Dennis Wheatley "crime dossiers", called Mr Deaxley's Silent Box. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has come across either of these fascinating-looking works.

I also had a bonus when I went into the British Library shop - and found plenty of copies of All the Lonely People on display. That doesn't happen so often that I'm indifferent about it! And there were also copies of the new edition of Ask a Policeman. Yes, my first visit to the British Library was entirely positive, and I hope to spend more time there before too long.

Scott Turow's Innocent: TV movie review

Scott Turow's Innocent is one of those titles, like Agatha Christie's Marple, which causes me instinctively to be wary. It's easy to get the impression that the makers of the show are trading too heavily on the name of the author who produced the original, rather than being confident that it will stand on its own two feet as quality entertainment. Having said that, I wouldn't say no if someone wanted to make Martin Edwards' All the Lonely People, or indeed anything else I've written, so perhaps I shouldn't be too critical!

Anyway, Innocent is a 2011 movie that is very clearly aimed at a TV audience, and doesn't have the same ambitions as, say, the film that was made of Turow's first and quite brilliant novel featuring Rusty Sabich, Presumed Innocent. I remember being so gripped when I read that book that I stayed up until the middle of the night to finish it. I don't think I've been more impressed by any other legal thriller. Turow knows the American legal profession inside out, and is a very clever plotter. But he can also write extremely well, and that's the real secret of his enormous success.

I very much enjoyed Turow's second book, which focused on Sandy Stern, Rusty's defence lawyer, but for some reason I've not felt tempted to read his later books. Not sure why. However, this belated sequel to Presumed Innocent is a pretty good story, which certainly kept me entertained. Rusty is charged with murdering his wife, and has behaved badly enough for there to be plenty of incriminating evidence.

Bill Pullman plays Rusty, and Marcia Gay Harden, once an Oscar winner, the doomed Mrs Sabich. Mariana Klaveno is the glamorous aide who seduces Rusty, and then gets involved with his son, making her a possible alternative suspect in the case. All in all, a competent tv movie, lacking in magic, perhaps, but offering very watchable if slightly familiar viewing fare.

Hal David R.I.P.

Hal David, the American lyricist, has died at the age of 91. It's extremely sad news as far as I'm concerned, as he wrote the lyrics to a great many of my absolutely favourite songs. Hal David has often been described as 'legendary' - Paul Gambaccini, speaking to BBC News, has just described him as a 'giant' - yet he was a modest man, content by and large to remain in the shadow of his main songwriting partner, Burt Bacharach, to whose complex and sophisticated melodies he supplied words that were, in contrast, straightforward, yet somehow equally distinctive and memorable.

David had an extraordinary gift - the ability to make a very challenging form seem remarkably easy. His approach to writing offers a shining example not only to other lyricists, but to anyone who uses the written word for artistic purposes. He used to say that it's easy to write something complex - what's really difficult is to write something simple, something that sounds so natural that it seems as though nobody 'wrote' it. The more I've learned about writing, the more I've realised how true this is. 

The only time I saw Hal David in the flesh was at a Royal Albert Hall tribute concert, when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice paid glowing tribute to the influence that he and Bacharach had on their writing of musicals, and this admiration was shared by countless people all over the world. Only a couple of months or so ago, Barack Obama lauded David's work when he and Bacharach became the first songwriting duo to win the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize. There's even a video of Obama on Youtube singing the opening words of 'Walk on By'.

Hal David conjured up crisp phrases in his lyrics - phrases such as 'walk on by', 'make it easy on yourself', 'what the worlds need now is love', 'do you know the way to San Jose?' 'what's it all about, Alfie?', 'anyone who had a heart' and many others - that stayed in the mind. The lyric to '24 Hours from Tulsa' offers a brilliant, heart-rending story about adultery in a few lines - and I used that lyric as a reference point in a rather dark short story named after the song which was included in Best British Mysteries a few years back. He can even be forgiven for rhyming 'phone ya' with 'pneumonia' because the lyric to 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again' is such a concise - and witty - masterpiece. It was written for the musical Promises, Promises, a show which provides part of the background for the Harry Devlin novel The Devil in Disguise.

A Hal David lyric provided a clue to the solution of the mystery in my very first book, All the Lonely People,and another led to a key revelation of the fourth, Yesterday's Papers. I'm pretty confident that his work features more often in my novels than that of any other novelist, and that's simply because I love those Bacharach and David songs so much. In the 60s, it was their work, even more than that of the Beatles, that gave me my love of music. For that I shall forever be grateful. Thanks, Hal, for all those countless magic moments. (And yes, he did write 'Magic Moments'.)

Harry Devlin is back!

I’m truly thrilled to say that my early Harry Devlin books, set in Liverpool, are now enjoying a new life. They are available as ebooks, in new editions with some very special features that I hope readers will find fascinating. For me, it’s all very exciting. And the books are also being made available again, for those who prefer hard copies, in paperback editions.

Andrews UK, who specialise in ebooks and print on demand editions, have now produced six of the eight titles in this way – the whole series, that is, with the exception at present of Eve of Destruction and the much more recent Waterloo Sunset.

The most notable of the special features is that each book benefits from a brand new introduction by a leading crime writer. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky here – this original material, only available in these editions, comes from some of the most gifted and renowned of modern British writers.

CWA Gold Dagger Winner Frances Fyfield introduces my debut novel, All the Lonely People. Frances reviewed my earliest work in legal magazines (she and I, like Harry, are solicitors) and I have long felt an enormous debt of gratitude to her for her encouragement.

The same is true of Val McDermid, the CWA Diamond Dagger winner who has written a new introduction to the second book in the series, Suspicious Minds. Val reviewed one or two of the early Devlins very favourably, and her generous remarks in this new edition made me glow with pride.

I Remember You, the third book in the series, has an introduction from Margaret Murphy – the current joint winner of the CWA Short Story Dagger. Margaret is not only an old friend, but someone who knows Harry Devlin’s Liverpool  better than most.

Yesterday’s Papers, perhaps my favourite Devlin book, has an introduction from another CWA Diamond Dagger winner, Peter Lovesey. Again, Peter is a superstar of the genre who has supported me generously for many years. He and I share an enthusiasm for classic, twisty plots, and it seemed to me appropriate that this particularly elaborate mystery should include an intro from such a master of the genre.

A third CWA Diamond Dagger winner, Andrew Taylor, kindly wrote the introduction to The Devil in Disguise. This was a book I really enjoyed writing, though I remember being mortified when my original publisher didn’t care for it. As a result, I moved to Hodder, with increased sales as a result. Andrew was a Hodder author too, and we launched this book, and one of his Lydmouth titles, at the same enjoyable event in the late lamented Mysterious Press bookshop in London.

Finally, there is First Cut is the Deepest, with an introduction from Kate Ellis, twice shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger.  This was the last Devlin story I wrote before taking a ten-year break, and it is also the longest and perhaps the most complex entry in the series. Kate, like Margaret, is a Liverpudlian with a deep love for Harry’s home city.

For each book, I have written a detailed new “Making of” feature, along the lines that you find in DVDs. There is also a biographical note, and an appreciation of my work which has most generously been contributed by former CWA Chair, Michael Jecks.

Each book includes a “preview chapter” for the next book in the sequence, a device that I hope will encourage people who dip into the series for the first time to return to it.

As we all know, the world of publishing is changing rapidly. With all change, there are advantages and drawbacks. But I am very optimistic that for writers like myself, who do not have massive publicity teams or budgets at their disposal, that digital publishing will help to make the books available to a new and wider readership. We shall see. One thing is for sure: it’s enormously gratifying to see these early books given a fresh life.

I can’t close this post without expressing my profound gratitude to Frances, Val, Margaret, Peter, Andrew, Kate and Michael, all of whom offered their contributions without the slightest degree of arm-twisting! (The same is true of CWA Gold Dagger winner Ann Cleeves, whose introduction to Eve of Destruction is at present unfortunately unavailable because of the frustrating and unhelpful attitude of the rights owner.) Generous people, as well as terrific writers, and I am proud to call them friends.

Events with Fellow Writers

This has been such a horrible “summer” so far in Britain that I had dark forebodings about a barbecue and crime event organised by the tireless Tony Higginson of Formby Books for last Thursday. Yet- miracle of miracles – the evening was sunny and I have the photos to prove it! They were taken by fellow crime writer Ron Ellis, and the photo above also shows June Francis, a prolific and successful writer of Liverpool sagas who has been a friend of mine for many years.

My fellow speakers were Stephen Booth and Frances Brody. Stephen’s Peak District series about the youngish cops Cooper and Fry has achieved a very loyal following. Frances is, in comparison, a newcomer to the scene, but her historical mysteries featuring Kate Shackleton are also making a real impact and this year she was long-listed for the CWA Dagger in the Library.

On Monday of last week, I did an event with Mike Walters at Moreton Library in Wirral. I used to live in Moreton in the 80s, and was a member of the library. This was around the time I started writing my first novel, All the Lonely People. It was fascinating to go back. And I enjoyed the gig enormously – Mike and I did it as a conversation, and although (or because?) we hadn’t planned it in detail, it seemed to go really well. Mike is an interesting writer whose latest books are written under the name Alex Walters. His earlier work is set in Mongolia, and is also well worth a look.

I rather like joint events with other writers, and over the years I’ve done a great many of them. Different pairings have different dynamics, but I honestly can’t think of any writer with whom I’ve done an event in the past with whom I wouldn’t be happy to do another in the future. I can think of a couple of cases where two fellow panel members haven’t really hit it off with each other, but even that is very unusual. Perhaps it shows that writers are more collegiate souls than their solitary occupation might suggest?

You Couldn't Make It Up

The first full-length novel I ever wrote was a thriller about football and it rejoiced in the title Dead Shot. I wrote it over two years after leaving university; I couldn’t afford to get it all typed, and I never sent it to a publisher. Probably just as well, as I soon realised it wasn’t good enough to be published. But I learned a lot from the experience, not least that, whatever literary talent I might lack, I did at least have the stamina and persistence to put together a novel of around 70,000 words. And that knowledge kept me going until I found a publisher for All the Lonely People  a decade later.

Why a football novel? Well, I grew up in a football-mad household ; my late father was obsessed about the game, and spent the last ten years of his life, at times in great pain when suffering from cancer, writing a book, A Team for All Seasons, about the club he loved – which finally got published, just before he died. I’m prouder of his achievement, as a man who left school at 14 and had no real formal education, than I am of any of my own books. 

Over the years, I’ve written a few short stories which feature football, including one called “Penalty” which was a sort of tribute to my father’s team. But I’ve never written another football novel. I keep thinking someone else will write a really good football thriller one day, but I have to say that the soccer-based novels I have read over the years have been more Unibond League standard than in the Dick Francis league.

But sometimes fact goes far beyond what is credible in fiction. And yesterday has to be one of those days, when Manchester City – a team I started supporting out of sympathy when they were bottom of the league, an experience they have repeated several times since – won the Premier League in the most dramatic and extraordinary circumstances. I’ve never been so enthralled by any sporting occasion  As I think all the pundits have agreed, you really couldn’t make it up.

Murder, magic and music

Most readers of this blog are, I think, fans of independent bookshops, and I had a great time last Thursday evening visiting Formby Books, a newish venture set up by Tony, a very good and experienced bookseller. It really was as varied and enjoyable a bookshop event as I’ve participated in.

Formby is a very pleasing place, located between Liverpool and Southport, but with a distinct identity. The shop shares premises with a florist’s, and there is a cafe (a very good idea!). Tony had arranged wine and nibbles, but none of us expected a turnout of 60 on a chilly evening. A very gratifying response from the local community.

There was a magician, John Harding, who works sometimes for Manchester United (actually, Man City are in need of magic more at present, I'm sorry to say), and a glamorous singer, Vicky Abban, who amazingly turned out to be Tony’s deputy manager (should Marc Amos recruit a singing assistant, I wonder?). John did up-close tricks which engaged the audience greatly, while Vicky chose numbers with a crime/thriller link (but I should have requested my favourite Bond theme, “We Have All the Time in the World” – I’m sure she’d have done that brilliant John Barry-Hal David song really well.)

Then I shared the platform with my old chum Kate Ellis, who was launching her new book, The Cadaver Game. The event coincided very happily with publication of All the Lonely People as an Arcturus Crime Classic, and I’m really excited to see readers buying Harry Devlin’s first adventure 20 years after he first prowled the mean streets of Merseyside. In fact, the book sold out on the night, and various customers placed orders.

The audience included two more old friends, the delightful Liverpool romance writer June Francis, and the versatile sometime crime writer Ron Ellis. It was also good to meet a wide range of other mystery fans – including the moving spirit behind that very good blog In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Puzzle Doctor. All too soon the evening was over, but I hope its success will be the start of many good things for Tony and his team.

Forgotten Book - Some Must Watch

Ethel Lina White is a writer I've mentioned a few times on this blog. She's remembered today mainly as the author of the book on which Hitchcock's great film The Lady Vanishes was based, but in the Golden Age, she specialised in "woman in jeopardy" stories with great success. Little is known about her, though, apart from a few basic details on the internet, and if anyone knows more about her life, and her approach to crime fiction, do get in touch.

Some Must Watch is one of her most famous stories, and again it was turned into a popular film, Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase. The book first came out in 1933, and it has now been republished by Arcturus Crime Classics. In fact, it's due out next week - along with titles by Erle Stanley Gardner, Anthony Berkeely, and others - including me. I'm flattered and thrilled to find All the Lonely People in such company.

I enjoyed the story, even though it's really a tale of suspense, rather than actual detection. The pert and likeable Helen, is recruited as a "lady-help" to a strange family who live on the Welsh borders. Unfortunately, a deranged serial killer is on the loose, and his first four victims have all been single young working women. Will Helen be next?

White does a very good job at building the tension. Inevitably, the story-line is dated, and some of the plot elements and characters (the invalid who may not be an invalid, the sinister nurse, the weird professor, the vampish woman) became over-used in the Golden Age and may thus be seen as cliched. But White writes with a great deal of skill, in my opinion, and she also comes up with a unique and extraordinary murder motive into the bargain. A marvellous period piece.

The return of All the Lonely People

It’s now over 20 years since Harry Devlin made his debut, when my first book, All the Lonely People, was originally published. It was a marvellous experience for me, becoming a published novelist at long last, and not surprisingly I have very fond memories, not only of the book but of that whole period in my life.

The book was published in paperback by Bantam, a division of Transworld. When the Devlin series was acquired a few years later by Hodder, a new paperback edition was produced. Sadly, though, this edition has been out of print for quite a while.

This is a common problem for authors – unless they are best-sellers. One’s early books are no longer available in current editions, so it's hard for readers to track down those books. However, I am very happy to say that All the Lonely People will next year enjoy its third incarnation in a paperback edition.

This is because those enterprising publishers Arcturus have decided to include the book in their Crime Classics series. Given that other authors featured include Anthony Berkeley, whom I admire so much, and the likes of Francis Durbridge and Ethel Lina (The Lady Vanishes) White, I am flattered, as well as delighted. I’m fortunate indeed to have a book which has been paperbacked by three different publishers, and All the Lonely People has certainly been a very lucky book for me.

Hidden - TV review

A downmarket, dogged criminal lawyer called Harry works in a scruffy city backstreet. Harry has been damaged by the death of someone very close to him and has a troubled love life, as well as an eye for a pretty woman. When he gets dragged into a murky case involving the murder of an attractive woman, he visits a gym as part of his enquiries, and runs into more trouble for his pains.

These were all elements of my first novel, All the Lonely People, so I was intrigued to see them reprised in the new four part BBC TV thriller Hidden, by Ronan Bennett. Hey, I knew my story-line was a good one! Joking apart, I won't be sueing for plagiarism, because in fact what Bennett has written is not a whodunit but a conspiracy thriller, with a political dimension (a bit like Take My Breath Away!) And Bennett's Harry is known to some of his mates as 'H', which reminded me of Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday.

All this shows, of course, is that there's nothing new in the world. Bennett has, however, tried to give the material a fresh feel by interweaving several convoluted plot elements, with copious flashbacks. A great deal of suspension of disbelief is required, especially when a mystery woman claiming improbably to be a lawyer offers Harry a large sum of money to find a man. In the Google era, it takes seconds to discover that she is not who she claims to be. As for the political storyline (is the Prime Minister the victim of a plot orchestrated by his smug colleague?), it struck me as not much more authentic than the portrayal of legal life.

And yet there's something about Hidden that encourages me to watch episode 2. That something is the presence of Philip Glenister, a very enjoyable actor, in the role of Harry. He carries the whole thing along with his usual rugged charm. I'm not sure I care much about the various mysteries, but I'll be interested to see how Bennett weaves all the strands together.