Forgotten Book - Poison in the Garden Suburb

The detective novels of the husband and wife team GDH and Margaret Cole are rather a mixed bag. I have to say that I've been disappointed with quite a number of those I've read. It's always possible, however, that one may drop unlucky with a particular book, or even a number of them, so I thought I'd give the Coles another try. Their early (1929) detective novel Poison in the Garden Suburb received praise from Barzun and Taylor, so it seemed like a good option.

The story gets off to a lively, and occasionally witty, start. People gather at the Literary Institute of Medstead Garden Suburb to listen to a talk by a noted lecturer, but proceedings are interrupted by the collapse and sudden death of a nondescript bourgeois banker called Cayley, whose only claim to fame is that his young wife is extraordinarily beautiful (and not very bright: the authors clearly don't approve of her). The dead man has been poisoned with strychnine and the prime suspect is a young doctor called Shorthouse, whose behaviour is idiotic to put it mildly.

As a result of this drama, we're not told much about the talk itself, but its subject was eugenics. The Coles were leading lights in the Fabian Society (its fictional equivalent features in the novel as the Bureau for Left-Wing Information), which had a considerable enthusiasm for eugenics at one time. I wondered if Rachel Redford, one of the main characters and employed by the Bureau, was to some extent a fictional portrait of Margaret Cole herself. There are some nice bits of social comment in the early part of the book before we get rather bogged down in the murder investigation.

One of the official detectives, a gloomy superintendent, is pleasingly presented, but the key investigator is the Coles' series sleuth Henry Wilson, who at this stage of his career was operating as a private detective prior to returning to duty at Scotland Yard. I felt the story sagged in the middle, and the climactic excitement felt rather underwhelming, especially since I thought the identity of the murderer was fairly obvious from early on in the story (even though the culprit's true character was barely hinted at: I don't think this is a stellar example of fair play, at least in psychological terms). Overall, this is a novel with some very good ingredients made into a passably entertaining story. Nick Fuller reviewed the book a while ago and makes a number of good point as well as including fascinating contemporary reviews.   

Forgotten Book - Disgrace to the College

I was tempted to make a new year resolution to read all the Golden Age books that I've acquired over the years, and shamefully failed to get round to reading, before I tried to add any more to my collection. But I knew it's a resolution I'd fail to keep. I did toy with the idea of listing some of them and seeking recommendations from readers of this blog as to which to prioritise, and perhaps I'll do that one of these days. In the meantime, my Forgotten Book for today is one I've laid my hands on only recently, and which has jumped the queue, partly because of its brevity.

Disgrace to the College, written by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, and first published in 1937 is unusual on at least three counts. First, it's a novella, rather than a full-length novel. Second, it's a locked room mystery; the Coles wrote one or two short stories featuring locked room puzzles, but as far as I know, this is their longest locked room story. Third, their most regular detective, Superintendent Wilson, is absent, and the detecting is done by one of their second string characters.

The book is divided into two parts. "Michaelmas Term" is set at St Mark's College, Oxford, and we are presented with a fictitious version of the Senior Common Rooms that Douglas Cole, himself an Oxford academic, knew very well. A good deal of scorn is heaped on college politics, which are presented credibly, if in a rather long-winded way. Someone who ought to know told me that, if college politics are frequently vituperative, Oxbridge college politics tend to be ten times worse, and that seems to have been Cole's view.

Two issues are vexing the College authorities. First, a South African Rhodes scholar called Sam Barrett is making waves with his misbehaviour and laziness. Second, an elderly and irascible Estates Bursar is presiding over a mysterious decline in the College's wealth. These two narrative strands occupy the first part of the book. In the second part, "Trinity Term", things have moved on, and Sam's life has undergone a remarkable change. On to the scene comes the Honourable Everard Blatchington, who features in a number of books by the Coles. His arrival conveniently coincides with a death by shooting in a locked room....

The puzzle is quite nicely done. I think it was a wise decision not to pad the story out into a full-length novel; perhaps a decision the Coles might have benefited from taking more often (but then, getting novellas published was far from easy before digital publishing changed the landscape.) The Oxford setting is captured competently, if not with dazzling flair. There is interest in the passing glances at covert homosexuality (at a time when homosexual acts were criminal offences) in college life, and the use of local pubs as brothels catering for male students who were frustrated by college rules designed to prevent hanky-panky with the opposite sex. All in all, one of the better Coles stories that I've come across (though I have numerous gaps in my reading of them.); This one was drawn to my attention some time ago by a Golden Age expert, but proved far from easy to track down. In true Oxford manner, it merits at least a middle Second, if not quite a First..  

Forgotten Book - Death of a Millionaire

Death of a Millionaire, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, was published almost ninety years ago, and is my Forgotten Book for today. Its appearance followed Douglas Cole's solo detective novel, which introduced Superintendent Henry Wilson, and it marked the beginning of a literary partnership that lasted for more than fifteen years between Douglas and his wife Margaret. They carved a niche for themselves in crime fiction history, and although their work has often been condemned for dullness, it is noteworthy that this particular book became a green Penguin paperback a quarter of a century after its first appearance, no mean feat. This may, in part, have been due to the authors' fame as socialist thinkers, but the book also received some laudatory reviews.

It begins promisingly, with satiric description of posh Sugden's Hotel and high ranking politician Lord Ealing. He has some form of business connection with a mysterious millionaire called Hugh Radlett, who has checked into the hotel, but Radlett, and his equally mysterious secretary go missing, and all the evidence suggests that the secretary has killed his employer, and taken the body away in a trunk. But why?

The book also ends rather well, with a neat plot twist, and further helpings of anti-establishment satire. On the final page, one character says, "Law and order and rights of property...are all bunkum", and Wilson is so disgusted by what happens after he solves the puzzle that he leaves Scotland Yard and sets up as a private detective. (This didn't last long; he soon returned to the fold.) Judged by the standards of the mid-1920s, all this was rather daring and unusual, and it's best to judge books by reference to the time when they were written, and what the author(s) was trying to do..

It's significant that this book was written a year before the General Strike. The Coles describe a dysfunctional society seemingly beyond repair. During the novel, a manuscript written by Radlett tells the story of how his father was a trade union activist who suffered through his beliefs, and post-Revolution Russia is presented with more sympathy than you might expect in a detective novel of this period.

So there are pleasing elements to be found in this novel, especially for those interested in social history. Unfortunately, I found I had to struggle through some very tedious story-telling in order to unearth the good bits. I'm afraid that I was bored for some of the time, because to achieve that cunning plot twist, the Coles needed to construct a very elaborate sequence of events, which they proceeded to recount in a very long-winded fashion  The style is sometimes arch, sometimes clumsy. As so often in their books, the cleverness of the basic idea simply was not matched by the way it was put to work. But one has to remember that neither of the authors was an experienced detective novelist when they wrote this  They later proved they were capable of doing better, although like many of their contemporaries, if they had written half as many books, and lavished twice as much care over them, the results would have been more artistically satisfying..

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Forgotten Book - Knife in the Dark

Knife in the Dark, published in 1941 and set in the preceding autumn, is one of the more interesting books by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole that I've read. It's certainly a Forgotten Book, but doesn't deserve obscurity half as much as some of the Coles' more tedious efforts. There are several reasons why I found it noteworthy, although complexity of the detective puzzle is not one of them - this is a case solved almost by accident.

First, the setting is appealing. The Coles knew Oxford and Cambridge well, and decided to create a university along Oxbridge lines at Stamford in Lincolnshire. Some of the discussion of academic life in the early part of the book is enjoyable, and I suspect there may be one or two in-jokes that I missed. Second, this is the only novel that features Mrs Warrender, an elderly lady whose son is a private detective.She features in some of the Coles' shorter work, and she is an engaging character, albeit less memorable than Miss Marple.

A third appealing feature of the book is the background, which plays an important part in the book. The war was raging when the story was written, and the atmosphere of rural England at the time when blackouts were compulsory is nicely evoked. Fourthly, the victim, a married woman called Kitty Lake, is a memorable character,although so badly behaved that motives for murdering her abound. She is so much more vivid than most of the Coles' characters that I rather wondered if the portrayal was based on someone the couple knew in real life. Finally, the motive for the murder is connected, very suitably, to the background.

Overall, therefore, I rank this as one of the most enjoyable Coles that I've read, despite various faults. The key weakness is the plot, which is pretty flimsy. There are various suspects, but the Coles didn't seem too interested in most of them, and the final revelation is by no means a surprise. But if you are interested in a picture of life in England just a year after the outbreak of war, this is certainly worth a read.

Forgotten Book - Last Will and Testament

Today's Forgotten Book dates from 1936, but it has not been entirely neglected since its original publication. Last Will and Testament, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole was exhumed from the vaults by Collins Crime Club in 1985, and that edition is my copy. It benefits from an excellent intro by Harry Keating, displaying his characteristic blend of kindliness and insight. Any crime critic looking to model himself or herself on a distinguished figure from the past would do well to look at how Harry did it. He was rarely harsh, but he never pretended that mundane books were brilliant either. A touch of graciousness is a very Good Thing in a critic or commentator, and Harry was naturally gracious. And his style was invariable agreeable and informative.

This book is evidently the follow-up to an earlier Coles effort, which I have not read, Dr Tancred Begins.(After reading this book, I recalled that Malcolm J. Turnbull, another excellent critic and an expert on Anthony Berkeley, wrote an interesting article about both stories in CADS a few issues ago.) They go to some pains to make clear that it is not necessary to have read the earlier book to enjoy this one, but it forms a companion piece. We are given to understand that the action of the first book took place 25 years earlier, and the gifted private detective was unable to pin guilt of murder on the presumed culprit. But now murder occurs again in the same family, and the original culprit is back in the frame.

I thought this was an exceptionally interesting premise for a book, and indeed for a pair of books. Dr Ben Tancred is, as Harry rightly says, a more engaging detective than Superintendent Wilson, whom the Coles usually favoured, and who does have a bit part to play in the two Tancred stories. Tancred also has his own "Watson", though I must say I struggled to understand why the Coles bothered to have a story narrated by someone who is not present during almost all of the action.

This story boasts various classic elements, including a country house and a seemingly unbreakable alibi. The alibi proved, however, to be all too easily shattered, and this was just one of the elements of the criminal's design that perplexed me. Another oddity was that two highly intelligent authors created a character who has been mauled by a tiger in...Africa. The story does have some charm, but on the whole, its weaknesses overwhelm it, and that clever premise is largely wasted.. I'm afraid that Harry showed greater skill at writing a positive introduction to the reissue than the Coles did at creating a fascinating mystery. They could do better than this. Despite Malcolm J. Turnbull's able advocacy, I doubt that I will bother with Dr Tancred Begins. 

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.

Fogotten Book - Verdict of Twelve

I've mentioned before Raymond Postgate's Verdict of Twelve, but I wanted to read it again before featuring it as a Friday Forgotten Book, and this I've now done. In all, I've read it three times - first in an edition with an excellent intro by Michael Gilbert, who selected some splendid crime classics for a series published by Hodder. He is far from alone in admiring Verdict of Twelve. Postgate was the brother in law of G.D.H. Cole, but his novel was very different from Cole's work - it owed much more in its ironic style to Anthony Berkeley.

The book has three parts plus an epilogue. In the first part,we are introduced to members of a jury about to hear a murder case. One or two of the jurors have dark secrets of their own, and Postgate provides a series of vivid portraits that I found gripping. One character, a dry academic, reminded me a bit of Douglas Cole, actually, though Postgate wisely made sure that there were differences as well as similarities in the man's CV and personality.

The second part of the story tells us about the murder. But who is to be the victim, and who the killer? It's a rather grim story about cruelty to a child, and it has a literary inspiration that is not explained until the later stages of the book. Then comes the third part, which takes us inside the jury room,and shows how the debate about guilt and innocence shifts - often according to prejudice, rather than reason. If you are sceptical about juries - and I always have been - this book does nothing to make you share the view of such great lawyers as Lord Denning and Lord Devlin that the jury is an essential bulwark of freedom and justice.

There is a nice twist in the epilogue, but I guess the big question about this novel is - what does it tell us about justice? Nothing comfortable, that's for sure. Postgate's Marxist take on things won't be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed this book as much on a third reading as I did previously. I really must try again Postgate's two later crime novels - when I first read them, I felt they were a let-down, but maybe they are worth another look. In any case, Verdict of Twelve remains a must-read for any fan of classic crime.

Forgotten Book: Burglars in Bucks

The co-authors of today's Forgotten Book are those great political campaigners of the Golden Age, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole. I've been reading up about their life together and what strikes me above all is their unquenchable spirit. Time and again their crusades fell apart, yet each time they dusted themselves down, picked themselves up and started all over again. Rather like their number one sleuth, Superintendent Wilson, who resigned from the police force and became a private inquiry agent, only to resume his official career a few cases later.

I've not read any of the stories in which Wilson was not a policeman. In today's story, Burglars in Bucks, he is back in the police, but is rather on the edge of things, as here the Coles were experimenting. This is one of those stories told by gathering together bits and pieces of evidence - letters, press cuttings, telegrams, police reports and so on. It's a terrific concept, and I'd be glad to hear from readers of any similar Golden Age books they can recommend (other than, say, the Dennis Wheatley crime dossiers, which are not novels but, really, games.) The multiple viewpoint crime story has a hallowed tradition - think of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, or Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace's under-rated and noteworthy The Documents in the Case, published, like the Coles' book, in 1930.

One of the snags with this book is that there is no murder, just a burglary. And the reality  is that if you are going to write a full-length novel about a much lesser crime than murder, you have to write a truly gripping story. This is a book that is highly rated by a number of judges whose opinions I greatly respect, and I was looking forward very much to reading it. But I must say that it disappointed me. Which only goes to show how subjective an experience reading is.

Intriguingly, there is a seance scene, although it is less effective than the table-turning scene in a superior book published the following year, Christie's The Sittaford Mystery. I am sure there was no question of plagiarism. Probably the ideas common to the books of Christie, Sayers and the Coles were just "in the air" at the time - it often happens, and always will. Possibly conversations over dinner at the Detection Club played a part. Certainly, Christie and Sayers executed the ideas better than the Coles did.

And I was driven almost to scream by the laborious way information about the characters was dragged in, notably in the letters between one suspect and his wife. So we get lots of lines like "You surely can't have forgotten about the Pallants so soon...Don't you remember when the old grandfather died, in 1920, wasn't it?...what you've clearly forgotten is that the villain of the piece was the same Sir Hiram Watkins you're asking about..you'd better have the whole story for reference..." And so it goes on. Such clumsy writing defeats the whole purpose of the very interesting experiment that the book might have been. The Coles were very busy people and they often rushed their writing. Margaret Cole admitted this frankly in later life. They were, though, capable of better than this, and thankfully they bounced back yet again with stories like End of an Ancient Mariner..

Weirdly, for a story set, as the title suggests, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, the US edition was called The Berkshire Mystery.How can we explain this? Did the American publishers fall asleep before they read much of it? It wouldn't come as complete surprise...

Forgotten Book - Dead Man's Watch

My Forgotten Book today is one that was the subject of a very interesting review not long ago on that marvellous blog Pretty Sinister Books. It is Dead Man’s Watch, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, and it was first published in 1931.

This novel was one of their first joint efforts, and it’s written with a breeziness and zest that was less evident in some of their later works. The Coles are writers who interest me, although their mysteries tend to be flawed, perhaps because they didn’t take them seriously enough in comparison to their political activism and Douglas’s non-fiction.

What is especially intriguing about this book is its construction, which is quite unusual. The story opens with a young man discovering a body in a pool on the land of Sir Charles Wylie. The young man identifies the body as that of an uncle of his, but the forensic evidence indicates that the dead man had his beard shaved off after death, and a puzzle about identities ensues. The next section of the book sees Sir Charles acting as an amateur sleuth before Superintendent Wilson becomes involved formally in the final section.

The trouble with this narrative structure is that key events, and key characters, are not seen directly by the reader. One has to make do with third party reports, especially in the form of letters sent by a young woman to Sir Charles. This lack of immediacy militates against suspense, and although the clues are set out quite fairly, the overall result is that one doesn’t care enough about the mystery. This is a pity, because the book does have some pleasing features, and there are several examples of a quiet wit that isn’t always associated with the Coles. I’m glad I read the book, though, and it’s worth a look for those interested in the way Golden Age writers tried to vary the standard whodunit formula.

Forgotten Book - The Murder at Crome House

The Murder at Crome House is my choice for today's Forgotten Book. It was first published in 1927, and was an early effort from the husband and wife team of GDH and Margaret Cole. My copy is a Penguin paperback edition, with rather entertaining biographical notes of the co-writers. Apparently, Douglas Cole "had the fidgets" if he was not writing one or more books at any one time. His wife was the daughter of a classical professor who insisted, when she was six years old, that she must ask for her Sunday dinner in Latin, and severed his connections with her when she married a socialist.

The central character in the story is James Flint, a lecturer and tutor in history and economics, who is clearly based on Douglas Cole himself. He borrows a library book about psychoanalysis and auto-suggestion, but unimpressed, he soon discards it in favour of Anthony Trollope. However, a photograph slips out of library book. It appears to depict one man in the act of shooting another.

By the time the (astonishingly careless) owner of the photograph turned up and asks for it back, Flint is under the impression that it has been disposed of. That proves not to be the case, and Flint soon finds himself persuaded by a young solicitor friend to help establish the truth about the murder six months earlier of a wealthy and disagreeable chap, the owner of Crome House.

Fans of the Coles rate this as one of their best efforts. In some respects, it reminded me of the work of Freeman Wills Crofts, as the unravelling of an alibi plays an important part in the story, and a plan of crome house, and a sketch map, are supplied. I thought the culprit was pretty easy to spot, but this is quite competent example of relatively early Golden Age detective fiction and it is livelier than some of the Coles' later books, when Margaret evidently became a bit bored with the mystery game. Worth seeking out if you are keen on the history of the genre between the wars.

CADS and Curt Evans

That wonderful "irregular magazine of comments and criticism about crime and detective fiction", CADS, has just landed on my doorstep again. This is the 60th issue, a testament to the hard work of editor and publisher Geoff Bradley. As usual, it is an excellent and fascinating read. The emphasis is always on books of the past, but if you are interested in any aspect of the genre, I think you'll find something of interest in each issue.

There are many good things in this issue, including three typically enjoyable contributions by Liz Gilbey, but perhaps the highlight is a lengthy article about the "deposed crime kings" of the Golden Age, written by Curt Evans. Curt, incidentally, often contributes very well-informed comments on my posts, for which I am extremely grateful. He goes by the name of "Vegetable Duck", which is also the unlikely title of a novel by John Rhode, who is one of the authors featured in his article.

I've done quite a bit of research on the same authors, but Curt has come up with some points I wasn't aware of. For instance, he says that TS Eliot was a great fan of Freeman Wills Crofts and R. Austin Freeman, and he has discovered that Margaret Cole apparently wrote 10 of the mysteries which appeared under the names of her husband Douglas and herself on her own, while Douglas wrote 18 by himself. He also refers to one book by John Rhode which "manages to credibly employ a purple hedgehog as an instrument of death". Wow! Now that is one neglected classic that I really must track down one of these days!

He also makes the point that Crofts' work was influenced by his "religious value system", and Douglas Cole liked to bring to his work "a satirical touch, often influenced by a leftist world view". These writers, and the others whom he discusses, had some failings as prose stylists, but Curt is doing a great job at highlighting some of their under-estimated virtues.

Forgotten Book - End of an Ancient Mariner

G.D.H. and M. Cole were prolific if less than dazzling writers of the Golden Age and my choice for today’s Forgotten Book is one of their ‘inverted’ novels, End of an Ancient Mariner, which first came out in 1933.

Philip Blakeaway has married well, and lives a comfortable life, but it comes under threat at the start of the book. The elderly seafarer of the title comes across him, and recognises him from the past. We do not know what Philip’s secret is, but soon the old man is dead – shot, according to Philip, while attempt to burgle his house overlooking Hampstead Heath.

At first, it seems, Philip’s story will be accepted. The police seem satisfied. But Philip is at risk, because his butler smells a rat, and the dead man’s daughter – who is unaware of his fate – starts trying to track down her father. Thanks to one or two rather unlikely coincidences, Philip comes under increasing pressure, and then Superintendent Wilson, the Coles’ regular cop, finally comes on the scene...

There are one or two nice touches of satire – ‘the BBC cherishes an ineradicable hope that if it persistently addresses the public in good English with a cultured accent, by and by it will be as if the entire population of Great Britain had been educated at Winchester, and what nobler ideal can democracy set itself than that?’ Politics gets a passing mention when Philip denies being a Socialist (‘I’m far too fond of my own comfort’) despite being on good terms with his chauffeur. But these little touches are few and far between – a pity, for the Coles could have written a more memorable story if they had let their hair down a bit more.

As it is, the book is certainly readable, and it held my interest throughout, while there is a pleasing touch of ambiguity about the ending. This is the best of the few Coles novels that I have read so far.

Forgotten Book - Big Business Murder

There is a good deal of period interest in Big Business Murder, by G.D.H. and M. Cole, my latest entry in Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books. It was first published in 1935, when the husband and wife co-authors enjoyed a considerable reputation for their detective stories as well as in their capacity as leading socialist thinkers. Three years earlier, George Cole had published a book called The Intelligent Man’s Guide Through World Chaos (sadly, I’ve never seen a copy – perhaps the intelligent men all kept hold of theirs) and he was also a prominent economist, as well as a mentor of the future Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

The novel begins with a gripping scene, at a board meeting of Arrow Investments. Kingsley Manson, the managing director, reveals to his colleagues that the business is founded on a swindle, which seems likely to unravel unless they all support his attempts to solve the problem. An honest director called Gathorne objects, but the others go along with Manson. After the financial dramas of 2008, some of the Coles’ points struck a surprisingly modern note, I felt. There is a timelessness about greedy, vain or naive people who think that business is all boom, and never bust. The scene was set for a great book.

Gathorne, predictably, is murdered, but after this the story rather falls apart. One of the directors, believing that Manson’s wife is the killer, tries to clear her by confessing to the crime. The Noble but Misguided Confession was a staple of Golden Age detective fiction and Agatha Christie was among those who used the device to complicate her plots. It can, however, be irksome if over-done, and the Coles over-do it badly, so that half the book is devoted to the ramifications of the false and foolish confession before Superintendent Wilson makes a belated appearance.

There are various references to the Nazis, or economic problems in Germany, and there are nice but all too brief touches of satire. The unlovable Inspector Ebenezer Jones is made to say, ‘I don’t hold with Socialism’ – the sort of in-joke that writers often enjoy introducing into their stories. The snag is that, rather than use the business scam as a context for a probing study of the pressures that may drive people to crime, the Coles came up with a half-hearted plot and Wilson solves the mystery in a very anti-climactic fashion. This is a book that is interesting, but for reasons other than those which the authors intended.

Where do crime writers come from?

My researches into the history of the Detection Club have been helped by a friend who supplied me with a list of club members dating back to 1932, not long after the august institution was founded. The committee members, led by G.K.Chesterton as President, were E.C.Bentley, Anthony Berkeley, G.D.H. and M. Cole, Edgar Jepson, Milward Kennedy, John Rhode and Dorothy L. Sayers.

But what really caught my eye was the addresses of the members. A very high proportion of them lived in London and nearby counties. Only J.J. Connington (Belfast), Robert Eustace (Cornwall), Baroness Orczy (Monte Carlo – at the Villa Bijou!), John Rhode (Somerset) and Hugh Walpole (Keswick) came from further afield.

Was this representative of where British crime writers lived during the Golden Age? To a large extent, I think it was. Of course, the Club membership was self-selecting and this may have resulted in fewer writers from other parts of the Kingdom being elected, but by and large, I think that one of the changes in the crime genre over the past 80 years is not only that more stories are written with a regional backdrop, but more of the people who are writing them come from different places in Britain. I guess that there may have been a broadly similar trend in the US over a similar time-frame.

The crime writing community seems, therefore, to be much less enclosed than it used to be. And websites, social networking and – yes! – blogs are surely bound to strengthen this development. Of course, I think it’s healthy, and I can recall that even in my teens, my parents felt that writing novels was not really something that ordinary people like us did, which was why they encouraged me to get a proper job. So the changes are for the better, but I remain fascinated by the cliquey yet intriguing world of the 1930s detective-writing community.

The People's History Museum

I had the pleasure of being invited to the opening last night of the revamped People’s History Museum in Manchester. I’m a big fan of museums generally, and I much enjoyed inventing the Museum of Myth and Legend for The Arsenic Labyrinth, and researching in places like the fascinating Bagshaw Museum in West Yorkshire. Lottery money has helped to ensure that Manchester’s redeveloped museum looks very impressive, while the displays are imaginatively presented.

The opening was very well attended, and there was a real buzz about the place. My host, a trustee of the Museum, and a pal for the best part of thirty years, is a doyen of the Labour party, and I gather the party’s archives are to be kept in the Museum. He is one of many people who have worked hard on the project, and I'm sure they were all pleased with last night's event.I can’t imagine ever wanting to join a political party, and I don’t have much time for our present government, but I do think that the history of the labour movement is fascinating. Above all there are many rather moving stories of the struggles of those who believed in a cause, and who did not allow their idealism to be tainted by the egotism and selfishness that is the hallmark of the expenses scandal era. One does wonder what stalwarts of the past would make of the way in which politics has developed in recent years.

Political thrillers often seem unsatisfactory to me, especially if they are written from a prejudiced viewpoint, whether of right or left, but there are some interesting mysteries with a political slant. One that I acquired a while back, and look forward to reading,is The Division Bell Mystery (1932) by Ellen Wilkinson, a left wing MP known as ‘Red Ellen’; her circle included G.D.H. Cole, whose book Double Blackmail I mentioned recently..

Wilkinson’s life story is remarkable, though it had a sad and premature end. A renowned class warrior, who herself came from Manchester, she became Minister for Education in 1945. Two years later, she took an overdose, for reasons that remain mysterious; some say it was because she was disappointed by political failure, on other accounts she was distraught because of an unsatisfactory secret affair with an ambitious fellow minister. Her whodunit may not be a masterpiece – it is perhaps significant that she never wrote another – but it will be interesting, quite apart from the story-line, to see how a fascinating woman portrayed the political dynamics of her time.

Forgotten Book - Double Blackmail

The blurb of the American edition of the Golden Age mystery Double Blackmail, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, is rather enticing: ‘”Double Blackmail” only in part describes the double-ness of this detective mystery. There are, of course, two cases of blackmail. But there are likewise two murders; two bigamies; two detectives; the two Coles for authors; and twins….’

Two bigamies – blimey, you don’t find that in many murder mysteries nowadays! The Coles were a husband and wife team who were prolific producers in the Golden Age. They were prominent socialists, and G.D.H. (like Robert Barnard, many years later) was a Balliol man who rose to prominence in the Fabian Society. Margaret was the sister of Raymond Postgate, who wrote that brilliant crime novel Verdict of Twelve (and who also devised The Good Food Guide), and aunt to Oliver Postgate, creator of Bagpuss.

The Coles wrote books of the kind disparagingly described as ‘humdrums’, and their regular sleuth Superintendent Wilson was notoriously characterless, but I’m led to believe from comments on the excellent Golden Age Detection discussion group that this novel, which features Wilson, is one of their better efforts.

I have not yet read the book, having only just bought it, as a treat for myself after a few fun-free weeks. The appeal of this particular volume was not just the mystery (though I do find that idea of a story about double bigamy weirdly intriguing) but the fact that this book was presented to the Detection Club, and signed by, Margaret Cole herself. So it’s a small piece of crime fiction heritage, and I’m very happy to have it on my bookshelf.

Big Business Murder

Thanks to an excellent second hand book dealer, Mark Sutcliffe of Ilkley, I’ve just acquired a copy of an obscure Golden Age detective novel, Big Business Murder, by the husband and wife team of G.D.H. and Margaret Cole.

It will be interesting to see what the book is like, and whether it reflects, in an entertaining and instructive way, the Coles’ political leanings. Few Golden Age books show much meaningful engagement with the political issues of the period, and the Coles’ many books were – as a rule – no exception to this. But unlike many of their contemporaries, the couple were prominent socialists, and G.D.H, a leading figure in the Fabian Society, was a prolific writer of political books.

His early work included Some Essentials of Socialist Propaganda (1932) and What is Socialism? (1933). He compiled A History of Socialist Thought (1953-60) and managed to spin it out to five volumes, no less. I detect a note of weariness creeping in over the years, though. In 1919, he wrote Workers’ Control in Industry, but 35 years later, he penned What is Wrong with Trade Unions?

I’m not sure what, if they were alive today, the Coles would have made of the current travails of our politicians. Perhaps, again, they would have been driven to crime.