Bodies from the Library 3 - edited by Tony Medawar

I've mentioned Tony Medawar before on this blog as the leading researcher of obscure crime fiction. He's a great fan of Golden Age mysteries who has uncovered some fascinating material over the years. An example was the Agatha Christie competition story "Manx Gold", which fascinates me. Tony is currently developing a niche as an editor of story collections, including the Bodies from the Library series, which has now reached its third installment. In addition, he's become the supremo of the Agatha Christie International Festival in Torquay, an event I was eagerly anticipating until the pandemic intervened.

I have a vivid memory of my first encounter with Tony. It was at the London Bouchercon, way back in 1990, before I'd published a single piece of crime fiction. We happened to be contestants in a Mastermind quiz. The quizmaster was Maxim Jakubowski, himself a supremely prolific and versatile anthologist. The score was kept by Geoff Bradley, the editor of CADS. On that pleasant afternoon I never imagined that, thirty years on, Geoff, Tony, Maxim, and I would still be in regular contact, having all sorts of criminal conversations. These are three people from whom, in different ways, I've learned a lot.

The other contestants in the quiz, by the way, were Jim Huang, an American crime fan, and the writer Sarah J. Mason, who also took part with me in a re-run of the quiz at the 1995 Nottingham Bouchercon, along with two very knowledgeable Americans, Marvin Lachman and Edward D. Hoch. There is discussion about the quizzes in Marvin's admirable book The Heirs of Anthony Boucher.

Turning to Bodies from the Library 3, like its predecessors it is a mixed bag, with the main connecting link that most of the stories are unknown or little-known efforts by Golden Age writers. (Six stories are also linked by a theme: an orange that saves someone's life, of all things. Of these little tales, Ethel Lina White makes the best attempt to come up with a strong story.) I'd already come across a handful of the entries in the book, including an extremely good Agatha Christie, "The Incident of the Dog's Ball". There are extensive notes about the contributors, and I was especially pleased to learn more about the enigmatic Lynn Brock.

One of the best stories, I felt, came from that talented but rather inconsistent writer Christopher Bush. "The Hampstead Murder" is pleasingly different, and I really liked it. Bush wrote far too much, but this story shows just what he could do on a good day. There's also a story by Christopher St John Sprigg, which makes use of his interest in aeronautics, although this particular mystery is not in the same league as his novel with a similar background, Death of an Airman.

There are a couple of stories by American writers, and two plays, including one by Ngaio Marsh that was previously unknown to me. Although most of the stories have been published before, this was often in obscure magazines (as with the Bush story) and some have never previously seen the light of day.

It is interesting to speculate why this might be. For example, John Curran, who was the first to reprint the Christie story, theorised that she opted to use key elements of the plot for the novel Dumb Witness, and that seems highly plausible. Whatever the reason, it's a story that Poirot fans are sure to enjoy. The best discovery in the book is "The House of the Poplars" by Dorothy L. Sayers, and I'd be fascinated to know why it's never been printed before. While it's no masterpiece, it's certainly good enough to have been published. Did Sayers have reservations about it, possibly because the ending is slightly anti-climactic? Perhaps, but I'm really not sure. At least now, thanks to Tony, we have a chance to read for ourselves a lost story by one of the giants of the Golden Age. 

CADS 71

It's always a delight to receive the latest copy of CADS, which celebrated its 30th birthday not long ago. This is issue 71 of Geoff Bradley's "irregular magazine of comment and criticism about crime and detective fiction" and it's a very strong issue, with lots of good things. In all honesty, I should add that from my perspective one of them is a long and lovely review of The Golden Age of Murder by Doug Greene, one of the genre's great experts. I'm glad to say the book also attracts quite a bit of comment in the letters column. But part of the significance of the review is that Doug also contributed to the very first issue of CADS all those years ago, and this underlines the point that Geoff's work attracts a great deal of loyalty, such is its quality.

The issue begins brilliantly with an article by Tony Medawar about a collaborative project that, sadly, never saw the light of day. A diverse group of leading writers got together in 1975 to write a round-robin mystery, rather in the manner of The Floating Admiral, although not all the contributors were members of the Detection Club. Those who were included Harry Keating, Christianna Brand, Len Deighton and (improbably, you may think) Patricia Highsmith. The story was meant to be recorded on LP and cassette, but the full and final version failed to materialise. What a shame.

I've asked Len about this, and 40 years on, he has no memory of the project whatsoever. The memories of other contributors also seem to be lost. This is not unusual - I found when researching The Golden Age of Murder that people's memories are very fallible, and my experience as a lawyer interviewing witnesses taught me as much, many years ago. This makes me feel a bit better when my own memory proves fallible, as it often does. In reality, 'facts' are very often a matter of opinion or questionable recollection, and that's true even in the case of 'facts' recorded in apparently authoritative documents.

If there were a league table of the most notable researchers into the Golden Age, who battle constantly with such difficulties, I'd probably put Tony at the top of the list. His second article in the issue covers a hitherto unknown story by Anthony Berkeley. Quite a find. Barry Pike and John Cooper are leading experts on GA fiction of very long standing, and both contribute very interesting articles. John's tackles Fiona Sinclair, of whom I'd never even heard. She sounds well worth checking out.

There are many other good things too. Examples include Scott Herbertson's report on the Bodies in the Library conference, Mike Ripley's piece on Eric Ambler, and Kate Jackson's article about the Chinese detective Lily Wu, who was also new to me. Compared to the likes of Barry, John and  Tony, Kate is one of the new voices among young GA enthusiasts, and the quality of her writing and research suggests to me that she will become a leading figure among critics of the genre in years to come. Well, that's for the future, but in the meantime, if you like traditional crime fiction, CADS 71 is a must-buy.

Forgotten Book - The Undetective

Bruce Graeme (1900-82) was a Golden Age writer who enjoyed a long and prolific career, yet until recently I'd never read any of his books as far as I can recall. Then Geoff Bradley, editor of CADS, recommended that I take a look at The Undetective (1962), telling me that it was an unusual story that he really enjoyed. Having just read the book, I share Geoff's view, and I suspect it's a good example of an original story that stands above and apart from most of the work of an author who was a talented storyteller, perhaps wrote too much to reach the heights on a regular basis.

Iain Carter is a happily married crime writer who is struggling to make a decent living. His lovely wife Susan (so lovely, in fact, that I became slightly irritated by the repeated references to her perfection) has a likeable brother who happens to be a slightly indiscreet policeman. Iain stumbles on the idea of writing a new series of books which make innovative use of information gleaned from his brother-in-law. But to protect his identity, he goes to very elaborate lengths indeed to create a pseudonym that cannot be traced to him.

His first book under the new pen-name, The Undetective, proves to be a huge success, and Iain finds himself having to take increasingly convoluted measures to protect his secret. The plot complications thicken when a murder occurs, and the mysterious and pseudonymous crime writer becomes a prime suspect.

An especially pleasing bonus of the story is that Graeme adds copious references to the Crime Writers' Association - one scene even takes place at a CWA meeting. Various CWA members of the time,s such as Michael Gilbert, T.C. H. Jacobs and Margot Bennett, earn a mention. He even includes a dig at Julian Symons, who reviews unkindly one of the books Iain continues to publish under his own name. The plot is, admittedly, implausible, but there is a very neat solution, and it all makes for a very good read. This is a Forgotten Book that undoubtedly deserves to be better known.

CADS and the CADS dinner

Anyone who enjoys classic crime fiction - and probably anybody who enjoys crime fiction generally - is likely to find CADS, a fanzine edited by Geoff Bradley, a mine of information and entertainment. I missed its first issue, more than 20 years ago,but I contributed an article to issue 6 and have been a devotee of this irregular magazine for crime fans ever since. It really is a terrific read. It doesn't have a website,but I'll be happy to give Geoff's contact details to anyone who gets in touch with me.

The latest issue of CADS, number 67, is as usual full of good things. An example is Curt Evans' article about the novels of Emma Lou Fetta. If you've never heard of Emma Lou, well, neither had I. That's the beauty of CADS - you discover things that you would really never find elsewhere. The list of the contributors is a roll-call of the leading experts, not just in Britain but elsewhere, of crime fiction's most knowledgable people. To take a few names at random from this issue - Bob Adey, the world's greatest expert on the locked room mystery, Arthur Vidro, editor of Give Me That Old-Time Detection, John Cooper and Barry Pike, authors of Collecting Detective Fiction, John Curran, the leading expert on Dame Agatha, Liz Gilbey and Philip L. Scowcroft, plus many more. Fascinating.

A tradition has grown up of crime fans meeting once a year for dinner in London - it's organised by Tony Medawar, and is known as the CADS dinner. I managed to attend this year,and took these photos. As usual the evening was great fun. The only snag was that there wasn't time to have a long conversation with everyone present, but the company was certainly excellent. And among those attending were Geoff, Barry Pike - and Doug Greene, well-known as the man behind that wonderful publisher Crippen and Landru, and biographer of John Dickson Carr.

Doug's contribution to crime fiction scholarship is to be honoured later this year by way of a festschrift compiled by Curt Evans. The list of contributors is very impressive, and the range of crime fiction subjects eclectic. I'm really looking forward to reading what they have to say. In the meantime, there is enough in CADS 67 to keep me happily occupied for quite a while.

CADS 63

CADS 63, edited by the tireless Geoff Bradley, has just been published, and once again it’s packed with interesting and often esoteric information about crime fiction past and present, but predominantly past. I can’t remember a single issue – and I’ve read them all – when I haven’t been introduced to a book or author that I’ve enjoyed, yet otherwise might not have bothered with. The joy of CADS is that you have so many encounters with the unexpected.

These include – for instance – two assessments by John Cooper of a selection of books by writers who are today under-rated, Francis Beeding and Clifford Witting; this highlighted a number of books I’m keen to seek out. Tony Medawar contributes a nice little article about Jacques Futrelle, who died on the Titanic, and there are good pieces by a range of the usual suspects, including Bob Adey, Barry Pike and Liz Gilbey.

Curt Evans’ latest piece of mystery scholarship, an attempt to puzzle out which of the ‘joint’ books by G.D.H. Cole and his wife Margaret were written as solo efforts by one or other them inevitably depends on a mixture of logical deduction and guesswork,  but the arguments are well presented, and may be as close as we come to finding out the truth about this slightly odd collaboration. I'm looking forward eagerly to reading Curt's new book about three relatively neglected Golden Age mysteries - more about this in due course.

On a personal note, I was grateful for Chris Simpson’s review of Waterloo Sunset, and also to Geoff and to Bob Cornwell, for including me in their long running feature, the CADS Questionnaire. By their kind permission, the Questionnaire will also appear on the ‘interviews’ page of my website. But really, if you’re keen on the genre and its history, there is no substitute for buying the magazine. An absolute bargain, unreservedly recommended.    

CADS 62

I hesitate to say this, because the general standard is always so high, but the latest issue of CADS, edited by Geoff Bradley, is possibly as good as the best of any of its 61 predecessors. It’s absolutely full of great things (I admit these include Angela Youngman’s very kind review of The Hanging Wood) and if you like traditional fiction, you really will enjoy this magazine.

One of the glories of CADS is the sheer unpredictability of the content. There are things here you simply won’t find anywhere else. Contributors aren’t afraid to buck trends. For instance, B.J. Rahn ( a distinguished academic and expert on crime fiction) writes a thoughtful but severely critical piece about the highly popular Camilla Lackberg. Meanwhile Philip Scowcroft not only praises The Five Red Herrings (I don’t share Philip’s enthusiasm, suffice to say) in one article but also contributes another with the memorable title “Visits to Doncaster by Crime Authors” (in which I get a kind mention, and I must say how much I did enjoy my visit to Doncaster!)

Liz Gilbey, a wise and witty writer, contributes “the best of the blurbs” (e.g “A really thrilling thriller which deals cunningly with murder, death and hocus-pocus”, of a Ngaio Marsh title) and a fascinating article about Ian Mackintosh, of whom I’d never heard. Curtis Evans, that splendid researcher, has a nice article about T.S. Eliot as a crime critic, pointing out that Eliot was a pioneer in terms of setting out "rules of the game", while Mike Ripley covers C.S. Forester. My very first contribution to CADS, many years ago, was about Forester, but that was before the rediscovery of that marvellous book The Pursued. I was interested to see that Ripley’s views and mine on Forester’s excellence are pretty much identical.

There are countless other gems, including a short article by Arthur Robinson on Anthony Berkeley’s stage plays, and one by John Cooper on Michael Gilbert’s radio plays. Bruce Shaw casts fresh light on E.C. Bentley, while Bob Adey has unearthed rare articles by Henry Wade and others. Cooper’s article about Clifford Witting, a writer I’ve never read, made me want to read his books. Other expert contributors include Marv Lachman and Barry Pike. The TBR pile will mount! All in all, Geoff Bradley really has excelled himself. I can't wait for the next issue.

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.

25 Great Years

CADS 58 has just been published and this marks 25 years of publication of a wonderful magazine. This milestone represents a triumph for editor Geoff Bradley, who has produced every single issue over a quarter of a century and established CADS as a truly unmissable publication for crime fans, especially for those fascinated by obscure and less well remembered books.

As usual, there are many, many good things in this issue (and also, I should declare, an article by me about Gory Knight, and a review of The Serpent Pool). I shall write on another occasion about Liz Gilbey’s informative article about Helen Simpson. An old article by George Bellairs about Sherlock Holmes and the Bankers has been unearthed, Nick Kimber writes about Hilda Lawrence (a writer whose Death of a Doll I much enjoyed) and other notable contributions come from Philp Scowcroft, Mike Ripley, Christine R. Simpson, Bob Adey and Marv Lachman.

Really, though, it verges on the invidious to single out particular items, because the contributors are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The letters column of CADS is always interesting, and so is The Questionnaire, in which Bob Cornwell puts questions to a leading writer – this time, Frances Fyfield.

Producing CADS is a labour of love. A great deal of hard work must be involved, but I can only hope that Geoff will keep the magazine going for many years to come. CADS is indispensable for the crime buff and I recommend it unreservedly to readers of this blog.

CADS 57

There are many, many good things in the latest issue of CADS – issue number 57, in fact, of this ‘irregular magazine of comment and criticism about crime and detective stories’ edited by Geoff Bradley, whom I first met at a Bouchercon held in London almost two decades ago.

Liz Gilbey writes about Adam Diment, a trendy and very successful writer of the Swinging Sixties, who literally disappeared from sight. What on earth happened to him? Marvin Lachman contributes a long list of obituaries concerning crime writers or those otherwise connected with the genre. There are articles on a range of tiopicesby seasoned commentators such as Philip Scowcroft, Mike Ripley and Bob Adey. B.A. Pike, who knows a great deal about Golden Age mysteries, contributes a piece about an Irish writer unknown to me, Sheila Pim, who published four novels between 1945 and 1952 – he makes them sound well worth searching for.

Pim apparently included ‘erudite footnotes’ in her work, and ‘Footnotes in Crime and Detective Stories’ is the title of a fascinating article by David Ellis. He covers footnotes in the work of Poe, and the pseudonymous early crime novelist Charles Felix, in Golden Age stories, and in modern books by the likes of Somoza and Mark Haddon.

I find articles on quirky subjects, such as Ellis’s, thoroughly enjoyable as well as informative. Geoff Bradley, the editor of CADS, does a great job in bringing these pieces together in a form where they can be widely appreciated. For anyone interested in the genre, especially in mysteries of the past, I can recommend this magazine without any reservations whatsoever.

Editing the Editor

Geoff Bradley has written an article in the latest issue of CADS which I find interesting on a number of levels. He calls it ‘Editing the Editor, or “I Can’t Have Written That Can I?”’ and it deals with an essay he contributed to Barry Forshaw’s monumental British Crime Writing: an Encyclopaedia.

Geoff’s subject was Freeman Wills Crofts, a prolific and highly successful writer of the Golden Age whose Many a Slip I covered in a recent entry for Friday’s Forgotten Books. Geoff explains how, when he received his copy of the book, he checked his entry and found that various unsatisfactory changes had been made to what he had written. It seems that the changes weren’t made by Barry, but rather by a sub-editor at the publishers. Geoff was dismayed at the mauling his piece had received. Over the years, he has written a good deal of non-fiction for CADS and is a sound judge of writing quality, as well as being a first-rate editor (as is Barry) so I’m sure he was right to be concerned.

A number of things struck me about this article – quite apart from the natural sympathy that any author feels for a colleague who is dissatisfied by the way he or she is treated. I thought about the issues it raised in a more general sense and realised that, although I had contributed quite a number of essays to the same book, I had never checked whether my work had suffered a similar editorial fate. And I started to wonder whether this was down to laziness, lack of time - or simply a kind of authorial fatalism…

On a happier note, Geoff, like me, was impressed by the scope and readability of the encyclopaedia as a whole. It's one of the best reference works on the genre, in my opinion (and leaving aside my own contributions) to have appeared in recent years.

CADS 56

I mentioned the latest issue of that terrific magazine CADS the other day and I’ve been dipping into it, as usual, with great pleasure. The range of articles is as wide as ever. Examples include an excellent piece by Dick Stewart on Little Dorrit, a book which I have to own up to never having read. There’s a history of the spy story, an examination of the crime novels of Macdonald Hastings by the indefatigable Philip Scowcroft, and an account of the first Dennis Wheatley Convention. I’m not really a fan of Wheatley, but his Murder Dossiers were a fascinating idea, and there is an article about them on my website.

A number of current crime novelists read and contribute to CADS. Among them is Harry Keating, who has written an entertaining piece about the return of Inspector Ghote, his most popular character, in A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? Marvin Lachman continues his features about mystery series characters who have made the transition from printed page to television, and includes a long list of recent genre-related obituaries. There’s an intriguing article by John Herrington called ‘The Case of the Novel that Never Was’, about a banned detective story of the 30s, and a range of short reviews by the phenomenally knowledgeable Bob Adey.

Bob Cornwell contributes an assessment of reviews of crime novels published in 2008, and does an extremely interesting Q&A with Len Deighton, but the emphasis of the magazine is on books and short stories of the past. There’s a continuation of Nick Kimber’s article about S.S. Van Dine and Philo Vance, while an academic with a great interest in crime fiction, B.J. Rahn, writes about ‘The Mystery of Ernest Bramah’.

Bramah, by the way, created the blind detective Max Carrados – but his first book was English Farming and Why I Turned It Up. Later, he published A Guide to the Varieties and Rarity of English Royal Copper Coins. Who says crime writers can’t be versatile?

Dancing again

Dancing for the Hangman is due to be published in the United States towards the end of this year. I’ve just received this preview of the front cover, which seems good to me The publishers are Five Star, who have also published two of my Harry Devlin novels in the States (the Lake District Mysteries are published by Poisoned Pen Press.)

Dancing took quite a while to bring out, but I’m really pleased with the reaction to it in the UK. I’ve just received the latest issue of CADS – a magazine I’ll talk more about before long, because this issue is crammed with fascinating things, as usual – and although the main focus is on books of the past, there’s a nice review of Dancing for the Hangman. All the more pleasing because the reviewer, magazine Geoff Bradley, is someone whose opinion I value, because he never heaps praise on books he has doubts about.

Here’s part of what Geoff said:

‘I’m not really one for true crime and I know very little of the Crippen case, but I did find this novel fascinating. The author manages to get inside Crippen in such a way as to make his personality, inadequacies and motivations clear…I must confess I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book, but enjoy it I did. – very much so. Using the real story with the fictionalised insights into Crippen’s own mind make for a winning combination and a book which I highly commend.’

In the Chair

As a postscript to Crimefest, a few people have asked me how it felt to compete in the Mastermind quiz, in that leather chair made famous by the TV programme, with lights dimmed, except for one very bright one, shone right into the contestant’s face. The short answer is that it is a bit like doing an exam, with the added frisson of making a fool of yourself in front of various friends and readers. The consolation was that Simon Brett, Meg Gardiner and David Stuart Davies were in the same boat, and very good-natured fellow sufferers they were.

The setting was certainly intimidating, as with the TV show. The Crimefest organisers did a good job of replicating the menacing atmosphere, and Maxim Jakubowski is a seasoned - and both authoritative and fair-minded - interrogator. In fact, the very first time I met him was as long ago as 1990, when he organised a similar event for the London Bouchercon, in which I participated (and thereby met some fascinating people, including Geoff Bradley, editor of that great fanzine CADS.) Maxim repeated the quiz at the 1995 Bouchercon in Nottingham, with panellists including the late Edward D. Hoch and US crime expert Marv Lachman, and me.

So I did have some past experience of what it feels like to expose my ignorance, as well as my fund of criminal trivia, to a crowd of curious onlookers. As one friend said to me: ‘How could you possibly have forgotten the first name of Marcus Didius Falco’s beloved? It’s the same as your wife’s….’

The Essential Mystery Lists

My American publishers, Poisoned Pen Press, have produced a chunky volume which anyone interested in the history of crime fiction, and the great achievements of the genre, is likely to find indispensable. It is The Essential Mystery Lists, compiled and edited by Roger M. Sobin.

For the first time in one place, Mr Sobin has put together a list of nominees and awrd winners of ‘virtually every mystery award ever presented’, together with numerous ‘best of’ lists by more than 50 prominent contributors to the genre.

There are two inevitable features of a reference work such as this. First, it is out of date as soon as it hits the shelves. Second, there are bound to be errors and omissions. I’ve spotted one or two of the latter, but I must add that my strong impression is that Roger Sobin has done a very good job here. He has been most industrious, and has also been wise enough to enlist the help of some of the most knowledgeable people in the crime fiction world – Marv Lachman, Francis M. Nevins and our own Geoff Bradley, tireless editor of CADS.

The result is a book that I am sure to keep consulting. I only hope that it will be updated in due course. Such a labour of love certainly deserves to be kept going.