Forgotten Book- Printer's Devil

Sometimes an old book is a lovely thing to have, even if its contents are less than scintillating. That isn't a view I've always held. At one time, for me, the story was always the thing. But in the last fifteen years or so, I've enjoyed collecting old crime novels, especially if they have an interesting signature or inscription. And I was fortunate to be able to acquire from the estate of a great collector and crime fan, Bob Adey, a number of terrific books.

One of them is Printer's Devil, by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It's a scarce novel, by two founder members of the Detection Club who were undoubtedly skilful writers, first published in 1930. The copy which I bought from Bob's estate is still in its jacket, and has been signed by Helen Simpson. A very nice thing to have. The next question: is the story any good?

This was a follow-up to Enter Sir John, featuring Sir John Samaurez, which was filmed by Hitchcock as Murder! Samaurez also plays a part in this story, but in a very minor role. The book clearly shows the authors' shared ambition to raise the literary standard of the crime novel, focusing on people as well as plot. And according to the jacket blurb, "right to the last page readers will be undecided whether they have enjoyed a first-rate comedy or a breath-taking thriller, for both are to be found in this story".

I'm sorry to say, however, that I wasn't undecided, because I didn't find it remotely breath-taking or thrilling. The premise of the story is interesting and unusual: a pioneering woman publisher is presented with a manuscript by her star author. He's written something scandalous, full of revelations about people's secrets. The publisher, a decent woman, is deeply concerned about the implications of the book, and soon she is found dead. A coroner's jury brings in a verdict of misadventure? But could it in truth have been a case of murder?

The trouble is that there is not much mystery about it all, and the "crime" element of the book could have been put across in a short story, where it would have worked well. Because it's smothered by dated humour, and a romance that I found extremely tedious (it's "ridiculous, charming", according to the blurb", but the charm was lost on me) I wasn't impressed. The fact the book is well-written isn't adequate compensation for the fact that it's not terribly interesting to a modern reader. What we have here, I think, is an experiment which fails because the authors strike the wrong balance between people and plot. In that respect, you might say that Printer's Devil makes Gaudy Night look like And Then There Were None. But I'm still glad to have Bob's copy.

Forgotten Book - Enter Sir John

Enter Sir John was the first joint novel authored by two friends, the playwright Clemence Dane, and Helen Simpson. A brief foreword credits the publisher C.S. Evans for coming up with the idea of the collaboration and the story, which introduces the egocentric but appealing actor-manager Sir John Samaurez (real name Johnnie Simmonds). He appeared in two later novels by the pair before their literary partnership came to an end.

The story is set in the theatrical world that both authors, and in particular Dane, knew very well. Martella Baring is accused of murdering her unpleasant colleague Magda Druce, and the evidence against her seems to be damning. She is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, having done nothing to help herself when appearing in the witness box.

Sir John, who had previously met Martella and taken a shine to her, attends the trial and becomes convinced of her innocence. She continues to be reluctant to co-operate, in the gallant yet infuriating way of so many Golden Age suspects. But Sir John is undaunted, and eventually uncovers the truth. it has to be said that, as a detective story, this one is nothing special; the puzzle is perfunctory. The writing and characterisation (by the standards of the time) are what lift it out of the ordinary. The question of racism is also addressed,in a way that - again by the standards of 1929 - is quite thought-provoking.

The story was vivid enough to appeal to Hitchcock, who filmed it as Murder!, a movie I reviewed here more than four years ago. There are also elements which, as Liz Gilbey noted in a an excellent article for CADS a while back, anticipate a much better known book by a friend and Detection Club colleague of the authors - Dorothy L. Sayers, whose Strong Poison offers a cunning howdunit puzzle. Enter Sir John isn't as good as the Sayers novel, but it's interesting, nonetheless.

Forgotten Book - Vantage Striker

My Forgotten Book for today dates back to 1931, and was written by an Australian who made her home in England. Helen Simpson, an early member of the Detection Club, was a close friend of Dorothy L. Sayers, although her books were very different. Two of them were made into films by Alfred Hitchcock, an indication of her significance. Yet perhaps because she died young, at the age of 42, she is seldom mentioned in discussions about the Golden Age.

Vantage Striker is an odd title, which may have contributed to its neglect. In the US, it was called The Prime Minister is Dead, which at least gives some idea of the story. It's a strange and very unusual book, with a number of interesting elements, though the story meanders, and it's a very long way indeed from the tightly written stories which Agatha Christie was producing at the same time. I mentioned the book to a crime writing friend, who then not only found a copy but kindly loaned it to me, a generous gesture with a novel so scarce.

The story opens with a boxing match, and a game of tennis plays a part in the story. There's a love affair and quite a bit of politics, and also a plot dependent on medical knowledge. Simpson's husband was a prominent medic, and it's safe to assume that he contributed the necessary technical expertise.I find it difficult to say much more about the story without ruining it. Suffice to say that it's not really about whodunit, but more about how a tricky dilemma can be worked out.

So how do I rate it? That's also hard to answer, because although it's a quick read, I found it dated and included quite a bit of padding. The story itself was thin. But the ideas behind it are genuinely interesting, and Simpson's unorthodox approach results into a novel about crime, rather than a detective novel, that is far removed from the stereotypical Golden Age mystery. A historical curiosity of genuine interest is how I'd sum it up. But it's rare,at least in the original print edition. A good example, perhaps, of a book that will benefit from digital publishing.

Ask a Policeman

I've blogged ,previously about the Detection Club's collaborative novel Ask a Policeman, and now I'm delighted to say that this fascinating book is to enjoy a new life in an edition to be published by Harper Collins on 30 August. This edition is reproduced from a first printing and beneath the appealing new dust jacket (see above) the binding replicates that of the original edition. It follows on from Harper Collins' extremely successful reissue last year of The Floating Admrial.

I'd be glad to see the book reappear in any circumstances, but there are a couple of features that I'm especially happy about. First, this edition contains an essay written by Agatha Christie about her fellow detective novelistss, which is truly insightful, especially as she writes with an unexpected candour (the essay was written for publication in Russia and did not appear in the UK at the time).

And second, the book contains a brand new introduction, commissioned by Harper Collins - and written by me! Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to find that this truly was a labour of love. I'm delighted to be associated with a book that is a classic of its kind and which will, I hope, amuse a new generation of readers as much as it did on its original appearance.

The contributors to the narrative, by the way are some of the great names from the Golden Age: Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gladys Mitchell, Helen Simpson, Milward Kennedy and John Rhode.  

Murder! - review

I have just watched a DVD of an Alfred Hitchcock rarity - a whodunit, rather than a thriller. Murder! was an early talkie from 1930, and it was based on a novel by Detection Club members Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, Enter Sir John. In the film, Sir John Samaurez, an actor-manager, is renamed Sir John Menier, and is played by Herbert Marshall.

Sir John is a member of a jury which convicts an actress of murdering a colleague. However, he repents of his part in the verdict and sets about finding out what really happened. Suffice to say that the mystery is easily solved, but that there is a memorable finale involving a half-caste transvestite trapeze artist, the kind of character you don't find everyday in crime stories.

Marshall's performance is not very compelling, but the film, despite creakiness, does show us some of the Master's touches at a formative stage in his career. He didn't really care for whodunits, reasoning that they didn't work as well in film as thrillers, and probably he was right.

I haven't read the book, so I'm not sure how faithful the film was to the plot. But Dane and Simpson were interesting characters and I hope to write some more about them in the future. Simpson, by the way, was a very glamorous woman who also became a close friend of Dorothy L. Sayers before her death at a young age from cancer.

Helen Simpson

One of the articles in the new issue of CADS, from regular contributor Liz Gilbey, provides a very interesting account of the Australian born Golden Age crime writer Helen Simpson, whose first detective story appeared in 1925, when she was just 28.

I learned a lot about Simpson from this article that I didn’t know before. She was an early, and youthful, member of the Detection Club, and contributed to The Floating Admiral, Ask a Policeman and Anatomy of Murder. But she did a good deal more. In 1926 she contributed dialogue to the Hitchcock film Sabotage, and a book she co-authored, Enter Sir John, was filmed by Hitchcock as Murder! After her death, Hitchcock also made a movie from her book Under Capricorn.

Enter Sir John was the firs of three novels she co-wrote with Clemence Dane (who, I was startled to learn, ‘was Britain’s most successful writer’between the wars. A year after the novel was published, Dorothy L. Sayers published Strong Poison, which had some similarities. Sayers was, in fact, one of her closest friends.

Sadly, Simpson died of cancer in 1940, at the age of 43. As Liz Gilbey says, she was ‘on the brink of greater writing success and a new political career’ – she was a Liberal parliamentary candidate from 1938. Her premature death no doubt helps explain why she is now seldom mentioned by crime fans, but this first class article made me want to read more of her work.

Forgotten Book - The Scoop

The Scoop, my latest entry to Patti Abbott's series of forgotten books, was the second collaborative writing project undertaken by members of the Detection Club. It was originally written for broadcast on BBC radio, first appearing in ‘The Listener’ in 1931. Not until 1983 did the story appear in book form, when Gollancz published it, together with Behind the Screen, a similar effort from 1930. Essentially, The Scoop is a novella, and has the strengths and limitations of these round-robin efforts.

One great strength is the quality of the writing. In Golden Age detection terms, the authors really were the cream of the crop: Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Crofts, E.C. Bentley and Anthony Berkeley among them. Dorothy L. Sayers kicked off the story and also finished it, and everyone else also wrote two chapters each. The only author whose other work I haven’t read is Clemence Dane. Dane was a pseudonym for Winifred Ashton. In her time, she was very well known in the world of theatre, but her reputation in the crime field has not survived too well (her three detective novels were co-written with Helen Simpson.) However, it seems that she was a successful playwright and even won an Oscar. Not many crime writers can make a similar claim.

The story centres around a newspaper, ‘The Morning Star’ (very different from the left wing publication of the same name, which continues to flourish to this day.) The main focus of interest for the newshounds is the Lone Bungalow Mystery – a woman has been found stabbed to death in mysterious circumstances, and a young reporter called Johnson is sent to investigate. He soon discovers the weapon, but is himself murdered, and a more experienced reporter, Denis Oliver, takes over the investigation.

The authors’ distinctive styles contribute to the fun. Sayers writes with her usual gusto. Christie is clear, witty and readable. When Crofts takes over, he switches attention from the amateur detective work to the plodding investigation of Scotland Yard. When Clemence Dane concentrated on the purchase of a puppy by one of the secretaries who works on the newspaper, I began to understand why her career as a crime writer was not exactly legendary – but in the end, the puppy contributes to the sorting-out of the story.

This story was a novelty when it was written. More than three-quarters of a century later, I still found it a highly engaging curiosity.