Forgotten Book - Motive for Murder

Motive for Murder is a title close to my heart. It was an alternative title for my true crime book Urge to Kill,and the almost-identical Motives for Murder was the title of the Detection Club anthology which I edited, and which yielded four stories on the CWA Dagger longlist, three on the shortlist (including my "Murder and its Motives"!) and the ultimate winner. But today I'm talking about something completely different - the novel published in 1963 by Charles Barling.

Actually, Charles Barling was the name of the author's husband. Her principal writing name was Pamela Barrington and she lived from 1904-1986. Her first novel, White Pierrot, was published in the early Thirties, but it was a romance rather than crime, and her career only really developed after the Second World War. She was never a big name, although Account Rendered (1953) was filmed, with a very young Honor Blackman in a leading role.

Motive for Murder concerns the doomed marriage of Paul Hooper, a young estate agent, to Edith Maitland, an attractive and enigmatic older woman, who moves to Rye and decides to buy the house Paul grew up in, and with which he is obsessed. She seduces him, and they marry - though his eye is on the house rather than Edith. Before long, Edith starts an affair with another man, and behaves so unpleasantly to all and sundry that it's foreseeable she will wind up dead.

And so she does. The question is - who killed her, and why? The publishers described this as "an offbeat crime story with an ingenious twist", and I found it very readable indeed. In fact, I found the build-up very entertaining. But the later part of the story struck me as disappointing. A certain carelessness with the writing perhaps explains my disappointment, as does the fact that I didn't find the twist ingenious. This is nearly a very good mystery, and I'm glad I read it, but the excellence that I'd anticipated wasn't sustained. A shame, because there's something distinctive about this writer's storytelling.

The Delavine Affair - film review

The Delavine Affair is a snappy B movie from 1954 (some sources say 1955) which was based on a story called Winter Wears a Shroud, written by Robert Chapman. I've not been able to find out anything much about Chapman or the original story, but the film is a competent mystery which, like so many crime films of that era, featured some very good actors as well as the occasional rather wooden lead.

The lead in this case is Peter Reynolds, who hailed from Wilmslow, and sadly died young. Here he plays a newspaper agency man called Banner who is contacted by a hellfire preacher called Gospel Joe. But when he goes to see Joe, he finds him dead. The police turn up, having been tipped off that Joe has been mrudered, and our hero becomes the prime suspect.

He has the good fortune to be married to Honor Blackman, but she thinks he spends too much time at work, and has taken up with an admirer played by Gordon Jackson.  Banner discovers that there appears to be a connection between Joe's death and a robbery - the as yet unsolved Delavine jewel theft - which took place some time back.

Banner's investigations bring him into contact with a mixed bag of characters, played by Michael Balfour and Katie (The Ladykillers) Johnson. There are a number of pleasing plot twists, and overall this is a decent crime film, unpretentious but perfectly competent. I'd be interested to know more about Winter Wears a Shroud, if any readers of this blog are familiar with it.

Serena - 1962 film review

There is a relatively recent film called Serena, but the Serena I'm discussing today dates back to 1962, and stars Honor Blackman, shortly before she rose to fame in The Avengers and Goldfinger. It would be easy to say that she is the most memorable feature of the movie, but that wouldn't be quite fair to the story, which is a nifty mystery, and the work of Edward and Valerie Abraham, presumably a husband and wife duo who were apparently responsible for several crime scripts in the 60s. Reginald Hearne, an actor who plays a minor part in the film, also contributed to the screenplay.

At the start of the film we see Howard Rogers, an artist, played by Emrys Jones, embracing his glamorous model. She leaves his studio just as the police arrive. Two rather dour cops, played by Patrick Holt and Bruse Beeby, start asking pointed questions about what Rogers has been up to. He has been out shooting with his model friend Serena, he explains. Things get tricky for him when the police tell him that his wife appears to have been shot. Will his alibi hold up?

The plot complications come thick and fast thereafter, especially when Blackman comes into the story. This is an ingenious puzzle, very much in the spirit of the Golden Age, despite a few early Sixties trimmings. There are, I think, obvious flaws in the murderous scheme if one thinks about the case coolly, but the pace of Peter Maxwell's direction means that one doesn't have too much time to spot them.

Blackman apart, the acting is not spellbinding, but I enjoyed seeing John Horsley, who had the wonderful role of Doc Morrisey in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, playing a solicitor. Johnny Gregory's jazzy theme tune is also very appealing. Blackman apart, though, the real strength of Serena lies in its twisty plot. And right at the end, a very neat clue is revealed.