Forgotten Book - Be Kind to the Killer

I've often extolled the virtues of Henry Wade on this blog, and my Forgotten Book for today is one of his later, less well-known efforts. Be Kind to the Killer was published in 1952, and it's another example of Wade's admirable determination never to write the same book twice. It's a police story, but his regular cop Inspector Poole doesn't appear (although Sir Leward Marradine plays a minor part), and the focus is on post-war London gangland.

Wade was, in other words, trying to move with the times and adapting his material and storytelling style accordingly. The book opens with the conviction for murder of a cop killer, who is spared the gallows because of a recent change in the law. At first, I wondered if the story would dwell too much on arguments in favour of capital punishment, but this proved not to be the case. Wade's attitudes come out quite clearly in his fiction, but he wasn't a didactic writer.

The dead cop's friend and colleague, Campion (was this choice of name a hat-tip to Margery Allingham's famous detective? I can't believe it's a pure coincidence), determines to find out if there's any truth in the suggestion that someone else was involved in the crime. The official police investigation has turned up nothing, so he embarks on a rather risky freelance operation, enlisting the support of the dead man's widow.

After a slow start, the book perked up, and I found myself increasingly interested, despite my general reservations about crime novels written by genteel English authors about gangsters. As usual, Wade's account of police procedure has an authentic feel, and the characterisation is good enough to keep us interested in Campion's fate. This doesn't rank with his masterpieces, but I enjoyed reading it.

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.

CADS 70

The arrival of a new issue of CAD is always a cause for celebration, and I have just devoured issue 70 of Geoff Bradley's splendid and long-running magazine for crime fiction lovers. Once again, the contents range far and wide. If you are a fan of the genre and you don't know CADS, do check it out. I'm confident that you will be impressed.

Several long-standing contributors are again featured. They include Barry Pike, continuing his series about the Mr Fortune series of H.C.Bailey. The fact that I've developed an increasing admiration for Bailey is largely due to Barry's advocacy; I still find Bailey's style irksome, but I've been persuaded that at his best, he was a very powerful and unusual writer.  There are no fewer than three short pieces by the indefatigible Philip Scowcroft, one of them dealing with Val Gielgud, whose detective fiction is discussed surprisingly seldom. Tony Medawar contributes another "On This Day" snippet, and Mike Ripley writes about Peter Cheney, while there is a poignant final contribution from the late Bob Adey.

Geoff talks about Bob in his editorial notes, and there is also a wonderful piece by Scott Herbertson about someone else who, in a very different way, is also a huge loss to the crime fiction community, P.D. James. I very much enjoyed John Cooper's essay about Henry Wade's Inspector Poole, while Curt Evans writes about Ianthe Jerrold, two of whose detective novels are happily available again after a long gap.

I haven't written as much for CADS in recent years as I've wished, because of the demands of The Golden Age of Murder (which to my amazement has just been reviewed in, of all places, The Wall Street Journal) and other projects, but this time I've contributed an essay which talks about the influence that CADS has had on my book. As anyone who has read the book, and in particular the end notes, will see, that influence has been quite considerable and has spanned many years. Had it not been for what I have learned from CADS, I would still have written the book, but it wouldn't have had as much information in it. I'm one of many writers and crime fans who has cause to thank Geoff for his decades of hard work as editor.

Forgotten Book - The Hanging Captain

My Forgotten Book for today is another from the very reliable Golden Age writer Henry Wade. The Hanging Captain is a good story, although by no means his best, and it reintroduces Inspector Lott, who featured in The Dying Alderman, rather than Lott's Scotland Yard rival, Inspector John Poole, who was Wade's best known detective.

There are two fascinating aspects to the book. First, Wade's take on the decline of the ruling classes in Britain. This comes over very clearly and quite evocatively. Wade was an aristocrat himself, but although his writing often had a touch of nostalgia, plus a strong respect for tradition, he had no time for people who squandered the advantages life gave them, at a time when things wee tough for millions.

Ferris Court, the home of Sir Herbert Sterron, is a fading country house with an overgrown garden. Sterron is short of money and is starting to resort to selling (metaphorically) the family silver. He is impotent (this information is conveyed to us delicately but unmistakably) and his much younger wife is attracting other men. So when he is found hanging from a curtain cord it comes as no great surprise. Needless to say, though, before long murder is suspected.

The other striking element of the book is the friendly but competitive relationship between Lott and the local police. Lott has been called in because the locals fear embarrassment, since the High Sheriff of the county is a suspect. Wade knew what he was talking about, as he was once High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. His account of police work and the humanity of police officers is a recurrent strength of his books. This one focuses on a time of death mystery, and the puzzle element is competent but no more than that. Overall, though, this is a novel with qualities which make it still worth reading today.