Forgotten Book - The File on Lester

The name of Andrew Garve isn't as well-known today as it might be, despite the fact that Bello have made much of his work available again. I think that he, like his contemporary (and CWA and Detection Club colleague) Michael Gilbert suffered because of his refusal to be typecast, and his reluctance to write about series characters. He was a prolific and capable writer, who at his best was very, very good.

I've read a number of Garve's books, and I was tempted to try The File on Lester by an article that John Cooper contributed to the latest issue of CADS. John is an excellent judge, and he expressed great admiration for this book. Having read it, I can see why. It's extremely readable (smoothness of writing was something else Garve had in common with Gilbert) and the storyline is highly intriguing.

The eponymous Lester is a fast-rising star in the political firmament. He's just become leader of the Opposition, at a time when the government is unpopular, and facing a general election. Within a short time, Lester could be walking into 10 Downing Street. Then disaster strikes. An attractive young woman lets slip the information that, more than six months earlier, she and Lester had a brief affair. Lester is a widower, and there's nothing terribly scandalous about what happened. But Lester denies that he ever met the young woman, and his apparent deceit creates a furore.

The story is told in a series of documents, including reports from people working on a newspaper sympathetic to Lester. This method of story-telling can work very well, and Garve does a really good job of building the tension. There's an obvious explanation for what has happened to Lester, but it's not the right explanation. I enjoyed finding out the truth, and I now share John Cooper's enthusiasm for this highly entertaining novel.

CADS 76

The arrival of a new issue of CADS is always a cause for celebration. Geoff Bradley's "irregular magazine of comment and criticism about crime and detective fiction" has now reached issue 76. That very irregularity is one of the pleasures of CADS - one never quite knows when the next issue will arrive, a touch of quirkiness that I find very attractive.

It comes as quite a shock to me to realise that I've known Geoff for 27 years. We first met at a memorable Bouchercon in London in 1990. I'd read that there was to be a quiz about crime fiction, so I expressed an interest. What I hadn't realised was that it was to be closely modelled on BBC TV's Mastermind, and when I said that my special interest was "detectives", that meant the questions in the special round ranged far and wide. Geoff kept score, and Maxim Jakubowski set the questions. I'd never met Maxim until then either - now he is one of the CWA's two Vice Chairs and I am the Chair. Who would have predicted that? Not me.

One oft the other three contestants (the others were Sarah J. Mason, a writer with whom I'm still in touch, and Jim Huang from the States) was Tony Medawar. Tony is someone else I'd never met before that day. Since then, I think I've learned more from his researches than from the research of any other Golden Age fan, with the possible exceptions of John Curran and Barry Pike. In CADS 76, Tony is at it again, with a terrific article about "the lost cases of Lord Peter Wimsey". For any Sayers fan, that is a must-read.

As usual, there is plenty of other good stuff. Pete Johnson writes about Andrew Garve, and Barry Pike about Reggie Fortune, while Kate Jackson, who has emerged in recent times as a prolific and interesting blogger, contributes a thoughtful article about mystery fiction and individualism. Liz Gilbey and John Cooper are among a range of other knowledgeable contributors, and I was especially pleased to read John's discussion of the books of Kay Mitchell. Kay's an old friend of mine who has not published a book, sadly, for a very long time, but her work is definitely worth seeking out. I have to confess that three books of mine are reviewed in this issue, but I can promise you that isn't why I recommend this magazine. Over the years, CADS has made a contribution to research about the genre that is both unique and invaluable.

Forgotten Book - Murder Intended

Murder Intended, one of five police novels written by Francis Beeding, first appeared in 1932. It sank from sight fairly rapidly, and I know that John Cooper, who wrote an excellent article about Beeding's police quintet for CADS four years ago, doesn't rate it as highly as the other four. But I found it very readable, and also innovative. Beeding strays far from the conventional, and this may disconcert some readers, but I found the story refreshingly different, and it has stuck in my mind.

It all begins in very orthodox fashion, though. The Delft clan come together for an annual gathering prescribed by the will of the late Jasper Delft. Members of the family are dependent on the goodwill of Jasper's widow, Agatha, and woe betide them if they don't turn up. Almost inevitably, the conversation turns to what would happen if Aunt Agatha were no longer around. What about murdering her?

Seasoned readers of Golden Age detective fiction will settle down in anticipation of a mystery where Aunt Agatha comes to a sticky end, and the finger of suspicion points at one after another of her impoverished relatives. But they will quickly be surprised. When a murder does take place, it is of a very unexpected kind.

I won't say too much about the plot, although a key development is revealed at an early stage (this was the aspect of the book that John didn't care for.). I see the book as an experiment with a form of inverted mystery - although we know whodunit, the fascination lies in seeing whether the culprit will be apprehended before further mischief is done. Beeding builds the suspense nicely in the second half of the book, and in some ways the Beeding novels strike me as forerunners of the work of Michael Gilbert, another smooth writer who never liked to repeat himself. I'm only sorry that, due to their fondness for writing thrillers, they didn't produce more detective stories.

Bodies from the Library

Not so long ago, to suggest that a group of volunteers could set up from scratch a conference about Golden Age fiction that would attract a large and near sell-out audience at one of the country's most prestigious venues would have seemed fanciful. Yet that is exactly what happened with the Bodies from the Library conference at the British Library on Saturday. And the first thing to say about the event is that Mike, John, Mark, Liz, Susan and company who worked so hard to make the dream a reality deserve the utmost praise. The event was a huge success.

I was glad to be heavily involved with the day's events. First, Jake Kerridge and I talked about what and when was the Golden Age, and later in the morning Simon Brett and I discussed the Detection Club, including its collaborative books. In the final session, all the participants talked about books they thought ripe for a reprint - I sneaked in several titles, though my ultimate choice was Raymond Postgate's Verdict of Twelve. Simon, witty as ever, suggested that I'd contrived the whole event as a grandiose launch for The Golden Age of Murder, and really it was wonderful to sign so many copies . But there was much else to celebrate.

Barry Pike, doyen of Golden Age experts, spoke about Sayers and Allingham, and it was also a great pleasure for me to meet for the first time John Cooper, another great expert, who co-authored with Barry two superb and lavishly illustrated books, Collecting Detective Fiction and Artists in Crime. Both strongly recommended. Other speakers included John Curran on Christie, Dolores Gordon-Smith on Crofts, Tony Medawar on locked room mysteries, and Len Tyler on modern day GA fiction. Along with America's Doug Greene and Marv Lachman, Barry, John and Tony have done so much for so many years to keep the flag flying for GA fiction, and the audience loved listening to them.

That wasn't all. Richard Reynolds discussed Oxbridge crime, and we also listened to a John Dickson Carr radio play. David Brawn of Harper Collins and Rob Davies of the BL discussed editing issues with GA fiction; I very much enjoy working with both David and Rob and they were the ideal choices for that particular panel.

The social side of these events is always important, and I was delighted to meet a number of people for the first time with whom I've corresponded in the past. In fact, the only snag was that there simply wasn't enough time to have much of a chat with the many interesting people who were there. One thing I can say for sure, though, is that the buzz in the Library was fantastic, and that everyone hopes the event can be held again next year.

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.

The Man Who Could Not Sleep

Michael Gilbert’s versatility continues to astonish me, the more I think about what he achieved as a crime writer whilst also working as a partner in a major law firm. I’m a long-time fan of his writing, and so I was delighted to lay my hand on another posthumous collection edited and introduced by John Cooper and published by Robert Hale.

The Man Who Could Not Sleep and other mysteries is remarkable because it contains not short stories but two lengthy radio plays, plus two synopses for radio plays that Gilbert never managed to bring to fruition. Cooper lists the work that Gilbert did for radio and TV, and it’s a CV that would be impressive even if he’d never written all those fine novels and short stories.

The ‘man who could not sleep’ is, as anyone who has read Gilbert’s splendid Smallbone Deceased will know, the lawyer Henry Bohun. I’ve always felt that Bohun was one of Gilbert’s best characters, and it’s a pity he is not better known, and did not appear more often.

I was intrigued that one of the synopses was for a play about football. It’s not easy to write fiction about sport, though I’ve written a couple of short stories with football themes. My first ever full length novel was about football, too. It was never published, just as Gilbert’s play was never broadcast. In my case, it was just as well!

Appleby Talks About Crime

Those excellent publishers Crippen & Landru have produced another in their series of ‘Lost Classics’, this time edited by the very knowledgeable John Cooper, who has previously edited collections written by two British greats, Michael Gilbert and Julian Symons. Appleby Talks About Crime brings together 18 previously uncollected stories by Michael Innes.

The book has just landed on my doorstep, so I haven’t had time to read it all yet, but I did like Cooper’s introduction, which is very informative. There is an overview of Innes’ life and crime writing career by Cooper, as well as a short account by Innes of how Appleby came into being (‘during a sea voyage from Liverpool to Adelaide’).

Here’s a sample of Innes’ reflections on his most famous books: ‘The social scene may be embalmed, in that baronets abound in their libraries and butlers peer out of every pantry. But Appleby himself ages, and in some respects perhaps even matures. He ages along with his creator, and like his creator ends up as a retired man who still a little meddles with the concerns of his green unknowing youth.’

The book includes a reminiscence about her father, the author, by Dr Margaret Macintosh Harrison (he seems to have been a man of great charm, as well as intelligence) and a complete list of all the known Innes short stories. I haven’t read much by Innes, and my preference is for his short stories rather than the novels – an early sampling of the novels in my teens was a bit off-putting, though that was probably due to my lack of sophistication – but he was a major figure in the genre, and Crippen & Landru are to be commended for having made these rare stories available to a modern generation of readers.

Forgotten Book - Detective Fiction: the Collector's Guide

The second edition of Detective Fiction: the Collector’s Guide, by John Cooper and B.A. Pike, appeared in 1994. Sadly, no third edition has ever seen the light of day, so I think this splendid volume qualifies for inclusion in Patti Abbot’s series of Forgotten Books.

Splendid on two levels, I think. First, there is a concise account of the work of each of the authors featured, and these short essays are invariably packed with insight. Second, the book reproduces the cover artwork from many Golden Age classics – sometimes in full colour – and some of the covers are quite entrancing. Collecting crime fiction has a great deal of appeal for me - which is why I've devoted a page on my website to it - and reading what Cooper and Pike have to say has, over the years, deepened my enthusiam for the pastime.

There is a great deal of bibliographic information, and the emphasis of the book is unashamedly on the classic whodunit- books that can be described as hard-boiled, thrillers or psychological suspense novels are largely ignored. So it is, inevitably, highly selective – but were it otherwise, a huge tome would need to be assembled, and the production costs would be prohibitive (I suspect that’s why there has never been a third edition.) A few current high-flyers are, however, included: for instance, Ann Cleeves, and it’s interesting to remember, given Ann’s relatively recent rise to international prominence, that by 1993 she had published no fewer than ten novels. More unexpected, perhaps, is the inclusion of Patricia D. Cornwell.

One of the great benefits of reading the book, I’ve found, is that it has introduced me to a range of writers I hadn’t come across before. James Fraser is a case in point, and Cooper and Pike are so enthusiastic that I’ve bought a few of his books although unfortunately I haven’t had time to read any of them yet. This is a book that gives me a great deal of pleasure whenever I dip into it, and I can recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of the whodunit.