Forgotten Books - Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All

One of the late Robert Barnard's favourite humorous crime novels was Joyce Porter's Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All. I read the Bello ebook edition on holiday recently, and it's my choice for today's Forgotten Book. This was her third book featuring DCI Wilfred Dover of Scotland Yard, and was first published in 1967. I really enjoyed it, and felt it lived up to Bob's praise.

I first encountered the character of Dover, improbably, on television. In the Sixties, the BBC had a show called Detective, which I came across as a teenager some years after it began. The series introduced me to some fascinating detectives and writers, and it's a matter for great regret that there are no DVD versions available. In fact, I gather that many of the original shows have been wiped, although one hopes that bootleg copies may exist somewhere, and will eventually resurface. Even if the production values would now seem dated, this was a series of real quality.

The point about Dover is that he is an anti-hero, fat, lazy and rude. The story opens when he and his long-suffering wife are on their way for a seaside holiday.a trip interrupted when someone commits suicide in front of their eyes, throwing himself into the sea. The dead man proves to be a young police officer, Dover is, much to his disgust, dragged into the inquiry into what caused the young chap to kill himself.

Comic crime is very difficult to write. It's much easier to make a mess of it than a success. And because humour is subjective, it's extremely difficult to write a comic mystery that will have widespread appeal. Yet after nearly half a century, this story struck me as entertaining and genuinely funny. A quick, easy read, with plenty of enjoyable scenes. I don't know much about Joyce Porter (though I do know she came from Marple in Cheshire, a nice place where contemporary crime writers Chris Simms and Michael Walters live) but at her best, she was a fun writer, and though I don't know of anyone who knew her personally, I suspect she was a fun person as well.

Hunting the Northern Lights

Although the theme of last week's boat trip up the coast of north Norway was "hunting the lights", the first thing for me to say is that my camera and photographic skills proved not to be up to the challenge of capturing the Northern Lights when, finally, I did see them. Though there were plenty of moments during the trip when the quality of light over the coastline before darkness fell was absolutely mesmerising. The above shot was taken as the sun went down over Vardo. Landing there gave an opportunity to fellow passengers more intrepid than me to bathe in the Arctic Ocean - at least for about thirty seconds...

Well, it takes all sorts, I suppose! During that brief stop in Vardo, (safely encased in many layers of warm clothing!) I visited the most northerly fortress in the world. In the twilight it had an especially eerie charm.

Other ports of call included Hammerfest, one of many small towns in Norway which seems to be benefiting from the exploitation of the country's massive natural resources. I was interested in the lifestyle of people who come to this very cold region from warmer countries - some clearly love it, and there is plenty to love, I can see that, even though personally I'd find the total absence of sunlight between late November and late January very hard to take.

The quality of the light on snowy mountains and sea just below Hammerfest was magical - my photos really don't do it justice. As for the Northern Lights, there were two cloudy and blank nights before the first message came that they were visible. I'd been surprised to learn that many Norwegians, even, have never seen with the naked eye the green lights that are often portrayed in dramatic photographs, and I didn't either, though a charming fellow traveller - a Turkish brain surgeon, yes, it's a cosmopolitan world up there - has captured them in a photograph as stunning as any you see in the books and I[m planning to retweet it..

My own first sighting of the Northern Lights was truly memorable - out on deck in an Arctic gale so powerful it was almost impossible to stand - but there were the legendary lights, a pinkish red glow. Later that evening, there were two further displays - more elaborate and longer-lasting this time, strange shapes in the sky of a ghostly white hue. All in all, it was a remarkable experience. It was only a short break, but I've never had a holiday like this one. I much prefer to be warm rather than cold but I'm really very glad I returned to this fantastic country.

And there's one bonus of life in that part of the world, when it gets dark early. You have plenty of time to read, and I rattled through a number of enjoyable books, by authors as diverse as John Buxton Hilton, Joyce Porter, Winston Graham, and Margaret Millar. I'll be featuring all of them in this blog before long.