Forgotten Book - To Be Hanged

Bruce Hamilton was one of the most under-rated crime writers of the 1930s. I've mentioned my interest in his work several times on this blog, and today I'd like to focus on his first novel. (Incidentally, in a fit of enthusiasm allied to technical incompetence, I published a draft version of this post last week, along with a couple of other premature posts; my apologies for inundating you). While Bruce is less renowned than his brother Patrick, for the perfectly good reason that his literary gifts were of a lower order, I think that comparison with Patrick is the key reason why the quality of his work has been under-valued. I certainly accept that it has flaws, but I admire the way he kept trying to do something different, and avoided the constraints of formula.

To Be Hanged was published by Faber in 1930, and it's very different from the conventional Golden Age whodunit. A journalist overhears a conversation which leads him to suspect that a man's conviction for murder is a miscarriage of justice. He then sets himself the task (seemingly untroubled by any other calls on his time) of securing the wretched fellow's release. Which in turn means that he has to establish the guilt of someone else.

This is, therefore,  a detective story, but of an unconventional sort; at times it seems more like a straightforward thriller. The detective is aided by a barrister who again doesn't seem to have anything else to occupy his time, and together they follow an elaborate trail. Could it be that the scapegoat has been deceived by the woman he loved? The answer to that soon becomes obvious, but Hamilton has one or two pleasing plot twists up his sleeve.

Overall, I'd say that this is an accomplished piece of crime writing, especially given its date, and the fact that it was a first novel. Arthur Conan Doyle is quoted on the jacket as saying how clever the story is, and although one has to bear in mind that he was Bruce Hamilton's godfather, this is a novel that doesn't deserve to be forgotten. It should have heralded a career of distinction, but in the event, Bruce's crime writing proceeded in fits and starts before spluttering to a dead halt in the 50s. A real shame.

Forgotten Book - The West Pier

Patrick Hamilton was a fascinating writer. I've read no fewer than three biographies of him, those by his brother Bruce, Nigel Jones, and Sean French (all are good, by the way), and I find his life story intriguing, though I have to say he was welcome to it; a classic case of money not being everything, really. He suffered disability and disfigurement as a result of a road accident that wasn't his fault, but even by then he was a heavy drinker, and his health deteriorated steadily until he died in his late fifties.

It's as a playwright that he's best remembered. Rope and Gaslight were both highly successful, and both were filmed. But he felt that his novels were more important, and even if  many would disagree, I find them highly readable. The West Pier, set in Brighton, is a case in point. It was also the first of a trilogy that he wrote about the same character, Ernest Ralph Gorse.

The first thing to say about Gorse is that he's a deeply unpleasant individual. Hamilton makes that clear right away - in fact, the author's voice intrudes constantly, an odd feature that some would find irritating and others old-fashioned. Personally, I didn't mind, although I was surprised that such an experienced novelist resorted to such a device.

Gorse bears some comparison to Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, because he possesses a certain charm, and he lacks a conscience. But this isn't a murder story. It is, instead, the story of a minor crime, the work of an embryonic confidence trickster, and his deceitful treatment of a decent girl and two schoolfriends. And despite the lack of "high stakes", it's compelling because Hamilton creates a frighteningly credible picture of someone who indulges in petty acts of cruelty and revenge - and has a knack of getting away with it.

Forgotten Book - The Case is Altered

The Case is Altered, written by William Plomer and first published in 1932, certainly qualifies as a Forgotten Book, but at the time of its original appearance, it was much admired. Plomer, in his late twenties,had moved from South Africa to London, and this was his third novel. His debut, Turbot Wolfe, was a popular story about inter-racial relationships, and he had become friendly with Leonard and Virginia Woolf, who published and promoted this novel with great enthusiasm.

It's a story about a murder, and was closely based on a real life crime. What is unique about it is that the crime in question occurred, in 1929, in the house in Bayswater where Plomer was living. James Achew murdered his partner, Sybil da Costa, in front of their small child. Achew was insanely jealous (and was ultimately reprieved from execution). He dreaded the thought that Sybil might be seduced by any man - including Plomer who (most authorities seem to agree) was gay. In the book, Achew (who is given the name James Starr) is represented by Paul Fernandez, whose attractive partner runs a boarding house; the lodgers include a young man called Alston who is, in part, based on Plomer.

Yet although this novel concerns a murder, it is first and foremost a study of the changing nature of London life and society, with particular emphasis on changes in the class system and political thinking. I found all this historically fascinating, and even though much of the political stuff is naive (contributing to a surprisingly weak ending) Plomer's liberal attitudes towards racial tensions are noteworthy. He portrays the relationships between occupants of the house in Cambodia Crescent, and people close to them, with a good deal of subtlety, and the gay and lesbian subtexts are also interesting.

In many ways, this book reminded me of the work of Patrick Hamilton - notably Hangover Square. It's not a "mystery", and it's clear that Plomer struggled with the notion of plot, but it's really well written and still highly readable. Oddly, Plomer never developed as a novelist, but he wrote libretti for Benjamin Britten and had a perhaps surprisingly warm relationship with a very different writer for whom he became editor, Ian Fleming. Fleming even dedicated Goldfinger to him. Quite something to have on your CV.  

Forgotten Book - Hue and Cry

Here’s a question for you. Which Golden Age crime novel begins at a football match in a working class town, and features a footballer as its protagonist? Not a book by Sayers, Christie or Dickson Carr, you can bet your bottom dollar! The answer is a book that I found a very enjoyable and breezy read when a kind friend lent it to me recently.

Bruce Hamilton, brother of the more celebrated Patrick, is an author who has long interested me, and I’m delighted to feature his debut novel as today’s Forgotten Book. This is Hue and Cry, originally published by the Crime Club in 1931, and the footballer is young Tom Payton, who kills one of his club’s directors in a drunken rage, and then goes on the run.

There’s no mystery at all about whodunit – the real question is whether Tom will get away with it. He flees to London, where he gets mixed up with a prostitute, and then with a kindly Jewess who offers him sexual comfort as well as board and lodging. Tom is definitely not a Peter Wimsey type, and Hamilton’s radical politics are in evidence at key moments of this book.

Hamilton keeps up the pace from start to finish, and as he piles the pressure on Tom, the reader finds it almost impossible (well, this reader did) not to hope that he will escape the consequences of his crime. There are some nice touches of satire in the book, too, and overall, it is a real pity that Hamilton’s policy of avoiding formula in his writing meant that his career as a crime novelist never had the success that I, at least, think he deserved. His work does have flaws, but it is genuinely interesting.

Rope

I’ve watched Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rope again, for the first time in twenty-five years, and found myself admiring it rather more at a second viewing than I did originally. The film dates from 1948 and was based on a play written almost two decades earlier by Patrick Hamilton. The play in turn was inspired by the true crime case of Leopold and Loeb.

At the start of the film, two young aesthetes strangle a friend to death – they want to commit the perfect murder as a sort of experiment. John Dall and Farley Granger play Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan; Brandon is the leader, Phillip the weak link. Brandon amuses himself by arranging a party to be attended by their luckless victim’s father and girlfriend., while the body is kept inside a chest from which refreshments are served. He also invites his former teacher Rupert Cadell, played by James Stewart, with whom he’d talked in the past about Nietzsche and the idea of the perfect crime.

Needless to say, there’s really nothing very perfect about Brandon’s plan, and I suppose that on first viewing I felt a bit frustrated because the story-line and its development seemed relatively obvious. Watching it again, in more tolerant mood, I did admire the way Hitchcock built the tension. His long camera takes, and the idea of a movie story told in real time are much admired by film buffs, but although it’s not a masterpiece when compared to his best work, it’s still very watchable.

The Leopold and Loeb case is a truly extraordinary one, which has sourced other works of crime fiction. And it’s interesting that Hitchcock used a play by Hamilton – I’m rather sorry that he never adapted Hamilton’s books about Gorse for the silver screen, though those stories were eventually transformed, in the late 1980s, into a good TV series, The Charmer.

Forgotten Book - Rex v Rhodes

I've mentioned Bruce Hamilton once or twice in passing in previous blog posts, sometimes in relation to his much more celebrated brother Patrick. I see, though, that I've never devoted a full post to this under-estimated writer, even though I find his work very interesting. So today I'm rectifying this omission by discussing Rex v. Rhodes, which he published in 1937.

The sub-title of this book is "The Brighton Murder Trial", and it is presented as being edited by Hamilton. The idea is to ape the style of the Famous Trials series that was very popular in the first half of the 20th century in Britain. The series had introductions which were often highly informative, and Hamilton's intro makes it clear that he is setting the book a few years in the future. He envisages a situation where, increasingly, there is conflict between the forces of the left and the extreme right, and although he makes it clear that ultimately the Communists will prevail, the events of the story take place at a time when they are under sustained attack, not just from fascist groups, but also from the establishment.

The man on trial, Rhodes, is a Communist, and he is accused of killing a leader of the Brighton branch of a right-wing group. The main evidence against him - which seems damning - comes from two young, and possibly thuggish, men who worked for the victim. Hamilton makes it reasonably clear early on what has actually happened. The key question is whether Rhodes will survive the trial process.

In some ways, this book is - at least to my knowledge - unique. A sort of futuristic fantasy, presented as a sober courtroom drama, with an intense political message. It's a book with some flaws, but I found it fascinating. Hamilton, in later years, realised that he'd misunderstood the nature of Communism, and the naivete of some of his opinions and forecasts is breathtaking. But he was certainly not alone in the mid-30s in holding the views he did, and even though I don't usually care for didactic fiction, this book holds great interest as a historical curiosity.

Forgotten Book - Hangover Square

Patrick Hamilton is one of those writers who teetered on the brink of greatness, but never quite made it. He is, however, in the top echelon of literature’s nearly men, hence the intermittent revivals of interest in his work. And there is a modern type of edge to his best books that has helped to cement his reputation.

Hangover Square, published in 1941, is my choice this week as a Forgotten Book that deserves to be remembered. It is the story of George Harvey Bone, a burly but quiet man who is undone by his passion for the worthless Netta. An alcoholic who suffers from a touch of schizophrenia, he torments himself so much that the reader almost forgives him both his stupidity (Netta clearly wasn’t worth it, as his smarter friends instantly recognise) and his homicidal tendencies.

My copy of this book is the current Penguin reprint, which includes an introduction by J.B. Priestley. Now, I am keen on intros, which can add a great deal of value to a classic title. And Priestley, who knew Hamilton personally, makes several interesting points. But his piece is flawed, above all because he discloses what happens at the end of the book .This isn’t a conventional whodunit, far from it, but Priestley shouldn’t have been so crass

I think it’s interesting that this book prefigures the interest of modern readers in the psychology of the criminal. Bone is portrayed in some depth, though his ‘dead moods’ did not strike me as entirely convincing. Yet the novel is well worth reading, at a time when the psychology of crime is a big topic. Patrick Hamilton was a pioneer of the crime genre, much more so than his capable but less gifted brother Bruce. It’s no surprise that he remain a crime writer of choice for a good number of critics. This book is, by some standards, a failure. But it is a rather brilliant failure.

Gaslight

Patrick Hamilton was surely one of the most interesting British writers of the first half of the last century, and it has often surprised me that, for all the critical interest in the man and his work (there are two excellent biographies, plus an interesting memoir by his brother Bruce, himself a crime novelist of some distinction), Hamilton is seldom mentioned in histories of British crime fiction. Yet he is an important figure.

One of his greatest successes was the play Gaslight, which in 1940 was turned into a film by Thorold Dickinson, with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard in the lead roles. Four years later, there was a Hollywood version which apparently led to attempts to suppress, in effect, the earlier film, but this does not mean that the 1940 adaptation lacked merit. I’ve just watched it and felt that, even though it has a quaint feel at times, it was very well done indeed.

Walbrook is a nasty piece of work with a criminal past who, for reasons that eventually become clear, is trying to drive his rather submissive wife insane. But why does the gaslamp in her room flicker at certain times of the night? What can be done to save her – or is she doomed to fall victim to her sadistic husband

There is a streak of cruelty in Hamilton’s work that I find slightly distasteful, but it does not mean that I don’t admire his work – I certainly do. He was a strange, and rather sad, man, and to some extent he exorcised his demons through his writing. This version of Gaslight is, even seventy years after it was made, still well worth watching.

Compulsion

The Leopold-Loeb case is one of the most famous American crimes. Two students – intelligent, but not as intelligent as they believed themselves to be – abducted and murdered a young man as a Nietzschean ‘experiment’ in committing the perfect crime in 1924. Of course, it was far from perfect. They were duly caught and convicted, but Clarence Darrow’s advocacy saved them from execution. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner, but Leopold was released after 33 years and died in 1971.

The story inspired Patrick Hamilton to write the famous play ‘Rope’, filmed equally famously by Alfred Hitchcock. Meyer Levin based his book and play Compulsion on the story, and I’ve just watched the film of the same title, starring Orson Welles as Darrow, made in 1959. Apparently, Leopold tried to prevent the film’s release, arguing that it breached his privacy. This may be why the characters are named Steiner and Strauss rather than Leopold and Loeb.

Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman do a good job as the selfish young men, and convey the gay undercurrents of their relationship reasonably well, given the constraints that existed at the time the film was made. But it has to be said that they are unappealing characters, and although their motivation was fascinating, it is less than fully explored. The abduction and murder of the victim is not shown at al, and I felt that was a structural weakness since the central horror of the story is dealt with at one remove. I do not suggest that the crime should have been depicted graphically – that would also have been a mistake – but to omit it altogether struck me as odd, though it is a reminder that the focus of the film is different from that of most crime-based movies. Further weaknesses are the duo’s attempts to avoid arrest are puerile, and the action is rather slow at times.

However, Welles gives a towering performance as Jonathan Wilk (the Darrow equivalent) and his passionate opposition to capital punishment is so effectively conveyed that it is the highlight of the film and the reason why, more than half a century after it was made, it remains well worth watching to this day.

Patrick Hamilton

There are three interesting biographies of Patrick Hamilton – few writers who work in the crime genre are so blessed, although maybe this is because Hamilton is not always described as a ‘crime writer’ (though he would be if he were working today, I think.) One of the books is Through a Glass Darkly, by Nigel Jones, a sound piece of work that is well worth reading.

Jones is in possession of many private papers relating to Hamilton, and was generous enough to make these available to Sean French, who wrote another biography not long afterwards. Sean French is now better known as one half of the best-selling crime-writing duo Nicci French, but his Patrick Hamilton: a life shows him to be a very accomplished biographer as well.

Rather spookily, French describes the sociopathic Ralph Ernest Gorse as an ‘oblique self-portrait’ of Hamilton. Like Jones, he doesn’t try to place Hamilton in the context of crime writing history generally (a missed opportunity, I feel) but he describes with some poignancy the bitter life of a man who knew great success, but also tragedy – he was disabled and disfigured when a motor car ran into him while he was crossing the road, his sex life was often depressing, he suffered mental problems, and his addiction to alcohol ultimately cost him his life. His judgment, it has to be said, was hopeless – a Marxist who never joined the Communist Party, he was a big fan of Stalin, and was bemused when the truth about his hero came out.

The third biography is The Light Went Out, by Patrick’s elder brother, Bruce Hamilton. There was a close and curious relationship between the two men. Bruce was also a writer, and much of his work unquestionably falls within the crime genre. His frustrated devotion to Patrick shines through the pages, even though, according to Sean French, the longer and unpublished version of the memoir casts a rather different light – he seems to have been jealous of Patrick’s greater literary talents.

Because Patrick was a fine writer, Bruce’s own literary achievements tend to be under-estimated, even by Sean French. I’ve read several of Bruce’s books, and they are interestingly different from the run of the mill whodunits of the time, though one or two of them show the same weird adoration of Stalin and Soviet Russia. But there’s no doubt that Patrick is, and will remain, better remembered, and these three books, taken together, provide copious fascinating nformation about a life of soured brilliance.

Another thing about Bruce, by the way (sorry, I just can’t resist trivia.) His godfather was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Ripley and Gorse

The first book in the Patrick Hamilton’s Gorse trilogy, part of which sourced the excellent tv series The Charmer, was The West Pier. Graham Greene generously described it as ‘the best book written about Brighton’. It was published in 1951, and was followed by Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953) and Unknown Assailant (1955). The series was actually meant to be a quartet, but the fourth book never appeared.

These were the last books written by Hamilton, who is better known as the playwright who wrote Gaslight and the Hitchcock-filmed Rope. He remains a cult favourite as a novelist, with many prominent admirers, though his life ended in 1962 (when he was only 58) in misery and alcoholism. The sourness with which he viewed life when he wrote the books is reflected in the character of Gorse, a man wholly without consicence.

I wonder if Patricia Highsmith read Hamilton before she created Tom Ripley – whose first appearance was in 1955. Of course, there are many differences between the two men, but there are also similarities. They are superficially charming, and can behave in an attractive manner, but their only real concern is themselves.

The fact that both characters first appeared within four years of each other is fascinating, regardless of whether Highsmith knew of Hamilton’s work (he isn’t mentioned in her exhaustive biography). It’s quite common for two different writers to come up with ideas that seem similar, independently of each other. Something in the ethos of the times, perhaps. There are suggestions, for instance, that Hamilton was influenced by the crimes of Neville Heath in his creation of Gorse, and I think that is possible (gorse, heath, get it?) although some have suggested that the fact that the stories are set before Heath started his crime spree means that a likelier inspiration for Gorse was Smith, the Brides in the Bath murderer.

I’m not aware of any critic of the genre who has made any sort of a connection between Gorse and Ripley – perhaps it might be said that there isn’t much of a connection to be made. But I can’t think off-hand of any series protagonists before this odd couple who display so clearly the grim conscienceless of the sociopath, however apparently affable, that has proved such fertile ground for modern writers such as Ruth Rendell.

The Charmer

The sole benefit of an enforced break has been the chance to watch a few DVDs I’ve never found time for in the endless rush of everyday life. And I really did admire The Charmer, an ITV series that I missed when it was first shown 22 years ago.

The Charmer is divided into six episodes, 50 minutes each, and features Nigel Havers cast successfully against type as Ralph Ernest Gorse. Havers is a light and likeable actor, but although Gorse has a good deal of superficial charm, in truth he is a cold and calculating sociopath, a man with no money but a burning desire to enjoy pleasures beyond his means.. He allows nothing and nobody to stand in his way.

At the start, Gorse sets his sight on an affluent widow with a fondness for drink, brilliantly played by Rosemary Leach. She is flattered by his attentions, provoking intense jealousy on the part of an unappealing estate agent called Donald Stimpson, equally well played by Bernard Hepton. Stimpson is infuriated when the woman who has fobbed him off for years sleeps with the glamorous younger man, and his determination to exact revenge on Gorse is a driving force of the story-line.

As the plot becomes increasingly complex and dark, Gorse seduces and marries the daughter of a rather thuggish Brighton car dealer played by George Baker – yes, Inspector Wexford himself! Gorse kills the girl, accidentally, while burning down their house in an insurance scam, but soon gets involved with another widow, played by Judy Parfitt. But Stimpson is on his trail…

The screenplay is by Allan Prior, who was involved with Troy Kennedy Martin (who died recently) in starting that seminal cop show Z Cars. (Trivia buffs might like to know his daughter is Maddy Prior, the singer from Steeleye Span.) The source material for the scripts was extracted from the books that Patrick Hamilton wrote about Gorse. The incidents in the books are somewhat different, but The Charmer is a real success, which can still be viewed with a great deal of pleasure a generation after it was made. Hamilton was a fascinating writer, by the way, and I’ll say more about him in future posts.

British Crime Writing

Barry Forshaw is a well-known crime fiction critic, and editor of the excellent ‘Crime Time’. His publications include The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, but he has now produced a much larger and more ambitious two volume encyclopaedia, published by Greenwood. I should declare an interest, in that I contributed several of the essays, and I am one of the many writers whose work is subjected to critical assessment (in my case, by Michael Jecks, a former chairman of the CWA, who is more than generous with his comments.) But, leaving that aside, I am a keen fan crime fiction reference books, and most of those that have appeared over the years weigh down my bookshelves. Barry’s compendium is a very welcome addition.

There are so many interesting, and to me unexpected, features of the encyclopaedia that it’s difficult to know where to start in describing them. Barry has described that his emphasis has been on inclusivity, and the authors covered include not only the usual suspects, but also the likes of Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair, who are not conventionally regarded as crime writers. The emphasis is on contemporary writers, but due attention is paid to names from the past such as the excellent Patrick Hamilton (sometimes oddly ignored in books about the genre) and the less stylish but under-rated E.C.R. Lorac.

There are a number of longish essays about particular subjects, such as Conventions, Noir, and Police Procedurals. I haven’t read all of them yet, but those I’ve sampled are extremely interesting. Of course, having a large number of contributors means that the approach is not entirely consistent, but that is part of the fun of the book, and besides, the diversity of subject matter and focus offers ample compensation.

The price of £90 means that this will not be an impulse buy. But it would make a great present for a crime fan. Otherwise, if you can beg, borrow or steal a copy, or persuade your local library to stock it, you will find much to entertain you. Of course, not all the opinions expressed by the contributors will find universal agreement. Of course, there will be debate about omissions (the choice of crime films which are discussed is highly selective, for instance.) But overall, the only reason why I have wanted to put the books down so far is that, after while, they become rather heavy!