Elections - and Libraries

Not many crime novels have been set around elections, although people like me who live in marginal constituencies are probably tempted to murder by the persistence of party campaigners and their not very illuminating leaflets, which arrive by the bucket-load. Off-hand, I can think of a couple. Robert Barnard’s Political Suicide is very entertaining, and an old favourite of mine, although inevitably some of the political stuff now seems dated, almost 25 years after the book came out. Another example is Death By Election by Patricia Hall, a capable writer whom I’ve met a number of times and who deserves to be better known.

We are now into the last few days before Britain’s voters decide what to do with their vote at a time of serious economic uncertainty. I’ve followed the election news quite closely, but I haven’t heard anyone mention libraries. One can only assume that, whoever wins the election (and even if nobody wins, in the event of a hung Parliament, which seems quite likely at the moment) that the inevitable public spending cuts would affect libraries adversely. An alarming hint of the shape of things to come came a while back when a hung (Labour-Liberal) council on Wirral threatened to close a large number of libraries, mainly in poorer areas, where the need for them was arguably greatest. It was a deeply depressing plan and I’m glad it was scrapped. But the danger remains that local authorities of all colours desperate to save money will see library closures as an easy win.

I hope against hope that wiser counsels prevail. If we are to have a safe and contented society in this country, community bonds need to be strengthened, and this means, surely, that the steady erosion of the fabric of community life (closing libraries, post offices, pubs, village stores and local schools) needs to be reversed. I quite understand that there isn’t a limitless budget to fund the buying of books (let alone computers) but the key is to ensure that libraries remain open and accessible.

This idea that small communities are at risk from social change is very much there in the background in The Serpent Pool. It’s something that preoccupies me, and its importance is not confined to rural society; in truth cities are really collections of much smaller communities with which different, often relatively small, groups of people identify closely. I do hope that, whoever has the privilege of leading this country after Thursday’s vote, they have the wisdom to ensure that our excellent library network is preserved.

Robert Barnard

I mentioned recently that 1936 was the year in which three of Britain’s finest crime writers were born: Peter Lovesey, Reginald Hill, and Robert Barnard. They are three writers whom I admired long before I had the pleasure of getting to know them personally. I still can’t quite believe that I’ve joined them in the Detection Club.

I’ve not had much to say on this blog about Bob Barnard, so it’s time to remedy the omission. He’s a witty writer, who crafts neat and sometimes highly ingenious plots. His gifts are often shown to advantage in the short story, a form at which he excels, and I’ve been lucky enough to include several of them in anthologies that I’ve edited.

Bob Barnard is also a keen student of the genre, and his study of the work of Agatha Christie, A Talent to Deceive, is widely acknowledged as one of the best books ever written about the Queen of Crime. His enthusiastic, yet clear-eyed assessment of her work, is highly readable, and his analysis of her main plot devices is especially interesting.

Yet it is for his novels that he is best known, and quite right too. He has employed recurrent detectives – Perry Trethowan and Charlie Peace in particular – but the main focus on his books is on the skewering of pretension, coupled with neat mystification. Death in Purple Prose pokes fun at romantic novels, while Political Suicide offers a highly entertaining, if now rather dated, glance at political shenanigans.

My favourite Barnard is probably A Scandal in Belgravia. The title suggests a Sherlock Holmes connection, but this proves to be a red herring. The focus is, again, on politics (Bob used to work for the Fabian Society), and there is a great final twist. A fun book from a writer whose own talent to deceive is of a high order.