Exciting Times

When I wrote on 29 August that an exciting week lay ahead, I wasn't exaggerating. I have had the great good fortune to see The New York Times give The Life of Crime a fine review and then, just a few days later, to read a wonderful review of Blackstone Fell in The Times. These are the sort of things a writer dreams of. And then, among other things, there has been a fantastic in-depth appraisal of The Life of Crime by the film historian David Bordwell for which I'm truly grateful.

Events have come thick and fast, including a podcast with Lucinda Hawksley, the biographer and descendant of Charles Dickens, and an interview with Ann Cleeves in Carlisle. Over lunch, Ann and I had the pleasure of reading the reviews of our new books in The Times and reflecting that it wasn't always like this for either of us...

After Carlisle, I spent a lovely evening in Birnam with book dealer Scott Herbertson and his family. Next morning, it was off to Nairn, for a couple of events as part of the Nairn Book and Arts Festival. I also had a sandwich lunch watching the cricket on the sea front at Nairn in the sunshine - a lovely way to spend the time. In the evening, a very convivial dinner with Jennifer Henderson, biographer of Josephine Tey (our joint event together is pictured above) and her equally delightful mum Christine.

The trip to Nairn involved a much longer drive than I've had since my car accident two months ago. It's an 800 mile round trip, so I spent Sunday relaxing and sightseeing around places like Forres (site of the Nelson Tower, the photo at the top of this post, which put me in mind of Blackstone Tower!), Brodie Castle, Elgin, Hopeman, Lossiemouth and Findhorn. A chance to recharge the batteries and also to think about forthcoming writing projects - I have quite a few things lined up for when I have finished work on Sepulchre Street, Rachel Savernake's fourth case. 

An exciting week

Tomorrow sees the US publication of The Life of Crime, and marks the start of a very interesting few days. On Thursday, Head of Zeus publish my third novel featuring Rachel Savernake and Jacob Flint, Blackstone Fell, a book I'm excited about. On Friday I'm interviewing Ann Cleeves in Carlisle and, after a stopover in Birnam, I'll be heading to the Nairn Book Festival, where among other things I'll be in conversation with Josephine Tey's biographer, Jennifer Morag Henderson.

Blackstone Fell is a book I dreamed up and wrote during the pandemic, although the original glimmer of inspiration came a little earlier, when I visited Salomons Tower in Kent. A post-lockdown trip to Hardcastle Crags in Yorkshire gave me the main elements of the setting, and a trip to Kinver Crags was also helpful. I've written an article about the book's locations for TripFiction and there's also a piece about Golden Age crime that will be appearing in the Daily Express, as well as short essays in Shots and Crime Time. A little closer to Christmas, My Weekly will be featuring the book alongside a new short story in the Golden Age vein which brings back a character I've written about previously.

Sophie, the publicist working with Head of Zeus on the novel, has kindly arranged a very extensive blog tour, involving bloggers who in general haven't covered my work in the past. It will be interesting to see what they make of the book. Suffice to say that ingredients include a locked room mystery, a cipher, a sanatorium, a seance, and a Cluefinder. Yep, it's a complex puzzle all right. I enjoyed writing the story enormously and I hope crime fans will enjoy reading it.

The Life of Crime has already received quite a bit of coverage in the US, including this podcast with the American Scholar magazine. An article on CrimeReads - discussing an obscure Russian writer and his unexpected connection with E.R. Punshon - is also imminent. So - lots going on. And meanwhile, I'm working on the closing chapters of Rachel's next adventure - Sepulchre Street.

The Inaugural Jennifer Palmer Lecture - Portico Library, Manchester

I felt truly honoured when, earlier this year, I was invited to give the inaugural Jennifer Palmer Lecture at the wonderful Portico Library, right in the heart of Manchester. Jennifer was a very well-read crime enthusiast who moderated a panel of which I was a member on my very first visit to the Portico. She died - far too young - last year, and her estate has funded a series of lectures on her favourite subject.

The Portico is, like Gladstone's Library and the Lit and Phil in Newcastle, a wonderfully atmospheric independent library. These are places to be cherished and supported - as Jennifer cherished her association with the Portico.and gave it enthusiastic support to the end of her life. 

My subject was (surprise, surprise) The Life of Crime, and the host was my fellow author Matthew Booth. The event was a sell-out and it was great to see some familiar faces in the audience, most of all Stuart Palmer. The main concern for me was that Stuart should be happy with the evening and thankfully all went well. Kudos to Debbie and Thom and their colleagues at the Portico for all the arrangements. I also did an interview for local radio at the end, so it was a varied evening in a stunning setting and one I really enjoyed.

And here is a photo of that first event at the Portico (after I'd spent a day working in my firm's then nearby Manchester office) which I've just retrieved. Next to me on the right is Kate Ellis. Jennifer is talking to her, and beyond her are Dolores Gordon Smith and Cath Staincliffe.

Reviews and the Blog Tour for The Life of Crime

 

For me, it's been an exciting few days, as I have had the double pleasure of enjoying reviews of The Life of Crime while anticipating the US publication tomorrow of The Girl They All Forgot (aka The Crooked Shore). Today I want to express my appreciation of the reviewers who have given The Life of Crime such a wonderful start. So wonderful, in fact, that on Friday evening, the book became an Amazon #1 bestseller in the literary reference category. Given that it's not exactly a cheap book, this was a delightful surprise.

There was a truly fantastic review in the 'i' newspaper from Moira Redmond. Not only that: Moira also took part in the blog tour and contributed a lovely piece that made me blush: not such a common occurrence. And the word cloud image above (which relates to chapter 35 of the book) comes from an incredible review by Kate Jackson. I should say that, because of production hold-ups, reviewers had very little time to devour the book, which given its length meant that reviewing became quite a challenge. But Kate rose to it in the most remarkable way. I don't think I've ever seen any review of a book about the genre which tackles the material at such length, not to mention in such depth and with such thought. It must have taken ages to put together and I'm quite blown away by it. The word clouds relating to each chapter topic really were the icing on the cake.

I loved Jim Noy's review at The Invisible Event, not least the closing words: 'Anyone who thinks they're going to follow this in another 50 years has my sympathies.' There were also great reviews from Puzzle Doctor, Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings  Basil Ransome-Davies at Shiny New Books, Desperate Reader Northern Reader and Vicky Lord to go along with those by Christine Poulson and Andrew Taylor in The Spectator which I've mentioned previously.  And just in case there was anything about the background to the book that you were afraid to ask, I've written an article on CrimeReads which discusses some of its genesis...

 

Publication Day - The Life of Crime

When you've been working on an idea, and then a book, for as long as I've been working on The Life of Crime, it seems almost surreal when the moment of official publication finally comes along. But today is the day! And as from today there is a blog tour - my sincere thanks to the ten bloggers taking part. The first reaction on the tour comes from Christine Poulson and her comments are truly gratifying. 

Thanks to Gary Stratmann, I have some photos of the champagne do during CrimeFest when the book was celebrated in the company of Simon Brett, Felix Francis, Cath Staincliffe, Michael Ridpath, Robert Goddard and various other friends. I've also had cause to celebrate with a coveted starred review from Publishers' Weekly in the US: 'magisterial...unlike other major studies of the genre, gives plenty of space to non-Anglo authors and writers of color. The result is an encyclopedic and consequential volume, a must-read for readers who've wondered who-, how-, or whydunit.' 

And then this morning came news of a fantastic review in the Spectator by that fine novelist Andrew Taylor: 'magisterial but wickedly entertaining...a long book, but it's reliably readable and frequently amusing. It also inspires awe: Edwards combines wide reading with a good memory, meticulous control over his unruly material, critical acumen and sheer bloody persistence.' Wonderful!

The book contains extensive acknowledgements, but I'd like to take a moment right now to thank those experts who gave generously of their time when commenting on partial drafts of the manuscript during the past few years. Nigel Moss, wise and meticulous, spent a great deal of time checking and commenting, while others who made a particularly special contribution by giving me the benefit of their expertise included Doug Greene, Steve Powell, Victoria Stewart, David Bordwell, Art Scott, Joseph Goodrich, Rick Ollerman, John Pugmire, and Mauro Boncampagni. 

Of course I'm grateful to my agent James Wills and to David Brawn and his colleagues at Harper Collins who helped to make my vision a reality. John Garth the indexer, did a terrific job - this is a book that definitely needed a really good index, and John compiled three, which take up nearly eighty pages. A word of thanks also to the cover designer, Steve Leard, whose contribution to my books I discuss in this piece for Shots. In this essay for Crime Time I discuss some of the other people whose writing about the genre I admire.

So for me this is a happy and memorable occasion. And tonight, there might just be some more quaffing of champagne...

The Life of Crime - the first review

When you publish a book, you 'd be less than human if you didn't wonder how people were going to react to it. After all the time you've devoted to the writing, it's natural to be anxious about the critical response. This is bound to be true of a novel, a creative work coming from one's own imagination, but it's also true of a non-fiction book - especially some of those I've written (not so much those on legal subjects!), where I've used a novelistic approach, and presented information in the style of a story, as with The Golden Age of Murder, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books and now The Life of Crime.

It's important to realise that you can't please everyone - even when you've put years into the writing, as I've done with The Life of Crime. For me, Julian Symons' Bloody Murder is a masterpiece (even though I don't agree with many of his individual opinions) and yet he received endless criticism - and still does - some of it fair, some of it not, as well as innumerable deserved accolades. The Life of Crime is a very different book. But if a book is good enough and makes something of an impression, the fact that some people don't 'get' it or have some sort of axe to grind about it doesn't matter too much. The reality is that not every reviewer takes the trouble to consider what the author was trying to do and to judge the book on that basis, rather than in relation to what the reviewer thinks the book should have been about. 

Against that background, I was absolutely thrilled by the very first review of The Life of Crime. Not just because it was so generous, but also because the reviewer, Scott Herbertson, had taken time and care in reflecting on the aims of the book. I'm very glad, too, that he saw no obvious omissions, because the reality is that even when writing a book of this length, it's essential to be highly selective, because the subject matter is so vast and so diverse. To say that I'm encouraged by this initial reaction is a massive under-statement.

And to put a bit of icing on the cake, I've just had word of a lovely review from Kirkus: 'ambitious...a big sweeping text...an impressive range of less well-known authors...a thorough sketch of the genre's origins, its evolutions, and its flexibility in response to cultural shifts...a broad and absorbing overview of one of the most popular and enduring genres of fiction'. So - a great start, and truly gratifying.

 

Forgotten Book - The Trouble Makers

I've spoken before on this blog about my admiration for the work of Celia Fremlin. She's one of the authors to whom I've given quite a bit of attention in The Life of Crime. Inevitably, it's only been possible for me to talk at length in that book about a selected number of authors whose work I love, but I do see her as influential and important in terms of the development of domestic suspense. 

Francis Iles, a very shrewd critic and excellent judge of writing quality, heaped praise on Fremlin's first two books. She didn't need to focus on violence and murder in her stories. Skilful characterisation allowing for the creation of tense situations was her forte. The Trouble Makers, her fourth book, first published by Gollancz in 1963, is a case in point. It presents a picture of suburban life which is as disturbing as it is compelling.

The lead character is Katharine, a harassed mother of three girls whose marriage to Stephen is far from blissful. She takes solace and indeed pleasure from the fact that her friend and neighbour Mary seems to be having a worse time in her own marriage, to an older man called Alan. A number of other women in the neighbourhood who are friendly with Mary also enjoy feeling superior to her.

This is a subtle, slow-burning novel which presents a rather horrifying picture of the interactions between a number of women. Their husbands have considerable failings, but they remain in the background. Fremlin's focus is on the shortcomings of her own sex. To what extent her views were influenced by her own experiences, I don't know, but the outcome is truly chilling. Fremlin describes a way of life which in some respects now belongs to the distant past, but there is something timeless about her portrayal of the casual cruelties of which seemingly decent people are sometimes capable.   

Back to Blackstone Fell

For the past few days, the sun has come out of hiding and I've taken advantage of the chance to relax and get out of doors after quite a hard-working winter. I've recently sent off the corrected proofs of The Life of Crime and the copy-edit of Blackstone Fell, so I've been able to enjoy roaming around a number of pleasant National Trust properties. And yesterday I revisited the spot which formed a crucial part of the inspiration for Blackstone Fell.

This is Hardcastle Crags, a wonderful wooded valley north of Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. There's a mill, with a tea room (not open every day at present) and on my first visit, just after the original lockdown, the place swarmed with visitors on a sunny Saturday in summer. This time, despite the clement weather, it was all very quiet and I enjoyed the tranquillity.

Ideas for novels often come from various sources. The original notion for Blackstone Tower, which plays an important part in the story even though we never go inside it, came even earlier, from a visit to Salomons Tower in Kent. At one point, I thought I'd take that site as my model for the whole story, but after visiting Hardcastle Crags, I felt that a setting on the edge of the Pennines would give me just what I wanted from this particular story. The Crags were transformed into Blackstone Fell, although the idea for the caves at the base of the crag, which again play a part, came from yet another trip, to Kinver Edge.

Walking along the stream that runs through the valley yesterday, and skipping over a few stepping stones, I was reminded of a scene in the novel where Rachel Savernake ventures to the notorious Blackstone Leap. The concept of the profound dangers of the Leap came from Bolton Strid, also in Yorkshire, but some miles away from Hardcastle Crags, and said to be the most dangerous short stretch of water in the world.

But the novel begins on Blackstone Fell itself, and an attempt on the life of a journalist called Nell Fagan, who narrowly avoids being crushed to death by a falling boulder. That idea came to me after climbing up the Crags and it was lovely to revisit the scene of my fictional crime, knowing that the book is not only completed, but to be published in September. Can't wait!

  

A New Year - Time to Look Ahead

As a year draws to a close, it's good to look back and I enjoyed compiling my retrospective of 2021 the other day. But now it's a new year, and time to look forward. Many things remain uncertain, but I'm full of hope and optimism. All being well, it promises to be a bumper year. And for those making new year resolutions about writing that first crime novel, Dea of Fiction Feedback and I hope that they will be tempted by the Crafting Crime online course!

My new Rachel Savernake novel comes out in September. This latest example of Golden Age Gothic is called Blackstone Fell, and I'll talk more about it in due course. But I guess the main event so far as some readers are concerned will be the publication in May by HarperCollins of The Life of Crime, my history of the mystery genre. Suffice to say that it's a very substantial book, and it ranges far and wide. So there's quite a lot about Golden Age writing (of course) but also a good deal about such diverse subjects as Japanese mystery fiction, Vidocq and his followers, William Lindsay Gresham, and Ian Fleming. I've no idea how the book will be received, but I'm excited about the prospect of seeing it in print at last, because I've been thinking about the material for many a long year and actively writing it for the past five or six.

There will be overseas editions of several of my books in a number of countries, including China, Italy, and (this one has been delayed for a while, but may finally emerge in 2022) Bulgaria. One to mention specifically, because it involves an unexpected title change, is the US edition of The Crooked Shore. This will appear in the summer as The Girl They All Forgot. I'm very pleased that Poisoned Pen and Sourcebooks, the publishers, are treating this as a potential breakthrough title for me in the States - hence the very different style of cover artwork.

My first anthology of the year will be Music of the Night, a collection of brand new stories by members of the CWA; my own contribution is a piece called 'The Crazy Cries of Love'. In the spring, the British Library are publishing an anthology of classic Scottish crime stories, The Edinburgh Mystery, and the paperback edition of Howdunit will appear in the summer. There might be one more anthology later in the year, but that is uncertain. As regards the BL Crime Classics, I've already penned intros to quite a number of the titles for 2022, including books by Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley, ECR Lorac, and John Dickson Carr. There will be a few more intros of other books, mainly resulting from approaches by authors whose work I enjoy or their publishers.

Short stories of mine will appear in various other publications. My Cornell Woolrich tribute story, 'The Woman Who Never Was', is slated to appear in an antho edited by Maxim Jakubowski, a book that should be of great interest to fellow Woolrich fans. 'No Peace for the Wicked' is due to feature in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. I've written another couple of stories for American anthologies that are yet to be publicly announced, including a Golden Age homage, 'The Outsider', which was a lot of fun to write and has a Christie-esque setting.

Now for something almost completely different - a Golden Age Mystery Map of Britain! I signed a contract recently to produce the text for this venture and I was working on it in December - another fun thing to do. More details soon. At present I'm thinking about an even more unlikely project (definitely ambitious) as well; whether anything will come of it, however, remains to be seen. Suffice to say it involves both Golden Age detective fiction and sci-fi...

At present, I'm booked to appear at numerous festivals, in England, in Wales, and in Scotland and I'm really looking forward to getting around a bit more. I'm also very much hoping to make it to Bouchercon, although right now, it's hard to look too far into the future. As for the blog, I expect it to keep rolling on as before; I've found your comments and messages a continuing source of great encouragement. I hope to have opportunities to meet more of my readers in Britain and elsewhere during 2022, but in the meantime may I simply wish you all a very happy new year.