Forgotten Book - The Eye of the Beholder

Around the time that I was dreaming of seeing my first novel appear in print, I studied a good many books which my contemporaries had managed to get published. Examples included Ann Cleeves and Peter Robinson, whose careers I followed right from the start, and Lesley Grant-Adamson. I also bought a novel by Minette Marrin called The Eye of the Beholder; like Lesley, she was published by Faber, which seemed a good recommendation.

However, for reasons I can't now recall, I put Marrin's book (first published in 1988 and paperbacked a year later) aside - and, alas, never got back to it. Until now, that is. I was curious to catch up with it at long last for a number of reasons, not least because Marrin has never returned to the genre. Her name was, however, familiar for many years as a Sunday Times columnist; no doubt she decided she preferred to concentrate on journalism.

The protagonist is a television producer, and while working in France she stumbles across a slightly mysterious death; later, another death occurs, which seems to her to be linked. The story begins pretty well, but suspense falters in the middle, a sign perhaps of Marrin's inexperience as a writer. There's some stuff about art history which I found less than gripping. But then the book picks up pace and interest, and the later scenes are genuinely gripping. The date that the book first appeared is relevant, because of the Cold War aspect of some parts of the plot. And there's a low-key feeling about the way the story unfolds that reminded me a bit of a book I read long ago, Roy Fuller's The Second Curtain.

Marrin is a capable writer, and there are some witty and thought-provoking lines which make me regret that she didn't continue as a novelist. Her heroine reads mysteries, so Marrin must like the genre, but perhaps she found it insufficiently rewarding financially. The Eye of the Beholder is, I think it's fair to say, a book of promise rather than major achievement, but the promise is so considerable that one wishes it had marked the start of a crime writing career.

James on Christie

I’ve mentioned how much I enjoyed P.D. James’ new book, Talking About Detective Fiction. That does not mean, of course, that I agree with every view expressed in it. For example, I felt she was rather hard on Agatha Christie, even though she does express admiration for Christie’s mastery of her craft.

‘The last thing we get from a Christie novel is the disturbing presence of evil,’ James argues. I just don’t think that’s right, just as I’m rather surprised that James does not pay much attention to the fact that Christie’s settings were very varied indeed – she was far from being someone who specialised in village-based whodunits, even though many people associate her more or less exclusively with the Mayhem Parva type of mystery.

There has been an interesting discussion on the Golden Age Detection discussion forum about Christie and evil, and I’m with those who believe that Christie had a strong sense of evil, and let it show clearly in quite a number of her books. The closing paragraphs of Five Little Pigs and 4.50 from Paddington illustrate the point, and there are plenty of other examples.

I was also startled that James said of Christie: ‘She wasn’t an innovative writer and had no interest in exploring the possibilities of the genre.’ Blimey. What about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The ABC Murders, Death Comes as the End, Murder on the Orient Express, Endless Night, and Curtain? I’m not sure how many detective story writers have been more innovative than Christie.

But there you go. Only a dull study of detective fiction would fail to spark debate, and this is a book without a dull paragraph. No doubt there are many people who agree with P.D. James on the subject of Christie. just as I agree with her when she concludes this fascinating book by predicting that: ‘in the twenty-first century, as in the past, many of us will continue to turn for relief, entertainment and mild intellectual challenge to these unpretentious celebrations of reason and order in our increasingly complex and disorderly world.’

Forgotten Book - The Second Curtain

Roy Fuller was a solicitor and a poet – and there aren’t many examples of that combination around. He was also an occasional crime novelist, and his The Second Curtain is my entry for today in Patti Abbott’s Forgotten Books series.

Fuller, who died in 1991, probably achieved more distinction in the legal world (he became a director of Woolwich Building Society in the days when financial institutions were trustworthy and reliable) and as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. But his crime fiction was much praised by Julian Symons, a fellow poet as well as a legendary crime guru, although I think they were good friends, and of course one is always likely to support a friend’s writing – not so much nepotism, and human nature. I suspect it was Symons’ influence which saw this 1953 novel republished as a green Penguin paperback in 1976, which is when – as a student lawyer, and even an occasional poet, as well as a crime fan – I bought it.

But Symons would never praise someone undeserving (though some of his critical comments could seem rather harsh) and there is no doubt that Fuller could write. The Second Curtain is an under-stated novel which concerns George Garner, a minor novelist who is a touch complacent and only too pleased with himself when offered the editorship of a literary quarterly.

However, George writes to an old pal called Widgery, he receives a letter from the man’s sister, telling him that Widgery has mysteriously disappeared. George decides to look into the mystery, but he finds himself coming face to face with a dangerous world for which he is ill-suited. This isn’t a story where the hero rises courageously to every challenge, and some might find it anti-climactic. I think it’s a good character study, quietly yet intelligently put together.