Curtains - a murder mystery musical

To write a murder mystery musical is a huge challenge. Blending a strong, well-plotted story with appealing music and a script which offers consistently high entertainment value is so difficult to achieve, it's no surprise that it's hardly ever been done. So I wondered what to expect when, last week, I went to the Liverpool Empire to watch Curtains. The Empire's a classy old theatre on Lime Street, but I've only ever been there once before, to watch Dionne Warwick in concert, many moons ago. It was a great venue for this production.

Curtains is a show with a complex and troubled history. The original idea was conceived by Peter Stone, an accomplished writer for tv, film, and stage. His scripts include Charade and the original film version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Apparently he also wrote a pretty obscure mystery musical, Death Takes a Holiday, before the end of his life. Curtains seems to have been started earlier, but was unfinished at the time of his death in 2003.

The plan was for the music to be written by John Kander and the lyrics by his regular partner, Fred Ebb. This pair were responsible for such classic musicals as Cabaret and Chicago, as well as many others that weren't quite as successful. However, Ebb died in 2004, with the work still incomplete. (Incidentally, I gather that one of the duo's last projects was a musical based on Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit, a book I studied for A Level, and I'd love to see that one..)

The next step was to bring in the singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes, who has established a second career as a crime novelist and playwrigth and also wrote the Dickens-inspired musical Drood.  I've mentioned before on this blog my admiration for Rupert, who was kind enough to help me some years ago when I was working on a Lake District book, The Serpent Pool. He is multi-talented and was the perfect choice to write the book and help out with the songwriting. And it was fun to watch this musical of his performed only about thirty miles from his birthplace, in Northwich.

Curtains finally made it to Broadway in 2007. It received many award nominations and had a good run, although critical reaction was mixed, perhaps because of the production, perhaps because of critical snobbery. (And Rupert makes sure that critics get a real kicking in the script...) I'd hazard a guess that perhaps in 2007 some people were a bit less receptive to whodunits of this kind than they are today. The show faded from view but is now enjoying its first tour in the UK, after all this time, with Jason Manford in the lead, playing Lieutenant Choffi, supported by Carley Stenson, Rebecca Lock, Samuel Holmes, and Ore Oduba.

The show is a musical about a musical. A dire show called Robbin' Hood is having a pre-Broadway try-out when the dreadful female star is murdered. Enter Cioffi. He has plenty of suspects to choose from. Matters are complicated by the fact that he's a wannabe performer in a musical and also falls for a member of the cast. Before the end of the first act, another murder has been committed on stage...

I enjoyed the show enormously and I'm pleased to see that reviews of the UK tour have been extremely favourable. Rightly so. Jason Manford is excellent and the cast as a whole injects the show with the necessary energy (I can imagine that a lack of pace in the performances would present all sorts of problems, but there was an abundance of zest). The songs are pretty good, and sometimes witty. There's nothing in the same league as Kander and Ebb's Maybe This Time, but the songs do a good job of moving the story along, one of the major requirements in a show of this type. The result is hugely entertaining, and if you get a chance to see it, I can warmly recommend it.

A Very British Murder - BBC Four

A Very British Murder began on BBC Four last night and offered a fascinating parallel with a storyline in one of my own novels. BBC Four is a home for informative and engaging documentaries and is one of my favourite channels - I'm currently enjoying a terrific series presented by Neil Brand on the subject of movie soundtracks. Brand is an engaging character, and so is Lucy Worsley, the presenter here. I've not come across her previously, but she proved to be a confident and charismatic performer, and a quick internet research revealed that she is a historian, curator and experienced presenter and writer.

This documentary focused on a number of notable murder cases in the nineteenth century, and my attention was immediately grabbed by a familiar scene - Grasmere. Yep, it turned out that Lucy Worsley's starting point was Thomas De Quincey's thoughts on murder as a fine art - that is, exactly the same as Daniel Kind's starting point for his book The Hell Within, which features in The Serpent Pool. In my novel, Daniel is writing a history of murder much along the lines of Lucy Worsley's, and there's a connection with the murder plot in the novel.. Spooky...

Lucy Worsley, like Daniel Kind, is an Oxford-educated academic historian who like Daniel has made a name in television, but I think it's fair to say that she performs on screen with even more gusto than Daniel would be likely to manage, joining in bloodthirsty Victorian bar songs, and co-performing a melodrama on stage. She comes over as a fun person, as Neil Brand does when he plays piano and explains the secrets of John Barry's genius. And that feeling of empathy helps strengthen the appeal of a programme of this sort..

Her accounts of the murder cases  such as the Ratcliff Highway murders, the Red Barn murder, the Bermondsey Horror were sound if inevitably concise. The narrative was along the same lines as the approach of Judith Flanders in her very well-researched The Invention of Murder, so I wasn't surprised to see Judith Flanders named as a consultant when the credits rolled. All in all, an agreeable hour's viewing, with the added bonus for me of  a vivid realisation of what Daniel Kind might have made of his research for his fictional masterpiece. If only he had he not become disillusioned with telly and downshifted to the Lake District....

The Cadaver Game

The Cadaver Game, the latest Wesley Peterson murder mystery from Kate Ellis, is the 15^th in a series that continues to go from strength to strength. When you bear in mind that she has also written three books featuring Joe Plantagenet, and one stand-alone history-mystery, as well as many short stories, it’s fair to say that Kate’s become extremely prolific. Certainly, her productivity in recent years puts me to shame. There’s always a danger that, when you write a great deal at speed, quality will suffer – but I’m pleased to say that there is absolutely no sign of this in The Cadaver Game. I was sure I’d enjoy it, as Kate is not only a friend but a writer whose way with a plot I’ve long admired, but I was especially entertained by some of the concepts in this particular story.

In broad terms, the story is structured in the same way as its predecessors. A crime from the past, with an archaeological connection, is linked with a murder puzzle in the present. Upon that solid structure, Kate has built a complicated and absorbing puzzle, with many interesting features and a plentiful supply of twists and red herrings.

The central idea is of a hunt with a difference – the hunted are real life people, running naked from their pursuers. It happened in the past, and now it is happening in the present. A young couple are shot to death by an unknown hunter at the start of the book, but the question of what happened to them is not the only mystery that Wesley has to solve. A woman’s body is found, and there is some mystery about her identity. Meanwhile, extracts from two old journals reveal the macabre machinations of a rich man’s jester at around the time of Waterloo.

A large cast of characters is manipulated with unobtrusive expertise – no easy task. I thought the concept of the game, in both the past and the present, was utterly gripping, and certainly very dark. Equally, I was fascinated by the story of Silly John, the jester. And finally, I have to admit, I couldn’t figure out the murderer. My only complaint is that I too had the idea of a book title including the word “cadaver” (at one point The Serpent Pool was going to be called The Cadaver Tarn, but then I decided to save the latter title for a rainy day – that day may be a few years off now!) Great minds, I guess! Suffice to say, this book is definitely recommended for whodunit fans.

Forgotten Book - End Game

The Mystery of Edwin Drood's appearance on BBC 2 this week inspires my choice of a non-fiction Forgotten Book today - it is End Game by Richard F. Stewart, who was almost universally known as Dick Stewart. Dick, who died not too long ago, was a great guy. I used to visit his home in South Manchester, sometimes taking my long-suffering son along, and buy books from him. He and his wife made a delightful couple, and Jonathan still remembers those visits as happy occasions, because the Stewarts were so kind to him. I miss those visits a lot.

Anyway, back to End Game, which was published in 1999 by a very enterprising small publisher. Dick's idea was to list and assess all the main solutions to the Drood mystery, as well as all the completions actually written, and the commentaries. He acknowledges at the outset that so much has been written about Drood that a totally comprehensive account is impossible, but this is still a very substantial volume.

Dick quotes G.K. Chesterton's excellent line that "the only one of Dickens's novels which he did not finish was the only one that really needed finishing" - the story is a pleasing, if tantalising paradox. He lists eight basic questions that anyone trying to solve the puzzle needs to address. They admit of many answers. "Droodism has become a productive cottage industry during the 20th century", he notes, and of course this has continued into the 21st century.

All manner of sleuths have over the years, as Dick says, invoked "mesmerism, telepathy, serial photography, Thuggee, Sherlock Holmes and schizophrenia (to name but a few) in the search for a solution. The composer Rupert Holmes, one of whose excellent songs I featured in The Serpent Pool, wrote a musical based on the story. It's a great game, and Dick Stewart's book is a fascinating guide to it. Dick inscribed my copy "All you never wanted to know about Edwin Drood". Too modest, as he always was.

Independent bookshops

We all know that independent bookshops have been having a tough time for a number of years, but on Saturday, I had the encouraging experience of visiting two excellent indies that have not only survived the recession, but flourished.

After visiting Lancaster and Kendal earlier in the day, I headed for Ambleside – home, at least for the moment, to Hannah Scarlett – and Fred Holdsworth's nicely located shop, run by Steve with excellent support from knowledgeable assistants. I remember calling in there one miserable January afternoon when I was researching The Serpent Pool, in which some of the action takes place in Ambleside.

Then it was a short drive through Wordsworth country to Grasmere, and Sam Read's shop, run by Elaine, again with keen staff support. Elaine and her husband then kindly invited us to their house, just across the road, for a welcome cup of tea before the journey back down the motorway to home.

Why have Steve and Elaine succeeded when so many others have failed? There is bound to be a combination of reasons. Hard work and determination are musts. Both shops occupy good locations in lovely tourist destinations which don't possess a major chain store such as Waterstones. But there's more to it than that. I was struck by the genuine love that Steve and Elaine have for books, and by the way they command the enthusiastic support of the people who work for them. For any book buyer visiting either of these shops, there is sure to be a genuine welcome, and good deal of well-informed advice and recommendations. And Steve and Elaine are prepared to innovate, selling varying lines from time to time, and showing the kind of enterprise that makes all the difference in a small business. An example is the postcards that Elaine sells, from photographs (of very high quality) taken by her husband.

All in all, my trip left me more hopeful about the future of well-managed bookshops than I have been for a long time. The economic climate present endless challenges, but there is still room for really good retailers, and it was a pleasure to meet so many of them on Saturday.

Awaiting Reviews

The imminent publication of The Hanging Wood means that, like any author, my mind is turning to the possibility of review coverage. I say 'possibility' because the days when review coverage was a given have gone - at least so far as newspaper reviews are concerned. My early books regularly received attention from national newspapers such as 'The Times' and 'The Guardian', but the reviewers of the 90s have largely left the stage. An example is the late Matthew Coady, a delightful man who combined political reporting with crime reviewing and who was very good to me and my early Harry Devlin books.

I was very, very lucky with The Serpent Pool to receive good national press coverage, but a number of reviewers have told me that it's hard to persuade editors to allow space to cover mid-list writers like me. I don't believe that's an excuse on their part; I'm sure it's the reality, galling as it is. (Matthew Coady once told me that one of his reviews of my work was spiked for lack of space, and that wasn't the last time this has happened. Frustrating, but that's life.)

Fortunately, the world has moved on, and now the blogosphere provides a good many writers, including (so far!) me, with extensive review coverage. Amazon reviews, too, become more important with every year that passes. And with this book, I'm in the curious position of having had it published first in the US, so that I've had the pleasure of getting some very positive reaction from both the press and bloggers already.

Do reviews matter? After all, I've done well in terms of reviews for a long time, and never really made a massive breakthrough - though I have kept going happily! But yes, I do think reviews matter, and for a range of reasons.

Good reviews are obviously great for morale. Bad reviews need to be considered with care - I pay more attention to criticism from someone who would normally be a fan of my work than from someone who doesn't really get what I'm trying to do, and many other writers have a similar attitude. I do think, though, that you have to be a bit fatalistic with reviews. You can't control what people think, or say. All you can do is your best, and try to fulfil your personal contract with your readers.

Book Launches

Book launches are great fun for an author, but are they really worth doing? I've heard varying opinions on the issue - just as views differ as to the value of book signings. I've been to plenty of launches by other authors, as well as having a few of my own, and I've enjoyed them. Maybe the key question, though, is: what do you expect to get out of them?

For writers like me who do not sell in vast quantities, realistically, part of the rationale for a book launch is simply to have a good time in the company of like-minded people. Selling books is a bonus, not the main purpose. For bestsellers, of course, it's different, mainly a commercial enterprise. But a launch which focuses just on selling isn't terribly attractive in my opinion.

An unexpected benefit of my last launch, of The Serpent Pool, at Gladstone's Library, was that the setting gave me an idea for part of my next book. So it's very fitting that The Hanging Wood will again be launched at Gladstone's Library, on 28 July. I'm really looking forward to it.

Having a distinctive venue for a launch seems to me to be part of the fun of it all. I've been lucky in this respect. In the past, my launches have taken place at such terrific locations as Manchester Central Library (M.O., the CWA anthology), The Hard Day's Night in Liverpool (Waterloo Sunset) and St George's Hall in the city (Dancing for the Hangman.) Nights to remember and I'm optimistic that 28 July will be equally memorable.

The first review of The Hanging Wood

You can probably imagine that, for any writer, the initial reaction to a new novel is awaited eagerly but with some trepidation. It is difficult to judge one’s own work, and the opinions of friends (and sometimes even agents and editors) aren’t necessarily a guide to wider reaction among the leading critics.

So I am thrilled that The Hanging Wood has started life, ahead of publication, with a starred review in the Library Journal and of course I can’t resist quoting it in full:

'When 14-year-old Callum Hinds goes missing in England’s Lake District, everyone suspects his uncle, who, unable to stand the pressure, commits suicide. Twenty years later Callum’s sister raises doubts about her uncle’s guilt, but no one listens. Then she falls into a grain silo and suffocates. DCI Hanna Scarlett, head of Cumbria’s Cold Case Review Team, begins an investigation that leads to more deaths and an unexpected ending. Edwards’s fifth series title (after The Serpent Pool) builds suspense while capturing its characters’ rage, anguish, and resentment that complicate the investigation and intensify the danger for all involved. VERDICT With an unforgettable ending, this outstanding cold case will attract Lynda La Plante and Mo Hayder fans.'

And after that bit of trumpet-blowing, I'll do a post tomorrow about two other writers!

Brief Encounter

En route for Grasmere and the launch of The Serpent Pool, we stopped off at Carnforth, just south of the Lake District. I had in mind a trip to the very good second hand bookshop in the town, but digressed to the railway station for lunch. And this proved surprisingly memorable.

This is because Carnforth Railway Station was used for the filming of the classic movie Brief Encounter. After the British rail network was stupidly decimated in the 60s, the station was left derelict, but a great charitable effort led to it having a new life. There is now a splendid museum featuring the history of the station, and the making of Brief Encounter. You can lunch, as we did, in a recreated cafeteria that is really atmospheric.

Brief Encounter isn't really my favourite sort of movie, but I do think that what has been done at Carnforth is wonderful. Even though life moves on, and we must embrace the new, it's a terrible mistake to neglect the past. This humble railway station offers a real slice of British social history, and its revival is a sign of what can be done by people with imagination and drive.

I've always been keen on history, but if anything, I'm keener than ever these days. History plays a big part in the Lake District Mysteries, and will continue to do so, informing the lives of Hannah, Daniel and those around them. And they may even pay a visit to Carnforth one of these days...

Grasmere and The Serpent Pool

I had the great pleasure yesterday of launching the paperback edition of The Serpent Pool at the Wordsworth Trust’s Art and Book Festival at Grasmere. This was held at the Wordsworth Hotel, which I’ve driven past many times but never stayed at before.

The event gave the chance for a Lakes-orientated week-end, with stops at one or two very interesting places, but of course the Festival was the highlight. It was very well organised by Michael McGregor, Andrew Forster and their colleagues at the Wordsworth Trust, and I enjoyed meeting a range of likeable people, including one lady who gave me an interesting bit of Wordsworth family trivia that one day may appear in a novel.

There was also a chance to meet a range of fascinating writers including the poet Jackie Kay, the commentator and retired bishop Richard Holloway, and Roy Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party. Lord Hattersley spoke after dinner on Saturday about political biography, and I found his talk absolutely fascinating. He is in his late 70s, and even more articulate and insightful than you would expect. I liked the fact that he emphasised the importance of sticking to what you believe in politics, whatever your party viewpoint. He was a very tough act to follow.

But follow it I had to, the next morning, and I was gratified by the feedback to my talk about my writing career in general and The Serpent Pool in particular.A walk around Grasmere, such a lovely village, was the perfect end to a very enjoyable event. It made me realise that after this long dark winter, spring is not too far away.

New Year's Eve

In my last post for 2010, I want not only to send my very warmest wishes to my readers for the year ahead, but also to express my thanks for the way in which your kindness and encouragement, manifested in a variety of forms, has helped to carry me through twelve months that have sometimes been more than usually challenging. I am truly grateful.

I also wanted to reflect on some of the good things that have happened this past year. On the writing front, I was thrilled by the response to and reviews of The Serpent Pool, and to have two launches in Hawarden and London, the latter a joint event with Ann Cleeves, was very gratifying. I enjoyed putting together the anthology Original Sins and an excellent press lunch organised by the publishers at a posh restaurant in London. And I’m really pleased about The Hanging Wood – I like to think it is the best Lake District Mystery so far. My trip to the Lakes on my birthday was a real highlight of 2010 - the wonderful weather of July seems a very distant memory now!

Crimefest in Bristol was great fun, including a pub quiz in a team of delightful people and the ordeal that calls itself Criminal Mastermind! I now have two lovely inscribed commemorative pieces of Bristol glassware to remember the last two years’ quizzes by; in 2011, I shall be very glad to be in the audience, instead of in the black chair. I met a good many pleasant writers and readers (including readers of this blog) for the first time in 2010, not least at Crimefest, and hope to see at least some of them again next year.

The CWA conference in Abergavenny was great - one of the photos shows my Saturday dinner companion Janet Laurence, and another shows a gathering of crime writers at Abergavenny Castle. For various reasons, I couldn’t manage a trip to a US convention this year. However, I paid a fleeting – but very pleasurable – visit to the Harrogate Crime Festival, and missed out on the St Hilda’s Conference in Oxford last August for the best of reasons: a cruise in the sun around the magnificent Baltic capitals. But I shall be one of the speakers at St Hilda’s next August. I’m looking forward to it already. And next October may – exam results permitting – see both junior Edwardses studying at Oxford, which would be lovely if it happens.

I’ve given a number of talks, and put on my Victorian murder mystery event a couple of times. And I’ve read a lot of good books, some old, some new, and most of them (as well as most of the films I’ve watched) have featured on this blog. Although I've cut down on the number of posts, I'm very glad that the blog continues to be visited very regularly. Above all, I’ve had the good fortune of much support from friends and family, and many reasons to reflect that the crime writing community really does contain some truly delightful people.

So, all in all, a year with plenty of ups as well as a few downs. But I’m certainly looking forward to 2011 with relish....

New books in 2011

I’m looking forward rather eagerly to a number of publications next year. When I first became a published author, I got a real kick out of seeing my manuscript turned into a ‘proper book’, and I’ve not lost the thrill of the experience, thank goodness. It really is exhilarating. The Serpent Pool appears in paperback in the UK early in January, and given the extensive and favourable reviews of the hardback edition, I’m hoping that reaction will again be very positive.

The Hanging Wood will appear, at least in the US, under the Poisoned Press imprint. I’m not yet sure what is likely to happen in the UK. Around the same time, my German publishers will bring out The Serpent Pool. Here is the proposed cover. The title, in translation, is ‘To Dust and Ashes’.

Take My Breath Away will be published by Five Star in the US in June, and although the book was written eight years ago, I’m absolutely delighted it’s having a fresh life. Of all my novels, it’s the one which I think was the most under-rated. Of course, it may be that authors are not the best judges of their own work. But even so...

On the anthology front, there should be a limited collectors’ edition of the CWA anthology, Original Sins. And the follow up to that collection, Guilty Consciences, may be out in May. I hope so, as it would mean we could launch it at Crimefest. But there’s still some work to be done before we can know for sure....

Finding a new author

I knew nothing of Gunnar Staalesen until I read Yours Until Death, which I reviewed for Tangled Web UK, and more briefly for this blog the other day. But he is certainly an interesting writer. Born in 1947, he published his first book at the tender age of 22. His titles include At Night All Wolves are Grey – terrific title! An author I shall look forward to revisiting.

It’s always a good feeling when you find an author new to you whose books really appeal. It’s even better in a way if they have been around for a long time, since then you know that there are plenty of other titles to devour. Of course, they may not all be of the same standard, but most good writers are worth reading even when below their best.

Over the years I’ve made plenty of such discoveries. Among those I remember with great pleasure are Cornell Woolrich, whom I first encountered in the early 80s, and the great Frenc duo, Boileau and Narcejac, whom I first read about four years ago, though I’d seen Vertigo many years earlier. And reading Ruth Rendell for the first time was another great experience - I started with A Judgement in Stone, still one of the best novels of psychological suspense that I’ve ever read. I can even remember reading some of it in Kew Gardens, of all places...

Equally, I must admit that I get a kick out of reviews where someone has come across my work for the first time, and expresses enthusiasm for reading more of my work. This means a lot to a writer, and such a response always puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day! On the subject of reviews, by the way, I have now updated the Lake District Mysteries page on my website which contains reviews of The Serpent Pool. Reaction to that book has exceeded even my expectations, and I’m truly delighted by the critiques. The publishers tell me the paperback is due out in January - looking forward to it!

Unpleasant characters in a mystery

It’s fair to say that a good many modern crime novels seem to be populated with an array of unpleasant characters. But even where you have a book with (say) an appealing detective, it’s quite common to find that the characters you dislike are in the great majority. But is this inevitable?

In a whodunit, you need to have a range of people who might conceivably have committed the murder. Years ago, common motives were inheritance, and the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. Plenty of books featured people who seemed amiable, even though they turned out to be murderously inclined. The culprit in Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders is but one example.

But nowadays, motives are (I suggest) more often rooted in character flaws than perhaps was the case in the past. And perhaps this means that the characters themselves are unlikely to be attractive, at least below the surface.

It’s an issue that vexes me with my own books. One of my recent novels therefore was based on the premise that an appealing person might have a good reason to commit a terrible crime. But more often, I find that almost all my suspects have their dark side. This is true of The Serpent Pool , for instance. And I do wonder about the views of readers. Is it enough to have a small number of appealing characters? Or do you like the (seemingly) nice guys to be in the majority – and, if so, how do you respond when one of them turns out to be a murderer? Or does it really not matter, as long as the story holds your interest?

The Raoul Moat Tapes

The Raoul Moat Tapes was a TV documentary about true crime which, although flawed by a faintly sensationalist tone, still provided an interesting insight into the life of the man whose brief shooting spree in the North East last month ended in a stand-off with police negotiators and Moat’s ultimate suicide.

Moat’s case has prompted controversy because of the startling level of sympathy that he received, bearing in mind that he shot his lover, murdered her new partner, and blinded a police officer. He had a long-running grudge against the police, and because he eluded them for a few days, in the simple minds of some he seems to have acquired a sort of cult hero status.

Moat was big on self pity, and this comes out very strongly in the series of tapes that he made and passed to a friend shortly before his death. He did not seem to see that he was the author of his own problems. And yet, it is easy to be harsh about a jealous and violent man, and Moat was not necessarily without potential redeeming features. He was not unintelligent, and it may be that if he’d had better role models in his early years, he could have made something of his life. Instead he gave in to his worst instincts, and inflicted great harm on innocent people.

Psychiatrists suggested that there is a strong link between violence and jealousy (interesting to me, bearing in mind the theme of The Serpent Pool) and also that there can be a close link between suicide and homicide. These were interesting insights, but my overwhelming emotion after watching this programme was sadness. I felt sorry for Moat, although the world may well be better off without him, and terribly sorry for his victims. Once again, I was struck by the sheer self-destructiveness of violence, and the pointless waste of life in which it so often results.

Rivalries

Tony Blair’s newly published memoir, A Journey, looks as though it will sell a few more copies than any of my efforts. One of the main themes of Blair’s book, inevitably, is his love-hate relationship with Gordon Brown (more hate than love, it would seem.) I’m utterly fascinated by that relationship, and have been for years, now not least because the nature of rivalry is a core theme of the book I’m currently writing.

The Blair-Brown rivalry is one of the all-time classics, because it is so closely allied with issues about power, idealism (or the lack of it) and personality. It involved great conflict, and so has great dramatic potential. To put it simplistically, one might say that Brown was, and is, intellectually superior to Blair, but was self-obsessed and lacked an ability to connect with people. Blair won elections, Brown either ran scared of them or lost them. To complicate matters, Blair had an almost messianic sense of what to do with his power ( whether one agrees with his view or loathes it), while Brown seems to have seethed with jealousy of his more telegenic colleague, and was more concerned with becoming top dog than deciding what to do once he became Prime Minister. Jealousy is another subject which fascinates me – it’s at the heart of The Serpent Pool.

Many commentators have described Brown as a sort of Shakespearean tragic hero, and there was something deeply moving about his (second) resignation speech after he lost the Election, when he finally dragged himself away from Downing Street and revealed himself as a husband and father (and no doubt, a very good one) rather than an economic wizard (almost certainly, a very bad one, unless you share his view that he saved the world during the credit crunch.) It’s a fair bet that, away from power, he will become happier and more fulfilled than he was when he achieved his political dream.

I once had lunch with Tony Blair, when he met up with a committee of which I was a member, about eighteen years ago. He was a very pleasant person to talk to, even though he was a lawyer who didn’t seem too interested in law. Of all the ministers and shadow ministers we met, Tory and Labour, he was by far the most charismatic. Yet, above all because of Iraq, many people revile him. This contrast between private and public images is yet another issue that offers enormous potential to the novelist. One day it’s a subject I’d like to tackle – perhaps through the medium of a thriller.

Identity: Chelsea Girl - review

Questions of identity fascinate me. People who want to solve their problems by becoming a different person, people obsessed with the lives of others – these ideas form a significant element in my books. Examples include The Coffin Trail, The Arsenic Labyrinth and The Serpent Pool. So naturally I was drawn to the concept behind the newish ITV series Identity.

Identity involves a team of cops specialising in identity fraud cases. Keeley Hawes is the star, but there is strong support from a good cast, including Holly Aird and Aiden Gillen. The show was devised by Ed Whitmore, who was involved with Waking the Dead – a series which I saw only fleetingly, but thought not at all bad.

My first encounter with Identity was an episode called Chelsea Girl. The set-up is excellent – a British girl called Olivia befriends another woman in Australia. But the new friend kills her, steals her identity, and catches a plane to England. Soon the cops are on her trail, and find that she is a woman with a troubled past. Now she is returning to her roots.

This was a very fast-paced show, a thriller rather than a whodunit. The killer is quickly identified, and the only question was how much havoc the killer would cause before she was caught. The story-line was highly melodramatic, but it was entertaining, and I shall certainly take another look at Identity, as soon as time permits.

The Cipher Garden and Amazon

I’ve received glad tidings from Allison & Busby, namely that The Cipher Garden is to be reprinted shortly, with new cover artwork in the same style as that for The Serpent Pool and the recent reprint of The Coffin Trail. An early version is illustrated above, although there may be a few changes before it is finalised.

This is pleasing news, because one of the unfortunate aspects of life as a published writer – if you are lucky enough to hang around for a few years, and produce a number of books – is that it’s all too easy for your work to slip out of print. This can be frustrating for several reasons. In my own case, I do find that people attending talks I give are sometimes keen to buy the early Harry Devlin books, and I don’t have that many of my own stockpile of copies left!

Yet the truth is that I was relatively lucky. The Devlin series did have a second life – after the books first came out, Hodder reprinted the early titles in the late 90s, as well as publishing the sixth and seventh entries in the series – but even that came to an end. As a result, when I wrote Waterloo Sunset, I was quite careful to make sure that someone could read it without any previous knowledge of the Devlin saga. And at least Waterloo Sunset – a book I enjoyed writing enormously - remains readily obtainable.

As for The Cipher Garden, I wonder if the fact that it’s been quite extensively (and positively, thank goodness!) reviewed on Amazon is a factor in its continuing sales and longevity. I guess that it may be. Whatever people may think about Amazon reviews, they do influence buyers, with five-star reviews clearly pretty important, and I’m certainly very grateful to those who have reviewed this and others of my books kindly on Amazon. One quite prominent writer recently told me of his dismay about negative reviews on Amazon of his latest book, and this rather sad story illustrates, I think, the impact of Amazon reviews on writer morale as well as on sales.

Authenticity

We all want our books to be, and to seem, authentic – don’t we? – but there is plenty of room for debate about what that really means. Robert Barnard tells a story about an American critic who praised his deep understanding of the backstage world of opera, when in fact Robert had no first hand knowledge of that milieu at all. But he wrote well enough to persuade the critic that he did.

A book or film that makes obvious mistakes of fact will tend to be panned, but a common experience is that people with specialised knowledge recognise that authenticity is lacking when others do not. A good example, I thought, was the comment made by Josephine in relation to my review of Lewis on Monday – she felt that the work of a translator was not convincingly portrayed.

More usually, the complaint is voiced by police officers that crime novels fail to describe their work with sufficient authenticity. Journalists often say the same. So, come to that, do lawyers. I cringe occasionally when I read some of the unrealistic descriptions of legal life, although if the fiction is written well enough, I am certainly prepared to forgive a lot. It’s a mistake to be excessively picky, I think.

Sometimes, an issue arises about authenticity as a result of a deliberate decision by the author, rather than a mistake. The other day I received an interesting email from a reader who enjoyed The Serpent Pool, but was troubled because I’d created a fictional university in Cumbria. She made the point that resources are barely enough to support the one uni that does actually exist in the area. I'm sure that is true, but I tried to explain that I was very well aware I was inventing something. I just didn’t want to libel inadvertently an existing institution, or the people who work there. The whole point about fiction is that, whilst it may seek to cast light on real life, it is not quite the same as real life.

Plot, Pace and Information

Every now and then in this blog, I touch on an issue concerning the writing of crime fiction, and I’ve been interested to see how many comments some of these posts have prompted. One example was when I asked about the gruesomeness of some modern crime fiction. And another came last Monday, with my post ‘Too Much Information?’

These are topics that intrigue me, though I don’t think there are simple answers to the questions I have posed, and I’m glad that you seem to have found them interesting too. Many readers, it seems, are fascinated by the craft of writing, and give it a lot of thought.

A number of comments on ‘Too Much Information?’ made the point that the key issue is that of balance, and I agree. If background information slows down the development of the story, that’s a drawback. But background information conveyed subtly can add a layer of interest to the book, and can also, sometimes, reflect some of the key themes.

If I were to choose an example from my own work, it might be The Serpent Pool. There’s quite a bit of stuff in there about Thomas De Quincey, which (I like to think) is interesting in its own right. But it’s also intended to cast some light on the plot, both in relation to the role that Daniel Kind plays in unravelling the central mystery, and in conveying ideas about motivation to murder.

Books that have a historical setting tend, by definition, to include a good deal of information about past times. Ellis Peters’ books about Brother Cadfael provide a classic example. And when I wrote Dancing for the Hangman, I tried to integrate historical background with the depiction of Crippen as a credible, if by no means wholly likeable, character. The pace of modern life is one of the reasons why a novel set today can seldom afford to become bogged down with an excess of background detail. But provided that detail is relevant and interesting, it can certainly add to reader enjoyment.