Forgotten Book - The Counsellor

J.J. Connington was once well-regarded as an author of Golden Age detective fiction, and he was a member of the Detection  Club from its early days, but his work had fallen far out of favour until the recent revival of interest in Golden Age fiction. He was among the more skilled plotsmiths of the twenties and thirties, and my Forgotten Book for today is one of the novels he wrote late in his career, The Counsellor, first published in 1939.

This is one of a pair of novels featuring Mark Brand, dubbed (and referred to relentlessly throughout the story as) "The Counsellor". He's a rich young man who has found an unexpected calling as a radio detective. Connington was trying something fresh here, and he was very much ahead of his time. It wasn't until many years later that the idea of a radio gumshoe really caught on, with that wonderful series Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve. I once read a Shoestring novelisation by the late Paul Ableman which like so many TV tie-ins was only so-so, but the scripts were sharp and engaging, and I was very sorry when Eve walked away from the show. (The second episode of the excellent Unforgotten last night provided a reminder of his compelling screen presence.)

Back to The Counsellor. He runs a slick operation in Oxford Street, with a loyal staff ready to deal with any query his listeners can throw at him. His fancy is caught by a letter from a chap who tells him about a young woman who has gone missing. Brand picks up clues as to the girl's destination, and goes haring up to Scotland after her. He only finds her missing car, and evidence that she has gone through a form of marriage with a young American.

The plot thickens from there, but I must say that I found the mystery only average by Connington's standards. Never mind.: I like the way he kept trying to do something different with the traditional detective story, and also his passionate commitment to "playing fair" with the reader. Brand's second case was a definite improvement on this one, with a stronger plot, and I'm rather sorry that the series didn't continue.

Cold Comes the Night - film review

Cold Comes the Night is a 2013 film directed, and co-written, by Tze Chun. The reviews I've seen have been rather mixed, and I find this rather hard to understand, since in my opinion this is a gripping thriller, and the audience never quite knows for sure where the meandering, but intriguing, storyline will lead. I felt that there were some original features to the story that were pretty impressive.

One of the attractive features of the film is that it has a heroine who sometimes behaves in a way that we simply do not associate with heroines. Alice Eve (yes, daughter of Trevor Eve, the one-time star of Shoestring) plays Chloe a single mother who runs a disreputable motel in a down-at-heel area. She is having an affair with a crooked police officer and is trying to make enough money to be able to take her young daughter somewhere safer and more appealing.

Topo, a gangster from Eastern Europe, played by Bryan Cranston, crosses her path with disastrous consequences. He has been hired to take some money to a villainous young crook, but when his driver is killed after a row with a prostitute at Chloe's motel, Topo loses the cash and has to threaten Chloe into helping him to retrieve it. His problem is that he is nearly blind, and this means that he needs her as much as she needs a share of that missing money.. A strange, yet oddly plausible, relationship develops between Chloe and Topo, and this adds a layer of complexity and interest to the film.

I really liked the way that, at times, the script made me root for Chloe and Topo as they embark on their hazardous quest, whilst not shrinking from the reality that each of them has a dark side. This is clever writing. From start to finish, I really wanted to know what happened next. This is a really entertaining movie, and I feel that it is undeservedly under-estimated.

 

Death Comes to Pemberley - BBC One tv review

Death Comes to Pemberley, adapted from the novel by P.D.James, and BBC One's flagship crime show for Christmas, began this evening. Naturally, it boasts a glittering cast,including one of my favourite actors, Trevor Eve (I still mourn the premature demise of that excellent series of long ago, Shoestring). as well as the excellent Rebecca Front, whose very varied CV includes Lewis, and Jenna Coleman, seen yesterday evening in Doctor Who.

Traditional Golden Age detective fiction, of which the admirable P.D. James is - perhaps alongside Colin Dexter - the greatest modern exponent, is often associated with country house settings, and a storyline which presents a sort of homicidal sequel to Pride and Prejudice was James' neat way of combining the country house backdrop with a historical mystery paying due homage to Jane Austen. She isn't, however, the first British crime writer to have made good use of Austen's work. The late Reginald Hill wrote a notable story inspired by Emma, a book which he argued had many of the attributes of a detective novel.

This first episode of three began enigmatically, in the grounds of the Darcys' mansion. Two young women servants walking in the woods become frightened and claim to have seen a ghost, although we do not learn for some time the legend behind the apparition, or that it is (surprise, surprise!) supposed to be the precursor of misfortune. After this promising opening, though, the focus was for a long time rather more on pastiche Austen than on mysterious murder, and there were moments when I found myself wondering when the detective work was likely to get going.

Things did, however, start to warm up when, after shots were heard, a man was found dead in the grounds of the house. A local magistrate (Eve, in terrific form) was duly called in, and the credits rolled as the obvious suspect was driven away for further questioning while protesting his innocence. We can, of course, be sure that there is more to this crime than meets the eye. How much more, I don't know, because this is one of only a couple of James' books that I haven't read. But I'm looking forward to finding out..

The Dangerous Game

One of the very best British detective shows on tv (at least, in my opinion) was Shoestring, which ran for about a year, and 21 episodes, starting in 1979. The show introduced me to Trevor Eve, one of the most watchable actors, making a name for himself as Eddie Shoestring, who takes up a career as a gumshoe working for a Bristol-based commercial radio station after suffering a nervous breakdown.

I’ve just watched The Dangerous Game, which proved to be the very last Shoestring case. It’s set at Christmas, and it’s worn surprisingly well, with the characteristic blend of a neat story idea and Eve’s idiosyncratic and memorably intense work as the oddball hero. In this one, he discovers that a number of dangerous electrical games have been sold as Christmas presents. In the run-up to Christmas Day, he has to track all the games down in a race against the clock before a child is seriously injured or killed.

As with many episodes, the cast was impressive – it included those splendid performers Celia Imrie and Burt Kwouk. Doran Goodwin made her usual all too brief appearance as Eddie’s not-quite love interest; she is an appealing actor and it’s a pity she’s been, at least as far as I know, long absent from major roles on the screen.

I’m not sure if viewers outside the UK ever saw Shoestring, but it acquired a devoted following here. Eve gave up the part because he didn’t want to be typecast, and the writers used a similar premise in a more glamorous setting to create Jersey’s finest cop, Bergerac. John Nettles did a great job as Jim Bergerac, but I still prefer Shoestring.