Forgotten Book - The Tube

Regular readers of this blog will know of my admiration for the books that Pierre Boileau wrote in tandem with Thomas Narcejac. Their excellent crime stories were by no means limited to the books that were brilliantly filmed as Vertigo and Les Diaboliques. They were, like Hitchcock, masters of suspense. They were also very clever plotsmiths, and The Tube is a case in point.

The book was originally published in France in 1958, under the title L'ingenieur aimait trop les chiffres, and was translated into English in 1960 by Robert Eglesfield. It continues to surprise me, by the way, that some of the duo's work remains untranslated. You'd think that their success would make their work very much in demand.

In this novel they set out to update the locked room mystery. We are presented with a classic impossible crime scenario, but in what was then a highly topical and controversial setting - a nuclear laboratory. The story opens with a shooting. The victim is a scientist who has been working on a nuclear device, misuse of which could kill millions. Not only is it impossible to figure out how the killer escaped detection - the tube containing the lethal material has gone missing. Yes, I'm afraid that health and safety systems at the lab were astonishingly lax.

The story is told with characteristic pace, and assurance - Boileau and Narcejac really were very skilled writers. They were also pleasingly ingenious. Their taste of the macabre is not quite so much in evidence here as in some of their mysteries; then again, the threat of  the exploding tube will be potent even for most readers' tastes. It's  a quick, light read, and I'm surprised that nobody has seen fit to reprint the story in English for almost sixty years.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn - book review

A. J. Finn's debut novel The Woman in the Window has been riding high in the bestselling charts, and having read it, I can see why. Finn's story blends classic ingredients of psychological suspense with an unreliable narrator, excellent plot twists, and (especially in the early part of the book) compelling prose. There are a lot of books in this vein at present, but this is one I can safely recommend.

The premise of the story owes a great deal to the master of the emotional thriller, Cornell Woolrich: it's really lifted straight out of Rear Window, and Finn cleverly makes a virtue out of this borrowing by having his narrator, Anna Fox, talk endlessly about film noir. Anna is confined to her apartment by agoraphobia, and whiles away her time by spying on her neighbours. Needless to say, the day comes when she sees something shocking - but when the police come on the scene, her account appears to be incredible, and nobody believes her. What on earth is going on?

Although the premise is familiar, what Finn does with it is so cunningly thought out that I'd better not say too much about the way the storyline develops. I felt that Woolrich and his French disciples Boileau and Narcejac (Vertigo, based on their most famous book, is naturally referenced in this story) would not only have recognised the way Finn sets up his mystery, but also admired it. The question then is: can Finn resolve the puzzle he's created without letting us down? Woolrich in particular often struggled to avoid anti-climax, but I think Finn does an excellent job in tying up the loose ends. Having read this skilfully crafted novel, I wasn't in this least surprised to discover that Finn was an experienced book editor.

Finn's real name is Daniel Mallory, and I've been interested to read interviews in which he's discussed his experience of misdiagnosed depression - a topic I touched on the other day in the context of writers and wellbeing. That experience has evidently fed into his presentation of Anna, a deeply troubled woman, who seems to me to be portrayed very effectively. Yes, I enjoyed this book very much. The real challenge for Finn is now simply this: how can I improve on my excellent debut? 

The Riverside Murder - 1935 film

Having recorded The Riverside Murder when it was screened by Talking Pictures, I was astonished to find, once I got round to watching it, that the source material was S.A. Steeman's excellent novel Six Dead Men. It has to be said that the script alters the storyline very considerably, and not just because the action is switched to England. But the writing is pretty slick, and that's no surprise, considering that the writer was a good crime novelist in his own right, Selwyn Jepson.

A wealthy financier is murdered by a mysterious gunman, and it soon becomes clear that present at the scene were (at least) two men with a very good reason to kill him. The tontine that features in the original story is, here, turned into a "pact", which means that a number of individuals have motives for murder.

The official detective work is undertaken by affable Inspector Winton (Philip Sydney), aided and abetted by Sergeant McKay (none other than Alastair Sim - apparently this was his first film appearance). But their investigation is interrupted by an intrepid and cheeky young woman who wants to make her name as a crime reporter - this isn't the only film of the 30s to feature such a character, and here she's played by Judy Gunn. Quite a few familiar crime story tropes make an appearance (the threat to take a cop off the case, leading to him to plead for just a few more hours, etc.) But they are handled in a light, entertaining way.

The suspects include one character played by Tom Helmore, who almost a quarter of a century later would make quite an impact as Gavin Elster in Hitchcock's classic Vertigo. The body count rises rapidly as Jepson's script breezes along to a pleasing conclusion. I must say I found it all very enjoyable: a real find.

Forgotten Book - Bird in a Cage

Frederic Dard was a successful and exceptionally prolific French crime writer whose work is little known in Britain despite the fact that he's often been compared to his friend Georges Simenon. That should change now, since Pushkin Vertigo have begun to publish some of his books.in English translation. I decided to have a look at Bird in a Cage, first published in 1961, and now translated by David Bellos.

This is a mystery set at Christmas, but if you're expecting a Parisian equivalent of The Santa Klaus Murder, you are in for a shock. It's really a noir story, with a melancholic mood, and a whiff of Boileau-Narcejac (when will more of their mysteries be translated into English, I wonder? Vertigo was far from being their only masterpiece).

The protagonist is Albert, who has come back home after years of absence. His mother is dead, and he becomes entranced by an attractive woman he chances to meet. The woman has a child (although it has to be said that the narrative does not show her parenting skills in a particularly good light) but she seems as drawn to Albert as he is to him.

Before long, however, we are confronted with a corpse, and in due course, in classic mystery fashion, the body vanishes. What is going on? I enjoyed this story, and felt that Bellos' translation worked well. It's a very short book, not much more than a novella, but none the worse for that brevity. I enjoyed reading it, and will look forward to reading more Frederic Dard.

San Francisco

Because Hawaii is so far away from Cheshire, I wanted to break up the long journey home. And where better to do so than a city I've long wanted to discover, San Francisco? The city by the bay did more than live up to expectations. It's now my favourite American city. I may not quite have left my heart there, but I found it quite enthralling.

It's a city with strong crime fiction associations. Laurie R. King lives there, and she gave me a few tips about places to visit. I was fascinated by my first glimpse of Alcatraz, scene of some notable movies. I suppose, though, that I associate San Francisco most closely with two films. First, Bullitt, the private eye film legendary for its car chase. And second, Vertigo, one of the best crime films ever made; I've seen it four or five times. And of course the full list of famous films set there is lengthy.

I'm often teased for my unashamedly touristy devotion to hop-on, hop-off buses, but I'm unrepentant: they make a very good way to get one's bearings in an unfamiliar place, and my first aim was to do just that. After riding around the city, the next step was to explore Fisherman's Wharf, and Pier 39 (I hadn't expected to see large numbers of sea lions right next to it) and take a ride on one of the famous cable cars, which I loved. Then there was a night bus tour, a chance to see both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge lit up against the night sky. All very memorable.

Next came a trip to Sausalito, an appealing little town with a Riviera-like atmosphere. From there we took the ferry across the bay, past the Golden Gate Bridge, past Alcatraz and back to the ferry terminal. And in the terminal building, while having a snack, I spotted a bookshop called Book Passage. Unable to resist, I had a look inside and to my amazement found two of the anthologies I've edited for the British Library. Quite a treat.

 Further exploration followed - the "Crookedest Street", which is unlike anything I've ever seen - Chinatown, Japantown, and the Painted Ladies (the latter a group of houses on Alamo Square). My plan now is to read some more crime fiction set in San Francisco. I'm familiar with Laurie's books - any other recommendations?.

The Paradine Case - film review

The Paradine Case is a 1948 film by Alfred Hitchcock, in which the Master of Suspense tried his hand at a courtroom drama. It's an American film, with notable American actors in two of the leading roles, but it's set in Britain, mainly at the Old Bailey and in a somewhat thinly evoked Cumberland (where one of the locals speaks in a bizarre mixture of cod-Northern accents - dear old Hitchcock may have been a Brit, but I don't think he had much of a clue about the North of England.)

The set-up is this. A wealthy blind man has been poisoned. His attractive foreign wife (played by Alida Valli, credited simply as Valli) is charged with his murder. Charles Coburn is her solicitor, and he hires Tony Keane (Gregory Peck), a top defence barrister, to represent her. Things start to go awry when Tony unwisely falls in love with his client, much to the distress of his wife. She is played by Ann Todd, who was born in Hartford, thus making her one of the very few famous actresses to hail from my old stamping ground, Northwich!

Tony travels to the scene of the crime in the Lake District, where he encounters the deceased's moody valet (Louis Jourdan), whose bizarre behaviour seems highly suspicious.  There are various possibilities. The accused may be guilty, she may have conspired with the valet, the valet may be guilty, or the dead man may have committed suicide. The main focus, however, is not really on whodunit but on Tony's conduct of the case, and his handling, or rather mishandling, of his relationships with his client and his wife. I'm afraid, though, that I found Tony rather irritating.

The cast includes Charles Laughton as the satyr-like judge, and Leo G. Carroll (whom I  remember rather fondly from The Man From UNCLE) as counsel for the prosecution. It's quite a good film, but for me, there was far too much soap-opera standard emoting, and not enough suspense. Not typical Hitchcock, by any means. I'm glad I've seen it, but give me North by North West, Rear Window or Vertigo any day..

Forgotten Book - Evil Eye

One of the mysteries of crime fiction is why, even today, so few of the crime novels of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac have been translated into English. This was the duo who gave us Vertigo and Les Diaboliques, yet even when they were in their prime,in the Fifties, a good many of their collaborative novels went untranslated. And try laying your hands on an English language version of their earlier solo efforts...All very odd, for they were marvellous writers. I've featured their work several times on this blog, and today's Forgotten Book is Evil Eye, which Geoffrey Saintsbury translated in 1959.

It's a short novel, and the British hardback edition was bulked out by the inclusion of a novella called Sleeping Beauty, which I'll write about on another occasion (the UK paperback edition did not, I believe,include Sleeping Beauty for some reason.) The hardback is very difficult to find these days. When John Norris reviewed the book on his blog four years ago,(and an excellent and very enthusiastic review it was) I commented that I was keen to track down a copy myself. But I've only just managed to find one.

Was the book worth the wait? Yes, definitely. Boileau and Narcejac never repeated themselves, and yet somehow The Evil Eye is very characteristic of their work - one can't imagine it being written by anyone else. Their stories invariably have a touch of weirdness, and the plot is often so improbable that,in the hands of a less gifted writer, the result would be hopeless. But their work is always very readable.

Here, we have a young man, Remy, who is suddenly cured of his long-term paralysis by a healer. Once Remy can walk again and becomes independent, he becomes increasingly concerned by events in the past, which may in some way have caused the paralysis. The mood is menacing, and yet the reader can't be sure what is going on. The hallucinatory style of Boileau and Narcejac is very well captured in the translation. This isn't my favourite of their work - it's too slight, really, for that -, but it held my interest from start to finish.

Forgotten Book - Les Magiciennes

When you find a writer whose work you really enjoy, it is a rather sad moment when you have finally read all of their available books. There is, though, an added frustration if the writer is foreign, and there are plenty more titles out there- but which have yet to be translated. Such is the case with one of my favourite writing duos, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The authors of the books which formed the basis for Vertigo and Les Diaboliques were prolific, but despite their success, many of their stories have yet to appear in English (which I find very surprising, I must say.). And having stopped studying French at the age of 16, regrettably, I'm not up to reading the originals.

Happily, however, Mrs Edwards is, like our daughter, a more accomplished linguist than me, and she has made her own translation of a very interesting short novel by Boileau and Narcejac, Les Magiciennes, and this is my Forgotten Book for today (though whether it's forgotten in France, I don't know - perhaps not.).

As so often with these writers, the central plot idea is spooky and arresting. The central character, Pierre Doutre, comes from a family which has made its life in the theatrical world. When his father dies, Pierre and his mother (a nicely portrayed character) struggle to come up with a strong enough magic act that will keep them going.  And then they come across two identical - and enigmatic - twin girls, with whose help their lives are transformed.

Because the audience does not know that there are two girls who look exactly the same, rather than just one girl, the twins can be employed to produce illusions which cause a sensation. And that's exactly what happens. But when Pierre falls for one of the girls,the complications come thick and fast. This is a book about identity, but it's also a neat and vivid thriller. Apparently, like so many of the authors' stories, it was turned into a film ,but this does not seem to be easy to track down. I'd love to see it one day but in the meantime I enjoyed the novel and I hope that some enterprising publisher makes it more widely available one of these fine days.

Forgotten Book - Heart to Heart

My latest entry for Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten books is another novel co-written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Heart to Heart was published in the UK In 1959, in a translation by Daphne Woodward – not long, that is, after Hitchcock turned one of the duo’s earlier books into Vertigo.

Heart to Heart is rather different from other Boileau-Narcejac novels that I have read – in fact, their ability to ring the changes and their willingness to take risks are aspects of their writing that I much admire. Here the setting is the world of popular music. Jean Leprat is a young pianist who has embarked on a dangerous affair with the glamorous Eve, who is married to Faugeres, a famous songwriter who is also a selfish and sadistic husband.

Leprat is responsible for the death of Faugeres, with Eve a witness, but at first it seems that the couple have successfully covered up their involvement. But then records arrive which, when played, feature the songwriter’s last composition – and menacing messages from him.

It is a sinister and gripping set-up, but for once the authors came up with a plot that is relatively thin. I enjoyed it, but didn’t think it reached the high level of some of their other books, such as The Prisoner. The rather clunky English prose didn’t help, either. It’s a highly charged emotional thriller, and might have benefited from a less literal translation. And also, perhaps, from a protagonist rather less self-centred and weak than Jean Leprat.

Witness to Murder

Witness to Murder is a 1954 movie which I stumbled across the other day and found surprisingly enjoyable. The premise is engaging, if not totally original – a woman sees a murder committed in the apartment block across the road, but can’t find anyone to believe her story, and becomes increasingly paranoid.

So we are in Rear Window territory, although Cornell Woolrich wasn’t responsible for the screenplay, which was the work of director Chester Erskine. The cinematographic style takes Witness to Murder into the realm of film noir, and despite a few implausible plot twists, and scenes which veer into high melodrama, overall this is an effective piece of movie-making.

The key to the film’s success lies in the casting of the two stars. Barbara Stanwyck is almost as good playing the panic-stricken good girl as she is at portraying the dark-hearted bad girl in Double Indemnity. The oily George Sanders is suitably nasty as Richter, the violence-obsessive who strangles a prostitute and then sets out to destabilise, discredit and ultimately kill the witness to his crime. To rub in how unpleasant Richter is, he turns out to be an ex-Nazi who rants away in an explosive burst of guttural German when provoked. Sanders played so many appalling rotters in his time that I really do hope he was a delightful chap in real life. Fortunately, a nice cop falls for Stanwyck, and though his attempt to prove her story correct draws a blank time and again, he doesn’t give up.

This isn’t a major film, but the suspense is maintained throughout with a climactic scene worthy of Vertigo, and that coupled with the performance of the two stars explains why it has worn well. I’m glad I watched it.

Forgotten Book - Faces in the Dark

The French writing duo Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac are among my favourite writers of Eurocrime, and they are responsible for my latest contribution to Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books for Friday. Faces in the Dark was first published in Britain in 1955, in a translation by Geoffrey Sainsbury.

The premise is, as usual with these authors, macabre and gripping. Richard Hermantier is a wealthy businessman who has been blinded and disfigured by an exploding grenade. He lives now in a dark, unsettling world – yet, in an ironic touch, his company manufactures lamps. What is to become of him? At least he has a loving wife, a diligent business associate, a feckless yet amiable brother, as well as some devoted servants. So why does he begin to feel afraid?

The tension mounts steadily, and although some of the plot developments are foreseeable, the ending is not. With Boileau and Narcejac, you can never be sure whether the protagonists of their stand-alones will survive – or meet a terrible fate. Hermantier’s darkness is conveyed with menace, and there is one especially grim and memorable scene in a graveyard. This is a short but suspenseful book, not quite at the same high level as some of their work, but still very readable.

Boileau and Narcejac were such vivid writers that their work was often filmed – as with Vertigo and Les Diaboliques. My paperback copy of this book is a film tie-in. The movie Faces in the Dark had a good cast, including John Gregson, Mai Zetterling and Michael Denison. However, I have never come across it. Has anyone?