Forgotten Book - Skin for Skin

Skin for Skin by Winifred Duke was published by Gollancz in 1935, and it earned a rave review from another Gollancz author, no less an authority than Dorothy L. Sayers. Duke was an expert in true crime who also wrote fiction, and this novel is based very, very closely on the Wallace case. The names have been changed - Wallace becomes Bruce, Liverpool becomes Salchester, and so on - but Duke didn't deny that she was fictionalising very recent events. Wallace was convicted of murdering his wife in 1931, but the conviction was quashed on appeal. He did not, however, enjoy his freedom for long.

In this story, it is made clear from the outset that Bruce deliberately set about planning to murder his wife. Duke was at pains to emphasise that she was not suggesting that this meant she thought Wallace guilty (and thus "lucky to get away with it"), although it's hard to believe she'd have written this book in this way if she believed he was innocent. Her argument, in effect, was that she was trying to imagine what would have motivated him if he had indeed been guilty. This argument does raise ethical questions, although I think it's a legitimate piece of work. Indeed, as the title (taken from the Book of Job) suggests, this is a book with a moral.

The writing is plain, but very readable, and I raced through the story. Even though I'm very familiar with the Wallace case, I found myself gripped by Bruce's story. I have some reservations about the book, but I can see why Sayers admired it. It's a very lucid piece of work. Faction, you might call it.

My greatest reservations concern not Duke's writing, but her fictional premise. I struggle to believe that Wallace was guilty. This is a case which I've had the pleasure of discussing with two considerable authorities, P.D. James (who thought he was guilty, though previously she'd thought him innocent) and Roger Wilkes (who wrote an important book seeking to establish his innocence). Sayers also wrote about the case in detail, and I share her view that Wallace's psychological profile was not that of a murderer. Duke does a good job, in creative fiction terms, of trying to explain his motivation, on the premise that he did decide to kill his wife. But even though I enjoyed reading the book, and can recommend it, I'm still not convinced. I think Wallace was a wretchedly unlucky man, who suffered a terrible injustice.

Forgotten Book - Henbane

Henbane, by Catherine Meadows, published in the US as Doctor Moon, is a long-forgotten book dating from 1934, which I have wanted to track down for ages. There were two reasons for my curiosity. First, it's a fictionalisation of the Crippen case, which has fascinated me for decades. Having been responsible for my own take on Crippen in Dancing for the Hangman, I'm always keen to see what other writers make of the story. Second, Dorothy L. Sayers lavished praise on the book in one of her reviews for the Sunday Times, and she was no mean judge.

I wasn't disappointed. This is a very readable and capably written novel, and it's all the more surprising that Meadows, so far as I know, published only one other novel. That was Friday Market,another book inspired by a real life crime, namely the Armstrong case. I do wonder if Meadows was a pen-name for someone else,but I've  not found any evidence of this. If anyone knows the answer,or has more information about the mysterious Ms Meadows, I'd be glad to learn it.

Meadows sticks fairly closely to the established facts of the Crippen case,but makes some amendments - more, I think, than Sayers realised. Caspar Moon, who stands in for Crippen, is very sympathetically presented, and so too is his secretary and lover, based on Ethel Le Neve. It follows that his wife Cora (called Flora in the novel) is presented vividly but negatively, as a man-chasing and utterly selfish domestic tyrant. Sayers said: "the book is not merely a costume-piece, still less a study in morbid psychology; it is a fine novel of human passion and suffering."

I haven't kept a statistical record, but it's my very strong impression that the Crippen case is referenced more frequently in Golden Age fiction than any other real life case - including such notable cases as Maybrick and Wallace. The story was sensational in its day, and remains absolutely full of interest - so much so that I enjoyed writing Dancing for the Hangman as much as any other novel I've ever written. As with Maybrick and Wallace, there 's room to debate what actually happened. I don't go along with the theory advanced a few years ago,based on claims relating to DNA, that Crippen's wife survived, and I think it very likely (as, I believe, did Agatha Christie) that Ethel was not quite the dewy-eyed innocent portrayed by Meadows. But Meadows' story, though told at a pace that is very leisurely by today's standards, remains enjoyable, and it's baffling that a writer of such accomplishment should have vanished seemingly without trace. .  

P.D. James and the Wallace Case - a Classic Murder Mystery

The murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool in 1931 has fascinated people for over eighty years. Raymond Chandler was one of many crime novelists who was puzzled as to where the truth lay. Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr were among the others, and Sayers wrote an important essay about the case, included in the Detection Club book Anatomy of Murder. John Rhode wrote two novels which drew on aspects of the case, and more recently John Hutton wrote an excellent novel inspired by it. Now it is the turn of Sayers' admirer P.D.James, herself a doyenne of the Detection Club, to investigate - and the outcome of her own detective work has appeared in The Sunday Times today.

First, a brief recap on the main facts. William Herbert Wallace was a middle aged, respectable and apparently happily married insurance agent who received a telephone message at the Chess Club where he played, from a prospective new client, R.M. Qualtrough. Wallace was asked to call at Qualtrough's home the following evening. He duly et out, but the address given to him did not exist. When he returned home, he found his wife dead. She had been battered to death. Wallace was found guilty and sentenced to death, but reprieved on appeal. However, he died not long after being released from prison.

Research undertaken by Jonathan Goodman and Roger Wilkes seemed to establish that the actual killer was a man called Parry.However,P.D.James has cast doubt on this conclusion. To follow her detailed reasoning, one has to read her essay very carefully(and it is behind a paywall). I think it's a truly fascinating piece of work.

The question she has presented us with is this - was Wallace in fact guilty, after all? She thinks he was. I think it's marvellous that she has reinvestigated the case, and her essay is intensely readable, as you would expect. Even for those who are not true crime fans, it's an engrossing mystery. I want to reflect on P.D. James' arguments before coming to any conclusions - that's the lawyer in me, I guess! - but I must say that my instinctive view is that I still believe Wallace was innocent. Anthony Berkeley said of the Crippen case (I'm paraphrasing, but only slightly) that a man "does not become a fiend overnight", and I think he was right. The psychological profile of Wallace doesn't seem to me to be that of a murderer, and there are one or two other aspects of the latest theory that don't instantly convince me. But - the debate is now reopened, and I would be extremely interested to know what others think about this enduring and extraordinary puzzle.

Forgotten B0ok - The Telephone Call

My choice for today's Forgotten Book dates back to 1948. The Telephone Call by John Rhode is a sound example of crime fiction inspired by a real-life case. The case in question is one of the most celebrated true crime mysteries of the 20th century, the Wallace case. And it's a murder mystery that has long intrigued me, partly because it has so many fascinating aspects and partly because it occurred in Liverpool, a city I know well.

Dorothy L Sayers and Raymond Chandler were amongst those who are fascinated by the Wallace story and Sayers wrote about it at some length. There was a widespread (although by no means universal) consensus that Wallace did not murder his wife, although many years passed before diligent investigative journalism produced a plausible theory about an alternative culprit, whom it was impossible to bring to justice.

John Rhode apparently used elements from the Wallace story in an earlier novel, Vegetable Duck, which I have not yet read. The Telephone Call does, however, follow the real-life scenario quite closely. Rhode acknowledges in a note at the outset that "this story is based on a celebrated murder trial" although he hastens to insist that "his treatment of it and the solution he propound are entirely imaginary".

Most of the detective work in the novel is undertaken by Superintendent Jimmy Waghorn of Scotland Yard, but he finds it necessary to consult more than once Rhode's most famous amateur sleuth, Dr Lancelot Priestley. This is a soundly constructed novel with an interesting solution, although since that solution depends upon the character of the victim, and Rhode fails adequately to characterise her for most of the book, it falls short of excellence. In fact, in this respect it is a good example of the shortcomings of detective novels which focus heavily upon alibis rather than strong characterisation of the key players in the drama. Yet despite its failings, The Telephone Call is a good illustration of true crime rendered as fiction, and I certainly found it well worth reading.

Forgotten Book - 29 Herriott Street

My latest entry in Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books is a novel first published in 1983, John Hutton’s 29 Herriott Street. I read this, and Hutton’s other book, Accidental Crimes, not long after they first came out in paperback and I was greatly impressed. All the more amazing, therefore, that he did not go on to enjoy a long and distinguished career as a crime novelist.

29 Herriott Street takes some of its basic facts from that classic Liverpool murder story from the 30s, the Wallace case. Hutton, a Mancunian by birth, transplants the crime to his native city and develops the story in a fascinating, though fictional way. Forty years after the savage woman at Number 29, a writer called Winnick re-opens the case and uncovers (you guessed it!) dark and hideous secrets.

The reviews of this book were outstanding. No less a figure than A.S. Byatt admired it, and I share her enthusiasm for the ‘plain English skill of the telling.’ Hutton was a formidable talent. Accidental Crimes is equally good. Hutton is still alive, I believe, and in his 80s. He has lived in North Wales for years, and his career was devoted to education. He has long been a member of the CWA, but I’ve never met him – or even heard anyone mention his name - baffling. But he deserves to be recognised as a man who can write powerfully and engagingly. This book alone is proof of that.