The Escape Artist - BBC 1 TV review

The Escape Artist, which began on BBC 1 tonight, was always likely to appeal to me. A three-part thriller with a barrister as the main character, and David Tennant (fresh from the excellent Broadchurch) cast in the lead role, what could possibly go wrong? What is more, the script is by the highly regarded David Wolstencroft. So I sat down to watch with high expectations.

Of course, the TV legal thriller is fraught with pitfalls. Most lawyers, I think it's fair to say, are deeply unconvinced by the majority of lawyers who appear on the screen - I suppose police officers know that feeling all too well. It's not easy to strike a balance between credibility and good entertainment. Years ago, I recall a series about an employment lawyer which rejoiced in the name Fish. The verdict in the Liverpool employment tribunal the following day was damning, I'm afraid.

On the whole, the better shows have tended to showcase barristers rather than solicitors - I'm sure this is because of the lure of courtroom drama rather than because solicitors are less interesting people! (And Kinsey and The Main Chance were among the notable exceptions to the general rule.) At one time, I thought the two legal professions would one day merge - quite a widely held view - but now I'm less sure. The criminal Bar is suffering because of cuts in legal aid, yet many solicitors' firms have run into difficulty too. But a show dealing with the realities of legal life at a time of economic difficulty would hardly be a ratings winner, and here, as usual on telly, the lawyers (including Roy Marsden, playing a veteran solicitor in his customary suave manner) are all rich and mostly on the top of their game.

Tennant plays Will Burton, a lawyer so good at getting his clients off that he is known as the Escape Artist. He is a good husband and father (except for his horrible habit of shouting from the touchline when his son plays football) and he never loses a case, which must make him unique. When an apparent sociopath (spookily played by the excellent Toby Kebbel) hires hiim when he needs a good defence to a charge of a very gruesome murder, Will wins again, after one or two rather improbable moments in court. But Will and his client haven't bonded, and Bad Things start to happen.

This was a very striking start to the story, and I was gripped from start to finish. Tennant is a great actor, but the supporting cast was also very, very good. Episode two is a must-watch for me.

Norman Geras

Norman Geras,who died a few days ago, was the husband of Adele Geras, with whom I spent a memorable week-end at the Kidwelly ebook festival last year, and the father of Sophie Hannah, a crime writer of distinction who has recently been appointed to write a brand new Poirot story. I'm optimistic that she'll make a very good job of it.

Adele and Sophie are charming, but Norman himself, I am sorry to say, I never met. It's clear from the many warm tributes that have been paid to him that he was a man of real distinction, and I'm sure that I would have enjoyed his company, had I been fortunate enough to share it.

Anyway, a few years ago, Norman got in touch with me via email and said that he'd picked up on the fact that I'm a great admirer of Julian Symons. I gather he was, too. So he asked me to write something for his blog about Symons, and I was glad to do so here.

I'm extremely sorry that he won't be around to see the publication of Sophie's take on Poirot. But I'm glad that he knew all about it, and I bet he was very proud indeed. Rightly so.

P.D. James and true crime wriitng - a few more thoughts

P.D. James' reassessment of the Wallace case, which I posted about yesterday, is one of the most exciting pieces of "true crime" writing I've read for a long time. And so I thought I'd make a few more points, again in the hope of stimulating debate among those who find the Wallace mystery as intriguing as I do.

For a start, I'm really pleased that this admirable writer, whose The Maul and The Pear-Tree (co-written with T.A. Critchley) is a very good book about a nineteenth century case, has turned again to a historical puzzle.There is a long and rather splendid tradition of crime novelists taking an interest in real life cases and I'm pleased to see from this essay that the Queen of Crime is on top form. Not that, after her very enjoyable paper about the Golden Age at St Hilda's a couple of months back, I had any doubt about that.

I would like to think that this stylish and ingenious essay will kick-start a revival of interest in classic murder cases. They were in vogue again about 20 years ago, but with a few notable exceptions (above all, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher) the trend in "true crime" writing has seemed to be rather downmarket, with a number of lurid books about gangsters and the Mafia that prioritised sensation rather than quality.

As regards Wallace, I'm still mulling over P.D. James' arguments, but on the whole I side with the  "Wallace was innocent" campaign. I don't attach much importance, for instance, to the fact that the presumed killer's ex-girlfriend said late in life that she didn't believe he was a murderer. There could be various reasons why she said that. Most important, though, is Wallace's psychological profile. Does it suggest a murderer? (Or someone who would dress up as his wife in order to create confusion about the time of death?) Well, we are all capable of unexpected behaviour, but I don't see him as a man who could commit such a crime and then maintain a resolute protestation of innocence until he died. He might have been an insurance salesman (and a former political agent) but I don't know of any evidence suggesting he was capable of sustained dishonesty, let alone violence. The alternative suspect, Parry, on the other hand, had a criminal record, albeit for comparatively minor offences.

One thing is for sure. As the never-ending debate about Jack the Ripper shows, these classic cases are never closed. There's always the chance that some fresh and plausible theory will crop up. And that explains the enduring appeal of true crime writing.

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.

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives - review

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, is the rather brilliant title of one of the most interesting anthologies of crime fiction that I've read in a long time. Edited by Sarah Weinman, and published by Penguin, the book collects some fine stories by a number of the finest female writers of suspense fiction in the twentieth century. Weinman's introduction is interesting and incisive, but of course, the meat of the book is in her story selection. And what a good selection it is.

Here we find some famous names, and some forgotten ones too. I was particularly pleased to see a story by Nedra Tyre, an author whose name, I suspect, will be unfamiliar to many. "A Nice Place to Stay" made a great impression on me when I first came across it many years ago - in, as far as I can recall, one of the many fine anthologies edited by Ellery Queen. It inspired me to write a story called "A Job for Life", which eventually appeared in print, and is possibly the earliest of my stories to have done so.

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding is represented by a long and very clever story, almost a novella, called "The Stranger in the Car". I liked the twists in this one, as well as the insightful characterisation. Holding was a gifted writer, but even more talented was Margaret Millar, one of whose all too rare short stories is also included here. And we also have some very fine writers, ranging from the superb Shirley Jackson and the often creepy Patricia Highsmith to the subtle Celia Fremlin and the author of fhat very good story "The Purple Shroud", Joyce Harrington (and no, it was not the inspiration for The Frozen Shroud!)

Reviewers have been quick to heap praise on this book, and I'm with them. Among the most interesting assessments, as you might expect, is one from Jon L. Breen, arguably the finest living crime critic in the US. He notes Weinman's suggestion that the writers she has chosen lacked an editorial champion, but points out that their success (and they were highly regarded in their day, even if most have now faded from view) indicates that the feminist crime writers of the 70s and 80s were not breaking as much fresh ground as is sometimes argued. But what matters most is that the stories in this book represent really good entertainment. I look forward to more anthologies from Sarah Weinman.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Big Four - ITV review

Agatha Christie's Poirot began its new run on ITV tonight with The Big Four, co-written by Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard. Among other pleasures, the episode reintroduced Hugh Fraser, Pauline Moran and Philip Jackson as Captain Hastings, Miss Lemon, and the world-weary cop Japp, all of whom played an enjoyable part in supporting the great David Suchet in the early days of the series. The main cast members attended one of the most memorable crime events I can recall, the Agatha Christie Centenary Banquet at Torquay' s English Riviera Centre in September 1990. It was a wonderful, unforgettable night, complete with a dramatic firework display over the bay.

Now, although I'm a Christie fan, I'm the first to acknowledge that not all her detective stories are masterpieces. The Big Four was published at a low point in her life, not long after her famous disappearance, and was cobbled together from a series of lurid episodes. As a result, the book is fragementary, and the plot material pretty risible. How do you adapt something like that so as to satisfy a 21st century television audience?

The answer is to do it confidently, but with respect for the strong points in Christie's writing and the characters. Mark Gatiss, a writer I admire, is well qualified to do this, and I felt he and Ian Hallard did a pretty good job, at least until the closing scenes, which were crazier in mood than the earlier part of the story. I sensed the writers' energy flagging a bit towards the end, with Hastings disappearing from the action for no good reason..But anyone who has read the original novel will surely agree that it would be a challenge to adapt.

Some people might argue that in some ways, it is easier to make a success of adapting a poor Christie book than a good one. In support of that view, I felt that, to take just one example, the TV version of The Sittaford Mystery was hugely disappointing. Having said that, the screenplay of The Secret of Chimneys, which was another Twenties thriller in broadly the same vein as The Big Four, was over the top from start to finish. Despite that faltering in the later stages, The Big Four worked better overall..

Of course, the presence of David Suchet is a huge asset to this series. Almost everyone who has responded to my post on Joan Hickson agrees she was the best Jane Marple, and I think there's even less argument about the definitive nature of Suchet's interpretation of Poirot. He was as good as usual in The Big Four.

Zoe Sharp and Priscilla Masters

Two crime writers who are friends of mine have published books recently, and I'd like to give each of them a mention. I've known Priscilla Masters for more than a decade now, and have fond memories of sharing a number of library events with her, two in Lancashire and one in the West Midlands. She's a very entertaining speaker, and though I didn't know her well that time we did our first gig together, she instantly put me at my ease. It's great fun appearing with her, because she is so good at keeping an audience interested and amused. Most recently, she was a very popular after dinner speaker at the St Hilda's conference in August.

Her latest novel, published by Severn House, is The Final Curtain. It's another entry in the long-running series featuring DI Joanna Piercy, and opens with her return to work after her honeymoon. As usual, the Staffordshire setting adds a realistic and appealing background to a story which opens with some apparently insignificant complaints from a woman who used to appear in a television soap opera. A review on the back cover compares Cilla with her friend and mine, Kate Ellis, and I think it's a good comparison.

Cilla works within the field of the police procedural and whodunit, whereas Zoe Sharp is more often associated with the thriller genre, in view of the success of her books about Charlie Fox, who is definitely someone you mess with at your peril. Zoe's another entertaining speaker, whose fields of expertise cover such diverse subjects as guns, motor bikes, and photography.

Zoe has also become something of a guru in the field of self-publishing, and she's brought out her latest, The Blood Whisperer (excellent title, wish I'd thought of it first!) via the imprint of Murderati Ink. The book is available as an ebook, but having received a trade paperback edition, I am pleased to confirm that it's attractively produced (not something that can always be taken for granted with these ventures.) This book is Zoe's first stand-alone thriller, and introduces London crime scene specialist Kelly Jacks. Zoe's a pacy writer (her short stories, one or two of which I've included in anthologies I've edited, are also very entertaining), and I'm confident this intriguing change of direction will further expand her considerable fan base.

The Body in the Library: Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

It seems hard to believe, but almost 30 years have passed since Joan Hickson was first introduced to us as Miss Marple, in a three-part adaptation for TV of The Body in the Library, by T.R. Bowen. I decided to roll back the years and watch it again, to check whether it was as good as I remembered,and whether the view I've expressed (even on breakfast TV!) that Joan Hickson was the definitive Marple was really justified. Well, I can now confirm it was that good, and to me, Hickson is indeed the perfect Marple.

The Body in the Library was one of the first detective novels I ever read as a child, and I was really impressed. It's always been a favourite, although it's not universally regarded as a classic Agatha Christie. But I think the convoluted plot is excellent, even allowing for the fact that it depends on a trick which would, thanks to advances in forensic science, be impossible to pull off today.

Bowen's version sticks pretty closely to the original - a wise decision, I think. The script is first class, and the cast is absolutely superb. We have Gwen Watford as Dolly Bantry and Moray Watson as Colonel Bantry, and that's just a start. David Horovitch is excellent as Inspector Slack, and Raymond Francis a splendid Sir Henry Clithering. Even before I came across Christie, as a small boy, I enjoyed the TV series No Hiding Place, in which Francis played Superintendent Lockhart, and I remember it fondly to this day, even if I can't recall any of the stories.

The rest of the cast includes Trudie Styler, now better known as the wife of Sting, Jess Conrad, and John Bardon, who became a fixture in EastEnders. The acting from start to finish was up to the same high standard as the script - there was none of the hamminess that has disfigured some of the least satisfactory episodes of Agatha Christie's Marple in recen years. But best of all is Hickson's under-stated but totally convincing performance. Great viewing.

Forgotten Book - Escape to Quebec

Milward Kennedy is a writer I've featured several times in this series of Friday's Forgotten Books, and  there is much about his work that I like. He had fresh interesting ideas, a lively style, and a good understanding of people. And yet, he was something of a 'nearly man' who never quite made it as a consistent top-level performer. My choice today,. Escape to Quebec, illustrates both his strengths and his limitations.

This book is one of his later titles, first published in 1948, and one of the very few Kennedy titles which made it into a paperback edition. By this time,he had abandoned classic detection, and was trying his hand a at a different kind of story, really representing a return to his co-written debut, The Bleston Mystery, which is a light thriller. He drew on his experience of diplomacy and international relations - he was a senior figure in the International Labour Organisation - and also his knowledge of Canada, where he spent a good deal of time, in putting this novel together.

After a short prologue, we are presented with a first person narrative. Unusually, the narrator is a prisoner of war, and apparently a German Count, who has just escaped, together with a colleague, from where he was being held in Canada. The pair have been sprung in order to take part in an assassination plot. In some ways, therefore, this book resembles and anticipates the classic Frederick Forsyth best-seller, The Day of the Jackal. Forsyth's originality was much admired in its day, but you could say that Kennedy got there first (though I hasten to add that the books are very different from each other.)

There are a number of interesting and gripping scenes, and the story is very readable - I devoured it quickly, and with some pleasure. On the whole, however, I felt that there were good reasons why Kennedy failed to match the success that Forsyth later achieved. Overall, the level of excitement (given that we know that the leaders of the Western powers survived) is simply not high enough, and the romantic interest that is introduced is tepid in the extreme. Kennedy wins high marks for originality of concept, but not quite as many for execution. The story of his writing career, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, I continue to admire his desire to keep trying something new, of which this book is certainly an example.

Raymond Flynn and Dorothy Lumley

In the crime writing world, the increasing number of conventions and events mean that there are many more opportunities for socialising between crime writers than was the case even when I started out as a published writer. As a result, one bumps into people from time to time who may not become close friends but who nevertheless prove to be pleasant acquaintances.

I'm sorry to say that a couple of people who fall into that category as far as I'm concerned have recently died. One is the novelist Raymond Flynn. Ray was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton two or three years before I joined their list and we met at a Dead on Deansgate conference in Manchester at the end of the Nineties. Ray also joined us, as far as I remember, for a very enjoyable Hodder author dinner at which those attending included those very interesting writers Andrew Taylor and Nick Blincoe. Andrew has of course gone on to great things in the crime world, while Nick Blincoe has not (as far as I know) stayed with the crime genre, but has moved on to other literary projects (and I gather he was also once an adviser to Nick Clegg...)

Ray inscribed for me a couple of his books, Busy Body and A Public Body, both of which featured DCI Robert Graham. He had been a career police officer in Nottinghamshire, and his experience strengthened the books. Like me and many others, however, he departed from the Hodder list, and I lost track of him in recent years, though I gather he continued to attend CWA regional chapter meetings in the West Midlands. He is, perhaps, a good example of an enjoyable mid-list writer who faded from sight all too soon because of the vagaries of the publishing world, rather than because of any lack of ability.

Another recent loss is that of Dorothy Lumley, often known just as Dot. I was quite shocked to hear of her passing. A former publisher, she was a literary agent whom I met at a few CWA events and also at the memorable Las Vegas Bouchercon. We once had a meal together and she told me she wanted to submit a short story for a future CWA anthology.I asked her about this a few times afterwards, but she never got round to doing it - too busy representing her clients, I think. She had a loyal set of writers on her books, including that very entertaining crime writer Amy Myers, and they will miss her greatly as agent and friend .