Looking back on 2011

So, today we say goodbye to 2011, and for me it’s been an immeasurably better year than the previous two. Events on the day job front dominated, above all negotiating and helping to implement my firm’s merger, and as a result of that, I’ve done much less fiction writing than usual. A pity, but a price worth paying, as I am now hopeful that I will have more time to devote to fiction in the future, reducing from full time working in the not too distant future. The photo was taken on a research trip around Ullswater and I hope the memories of that lovely day will inspire me to write more next year.

In publication terms, it was a productive year, though largely because of work I’d done in 2010. The Hanging Wood was published, and earned terrific coverage in The Times, The Guardian, The Literary Review and elsewhere. I was really gratified about that. Reviews are bound to be subjective, but they do matter to any writer (as well to his or her publisher.) And I also edited two anthologies, Guilty Consciences and Best Eaten Cold.

I was lucky enough to be directly involved in some great events, including no fewer than six festivals of different kinds – The Wordsworth Festival, the Newcastle Winter Books Festival, the Lymm Festival, Crimefest, the Harrogate Theakston’s Festival, and St Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Week-end. I wrote a new murder mystery event set in the 1920s, gave a range of talks, and was awarded a Red Herring for services to the CWA. So perhaps I was busier on the literary front than I realised at the time.

I was also very fortunate to spend a delightful week-end on the Isle of Man, much of it spent in the company of that fine writer Chris Ewan and his wife, as well as going on four trips overseas – all of which provided me with background material for future short stories.

I’ve read excellent novels by friends such as Peter Lovesey, Ann Cleeves and Kate Ellis, and the most impressive contemporary American book I read this year was The End of Everything by Megan Abbott. I also continued my research into the Golden Age and read some excellent books from the past. For me, the highlight among the latter was The Pursued by C.S. Forester, a remarkable discovery. I've also enjoyed discovering Jessica Mann's early work, and some classics by John Dickson Carr, Henry Wade, J.J. Connington, C.Daly King and others.

One area where I have been remiss is in keeping up with other people’s blogs. I’ve spent much less time on this than I’d have wished, but I must say that the quality of some of the crime-related blogs, many of which are listed on the blogroll, is quite splendid. And it seems to keep improving. An interesting feature is the increase in the number of blogs dealing with Golden Age books - very pleasing to see this trend.

I do feel very grateful for the interest taken in this blog by so many people, and when I get the chance to meet some of you in person (for instance, this year I’ve had the very welcome opportunity to chat with Dorte, Kerrie, Karen and Paul Beech among others) I find it an enormously enriching experience.

So – thanks for all your support and generosity in 2011 and let’s hope that 2012 is a good year for the crime fiction community, and (is this too much to hope for, given the economic climate?) is a better year for the world as a whole.

Fear in the Night - review

Fear in the Night is a film noir directed by Maxwell Shane in 1947 on a rather obviously low budget. It was based on a short story by William Irish, aka Cornell Woolrich, and was re-made a few years later as Nightmare starring Edward G. Robinson. In this version, Forrest DeKelley, later Bones in Star Trek, made his movie debut.

The set-up is pleasing. A man has a nightmare, finding himself in a weird, octagonal room with mirrors for walls. A murder takes place - and he commits it. He is thankful to wake up back in his hotel room, only to find that he still has the key to the room from his nightmare....

It may not be the most sophisticated mystery I've ever watched, but I found it rather enjoyable. There is a highly-wrought atmosphere from start to finish, as the man who believes he is guilty finds he cannot live with himself, even though he does not have a clue why he would have killed someone he didn't know. The solution is rational, and reasonably entertaining.

Woolrich was a master of the 'emotional thriller'. The only writers to equal his mastery in this field were Boileau and Narcejac. It's no coincidence that their books, like Woolrich's, were often made into films. They are highly visual, as well as dark. Woolrich, by the way, was gay, and I've read an article which suggests the film has a strong homosexual sub-text. But if that's right, it was lost on me.

21 Today!

Although this blog is about crime writing and not about my family, it wouldn’t exist without the young man who designed the template (and updated it recently) and set me on the right road, and who also designed and continues to maintain my website. As Jonathan is 21 today, I should take the chance to pay tribute to his good humoured support and encouragement for his technologically incompetent father, and thank him for all his hard work. And to thank him also for his terrific companionship, not least when he and I went on a short holiday to Rome earlier this year, when the photo was taken.

I still can’t believe that it’s 21 years since that amazing day when he was born. A day which will always remain among the most memorable of my life. Well done on 21 great years, Jonathan, and all the very best in terms of health and happiness in the years to come.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Clocks: review

Agatha Christie's Poirot remains a real treat whenever I come across a new episode, and The Clocks has been the highlight of my holiday viewing so far (not that the competition has been hot or even warm, admittedly, given that I've never got to grips with Downton Abbey).

The Clocks is a relatively late Christie novel, first published in 1963, and it's not rated very highly by connoisseurs - though I have always liked the story. The discovery of a corpse surrounded by a mysterious array of clocks is a great plot device, and even though Christie's explanation is, some would argue, a cop-out, I find it striking and memorable. Another pleasing aspect of the book is Poirot's discussion of great detective novelists, including a passing reference to John Dickson Carr, whom Christie knew and admired. There is also mention (crucial to the story-line) of a prolific author called Garry Gregson, who I believe was based on John Creasey.

I wondered how the scriptwriter would adapt the novel for television, because the story-line does throw up a lot of challenges - not least the fact that Poirot only takes centre stage quite late in the book. Stewart Harcourt's solution was to adapt very freely indeed, and move the story back in time by a quarter of a century - a risky course. There have been all too many Christie adaptations over the years where radical changes have been made, and the result has been a bit of a mess. But that isn't always the case, by any means, and I'm not one of those purists who believes that a novel must invariably be translated to the small screen in a totally faithful fashion. The screenwriter often needs to have some licence. And in this case, I felt that the end justified the means. The mystery was pleasingly unravelled, and although I had one or two quibbles, I found the two hours passed very agreeably: Harcourt did a good job.

David Suchet, as usual, was splendid as Poirot. It was especially poignant to see the late Anna Massey playing the part of the blind but sharp-witted Millicent Pebmarsh - she was a terrific actor. And the supporting cast was good, with none of the over-the-top acting we've seen in one or two Poirots and Marples.

Merry Christmas!

I've now finished work for the Christmas break, one that I've been looking forward to. A chance to relax and also reflect on what has been a momentous year for the whole world, and certainly momentous and memorable for me.

I'm also hoping to do plenty of reading - got to make an impact on that TBR pile somehow! In fact, it's not so much a pile, more a mountain range of Himalayan proportions.

There have been, of course, plenty of mysteries set at and around Christmas. Hercule Poirot's Christmas is probably the most famous, but my favourite is Cyril Hare's An English Murder. This is a classic mystery by one of the most agreeable stylists at work in the genre in the 20th century. If you like older books, and don't know this one, do consider giving it a try.

And now all that remains is to wish you all a very happy Christmas, and to express my grateful thanks for your support for this blog, and for your consistently constructive and thought-provoking comments. More posts soon, but now I'm off to wrap presents!

Forgotten Book - In Whose Dim Shadow

J.J. Connington was a reliable Golden Age writer, and it’s rather surprising that In Whose Dim Shadow, published in 1935, truly is a Forgotten Book. The copy I’ve just read, generously lent to me by a keen collector, boasts a wonderful pictorial dust jacket with a map of the scene of the crime, perfectly in keeping with Golden Age tradition.

This novel features his regular “Holmes and Watson” duo, the Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield, and his friend Wendover. They are upper class figures, but decent men who are not snobbish – in fact, their attitude towards characters who are dismissive of working class people is one of disgust. This slant on the class system is a reminder that class divide issues in Britain were, and perhaps still are, rather more complex than they might seem.

Connington is not known for his characterisation, but there are a number of points in the story when he makes observations about human nature that I thought were quite acute. And as detective novelist, he strikes me as under-rated. This case involves the discovery of a body in a flat, and the victim proves to have been a bigamist.

The mystery is cleverly contrived, with a neat story-line, not too much padding (though I admit the pace isn’t electric) and a good solution. The only real snag is that Connington is so keen to play fair with the reader that, to my mind, he gives too many clues and makes it too easy to solve the problem. But it’s an enjoyable story, all the same.

The return of All the Lonely People

It’s now over 20 years since Harry Devlin made his debut, when my first book, All the Lonely People, was originally published. It was a marvellous experience for me, becoming a published novelist at long last, and not surprisingly I have very fond memories, not only of the book but of that whole period in my life.

The book was published in paperback by Bantam, a division of Transworld. When the Devlin series was acquired a few years later by Hodder, a new paperback edition was produced. Sadly, though, this edition has been out of print for quite a while.

This is a common problem for authors – unless they are best-sellers. One’s early books are no longer available in current editions, so it's hard for readers to track down those books. However, I am very happy to say that All the Lonely People will next year enjoy its third incarnation in a paperback edition.

This is because those enterprising publishers Arcturus have decided to include the book in their Crime Classics series. Given that other authors featured include Anthony Berkeley, whom I admire so much, and the likes of Francis Durbridge and Ethel Lina (The Lady Vanishes) White, I am flattered, as well as delighted. I’m fortunate indeed to have a book which has been paperbacked by three different publishers, and All the Lonely People has certainly been a very lucky book for me.

The Killing II - review

The Killing II finally came to an end this week-end. I'm not going to talk about the story-line in detail, because I imagine that some readers of this blog will be wanting to catch up with the later episodes in the near future. But a few thoughts do strike me.

This was a show of ten episodes of an hour each, which I felt began very well, and also ended strongly. At first I thought there was a tocuh of early Taggart in the enigmatic and inter-related story-lines, but this comparison only survived the first couple of episodes. Althought the plot was tangled, and had one or two good aspects, it wasn't as clever as the work of Glenn Chandler, who created Taggart.

The acting was good and the production values were pretty high. However, I felt the story sagged very badly in the middle. There were stretches when I was rather bored, and this was because the characters' relationships, although not without interest, weren't compelling enough to sustain such a protracted exercise. The political aspects of the story really didn't excite me at all.

I am still intending to watch the original series of The Killing, which attracted so many rave reviews. But overall, I'd have to rate The Killing II as a disappointment. It had a number of strengths, but to justify ten hours of story-telling, you need to have a really outstanding tale to tell. For me, at least, The Killing II too often felt like an endurance test. The story simply wasn't strong enough to justify such an investment of time.

Forgotten Book - Careless Corpse

My forgotten book today is an obscure but extraordinary novel written by a fascinating, idiosyncratic and sometimes maddening American Golden Age storyteller. The book is Careless Corpse, first published in 1937, and the author C. Daly King. And it included that odd paragraph on economics that I teased you with yesterday.

I’ve mentioned King before in this blog. He was a psychologist who wrote books on the subject, and he drew from his professional expertise for his novels. But this did not take him down the road of “psychological suspense” – his fiction bears no resemblance to that of Francis Iles, say, or C.S. Forester. On the contrary, he specialised in elaborate puzzles, often weighed down by strange digressions into academic debates. An example is the passage I quoted in my quiz question.

In this novel, a series of deaths occur among members of a party of celebrities – including a concert pianist, a violinist, a dancer, a composer, and a musical critic. The party is organised by a wealthy scientist, and the setting is an island amid the ice-floes of the Hudson River.

As so often, King provides helpful diagrams – no fewer than five – and arranges the text in a series of “movements” to underline the musical aspects of the story. The plot is elaborate and wildly ingenious (and, of course, improbable) and there is some entertaining writing mixed in with a bit of padding here and there. I don’t claim this book is great literature, but I really did enjoy it as a light, escapist read.

Quiz Question

Here’s an extract from a book I’ve just read. It amused and intrigued me because the passage was written in 1937, yet arguably it has a modern resonance in these troubled economic times.

But the question is – do you know which book it appeared in? I will be very impressed if anyone knows the answer – but I’ll put you out of your misery tomorrow!

Here’s the quote:

“Why, this, country is on the skids properly now! With your taxes boosted practically to the British level, what do you do with them? The British use theirs to balance their budget, set their nation in order, pay for their necessary current running expenses; you use it for political bribery of the most corrupt kind and still pile up deficits twice or more as large as the increased taxes.”

Any ideas?