The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective

When I met Susannah Stapleton at Alibis in the Archive a couple of years ago, she told me about a book she was working on, which sounded intriguing to say the least. We've met and spoken about it a couple of times since then, and I was very pleased to see it come out to highly positive reviews a short while ago. I've now had a chance to read it for myself.

The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, is published by Picador and subtitled "Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime".  Sounds tempting, doesn't it? I was hooked just from looking at the chapter titles - they are taken from the titles of classic crime books, starting with a prologue called "The Lady Vanishes" in which we learn about the mysterious Maud West, who was a private investigator based in London in the early part of the twentieth century. On finding out about her, Susannah decided to do a bit of amateur sleuthing herself, and this book is the result.

The market for non-fiction has changed in recent years. The internet offers such a mass of information that, to sell a book to a major publisher, let alone to readers, one has to offer something appealing that isn't available simply by Googling. There are various ways of achieving this, but a sensible technique is to tell a story - to produce what is often called "narrative non-fiction" - rather than simply to record facts.

Susannah Stapleton does this in very engaging fashion. She focuses on her personal voyage of discovery as she delved into the life of an interesting woman with a fascinating occupation. Her detective work , entertainingly described, strikes me as rather splendid. I was especially interested to discover that Maud was based in the same building as Dr Crippen a building that I visited myself when I was researching Dancing for the Hangman - though I wasn't aware of Maud's existence at the time. Dorothy L. Sayers also features in the story. I found the details of several of Maud's cases interesting, and indeed one of them has given me an idea for a story of my own. I may write it one of these days, but in the meantime I can say that this is a book that definitely lived up to expectations. I really enjoyed reading it.

Shock - 1946 movie review

Shock is a film noir from 1946, and it gave Vincent Price an early leading role as a murderous psychiatrist. It's a minor picture in many ways, a typical B movie perhaps, with a supporting cast whose members I've never heard of, just as I'm unfamiliar with the director and writers. But it's decent light entertainment.

The story begins with a young woman checking into a hotel, where she is due to reunite with her husband, who has been a prisoner of war. He is delayed, and as she waits nervously, she looks out of the window of her room. In true Rear Window fashion, she looks into another window, and sees a man battering his wife to death with a candlestick after an argument over their divorce. That man is Vincent Price.

When her husband shows up, she is in a state of shock. He calls for medical help, and the doctor tells him that luckily there is an expert in mental health problems in the hotel. It goes without saying that this turns out to be....Vincent Price. He realises he's been spotted by the woman, and makes sure she is transferred to a sanatorium that he runs, assisted by the nurse for whom he wanted to leave his wife.

It's a pretty good set-up, and the story moves along at a decent pace towards its inevitable conclusion. Price's performance is excellent, since he brings an element of thoughtfulness and conscience to a part that is quite lightly written. It's worth watching Shock just for Price's contribution. Interestingly, the film was condemned on release by a critic who thought it might deter war veterans with PTSD from seeking psychiatric help. This is, I think, a good example of a mistake that critics continue to make. It seems undesirable to judge books and films primarily in relation to their treatment of a particular social agenda, however important that agenda might be, above all if their intention is just to entertain.

Forgotten Book - ...And Presumed Dead

There really ought to be a prize for the most excitable blurb for a crime novel. If there were, then a strong contender would be the Corgi Crime paperback edition from 1965 of a book published a couple of years earlier. The author was Lucille Fletcher, ex-wife of Bernard Herrmann and famed for her radio play (later filmed and novelised) Sorry, Wrong Number. The novel was ...And Presumed Dead.

So what did Corgi have to say? The blurb begins in breathless, conspiratorial fashion: "We are pledged to remain completely silent about the plot of this extraordinary novel." Wow! It gets better."So brilliantly constructed is it that even the smallest preview would detract from its shattering, agonising suspense." Gosh! And a few lines later the blurb concludes with the modest claim that the story "establishes an entirely new landmark in the literature of suspense."

I'm not pledged to silence, so I can say that this is an interesting version of the "woman in jeopardy" novel, and it's set in a fictitious town in Switzerland. The events take place in 1951, and this is significant; it wouldn't have been easy to set this particular story in the 1960s, when it was written. We follow the misadventures of Julia, whose beloved husband Russ was an airman who went missing during the war. She has followed Russ' mother to Alpenstadt, and it soon begins to look as though the older woman has something to hide.

Lucille Fletcher was not only a successful exponent of the suspense story, she was also a pretty good prose stylist. Yes, there are one or two overwrought passages, but there are also several memorable and gripping scenes, some of which have a Gothic flavour (there's even a ruined castle). The solution to the mystery of Alpenstadt does indeed take the story in an unexpected, and on the whole satisfactory, direction. Is this novel a landmark of suspense? I don't really think so. That blurb raised my expectations extremely high, and they weren't met. But even if it's not as extraordinary or as brilliant as Corgi claimed, it's still a good story. A period piece, yes, but worth reading, not least as an example of Fletcher's skill in building and maintaining tension.

"Strangers in a Pub" shortlisted for the Short Story Dagger

I was preparing to record an interview with Manx radio this morning, in advance of a trip to the island in a few weeks' time, when I received the wonderful news that "Strangers in a Pub" has been shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger. The story appeared in Ten Year Stretch, the anthology that Adrian Muller and I put together last year to celebrate ten years of CrimeFest.

I'm conscious that I've been more than lucky with awards and award nominations during this past few years, and sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe that all this is not just another example of my escapist daydreaming. Maybe one or two of the other authors on the various shortlists feel the same way; in any case, my warm congratulations go to all of them.

I've had particular good fortune with short fiction. This is the fourth time a story of mine has been shortlisted for this particular Dagger - the others were "Test Drive", "The Bookbinder's Apprentice" (which won in 2008, the first major crime award I ever received, on a truly memorable night) and "Murder and its Motives". And "Acknowledgments" won the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize.

I love short stories, reading them, writing them, and editing anthologies of them. Some wonderful short stories are being written right now - Danuta Kot sent me her story, also on the shortlist, last week, and I think it's brilliant - and I'm glad to be part of that renaissance. I'm also very glad to see Teresa Solana on the shortlist - I gave a blurb for the book the story comes from, and can warmly recommend it. I very much look forward to reading the other stories on the shortlist. We all know that there is inevitably an element of luck about these things, but the recognition from one's peers in an independent and very well-managed judging process is heartwarming.

"Strangers in a Pub" introduces a new character who may well return again. I really enjoyed writing about him, and I think there's a great deal of mileage in him. Since publishing the story, I've had a couple of other ideas for stories in which he might appear, but pressure of time means that they remain unwritten. So far. Maybe this great news will prompt me, eventually, to get moving with them... 

More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The first person to compile an anthology of stories featuring rivals of Sherlock Holmes was Hugh Greene, brother of Graham, and at one time the Director-General of the BBC. I received his first anthology as a birthday present, and loved it. He came up with three more anthologies and some of the stories were televised - the episodes have reappeared recently on the Talking Pictures TV channel. There have been similar anthologies to Greene's in the intervening years, and Nick Rennison produced one back in 2015. He's now edited another collection, More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, which is published by the splendid No Exit Press.

I haven't read Rennison's earlier anthology, but a few years ago I greatly enjoyed his "unauthorised biography" of Sherlock Holmes. His evident knowledge of Victorian crime fiction means that he's well-qualified to put a book of stories of gaslight crime together. The first question is: do we need yet another book of this kind?  The second question is: given that the stories are out of copyright, is there enough fresh editorial material to justify the purchase?

My answer in principle to the first question is yes, provided it doesn't just round up the usual suspects, in terms of authors and stories. And here I think Rennison does a good job. Believe me, I've read a lot of stories from this era, but there are three authors featured here whom I can't remember having read: Herbert Kean, David Christie Murray, and Percy James Brebner. These are not the strongest stories in the book, admittedly, but I was glad to be introduced to them, as well as to meet again Arthur Morrison's unscrupulous Horace Dorrington (one of my favourite rivals) and Richard Marsh's Judith Lee, an accomplished lip reader.

As for the second test, again I think Rennison passes it. He doesn't deluge his readers with information, but certainly gives enough to put the stories and their authors in context. As he says, he set out to demonstrate the range and variety of late Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction. The title of this book may be less than original, but  that doesn't matter: the Greene books appeared a long time ago.  I'd say that he has succeeded in this aim.

Book Talk - and a Starred Review

I've had a thoroughly enjoyable few days at Harrogate, where among other things I was celebrating the news that Gallows Court has received a starred review in Publishers' Weekly. For good measure, PW also invited me to take part in a Q and A for the magazine, so I felt quite honoured. The book is due to be published in the US in September, by the Poisoned Pen imprint of Sourcebooks, and all being well I'll be promoting it in Arizona and Texas. As you can see, the cover image is very different from the UK hardback, paperback, and limited editions, but reaction to it so far has been encouraging.

The CWA also announced that a deal has been done with an excellent indie publisher, Flame Tree Press, to publish Vintage Crimes, an anthology which I'll be putting together and which selects stories from the "hidden gems" in the CWA vaults - those which have appeared in anthologies  dating back to Butcher's Dozen in 1956. It should be a fun project with a diverse range of stories and authors, and publication is due about this time next year.

My next novel is to be Mortmain Hall. It's a sequel to Gallows Court and I'm truly excited about the story for a number of reasons that I'll talk about at a future date. Publication is due in March, and on Friday I had an enjoyable lunch with my agent James Wills to discuss the manuscript, as well as a get-together with the publishers, Head of Zeus on Saturday evening.

There was plenty of other activity over the weekend, including a CWA drinks get-together, a party hosted by Bonnier, and a quiz evening in a team with Ali Karim,  Caroline Todd, Craig Sisterson and co. It was also good to meet Vanda Symons from New Zealand for the first time as well as a host of other nice people (sometimes, as is the nature of these events, all too fleetingly). And even the threatened torrential rain proved to be something of a damp squib, which was a welcome bonus.

Forgotten Book - Mystery on the 'Queen Mary'

Mystery on the 'Queen Mary', first published in 1937, is a thriller set on board the RMS Queen Mary on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. An intriguing aspect of the story is that the author, Bruce Graeme, was actually a passenger on that voyage. What I don't know is whether the voyage gave him the idea for the book, or whether he sailed on the ship in order to research the novel. I suspect the latter, but I'm not sure, and I'd be interested if anyone has the answer to this little mystery.

The story opens with a protagonist, Robin MacKay, who has come down in the world. He finds work at a Clydebank shipyard and before long is working on the ship that is destined to become the Queen Mary. One foggy day, he overhears a sinister conversation, about a crime connected with the ship, and is bludgeoned for his pains.

He reports what has happened to the police and is engaged to travel on the ship to assist the police in their hunt for the criminal. Also on board is Superintendent Stevens, one of Graeme's series characters, who is joined by another, the suave Frenchman Inspector Allain. When the ship sets sail, we are introduced to several characters who become key to the policemen's attempts to foil the criminal.

This is a light and fairly engaging thriller which benefits from Graeme's knowledge of the ship. His descriptions are authentic, but I also felt that his interest in the ship (and its pursuit of the Blue Riband) and one or two of the characters were greater than his interest in the plot, which was workmanlike but not, for me, entrancing. Overall, the book is a mildly entertaining story about a police investigation coinciding with a slice of maritime history, no more, no less.

The Maestro

There are some opportunities in life that are simply not to be missed. As soon as I discovered that Burt Bacharach was returning to Britain to appear in concert with Joss Stone, I knew I had to grab a ticket. The great man is 91 years old now and even if I managed to get to that age with faculties intact, I'm sure I wouldn't be contemplating two hours non-stop in concert. But that's exactly the treat that was in store for last night's audience at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith.

It's often struck me that Bacharach has something in common with Agatha Christie. Both were great innovators with the gift of taking a form of popular culture and reinventing it in a unique way. Both have enjoyed phenomenal and lasting success (Bacharach's first two number one hits are now more than 60 years old). Both have had their work sneered at and dismissed as uncool,. And both are now recognised, perhaps more widely than ever before, as having achieved something very special in a hugely competitive field, with a body of work that continues to exert global appeal.

Burt Bacharach was in fantastic form last night. As well as many of the famous songs, we heard newish ones (last year's With a Voice and this year's anti-gun violence song Live To See Another Day) and less familiar ones such as Falling Out of Love, a terrific song which was a minor hit for Aretha Franklin, and the film song Something Big. Joss Stone's best contributions were also relatively unfamiliar songs, In Between the Heartaches and Are You There With Another Girl? She's no Dionne Warwick, but she did a good job.

It was a feelgood occasion, even though the venue was markedly inferior to the Royal Festival Hall (different tickets had different start times for the concert, and the staff didn't seem to know much about the timings). I was delighted to meet up with a group of Italian fans who had come over to London specially for the concert. They included my good friends Davide Bonori and Roberto Pinardi, and it was amazing to recall that we've been sharing rare Bacharach tracks for upwards of twenty years now. As he often does these days, Burt introduced his young son Oliver, who performed on the keyboards for a couple of numbers. His band and the background singers were excellent, as always. One reviewer preferred the three singers to Joss Stone, whereas another took the opposite line, and allowed one or two of the old cliches about this kind of music to slip into an otherwise reasonable assessment. For the fans, it was an utterly memorable occasion. Whether we'll see Burt Bacharach on these shores again, I don't know, but he fully deserved the ecstatic standing ovation he received at the end of a wonderful night.

The Newark Book Festival

I've just returned from an enjoyable trip to the other side of England, the result of an invitation to take part in the Newark Book  Festival. I visited Newark about three years ago to give a talk in the library, and was very impressed by the town. It's full of history, with a nice ruined castle by the riverside, and my event was held in the recently established Civil War Centre - in a splendid old Tudor room.

The panel, about Golden Age crime, was chaired by Mary Haig (mother of the very talented Matt), and my fellow panellist was Tammy Cohen, alias Rachel Rhys, whom I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before. And it was great to see Elly Griffiths, who had taken part earlier in the afternoon. Our event was closing the festival, which had evidently been a big success, thanks to the efforts of Sara Bullimore and her team. There were drinks, canapes and opportunities to chat to people before our event began.

The only snag was that it began just as the World Cup cricket final entered the final over, and the Wimbledon men's single final reached its almost equally remarkable climax. So it's a wonder that anyone turned up at all. But it was a very good crowd (including a gentleman whom I last met at the Nottingham Bouchercon in 1995 - delighted he's still reading my books!)  and I managed to catch up with the highlights of that truly amazing game of cricket later on in the evening, so all was well. With the cricket, as with the tennis, it was a shame that anyone had to lose.

The session went well, and Mary and Tammy were good companions. When I woke up this morning in my very nice B&B, the weather was so promising that I decided to make the most of it. So I wandered round Newark, and then, because it isn't far away, I ventured to Lincoln, where I found an excellent display of British Library Crime Classics (and no, I'm afraid I didn't resist the temptation to volunteer to sign copies of my anthologies and Gallows Court) and had lunch in the sun at a bookshop-cum-cafe. As I did a few weeks ago when sunning myself on the Broads, I cast my mind back to the days of long hours spent commuting in to work each Monday. But it's not all play now, oh no. As if to salve my conscience, I have done a bit of legal work today, and on the drive home I dreamed up a short story idea about a B&B (not the one in Newark or any of the others I've patronised recently, I hasten to add). This evening, I get on with some writing...

Forgotten Book - The Third Skin

The Third Skin was John Bingham's third novel, appearing in 1954 (in the US, the paperback edition was called Murder is a Witch). It's a little-known book, having received only limited coverage over the years. This is surprising, because Bingham's first two novels were well-regarded, and this one is certainly up to standard. It also marked a departure from his early books, which contained much fictionalised autobiography, and were narrated in the first person.

This is a story about a naive and weak-willed youth, Les Marshall, who works in a newspaper office and gets himself mixed up with a gang of youths with disastrous results. Les falls for Hester, the girlfriend of his pal Ron Turner, and finds himself lured into a trap, collaborating with Ron on a burglary which goes tragically wrong. And gradually the spotlight shifts away from clueless Les, and on to his mother, the resourceful widow Irene. It's a study of character as well as of crime, and as so often with Bingham, it offers an account of relentless police interrogation, this time with a sympathetic and well-rounded presentation of the lead detective, Vandoran.

The book is discussed in Michael Jago's enjoyable biography of Bingham, The Man Who Was George Smiley, and Jago makes the point that Bingham really didn't know anything about teenage gangs. That's true, and arguably it's a flaw in the story. But I don't know much about gangs either, and really I felt that Bingham's lack of first-hand knowledge wasn't a significant disadvantage. Hester, presumably the witch of the alternative title, is portrayed in a fairly superficial way, but Les is all too believable. There is also some excellent comedy in Bingham's presentation of Irene's friends, Gwen and Frederick Perry.

Although Jago doesn't mention it, I feel almost sure that Bingham's original idea for the story came from the circumstances of the Craig and Bentley case, in which a weak young man was hanged for a murder committed by his pal. Derek Bentley was, to an extent, the model for Les Marshall. The way he develops the idea, and in particular the passages dealing with Irene and her circle, is pleasing and reasonably original. As a result, suspense builds all the way to the end of the book. This is an under-rated novel, which I was very glad to read.