'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?'
Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog
Wednesday 16 October 2024
The Dedicatees of Hemlock Bay
Monday 14 October 2024
Death in the Dales
Sedbergh is England's Book Town - not as well-known, perhaps, as Hay-on-Way (Wales's Book Town) but a lovely place and I've just returned from a delightful weekend there, taking part in the town's first crime fiction festival, Death in the Dales, organised by the trustees (including my good friend Jean Briggs, former Vice Chair of the CWA) and supported by a hard-working group of volunteers and Westwood Books, an excellent bookshop in the town, which I always enjoy visiting: they have a large and varied stock and plenty of interesting rarities.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and the opening event was a film show, hosted by Matthew Booth, featuring the classic film noir The Big Heat. On Saturday morning, Kate Ellis and I kicked off the day with a conversation about crime fiction and I was also involved in the afternoon, talking to Jean about collecting crime fiction, a subject which I hope was very suitable for a book town. I brought along various items that I've picked up over the years and also discussed the connections between my research into the genre and collecting.
Matthew concluded the day's events with a one-man show about Sherlock Holmes and then a group of us went off to a delightful dinner to celebrate the birthday of another good friend, Dea Parkin. Among the writers present were Antony Johnston, Fiona Veitch Smith, Marsali Taylor, David Beckler, Harry Navinski, Frances Brody, and Jason Monaghan. A lovely evening.
On Sunday, I took part in the concluding event, moderated by Marsali, a discussion about setting with Frances and Malcolm Hollingdrake. I'm very glad that the hard-working team who put on the festival were rewarded with good audiences who showed a great deal of enthusiasm for all the sessions. It was an absolute pleasure to be part of it.
Friday 11 October 2024
Forgotten Book - Death of a Train
The more books by Freeman Wills Crofts I have read, the more I have come to appreciate the scale of his ambition as a detective novelist. Of course he had limitations as a writer; his prose was serviceable but unexciting and seldom evocative, while his characterisation straightforward and often unsubtle. But, having established himself early on as a master of the police investigation mystery, he wasn't content to keep turning out the same-old, same-old, and for that he deserves a good deal of credit. His 'inverted' mysteries in particular were often excellent, and his plotting was consistently meticulous.
Death of a Train, written late in his career, shows Crofts trying to do something different while still featuring Chief Inspector French in a central role. The title is, I think, pleasing and tantalising. The book was published in 1946, but is set in the summer of '42, when victory over Hitler was far from assured. Essentially, this is an espionage thriller with detective elements grafted on. The result is a curious mixture of the interesting and the banal.
We begin with discussions within the War Cabinet. Vital supplies are needed in North Africa, but it's essential that the enemy doesn't get wind of the plan to send them over, for fear of interception. So a detailed plan is formulated to send the supplies by train. My Penguin paperback describes the elaborate set-up as making for 'wholly engrossing reading', but I'm afraid I found it tedious. When, on page 46, Crofts writes that 'the shunting seemed to drag out interminably', he might have been writing about his own method for starting a crime novel. His love of railways led him astray: there's simply too much technical detail. Things only get going once an attempt to derail the train takes place: 'the enemy within' is the obvious suspect.
French is called in to investigate, but because of the need for secrecy, he pretends to be looking into the abduction of a senior officer, a fake plan which complicates the story without adding much to it. Nevertheless, the book has some merits, and it's sobering to get a clear reminder of how desperate and anxious people were when the future of the country was at stake. There's some good detective work, plus action scenes in the closing pages, but the baddies are two-dimensional and again there's a lot of less than exhilarating technical stuff about how their nefarious schemes were carried out. I was, however, fascinated to read of French's admiration for R.Austin Freeman and Dr Thorndyke - we're told that he read the Thorndyke stories 'for what they could teach him'. Quite a tribute.
Wednesday 9 October 2024
A Man Called Harry Brent
As a small boy, I loved the Francis Durbridge TV series which were stand-alone mysteries. I preferred them to the Paul Temple shows which weren't based on Durbridge's original material. One series that sticks in my mind, but which I've never been able to track down is A Man Called Harry Brent. This has now surfaced on YouTube and I've devoured it with enthusiasm.
The set-up is terrific. The eponymous Harry (Edward Brayshaw, an Australian actor) takes a train trip to see his fiancee Carol (Jennifer Daniel). A fellow passenger is a woman who is carrying a bunch of flowers. Harry meets Carol, who is a secretary, and her boss Tom Fielding. Carol is leaving her job to marry Harry, and Fielding is interviewing potential replacements (one is described as having a 'big bust', a line that you wouldn't find in a script today). The latest candidate is the woman from the train. But she has come to shoot Fielding. And it turns out that she'd previously laid those flowers on the grave of Harry's parents.
A dramatic start, to put it mildly. DI Alan Milton investigates the shooting. He is Carol's ex - their relationship broke down because he is a workaholic. He is played, with considerable aplomb, by Gerald Harper, who was a very successful actor at the time (he later took the lead in Adam Adamant!), and is still alive. He soon finds out that Harry's account of events doesn't add up. What is Mr Brent up to?
Brayshaw's performance is rather wooden, it must be said, but there are some very reliable names in the supporting cast, including the estimable Judy Parfitt as a mysterious actress, John Horsley as a sinister caretaker, and Brian Wilde as an enigmatic chap with an equally enigmatic wife. The cliff-hangers that end each episode are brilliantly done. This is a six-part series with barely a wasted word - quite a contrast to so many modern offerings. And each episode is only 25 minutes long. Great nostalgic viewing.
Monday 7 October 2024
Shedunnit and The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Friday 4 October 2024
Forgotten Book - Death under Snowdon
Frank Showell Styles was an extremely prolific author and also a noted mountaineer. His two interests coalesced when he wrote detective novels, and most of his work in the crime genre appeared under the name Glyn Carr and featured Sir Abercrombie Lewker (known as 'Filthy' - filthy lucre, geddit?) as a rumbustious amateur detective. The Glyn Carr hardbacks are now quite hard to find and copies in nice condition are highly collectible.
Over the years, I've tended to steer clear of Glyn Carr over the years, since mountaineering holds no great interest as far as I'm concerned. But I thought it was high time that I took a proper look at his work and where better to start than with a novel set in Snowdonia, a part of the world which the author loved, as I do. Death under Snowdon fitted the bill perfectly.
Lewker is about to receive his knighthood, and is contacted by an acquaintance who is due to be similarly honoured. This chap, David Webhouse, is an unappetising politician (aren't they all? some would ask) whose left-wing leanings were not, I suspect, shared by the author. He wants Lewker's help, knowing Filthy's taste for solving puzzles, but is rather mysterious about the precise nature of the problem he faces. Lewker accepts an invitation to a house party in Snowdonia but Webhouse is killed in an explosion, apparently the result of a booby-trap. Was he murdered and, if so, whodunit?
This is a pretty good traditional mystery and the setting is a bonus. There are some technicalities involved in the solution that call to mind the likes of John Rhode and Freeman Wills Crofts; given that this novel was published in 1954, when the Golden Age had lost some of its glitter - certainly so far as publishers and critics were concerned - Carr was swimming against the tide of literary fashion. But this is a well-crafted novel and I enjoyed it enough to want to read more of his work.
Wednesday 2 October 2024
The Isle of Man
After returning from one festival in Richmond last week, I headed straight off to another, on the Isle of Man, somewhere I've visited quite a few times over the years. It's an island I'm very fond of, and I've been remarkably lucky with the weather, which always helps. My last two visits, in 2011 and 2019, saw me hosting murder mystery evenings in the company of Jan Macartney of Douglas Library. This time, I was a guest of the Manx Literary Festival - whose arrangements, by the way, were admirable - and although other commitments meant I couldn't get together with either Jan or Doug Stewart, I did have the chance to catch up with some other friends.
I arrived on Friday and had an enjoyable lunch with Rakie Bennett, a local crime writer and festival committee member, before checking into my hotel. Then it was off to Peel for a meal with Caroline England, whom I've known for some years but not previously had the chance to have a long chat with. We were in conversation at a 'Crime and Rhyme' event with Christy DeHaven, a radio presenter who proved to be an extremely skilled interviewer. During a pleasant book-signing interval, I had the chance for a chat with local resident Alan Bradley. It was great to see Alan again; his first novel about Flavia de Luce is about to be filmed with a glittering cast - very exciting and definitely something to look forward to. After the interval, the Bookshop Band entertained us royally with some highly enjoyable book-related songs.
On Saturday morning, it was off to St Ninian's Church in Douglas, where I conducted a writers' workshop, and then Caroline and I had a conversation with Rakie about the craft of crime writing. I always enjoy these workshop sessions and it was a great pleasure to be part of such a very successful festival.
After lunch, I met up with my old pal Tony, one of my closest friends from student days, and his wife Dalila. They took me on a tour of the island, followed by a terrific walk along a beach and then through the countryside. Then we had a lovely meal at their fantastic house just outside Douglas. It was a rare treat to be able to spend plenty of time in their company. I'm conscious that I've had a lot of good fortune in my writing career and this past week has been a good example - invited to take part in two splendid festivals, with the chance to meet nice people and explore glorious scenery as well. I often talk about the ups and downs of the writing life but although the downs are certainly not to be under-estimated, I can honestly say that in my experience the ups far outweigh them. And that's why I urged the workshop participants to keep faith in their own work, even when they encounter setbacks.
Monday 30 September 2024
Richmond and the first Peter Robinson Memorial Lecture
I've had an exciting week, with a memorable trip to Oxford followed by two extremely enjoyable festivals. The first of these is the subject of today's blog post. I was invited to the Richmond Walking and Books Festival and it was a great honour to be asked to give the inaugural Peter Robinson Memorial Lecture. Peter was a patron of the festival for many years and some years ago he invited me along, only for a conflicting commitment to make it impossible. We agreed that the event should take the form of a conversation between me and James Gravenor of the Festival committee, with introductory remarks by Peter's friend Alexe and a slide show of Peter over the years.
Richmond is a charming market town in north Yorkshire and we decided to turn the visit into a trip with plenty of sightseeing. This is definitely my preferred approach with festivals and conventions, when the opportunity arises. And we were very lucky with the weather. So there were stops in Sedbergh, Hawes, and Leyburn, all of them pleasant towns, as well as a walk to see the impressive Aysgarth Falls.
The organisers arranged for accommodation at Millgate House, which has been described as 'arguably the finest guest house in the country'. I thought this was a bit over the top until I arrived there to find an incredible house with an equally fantastic, award-winning garden. The historic Georgian house is full of clocks, antiques, paintings, and books. The garden, on a slope going towards the River Swale, is terrific, even at this time of year. I've never stayed anywhere quite like it. Here's a video about the garden which gives a good idea of its quality There are also some great shots of the house, interior and exterior.
I enjoyed listening to a great talk by Nicholas Royle about book collecting and was glad to have a chat with Nick, whom I hadn't previously met, and to buy his latest book Shadow Lines, which looks great. We discovered a shared enthusiasm for the work of Derek Marlowe and Nick was kind enough to send me a Marlowe novel that I've never come across before.
The next day was also fine, and there was a great guided tour conducted by a former mayor dressed as Richmond's first policeman, who ended up being murdered by navvies who were in town to build the (now abandoned) railway. The station is now a very impressive community hub, and there's a lovely looping walk along the Swale to Easby Abbey.
It was fun to chat to James, Alexe, and others, and a privilege to launch the Peter Robinson Memorial Lectures - I hope it's a series that continues for a long time. As for Richmond, although I'd visited the town, and looked round the castle in the past, there really is a great deal to see, more than I'd realised. A lovely part of the world.
Friday 27 September 2024
Forgotten Book - The Ten Teacups
Tuesday 24 September 2024
Memory Lane
I had a marvellous weekend back in Oxford, at a college reunion organised by the Balliol Society. Not for the first time, it struck me that, had I known when I first arrived there what the future held in store, I would have been amazed and incredulous. In a good way, I hasten to add. The surreal aspects of the return were heightened by the fact that I had long conversations with two guys who were on either side of me when the College matriculation photo was taken, Matthew Reisz (son of the great film-maker Karel) and John Foley. And three of my fellow law students, Neil, Tim, and Robin, were there among the crowd as well, it was marvellous to catch up with them.
The college library had arranged a very interesting exhibition of items from its archive relating to the interwar years at Balliol. The archive is held in the striking surrounds of the St Cross Church, which is partly but not entirely deconsecrated. There were some great items on show, including a letter from Mahatma Gandhi to the then Master of Balliol. Great credit goes to those who organised this informative display. If you want to take a look for yourself, the details are here.
I had a vivid flashback to that long ago day when I arrived in Oxford for my scholarship interview at the college. I recall being overwhelmed by anxiety, by a sense that my life was about to change in an unknowable way, from the comfortable routine that I was familiar with, and all of a sudden I felt I could not cope with it. I stayed for about three quarters of an hour at the station, trying to compose myself before I got up the nerve to move. That was the day I first met Neil and we've been friends ever since. A number of us reflected on the values of the friendships gained, as well as the many other pleasures of student life. That life had its difficult moments, of course, but overall the experience was overwhelmingly positive and it is great to go back.
John Foley has shared with me an excellent film he made recently which I think captures the nature of Oxford life very well - it's a very good watch and can be seen here. And while I was in the city I took the opportunity to look at the Kafka exhibition (excellent) and sign a few books of mine at Waterstones. When I was a student I dreamed of a day when I'd see my own novels on the bookshelves of Oxford. It seemed a remote prospect at best, but sometimes even impossible dreams come true.