Ten Million Pageviews

This blog has recently passed the ten million pageview milestone. I'd like to thank everyone who checks in - I really do appreciate it, and I thought I'd celebrate by reposting the above photo of the night when I presented Ann Cleeves - an early supporter of this blog - with the Diamond Dagger. As I've said before, it's thanks to this blog that I've got to know some wonderful people, quite a few of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in person, which is invariably lovely. The comments you make on posts, and the emails you send me are always extremely welcome.

I feel very lucky, given my enthusiasm for finding out more about crime writers and their books and the genre's heritage, that many people get in touch with me to supply extra information, which is often truly fascinating. I receive plenty of questions, too, and I do my best to offer answers or suggestions.

I'm sure that AI is skewing the pageview figures, though. The increase in pageviews over the past year has been colossal, and while my 'postbag' of genuine messages has also increased, I'm convinced that blogs which contain plenty of information, whatever the subject, are being targeted by AI bots and scammers.

As I've mentioned before, this is one of the main reasons why I started my The Life of Crime Premium subscriber newsletter as well as the free monthly newsletter which I launched last year, and for which you can sign up here.    I've been very happy indeed with the response to these initiatives. 

So what about the future? The short answer is that I don't envisage any great changes in the short term. I keep finding fresh ideas for Premium and I'll mention them here from time to time. And I hope you will continue to keep in touch.

Thanks for all your support.   

The Hunger Games - 2012 film review

Given everything that is going on across the globe right now, you could argue that what the world does not need right now is a dystopian film. Reality can be dark enough, perhaps. Yet I wouldn't agree with that argument. A good dystopian story can cast light on society in a valuable way, and perhaps it's even more valuable when things seem rather chaotic everywhere. 

All this is by way of preamble to my confessing that I'd managed (not by a deliberate choice, though) to avoid reading Suzanne Collins' books in the Hunger Games series and to avoid seeing the 2012 film based on her first story in that series. One of many gaps in my cultural awareness, I'm afraid. But finally I've caught up with it. 

The premise is simple. At some future date, Panem is a country (a sort of reincarnation of the US on a smaller scale due to natural catastrophe) ruled from 'the Capitol', which is rich and well-resourced. Twelve districts exist in a much poorer state. As punishment for a past failed rebellion, each year a boy and a girl from each district must take part in the Hunger Games, which quite literally involve a fight to the death.

Jennifer Lawrence and the rather less famous Josh Hutcherson are the pair from District 12 for whom we are rooting from the start. The cast also includes Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz and Donald Sutherland. Sutherland plays President Snow with his usual style and there's also a smallish part for Jack Quaid, who was good in Companion. I'd have liked the satire on reality television to be a little sharper, but overall it's an entertaining blockbuster. 

Dead of Winter - 2025 film review

On my flight to Barbados last month, I read an Andrew Garve novel that I'll be reviewing before long and also watched a film. I chose Dead of Winter, despite not knowing anything about it, mainly on the strength of the fact that Emma Thompson was in the lead. In the early minutes of watching the film, I wondered if I'd made a mistake, as I was taken aback by the fact she had an American accent, and had mysteriously gone out on a trip to somewhere very cold and inhospitable - northern Minnesota, as it turned out.

Before long, however, I became intrigued by the story. It's a slow-burn, for sure, but none the worse for that, and Emma's character - a widow called Barb - has a poignant backstory which is revealed, bit by bit, as matters develop. During a snowstorm, she heads for Lake Hilda and meets a rather odd man who seems to have something to hide. Soon it becomes clear that in fact he has kidnapped a young woman...

The plot gathers momentum from that point and Thompson's quality as an actor really shines through. The other characters are less well developed, a point reinforced by the names they are given - Purple Lady, Camo Jacket, and Tall Hunter, for example. But Judy Greer and Mark Menchaca do a good job in the former roles, while Laurel Mars plays Leah, the kidnap victim.

Credit must also go to Brian Kirk, the director, and cinematographer Christopher Ross; the two of them worked together on the very good TV version of The Day of the Jackal, starring Eddie Redmayne, and their expertise makes the most of the highly atmospheric setting, which looked about as chilly as the North Cape, which is the coldest place I've ever visited. A good film, which I can recommend. And I can tell you that after watching it, I was all the more pleased to step out into the warm Barbadian sunshine.

Forgotten Book: Postscript to Penelope

Susan Gilruth's Death in Ambush was a highly successful British Library Crime Classic reprint last year. I enjoyed the book a great deal, and so, it is clear, did many readers. As a result, her Sweet Revenge will be published in the series later this year; it was her first novel, and it's another good one. I can't claim the credit for 'discovering' Gilruth - that goes, as far as I know, to Jonny Davidson, formerly of the British Library - but I have been keen to read more of her work, and I've been encouraged in this endeavour by the enthusiasm for Gilruth of both Barry Pike and Jamie Sturgeon, two great fans of classic mystery (and thanks to them for the dustjacket cover image).

This brought me to Postscript to Penelope, her third novel. It dates from 1954, and was the last to be published by Robert Hale before she moved to Hodder, a more prestigious imprint. This is another story to feature Liane Crauford as narrator, again in company with her golf-loving and amiable if uninspiring husband Bill and the good-looking Hugh Gordon of Scotland Yard, whose fondness for Liane is all too evident, notwithstanding the banter between the three of them in the course of this story. 

The book opens with a useful cast of characters, and we learn that the Craufords are renting a mews house in London, in an upmarket area near Bayswater. They are renting the house from a model called Penelope, who has gone off on a long working trip to Rio. (Incidentally I was intrigued to find that Heathrow is referred to as Heath Row in the novel; this seems to be a Gilruth mannerism, as I've seen maps from the 1930s giving the spelling we're familiar with, i.e. as a single word). Liane is even more of a gossip and nosey parker in this story than in the earlier Gilruths, but she'd outdone in both respects by some of her neighbours, some of whom are, it must be said, rather irritating people whom I'd hate to have living next door to me.

The structure and plotting of this novel is unusual, and some key information only comes to the reader's attention at a relatively late stage of proceedings. There is a fairly obvious murder suspect, but what has actually been going on in the mews is far from easy to figure out. There's also some cluelessness on the part of Bill and Liane with regard to a weapon that I found as hard to swallow as Hugh's willingness to confide in them so extensively. There's a clever idea at the heart of the story, but I don't want to say too much more about the storyline for fear of giving too much away, but the greatest strength of the novel lies in Gilruth's lively, mischievous style of writing.

   

What to Do When Someone Dies aka Without You - ITV X review

A number of husband and wife duos have written crime fiction with some success, but I'd say that Sean French and Nicci Gerard, who write together as Nicci French, are the leaders of the pack. I've read and enjoyed a number of their novels over the past twenty years or so. I met the couple very briefly at Slaughter in Southwold some years back, but our paths haven't crossed since. However, their vivid storylines are well suited to TV adaptation.

I chanced upon What to Do When Someone Dies on ITV X recently, but this mini-series of three episodes first aired fifteen years ago. It's also appeared as Without You, the name of the source novel. All a bit confusing, and some might say the same is true of the storyline, but I enjoyed it.

The series benefits enormously from the presence in the cast of Anna Friel, whom I've liked since her Brookside days. She strikes me as under-estimated, despite her great success. She really has a great dramatic range and in this series she plays Ellie Manning, a bereaved woman whose mental state is fragile very effectively. Her beloved husband Greg (Marc Warren), a partner in a small firm of accountants, is killed in a car accident, as does a passenger in the car, a woman called Milena about whom Ellie knew nothing.

The plot develops nicely, and there are quite a few twists. Marc's ghostly presence plays a part in the story, a device that needs careful handling. I'm not convinced it added to the story here. Ellie plays detective, and finds that the police are sceptical about her growing certainty that Greg was murdered. There are some very critical online reviews of this min-series, but I liked it.

Secret Service - ITV review

I've never read any of Tom Bradby's thrillers, but I was interested to watch the new ITV series Secret Service, based on one of them which was published a few months before the pandemic. It's a contemporary story, and Tom Bradby is in the perfect position for authorial cameo appearances - he keeps popping up on the screen, reading news bulletins.

The basic scenario - which I would guess is updated from that in the novel - is that the Prime Minister, a centrist Labour politician, resigns after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The two cabinet ministers poised to do battle for the opportunity (or the misfortune?) of replacing him are Ryan Walker (Mark Stanley) and Imogen Conrad (Amaka Okafor). Both seem equally ruthless.

One of Conrad's closest advisers is Stuart Anderson (Rafe Spall), who is married to Kate Henderson (Gemma Arterton), who is head of the Russian desk in MI6. She's running an operation in Malta with an agent, and learns that the Russians have an agent in the government - seemingly one of the two front-runners to take over as PM.

It's a good premise, and perhaps doesn't require massive suspension of disbelief. There are quite a few familiar plot ingredients in the storyline, but the story moves along at a decent pace, and it's good to see actors like Alex Kingston and the ever-reliable Roger Allam in the supporting cast. It may not match the best of Le Carre or Deighton, and I did anticipate the final twist, but overall, I really did enjoy this one. 

Forgotten Book - The Body of a Girl

I first read Michael Gilbert's The Body of a Girl when I bought the paperback edition, two years after the book first came out in 1972. It was a book that I enjoyed, and I recall liking the character of the tough cop at the heart of the story, Mercer, although he did not feature in any more novels (there were just three short stories about him, which I caught up with many years later). One of the other detectives, Chief Superintendent Morrissey, also features in other Gilbert stories. Having forgotten the plot of the story, I thought it was high time I took another look at my old paperback edition.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. This is a witty and unpredictable story, which has great pace from start to finish, and the slightly of-its-time title doesn't fully convey the range of plot material that Gilbert handles with great skill, though it is fair to say that the discovery of a female body at an island on the Thames is the catalyst for what follows.

Mercer, who is sent to investigate, is cleverly presented. We can't be sure whether he's a villain or a good guy. Perhaps he is a bit of both. The tensions between the police officers conducting the investigation are handled convincingly, while there's a pleasing array of mysterious characters mixed up in events - including a one-armed garage owner who joviality may conceal a more sinister side. And, this being a Michael Gilbert novel, there is a solicitor in town who is believable yet may not be all that he seems.

I read this book in between two enjoyable novels by Andrew Garve. The similarities between Garve and Gilbert interest me; both were admirably versatile and highly professional in their writing. I have always rated Gilbert ahead of Garve, and I still do, though the more Garve I read, the more I like his books. But Gilbert was less prolific as a novelist, and I think he packs more depth into his novels, albeit with a light touch; perhaps this helps to explain why he won the Diamond Dagger and Garve did not. Both are authors I can recommend. Along with Julian Symons, I'd say they were probably the best male English crime novelists of their generation.

The Thursday Murder Club - 2025 film review

Few crime writers have enjoyed such dazzling success as Richard Osman since The Thursday Murder Club first hit the shelves - was it really as recently as 2020? The Covid-19 pandemic fuelled demand for light entertainment and the book delivered very successfully. The title was in itself a nod to Agatha Christie - Miss Marple, you will recall, first came on the scene in a series of stories in the 1920s about a Tuesday Night Club.

Of course, it helped that Richard Osman was already a well-known and very popular television presenter, and that his publishers got behind him with a great deal of marketing investment. But I am sure his books would not have done as well as they have done if they lacked merit. I find them comic rather than cosy and at his best his writing can make me laugh out loud. There are also touches of genuine poignancy. I've had the pleasure of having dinner with him and also of interviewing him and when (as has happened several times) other interviewers ask me if I resent the intrusion of celebrities into the world of crime writing, my honest answer is no. There are celebrities who write well and those who don't (and those who rely on ghost writers, which is a very different story). Richard is one of those who does write genuinely entertaining books, simple as that.

The film is in roughly the same vein as the book, and it's enjoyed a good deal of success. Again, it's benefited from big investment, but again the money has been well spent. What a cast - Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, Daniel Mays, Paul Freeman, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Richard E. Grant...

I enjoyed the film. Like the books, it's good, straightforward entertainment that delivers a pleasing story without being glib or patronising. One remarkable point that occurred to me while watching was that a favourite crime film of mine from the past featured Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman, and Pierce Brosnan. This was The Long Good Friday. A very different film, and very different roles for these fine actors. If I'm honest, I'm not convinced by the casting of Brosnan as a retired trade unionist, but he's such an appealing actor that it really didn't matter.

Agatha and Good Company

 

Saturday was a perfect day in many ways. Wonderful weather - especially for northwest England in April - and a very enjoyable mystery-linked event. This was in the church at Cheadle, where Kate Ellis (who lives in Cheadle) and I were in conversation about Agatha Christie, an event moderated very well indeed by Lucy Dusgate. This was a slickly organised affair with well over 200 people present, and it was great to see a number of old friends including Dea Parkin, Matthew Booth, Jean Briggs, Cilla Masters, and Dolores Gordon-Smith.

I also enjoyed chatting with Andy Sykes, whom I hadn't met before. Andy is a local writer and I included a story of his in a recent CWA anthology. He was happy about that, and from an editor's perspective it is really gratifying to have happy contributors and to give a chance to writers who are relatively new to publication in the crime field. I've always been very keen to try to achieve a pleasing mix between established names and fresh voices. Some of the former group may be good friends of mine (Kate is a good example and she's had stories in several of my anthologies) but I'm not a believer in cronyism. For the sake of the reader, the focus has to be on quality and variety.

After the event, a number of us went on a very enjoyable walk to nearby Abney Park and Hall, the former home of Agatha's sister Madge, who was married to a local businessman, James Watt. It was fascinating to walk along paths that Agatha once walked - she made no secret of the fact that she loved Abney. And then we repaired to the James Watt pub (yes! that's its name) in Cheadle, and had a half of Sherlock Holmes ale.

Later, there was a lovely barbecue with Kate and her husband Roger and other friends. It was all very enjoyable, and to top it all, Kate kindly presented me with a copy of her new Joe Plantaganet book, Killing in the Shadows. She really is good at titles, and I'm sure the content will be equally pleasing.  

Forgotten Book - The Cuckoo Line Affair

During my recent trip on the Seabourn Ovation, I had plenty of time for pleasure reading on sea days and on flights to and from the cruise. I took advantage of this to fill in quite a few gaps, and read as many as five books by Andrew Garve, a writer whom I've always liked, but on whose work I've become increasingly keen lately, as the sheer extent of his versatility has become more apparent to me.

The Cuckoo Line Affair, first published in 1953, is a relatively early Garve novel, but it is, like all his books, a fast read and it has the almost mandatory Garve ingredient of small boat sailing (this is one of the reasons I felt his books were very appropriate to a boat trip!) One of the characters, Hugh Latimer, is a writer of crime fiction, and although this aspect of his life is not developed to any great extent, it allows for a very entertaining conversation with his family when he bemoans the way critics review his novels - either because they begin too slowly, or too fast and then tail off - or if they are pacy all the way through, they are dismissed as melodramatic. I bet Garve enjoyed getting that off his chest!

The opening chapter conjures up a rural idyll. Edward Latimer is a jobbing freelance writer of articles who had a brief career as an MP (like Garve's father, who may have been an inspiration for the character in some respects) but has now settled for a quiet life of good works in the English countryside. We meet his unmarried daughter Trudie, his lawyer son Quentin, and Hugh and his delightful future wife Cynthia. The story is almost soporifically pleasant at this point, but drama is injected when Edward goes on a rail journey on the eponymous Cuckoo Line (not the real life one in Sussex/Kent, which fell into disuse but has now been revived, partly, in preserved form, as the Spa Valley Railway, a trip I'd like to make some day). 

Edward meets a pretty girl on the train but disaster occurs when she accuses him of sexual assault. It seems unlikely that this nice chap could be guilty, but witnesses corroborate the claim (there is also a sort of foreshadowing of the crime in the much better-known 4.50 from Paddington, published a few years later: I wonder if Agatha had read this novel, also published in the Collins Crime Club) and Quentin wants Edward to plead guilty in the hope of getting a soft sentence. But Edward has other ideas, not all of them sensible.

The plot quickly thickens and the focus shifts to the attempts of Hugh, Cynthia, and Quentin to help Edward restore his reputation. There are several ingenious twists, although some suspension of disbelief is required (why didn't they talk to the police sooner? for instance). But when Garve does skate on thin ice, he does so cleverly, and there was a plot twist regarding the train incident that I didn't see coming. An enjoyable book.