Forgotten Book - Backlash

I've mentioned previously my enthusiasm for the books of Martin Russell, and one of the nice things that has happened to me this year is that I've had an enjoyable correspondence with Betty Telford, who knew him well and liked both the man and his novels. I've learned quite a bit about him from Betty and I've been seeking out his books with even more zest as a result.

Backlash, which dates from 1981, is a good example of his strengths (and perhaps also one or two weaknesses). The story is narrated by Steve Cassell. He is a partner in a property business with a chap called Albert Hall, who seems quite a nerdy, fragile character. When Albert contacts Steve in a panic, he does his best to help. And it seems that Albert has murdered someone.

However, in a Martin Russell book, things are never what they seem. This develops nicely into a 'vanishing body' story, and the plot twists and turns relentlessly as a sequence of baffling events occur. I have to say that Martin Russell, not for the only time in his career, does test his readers' suspension of disbelief to the limit, but I think he just about gets away with it here, even though I suspect astute crime fans will figure out what is going on some way before the end of the book. 

An entertaining story, then, and one that thankfully doesn't outstay its welcome. My Collins Crime Club first edition runs to a mere 167 pages. In recent years there has been no shortage of psychological suspense novels twice as long as this one and with plot twists that are rather less satisfactory than those on offer here. Sometimes, when putting together a crime novel, you need to remember that less is more. And Martin Russell's crisp and pacy writing is effective partly because it is concise and is wholly devoid of padding.  

Eileen Dewhurst R.I.P.

 

I'm sorry to say that a dear friend of mine, Eileen Dewhurst, has died at the age of 96. The above photo dates from 2005, by which time she'd retired from writing, but she published twenty-five novels between 1975 and 2003 as well as several short stories which appeared in anthologies that I edited for the Crime Writers' Association and its northern chapter. I met her at the first CWA annual conferences that I attended, and shortly after that she introduced me to her agents, Watson, Little Ltd, who have acted for me ever since. So I'm very grateful for that alone. Mind you, it was slightly characteristic of Eileen that no sooner had she recommended them to me than she left them for another agency, a move she told me later she regretted. 

Eileen didn't always enjoy the best of luck with her career, but I felt that she had a great deal of potential as a writer, some of it fulfilled (notably in the short stories), some perhaps not. Her best books include A Private Prosecution and Death in Candie Gardens - the latter benefits from an excellent setting in Guernsey as well as a clever plot idea. Her personal favourite was The House that Jack Built, a complex novel inspired by her love of Coronation Street: she got to know the cast of the soap opera when it was in its prime, and really enjoyed the experience.

I felt that Eileen's writing tended not to get the attention it deserved (as she did!) and I wrote about her work for both the third and fourth editions of 20th Century Crime and Mystery Writers. I encouraged her to think in a focused way about her career and to consider writing a historical mystery novel, a form at which I think she might have excelled, but she never got round to it. One handicap was that she had no interest in self-promotion, and hated public speaking, even though when she gave it a go, she was good at it. In fact, the very first library event I ever took part in was at library in Liverpool with Eileen, John Wainwright, and Roger Ormerod (another of her friends) and she was in great form.

Eileen was educated in Liverpool and at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she read English. She was a born writer, I think, although she didn't have a novel accepted until she was in her mid-40s. That book was published by Hale, but then she was taken up by Macmillan, a more prestigious imprint, and although that relationship didn't last long, her next move was to the perhaps even more prestigious Collins Crime Club, where her editor was the legendary Elizabeth Walter. Many of her books were published in the United States. For a short time we shared a publisher, Piatkus, and a brilliant editor, the wonderful Kate Callaghan.

I spent many happy hours in Eileen's company and I can safely say that she was one of the most interesting people I've ever met. She had great charm, and a pleasing sense of humour. She also had many enduring friendships (often with fellow crime writers such as Celia Fremlin and Bob Barnard - she felt more at home in this community than in any other) but she also experienced more than her fair share of insecurities - her marriage, for instance, lasted only one week, which by any standards is remarkable.

The last time I saw Eileen was a few days before the first lockdown. I took her out to lunch in her home town in Birkenhead and we had a lovely time together. During the pandemic, however, her health deteriorated, while (a terrible fate for a writer) her eyesight was severely affected by macular degeneration. She spent her last years in a care home in poor health, but her cousins in particular proved a tower of strength in those difficult times. It was very poignant when I went to join them in Eileen's flat, when it was being cleared of her belongings. I was very glad that it was possible to arrange for a special copy of The House that Jack Built to be beautifully bound as a token of her long-standing enthusiasm for the CWA, and glad too that she knew that had been done. I shall miss her.

 

10 Years as President of the Detection Club

I can't quite believe it, but I've just celebrated my tenth anniversary as President of the Detection Club. The time has simply whizzed by. It seems like only yesterday that I was at the gala dinner at the Dorchester Hotel when Simon Brett handed over to me after fourteen years at the helm. And he's been a great support to me ever since. It's also absolutely true to say that the members have, without exception, been hugely supportive over the past ten years, and that's why the whole experience has been so much fun.

I never expected to be elected to this role; the invitation from Simon and other members came out of the blue. So too did Simon's original invitation to join the Club, back in 2008. I'd attended a dinner of the Club at the Savoy in the mid-90s as guest of Bob Barnard, but never expected to join such illustrious company. I was proposed for membership by Peter Lovesey and Tim Heald, both sadly no longer with us, but great guys as well as fine writers. Through the Club I got to know all kinds of lovely people, such as Jessica Mann, Margaret Yorke, and P.D. James, whom I hadn't really known previously and who were all terrific company. And Len Deighton kindly took me out to an unforgettable gourmet lunch to celebrate my election as President.  

I've attended every meeting since the night of my initiation, which took place at the Middle Temple (when Lynne Truss, later elected as a member of the Club herself, was guest speaker). In 2011 Simon asked me to become the Club's first archivist; the only snag was that at that time, we didn't have any archives, but slowly, slowly, I've been trying to develop them, and now the archives form part of the British Crime Writing Archives at Gladstone's Library, the perfect venue.

I've always been excited by the fact that the seven previous Presidents (Lord Gorell had the courtesy title of co-President for a few years) included such luminaries as G.K. Chesterton, E.C. Bentley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie. Julian Symons, elected as the fifth President, said he regarded it as one of the main honours of his life and I feel exactly the same. Of course, the challenge today is to ensure that the Club remains important to members, when there are so many competing events, and the Club's original raison d'etre (for crime writers who didn't know each other to meet) doesn't apply in the same way. So there needs to be a 'feelgood' element to our get-togethers. Since the Club, for all its illustrious heritage, remains a very small dining club - no more, no less - the fast-rising cost of high-quality hospitality has become a financial challenge. So it remains important to raise revenue by producing occasional books.

In recent times, the Club has published Motives to Murder, a short story collection in honour of Peter Lovesey, which yielded three stories shortlisted for the CWA Dagger (plus another longlisted) and the eventual winner, Howdunit, a collection of pieces about the art and graft of crime writing by 90 members past and present, which won one award, and was nominated for four others, and Playing Dead, this year's collection of stories honouring Simon Brett. And we have plans, still embryonic at present, for a new book to add to the list.

We've had some wonderful dinners at venues such as the Ritz, the Langham, and the Garrick Club, and in recent years some very enjoyable lunches at Balliol and St Hilda's, an innovation that suited the pandemic but has remained very popular - so much so that we'll be travelling even further from London next year, to the Lake District.

Guests at the dinners contribute very much to the pleasure of the occasion and so do the guest speakers - in recent years, we've had Michael Gilbert's daughter, P.D. James' grand-daughter, and Agatha Christie's great grandson, as well as a former head of the security services, the brilliant forensic scientist James Grieve, and an ex chief superintendent. So my overall feeling after ten wonderful years is one of gratitude for the contribution that so many people have made to a truly memorable decade.

Forgotten Book - Crime in Reverse

One of the joys of blogging is the range of contacts that I've had with so many interesting and thoughtful people over the years. As well as comments on the individual blog posts, I often receive private messages from fellow crime fans via my website (where there's a contact page) or by email and these give rise to some very informative discussions which add greatly to my stock of knowledge about the genre. 

A while ago, David Rodd got in touch to suggest Crime in Reverse by J. de Navarre Kennedy for the British Library's Crime Classics series. This was a book I'd never even heard of, but I managed to get hold of a copy (inscribed by Kennedy himself, which was a real bonus; no jacket, however - the image comes from Mark Terry's impressive facsimile dust jackets site) and I found it extremely readable, an example of an ironic story very much in the Francis Iles vein.

I devoured this novel with a great deal of pleasure. Kennedy has a smooth and readable style and his premise is fascinating. So how has this one slipped through the net so far as critics are concerned? Well, timing is so important in life, and certainly in an author's life. This novel was published in the autumn of 1939, when the world had other things on its mind. That is, I feel sure, why it's never had the attention it deserves. Poor Kennedy - this book deserved more fanfare than it received.

The premise is simple. At the start of the book we learn that Nicholas Chetwynd K.C. has just murdered a man. But the police have decided that someone else, a naive artist called Ricardo,is guilty. Chetwynd is offered the chance to defend Ricardo, and he accepts with alacrity...

There's a substantial trial scene, and overall the book benefits greatly from Kennedy's legal experience. Born in England and educated at Cambridge, he moved to Canada and became a respected lawyer and ultimately a judge. He lived from 1888 to 1979, and was clearly a man of varied talents. He wrote a couple of thrillers and a number of non-fiction books, but I doubt if any of them are as intriguing as Crime in Reverse. 

More from the British Library

Still looking for those Christmas gifts? Well, of course I hope you'll be stocking up with lots of copies of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife! The ideal present, I'd say 😉But there are plenty of other good options and today I want to talk about more of the books published by the British Library. 

Let's start with a book that I'm involved with, the new special edition of Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon, which was such a massive bestseller when it was reissued way back in 2014. I've written a new intro for this edition and in this, I make special mention of Rob Davies, who not only had the idea of reprinting this book but was also the man who came up with the brilliant idea of using railway poster artwork for the covers of the Crime Classics.

Anyone who has read Miss Winter will know that I love games, and so I was naturally attracted to Caroline Taggart's The Philosophy of Board Games. There's not actually much philosophy in this one; rather, it's a short and delightfully illustrated overview of the history of board games, an introduction to the subject, rather than an in-depth study, but a good stocking-filler.

Land of Mist and Magic by Philip Parker is a meaty, but concisely written, account of 'the myths and legends that shaped Britain' - everything from stories about Joseph of Arimathea, through Hereward the Wake and Robin Hood, to Lady Godiva, plus many more. A pleasing compendium.

And finally, Secret Maps, the book of the current British Library exhibition, again showcases the Library's brilliance when it comes not only to producing interesting books but also to illustrating them superbly. The compilers, Tom Harper, Nick Dykes, and Magdalena Peszko, all of whom are curators at the Library, have done a great job.

 

Newcastle Noir

 

I'm back from a quick trip to the north east, where I took part in Newcastle Noir. This is a festival that has been running for quite a few years now, and it's the third time I've taken part. As ever, the work done by the people who make these events possible deserves to be applauded, so huge thanks to Jacky Collins and her team. I was very pleased to be part of the event.

I took part in a panel called Dangerous Games, skilfully moderated by Rosie White, and my fellow panellists were Marnie Riches and Olga Wojtas; from my perspective, this felt like a lovely blend of personalities, writing styles and opinions, and we had a good time, with some thought-provoking questions from the audience as a bonus. It's always nice to sign copies of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife, of course, and I'd popped into the Newcastle Waterstones as well, where (as has happened quite a few times recently, but not previously in my career as a novelist) the book was prominently displayed on one of the tables at the front of the shop. I've been really happy with the commercial success to date of the book, and it's been nice to see that the hardback, heavily discounted, is also doing very well on Amazon at the moment. And of course it makes a great Christmas present!

One of the pleasures of these events is the chance to socialise with friends and also people one may not have seen for a long time or met previously. I had a very pleasant dinner with Christina Koning and then lunch with Ann Cleeves, which also gave me the chance to ask them to inscribe my copies of their latest books (both of which, of course, I can recommend). 

This has been a year of many events and it isn't over yet. This coming week I'm doing a series of talks with Kevin Durjan and Simon Dinsdale for American subscribers to Adventures Online, while on Wednesday evening it's my last in-person event of the year, organised by Mold Bookshop and taking place at Mold Museum and Library. I'll also be sending out my December newsletter - you can subscribe (free) here: https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks

Forgotten Book - The Sleeping Tiger

D M Devine, a Scottish writer who later published under the name Dominic Devine (although his actual name was David Macdonald Devine), was one of the most talented detective novelists to emerge from the Collins Crime Club during the 1960s. His death in 1980 at the early age of 60 cut short an interesting career and one feels that he might well have written a good many more books of high calibre, had he lived.

The Sleeping Tiger was described by the Crime Club on publication in 1968 as 'a tour-de-force of characterisation, plotting and excitement'. Publishers' hype? Well, actually I think they were right. This is a novel that I really enjoyed and in its exploration of middle-class society in the Sixties, I'd say it's at least on a par with some of the books Julian Symons wrote for the Crime Club, such as The End of Solomon Grundy.

At the start of the book we learn that John Prescott is on trial for a double murder. The two crimes were six years apart, but Devine conceals the victims' identities, so this novel can be regarded as a sort of 'whowasdunin' as well as a whodunit. There are extensive flashbacks which describe the creation of the tangled web in which Prescott - a solicitor, but not the brightest I've ever read about - now find himself trapped. Flashbacks are tricky devices, but I'd say that Devine handles them well.

He also shows great skill in constructing the mystery. I was kept guessing and I felt that Devine handled the 'fair play' aspect of the storyline with considerable skill. Although Prescott's behaviour infuriated me at times - his capacity for self-harm is considerable, and even worse, he slaps a woman, albeit under provocation - the author's aim was to show how a man with significant flaws can get a grip on himself, and eventually solve a baffling puzzle. Devine gives us a picture of a vanished era, and more than that, he spins a very good yarn. Luckily, this book is easier to find than some of his others, because it appeared as an Arcturus Crime Classic, an excellent if short-lived imprint with which I had some involvement. 

The Mackintosh Man - 1973 film review

Desmond Bagley was a very good thriller writer. My Dad was a big fan of his novels, and although I never met Bagley (who was always known as Simon to his friends) I did meet his widow Joan, an extremely pleasant lady who lived in Guernsey and who remained in touch with the crime writing world after her husband's regrettably early death at the age of 59. One of his best books was The Freedom Trap (1971) which was one of the five novels of his to be filmed or televised - a very impressive success rate, given that he produced only fourteen novels prior to his death in 1983, with some titles appearing posthumously.

Two years after publication, the novel reached the big screen as The Mackintosh Man. The film was directed by John Huston and the cast was headed by Paul Newman. The supporting cast included James Mason, Michael Hordern, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, and Peter Vaughan. The soundtrack was composed by Maurice Jarre. With such credentials, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, this is an okay film but it's not the masterpiece that one might have hoped for. Walter Hill's script isn't as engaging as Bagley's writing, though many elements of the original story remain. Newman plays Joseph Rearden, a criminal who has started working for British intelligence. As part of a cunning plan, he goes into prison only to be sprung from jail - in a scene that works very well and is arguably the highlight of the film. It's easy to see that the story was inspired by the legendary escape from prison of the spy George Blake.

The story bowls along at a pretty good pace (Huston was, of course, a first-rate director), but without ever gripping or exciting as much as it should do. One of the problems is that a key character, 'Mrs Smith', is played by Dominique Sanda, who gives a depressingly wooden performance; her CV suggests that she is an actor of real talent, but there isn't much evidence of that here, alas, and there's zero chemistry between her and Newman. But much as I like Paul Newman, I'm not convinced that he was the right actor for Reardon, either. Somehow his natural likeability isn't integrated into the storyline as well as it should have been. And I think this is why the film wasn't a critical or box office success. Walter Hill said he never bothered to watch it, which rather says it all.

Tales of the Weird

 

A leading dealer in rare books told me recently that supernatural and other weird fiction is highly collectible at present, and a glance at prices on the second hand market confirms this. Luckily, if this kind of writing is your cup of tea, you don't need to break the bank in order to feast on an eclectic mix of short stories (plus the occasional novel), because the British Library's Tales of the Weird is following the Crime Classics list in attracting a wide readership for attractive but competitively priced paperbacks featuring some fascinating writers and stories.

I'm not involved with Tales of the Weird, but I do enjoy reading them and (very occasionally, but perhaps more often in future) writing them. A number of recent titles are well worth looking at, and I'll glance at them briefly today with a view to saying more about one or two entries in the series at a later date.

The Haunted Library, edited by Tanya Kirk, offers a very interesting mix. There are well-known stories such as 'The Tractate Middoth' by M.R. James and also some unexpected contributions - notably 'The Revenant Typewriter', by none other than Penelope Lively, which dates from 1978, and which as Tanya Kirk puts it, shows how the trashy and modern threaten the scholarly and historic.

Phantoms of Kernow: Classic Tales of Haunted Cornwall, edited by Joan Passy, offers another nice, themed mix of the familiar and the deeply obscure. Eden Philpotts' 'The Iron Pineapple' falls into the former category, and there are also stories by such noted authors as Daphne du Maurier and Arthur Quiller-Couch, as well as a story by E.R. Punshon (much better-known as a detective novelist) and several writers otherwise unknown to me. 

The Lost Stradivarius is a short novel by J. Meade Falkner, whose three books (Moonfleet and The Nebuly Coat are the others) are all of high quality, yet very different from each other. I am a Falkner fan and I hope someone reprints The Nebuly Coat before too long, though it's not a tale of weird. In the meantime, this is a story well worth reading - as is the introduction by the doyen of British anthologists, Mike Ashley.