Cellar Door - 2024 film review

Cellar Door is a fairly recent American film which takes a situation with a number of rather familiar ingredients and and manages to make something quite interesting and entertaining out of them. As a result, I found it more watchable than I might have expected, given that the script does have a number of flaws. In a way, it's a Faustian pact story with a difference. 

A young couple, Sera and John (Jordana Brewster and Scott Speedman) who have recently suffered a miscarriage decide to make a new start by looking for a house in the country. An estate agent introduces them to a slightly mysterious chap called Emmett (Laurence Fishburne) who makes them an offer that they find it impossible to refuse.

Emmett lives in a gorgeous mansion which has seen some kind of unspecified tragedy in the past. He offers the couple the chance to acquire the house for nothing, subject to one condition only - they must never open the cellar door. Of course, they say yes, but soon John is itching with curiosity, desperate to find his way past that pesky cellar door.

The plot thickens when a work colleague of John's turns up at the housewarming party and subsequently accuses him of sexual harassment. There's a pleasing twist near the end of the film, and it becomes clear that the primary significance of the cellar door is metaphorical rather than actual. I'm not sure everything in the story made complete sense, but there were just about enough interesting developments to keep me engaged to the rather ambivalent ending.   

War of the Worlds - 2005 film review

I vividly remember reading H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, aged about 12 or 13, after borrowing the book from my school library. I was so impressed that I was tempted to buy a paperback copy of The Time Machine for myself, and I also read quite a few of his short stories. I even tried his 'social realism' fiction, but at that age, I certainly didn't find it gripping, and I think it's fair to say that today he is much better remembered as a writer of sci-fi than for his non-genre fiction.   

About seven years ago, I enjoyed a BBC TV version of the story - some key scenes of which were shot in Great Budworth, a lovely Cheshire village well-known to me - but I've only just caught up with Steven Spielberg's 2005 film version, set in the United States. This begins and ends clunkily, in my opinion, with a solemn and rather banal explanatory voiceover by Morgan Freeman, but the action in between is very good.

The cast is led by Tom Cruise, whose performances in action films generally strike me as excellent. I know that some people don't like his portrayal of Jack Reacher, partly because of his lack of height, but I thought he did a pretty good job. And under Spielberg's direction, he is on top form here, as Ray Ferrier, a dock worker whose marriage is over and whose ex-wife Mary Ann (now pregnant by her new bloke) has custody of their children, moody adolescent Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and young Rachel (Dakota Fanning). At the start of the film, Ray is late to collect his children for a few days, and his lack of attention to punctuality sums up the unreliability that has ended his marriage.

There are news reports of electrical storms in Ukraine, and soon strange clouds form overhead. Before you know it, alien tripods are causing havoc - and their first appearance is quite memorable. The story focuses on Ray and his children, and is well handled, with several moments of very high tension. You can interpret Wells' storyline in a variety of ways, but what matters most is that it really is a very good story, a landmark title in science fiction that has stood the test of time. 

Andrew Shanks R.I.P.

No 'Friday Forgotten Book' today, because I want to pay a personal tribute to my brother-in-law Andrew Shanks, who died on Tuesday. This tragic news came as a great shock, and it will be a considerable time before we come properly to terms with his loss. Andrew was a writer and translator of distinction, although his field was far removed from crime writing; he did, however, provide me with advice several times. He's mentioned in the acknowledgements to Blackstone Fell, having given me a good deal of help with my research for a pivotal chapter in that book, set around a church service. He was a priest (at different times he had rural and inner city parishes and he also served as Canon Theologian at Manchester Cathedral for a decade) and also a philosopher. In a message to Andrew's widow Dian Leppington, his friend Rowan Williams has already expressed his admiration for Andrew's personal qualities with great eloquence and poignancy.

Andrew was the eldest of the four children of Michael and Juliet Shanks: he's on the left in the above photo, with Chris, Roland, and Helena. Michael was a distinguished economist (whose influence continues to the present; his ideas were referenced last week in his column by the economics editor of the Sunday Times) and author. Andrew read History at Balliol, his father's old college, and he and I overlapped there, although he enjoyed Balliol less than I did and we didn't meet until after I'd got to know his sister, whom I first met at the same college. I've often said that Andrew is the cleverest person I know, but even more important than his formidable intellectual gifts were his personal qualities, his compassion, warmth, and playful sense of humour. 

Andrew played an important part in my life, more important than perhaps he realised. Not only did he officiate at our wedding, he guided me through after the death of my mother at the darkest time of my life and delivered a tribute at the memorial service when I simply couldn't manage it. And there was much more: he and Dian frequently hosted us, and my crime writing friend Eileen Dewhurst at their home in Leeds when we stayed en route for northern CWA events in Yorkshire. On one occasion he and Dian looked after our children at short notice while we were away and I'd messed up the arrangements. At different times, when they had homes in Hornby (E.C.R. Lorac country!) and Grassington, we stayed there for holidays. There was a memorable family gathering in Liverpool two years ago when we all spent a January weekend together to celebrate his 70th birthday, visiting the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight in Wirral, among other things (the below photo). And there was much else besides.

I very much enjoyed our conversations over the years, at family get-togethers or sometimes when we  played chess or watched Match of the Day together. He was never less than fascinating to talk to and it's safe to say that I learned a lot more from him than he did from me. I think we had many shared values, though it's fair to say that our ideas about how society could best implement those values were often very different. On his extremely interesting website Andrew describes himself as a 'neo-Hegelian...politically however (more and more) a sort of anarcho-pacifist.' In the last really lengthy discussion we had, he explained to me his ideas about reforming the House of Lords. These are set out on a page of his website and I think they deserve serious consideration by serious people (even if Andrew's confidence in the charitable sector is greater than mine). In any event, the point is not really whether you agree 100% with his argument: what matters is the quality of the thinking behind it.

Andrew suffered from serious ill-health of various kinds for many years, but it was a tribute to his courage and indomitable spirit that he bounced back so many times, and was able to devote himself to his writing and his happy and fulfilling personal life with Dian right to the end. I cannot deny that books such as his first, Hegel's Political Theology, were too difficult for me, but he achieved something special in recent times with his impressive translation of the poetry of the German Nelly Sachs. She was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, but I confess I'd never heard of her until Andrew explained what an extraordinary individual she was. His translations seem to me to be highly successful and he won two prizes for them. As I've mentioned, his father's legacy endures. So too, I have no doubt, will Andrew's. I shall remember him with gratitude and huge affection.    

 

   

The Scottish Isles

 

I'm just back from a lovely trip to the Scottish Isles, which although overshadowed by other things, provided a scenic reminder of just what a gorgeous part of the world is to be found up the coast from Liverpool, from where the ship did a round trip. First stop was Shetland - not as warm as on my last visit, to Shetland Noir, but still charming.

It was nice to see Lerwick again (and to see a copy of The Life of Crime in the excellent Shetland bookshop!) but the highlight was a guided walk across the sand tombolo to St Ninian's Isle, a look at the ruined chapel, and the rugged scenery. There were also some Shetland ponies.

Next stop was Kirkwall on Mainland, Orkney, an island I've never visited. As with Shetland, Orcadian tourism has definitely benefited from the popularity of Ann Cleeves' books about Jimmy Perez!

The ancient settlement of Skara Brae was an absolute must-see, and the nearby Skail House was also very interesting. A trip into 'downtown Kirkwall', as someone described it, was notable in particular for the chance to look around St Magnus Cathedral - truly impressive.

Next came Lewis, an island which features in Peter May's very successful novels. The Black Houses were fascinating, as were the standing stones at Calanais. A look around Stornoway afforded the opportunity to explore the grounds of Lews Castle. All in all, most enjoyable.

The final sea day afforded vistas of the Dutchman's Cap and Fingal's Cave as well as various other islands, and indeed Ireland. A wonderful place to explore - and no shortage of crime writing associations!

Leave Her to Heaven - 1945 film review

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Now to an interesting old film. Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 movie shot in 'glorious Technicolor', with primarily rural, charming locations, yet it's widely described as a film noir. A contradiction? I don't think so. For me, this is a film which is highly distinctive, yet which can sensibly be discussed alongside, and compared to, more conventional examples of film noir, shot in mean streets and rainy alleyways. After all, Body Heat, my favourite example of film noir (even though it was made in the 80s rather than the 40s or 50s), is a story that unfolds in bright sunshine amid blistering temperatures.

Jo Swerling's screenplay, based on Ben Ames Williams novel (the film rights of which were purchased prior to its publication in 1944, such was the quality of the characterisation), focuses more on people than plot, although there is a teasing preamble, with the arrival of Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) at a lakeside in Maine, when we learn that he has just been released from prison. It would be a stretch to describe this story as a 'mystery', but it's undoubtedly a dark murder story.

Then it's flashback time. Richard is an author, who has the pleasurable experience of travelling on a train in which a beautiful woman is reading his latest novel. This is Ellen Berent, played by Gene Tierney, who had recently excelled in that great film noir Laura. One thing leads to another, as it so often does, and Richard and Ellen get married. She makes a friend of his younger brother Danny, whose ability to walk has been hampered by polio, and domestic bliss beckons.

The trouble is that Ellen's devotion to Richard is excessive, and her jealousy proves to be corrosive, with catastrophic results. I found Richard rather anodyne - I've never regarded Cornel Wilde as an exciting actor, I'm afraid - but Gene Tierney excels. She was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her performance, and the accolade was well merited. There is some debate in academic circles as to whether she truly qualifies for the description femme fatale, but I don't have much doubt about it. What is interesting is that her motivation is not financial greed, as with Phyllis in Double Indemnity for instance. But in this film, Gene Tierney is, in her way, as menacing as the great Barbara Stanwyck. The supporting cast, by the way, also features good performances from Jeanne Crain, as Ellen's adopted sister, and Vincent Price, as a lawyer who was once engaged to Ellen.   

Forgotten Book - A Press of Suspects aka By-Line for Murder

Paul Winterton, himself the son of a journalist who had briefly been a Labour MP, had a successful career in Fleet Street (though he was rather less successful in politics, standing for election, but never making it all the way to Westminster) before becoming a full-time crime writer at around the same time that he was elected to membership of the Detection Club, in 1952. So when he set A Press of Suspects (1951) in Fleet Street, he was writing about what he knew. And this shows, because the setting around the fictional newspaper the Morning Call seems highly authentic, as well as interestingly and wittily described.

The story itself is equally interesting, a blend of inverted mystery novel and detective story. We begin by seeing things from the rather skewed perspective of a journo in the foreign department, Edgar Jessop. Edgar is hoping for promotion, but his dreams are dashed by the editor, who appoints a younger reporter, Cardew, to the plum job of Foreign Editor. This setback (perhaps, although this is not spelled out in any way, along with the recent death of his mother) causes Edgar to suffer a sort of mental breakdown.

Jealousy and rage bubble up and he decides to take revenge on his colleagues, including at least one individual who has always treated him well. Edgar's chosen method is poison, although some details of the plan are - quite skilfully - withheld from the reader. When his first victim dies, and Inspector Haines comes on to the scene to investigate, there are suspects more obvious than Edgar, and Garve juggles things skilfully so as to maintain suspense, even though we know whodunit. The idea of combining a workplace setting with an inverted mystery is a good one.

That said, there are some flaws in the book. In particular, attention shifts from Edgar, and his psychology becomes increasingly difficult to fathom. A bit more depth here might have been welcome. But you can't have everything, and although this is by no means my favourite Garve, I enjoyed the way he built up the tension.  

Good Boy - 2025 movie

With most films, I don't find it too difficult to make up my mind about whether I enjoyed them or not. The other day, for instance, I watched Christopher Nolan's much-lauded film Oppenheimer. I admire Nolan as a film-maker and I'd been saving it up for a treat. But for all its merits (and the brilliance of its stellar cast) I was disappointed, because for me it was over-long and focused far too much on aspects of the story that I didn't much care about. The key issue in the story surely concerns the moral pros and cons of Oppenheimer's work on the bomb, but the endless debate about whether or not he should retain his security clearance in the mid-50s seemed tediously overblown. A minority view, I realise.

Jan Komasa's recent film Good Boy, on the other hand, left me genuinely unsure. It's described as a blend of psychological thriller and black comedy, though there isn't too much humour, black or any other kind, in my opinion. I had no idea which way the story was heading, and the eventual finale came as a a real surprise. This should be a big plus, but I'm doubtful about that, because I didn't find the resolution convincing.

The film begins unattractively, with a deeply unpleasant young man called Tommy (Anson Boon) misbehaving in various depressing ways before we switch to a job interview between mild-mannered Chris (the versatile and talented Stephen Graham) and Rina (Monica Frajczyk). He's recruiting a maid, btu his manner is troubling. But Rina, a migrant worker, is desperate, so she takes the job. Chris, it turns out, lives in a remote mansion with his deeply troubled wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough, also highly accomplished) and their son Jonathan. But Rina soon discovers that someone else is living in the cellar. This is Tommy, and he's chained up.

Very odd, and things get odder still as the story develops and Tommy's attitude towards his captors evolves. I can't say much more without giving too much away, but although I think this is a film with significant flaws, it held my attention from start to finish, in a way that Oppenheimer, so superior in some ways, failed to do.  

No Country for Old Men - 2007 film review

No Country for Old Men, which takes its title from a line in a poem by W.B. Yeats, is a Coen brothers film based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. It's a highly-regarded film (described as a 'neo-Western crime thriller' on Wikipedia!) which I've been meaning to catch up with for ages. When I finally did, I certainly wasn't disappointed, even though I don't think the unorthodox ending is quite as effective as some critics believe.

The events take place in 1980, and the setting is Texas and the borderland with Mexico. A tough retired welder, Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), is hunting in the desert when he comes across the aftermath of some kind of drug deal which has gone wrong, leaving some dead bodies, a dying man, and a briefcase containing two million dollars. Llewellyn helps himself to the money, but soon finds himself on the run. The bad guys want their cash back.

The bad guys hire an extremely sinister and memorable killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) to retrieve the money, and he proves relentless. A veteran cop, Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who is on the verge of retirement, has to figure out what is going on. Also involved is a sinister bounty hunter called Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), whose eyes are also on the money.

There's a lot of violence in this film, but oddly enough some crucial acts of violence (including the killings of two key characters) take place off-screen. I'm not entirely convinced this works as well as the Coens obviously believed, but this isn't a film that one can easily judge in terms of the conventions of film thrillers. To some extent, the real focus is on something beneath the surface of the cat and mouse thriller storyline, namely Bell's uneasy awareness about the fact that he is getting on in years: hence the relevance of the title. Bardem's performance is mesmerising, and it's no surprise that it earned him an Oscar. Kelly Macdonald is also very good as Moss's wife. With actors of this quality, a film is bound to benefit, and the Coens make good use of the star quality at their disposal.  

Forgotten Book - A View to Ransom

I know there are very many well-read people who visit this blog, but I'm fairly confident that few, if any, of them will have read A View to Ransom, a novel by James Arney that was published by Robert Hale in 1983. It is the only published Arney title. And that is because the name conceals the identity of Martin Russell; his friend Betty Telford tells me that his mother's family came from Northern Ireland, and she thinks Arney was a family name.

Apart from one other book published by Hale (written as by Mark Lester), Martin Russell was published in the Collins Crime Club throughout a career spanning more than twenty years. As I mentioned when writing about him recently in The Life of Crime Premium, his editor was the redoubtable Elizabeth Walter. I know from Eileen Dewhurst's journal that she rejected one of his book in the mid-70s, and John Curran points out in The Hooded Gunman that there is some  mystery about The Phillison Project, a Crime Club title of his that was announced but never appeared, for reasons unknown.

A View to a Ransom opens with a confrontation on a TV investigation programme. This isn't the only example of such a device - an earlier example is Julian Symons' The Gigantic Shadow, which I reviewed on this blog  five years ago. I think the appeal of the idea is an element of the dramatic, but personally I think its an idea that tends to date a story quite significantly. The Symons novel is one of his weakest, and this novel doesn't compare with the best of Russell.

The storyline involves ace presenter Duncan Villier, whose increasingly erratic behaviour troubles his pal Simon Wallis, the narrator of the story. There's a political angle to the storyline which again tends to date it, and I struggled to get engaged with either Duncan's plight or Simon's attempts to help his friend. I'm afraid that my guess is that Elizabeth Walter rejected this novel because it wasn't up to Russell's usual standard. It may even have been the book that she turned down some years before this one was published. Hale's books were destined mainly for the public libraries. They published some undeservedly neglected gems over the years, but this is not, alas, one of them.

Nobody - 2021 film review

Nobody, a film that has enjoyed critical and commercial success, opens with a bruised and battered Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk, who is excellent in the role) being questioned by two FBI agents who want to know who he is. He tells them he is 'nobody'. We then get a series of flashbacks which reveal Hutch as a 'regular guy', married to an attractive businesswoman and with a teenage son and young daughter. He works in a small industrial business which carries out welding and other engineering functions, which is owned by his father-in-law.

One night, two masked intruders, a man and a woman, break into Hutch's home and attack the family. They seem amateurish and desperate and Hutch has a chance to knock out the woman with a golf club after his son, who tried to resist them, has been hurt. But he restrains himself and the burglars get away. His son is disappointed in him, and soon the story gets around that Hutch let his family down.

However, he spotted a tattoo on the burglar's wrist and manages to track the pair down. But - and I think this is a strength of the script by Derek Kolstad - this is only a preamble to the real action in the movie. Hutch goes on a bus trip when a group of vicious young men get on board and start to harass a young woman. He goes to her aid, and after a considerable amount of violence, he saves the day. But his actions have consequences...

I don't want to say too much more about the storyline, because although I felt it owed a bit of a debt to A History of Violence, it develops in a distinctive way. I felt the violence was at times cartoonish and excessive to the point of unbelievability, but there are some clever touches in the script, and one or two moments of humour, as when Hutch corrects the accident board at work, which had previously claimed that there had been no mishaps for over 200 days. Overall, good light entertainment. 

Books, books, and more books...

I'm truly delighted with the first review of What the World Needs Now, which has just appeared in Ellery Queen's MysteryMagazine. Steve Steinbock quotes Rupert Holmes' comparison, in his foreword, between Burt Bacharach's compositional style and the work of Hitchcock, Christie, and Ellery Queen, and says that the stories 'like the songs of Burt Bacharach, have the accessibility of popular music, but each in its own way delivers a profound sting.' Steve mentions that proceeds from the book are being donated to autism charities in the UK and US. Here's a link to the Amazon ebook edition and also the paperback edition Please feel encouraged to support a very good cause!

I spent Saturday in the pleasant Derbyshire market town of Bakewell, at a book fair organised by my friend Louise Harrison, who kindly arranged for me to have a stall where I could sell books and also talk to book lovers and booksellers as part of my research for my next novel. Another friend, Christine Poulson, dropped in and I also met some readers from Liverpool whom I'd last encountered when giving a talk more than a decade ago, as well as a Golden Age fan who told me he'd named his son Ellery. A very enjoyable day.

It was made even more enjoyable when I got home, since an advance copy of Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery had arrived. This is the book to accompany the forthcoming British Library exhibition about Agatha, edited by lead curator Lucy Rowland and myself. The foreword is by Sir Kenneth Branagh and the eclectic list of contributors from around the world includes David Suchet, Zoe Wanamaker, Lucy Foley, Kate Mosse, Dong Han, Ragnar Jonasson, Simon Calder, John Curran, and many more. 

It's fair to say that putting the book together was a challenge. But the effort feels justified, because it's a sumptuous production, and we feel it is the definitive illustrated guide to Agatha's life, writing, and world. I'm very much looking forward to the launch and private view, which will take place the evening before the exhibition opens on 30 October.  

Forgotten Book - The Case of Robert Quarry

I have quite a vivid memory of being on holiday with my parents in Colwyn Bay in the mid-70s when my Dad ran out of books to read. So he bought a paperback from a rack outside a shop, a book written by an author neither he nor I were familiar with. This was Andrew Garve and The Case of Robert Quarry, originally published in 1972. My recollection is that he said he enjoyed it, but I never got round to reading it. Perhaps this was because I'd brought plenty of my own books with me that week. But it may also have been because it seemed, from the back cover blurb, to be a novel based around the industrial strife that was a constant feature of the 1970s, and which I was pretty sick of, not least because the three-day week led to my spending three months on the dole at the start of what was intended to be a 'gap year' prior to going to university.

Only now, therefore, half a century later, have I finally got round to reading it. And I found that the industrial background, although realistically depicted, doesn't intrude too much into the story; it merely supplies a topical and interesting context. And the novel itself is a genuine detective story, and a very good one too. This might now be my favourite Andrew Garve novel.

This is a police novel, with the focus on Detective Chief Superintendent Joseph Burns, who is on the verge of retirement, called in to investigate a high-profile murder. The body of a prominent and controversial industrialist, Robert Quarry, has been found in the boot of a car - with his arm sticking out. Quarry's company is in the midst of a bitter strike and there are indications that his killing may be associated with the dispute. But it soon starts to look as though there is more to it than that, because Quarry's own behaviour in the hours leading up to his death is curious, to say the least.

There is a really clever idea at the heart of this story. So clever that I'm not going to spoil it in this post by saying what it is. I can't recall any other novel using the same idea, though it may be that one of Freeman Wills Crofts's novels verged towards it. But I really liked the concept and the way that Burns doggedly unravels the villainy at the heart of the story. An excellent novel. 

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

On Monday I mentioned Ruth Anderson of Wigtown's Well Read Books. She's not only a great bookseller but also very generous and she gave me a gift, a book written by a fellow Wigtown bookshop owner, Shaun Bythell. Shaun, whom I haven't met, owns The Bookshop, which is Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. I've been inside twice, and it's taken a great effort of will to restrict myself to just one purchase each time. The shop has an eclectic stock, and its crime shelves carry a lot of interesting titles; I've bought books by D.M. Devine and Andrew Garve on my two visits. And - the same is true of Ruth's shop - I could have come away with many more, had I not exercised great self-restraint.

Selling things is difficult, and selling books (if you're not Amazon) is definitely very difficult, whether you're an author, a publisher, or a bookseller. So I was fascinated by Shaun's Diary of a Bookseller, which takes us through a year of his retailing life. It's funny but also packed with insights. It must be said that Shaun cultivates a grumpy old man persona, even though he started bookselling when he was pretty young, but some of his takedowns of difficult and unreasonable customers (of whom there is evidently no shortage) are highly entertaining.

There are so many gems, it's almost impossible to know where to start. I did like very much the character who confused E.L. James with M.R. James and was destined to be shocked to discover that Fifty Shades of Grey isn't a story of the supernatural. There are also some great vignettes about coachloads of visiting pensioners who never buy anything. 

You have to be made of strong stuff to run a bookshop nowadays, and it's very clear that Shaun isn't in it for the money - but he loves books, and enjoys being answerable to nobody. It's also evident that he isn't into crime fiction, so there's very little here that relates to my favourite reading. This doesn't matter in the least, because he has written a marvellous book.

Harrogate, the Lakes, and Scotland

I'm back at home after an eventful few weeks. I spent some time at Harrogate coinciding with the crime writing festival, and had some lovely meals and other get-togethers with my agent, various publishers, and fellow writers. It was mainly a business-focused trip, but there was also the chance for plenty of enjoyable conversations. And I came back in very good heart, since one of the outcomes was agreement on a new deal for my next three novels. I'm excited about the prospect, and I'll talk more about what is in store at a later date.

After that, I was on the road again almost immediately, off to the Lake District. For the very first time in its history, the Detection Club held a meeting in the north of England. This decision was taken at last year's AGM, and so the 2026 AGM was held in the pleasant surroundings of the Castle Green Hotel on the outskirts of Kendal (photo at the top of this post). I also put on an exhibition relating to Reginald Hill, who lived in and sometimes wrote about the Lake District, using materials (letters, manuscripts, books etc) mainly from my own collection but also with two or three items from the Club's own archive. The AGM was great and so was the summer lunch, which was very well attended. The success of the event means that we're almost certain to return to the north again next summer. 

The trip also gave the chance to explore the area. For the first time, perhaps surprisingly, I visited John Ruskin's old home at Brantwood, on one of those lovely fine days we've enjoyed this summer. The house and gardens are equally fascinating, while the location, on the banks of Coniston, is superb. Ruskin, who gets a few mentions in the Coniston-set The Arsenic Labyrinth, was a brilliant man, but his personal life was troubled. My sense of him is that he lived too much in the mind, in the realm of ideas and ideals, and found the real world, and relationships (especially with the women with whom he fell in love), rather difficult, and that's no doubt why his later years were marked by a sad and steep mental decline.

                                         

After that, it was up to Scotland, and the Dumfries and Galloway area, which I really like. I did an event in Wigtown to a sell-out crowd; this was organised by Ruth Anderson of Well Read Books, a quite wonderful bookshop with a terrific Crime Room. And of course I came away with quite a few books. After staying in Monreith for a couple of nights with my old mate Stephen, and visiting places like Whithorn (home to St Ninian's Priory, the old church in the photo above) we headed for Sanquhar, a nice little town with a ruined castle, a Tollbooth Museum, and the oldest post office in the world. There were two particular highlights - a visit to Crawick Multiverse, and a day spent in the splendid environs of Drumlanrig Castle. 

                                       

Wonderful trips, in wonderful company. I have returned refreshed and ready to get writing! And I've started with a new Life of Crime Premium newsletter all about codes and ciphers; you can find it here: https://substack.com/@martinedwardsbooks

Forgotten Book - File on Claudia Cragge

It's more than two years since I last discussed Crime Dossiers on this blog, so it's high time to take another look at one of the most enduringly thought-provoking ways of telling a story about a murder mystery. Today I'm looking at the second Dossier that was written by Q. Patrick (Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Wheeler), File on Claudia Cragge, which dates from 1938.

The interactive nature of the dossier is emphasised by the publisher. The heading on the front cover of my edition (published by Jarrolds in Britain; the American edition is slightly different) is: 'Be your own detective'. And the front cover text reads: 'Through the novel dossier form of presenting the complete case of a crime to the reader, with actual clews...a new dimension of reality has been brought to the detective-story...the realistic account of a criminal action, exactly as received at Police Headquarters. The crime was a murder. The police solved it. Can you?'

Who can resist such a challenge? Not me! But I have to admit that in this case, I didn't get close to the correct solution, as I managed to lead myself astray by focusing initially on a character to whom I thought suspiciously little attention was being paid and then on someone else whom I thought was a credible suspect; the latter assumption was logical, but I missed the vital bit of information. 

This story can be regarded as a locked room mystery, with murder committed at a seance -at which Lieutenant Timothy Trant is present. There is one extremely good visual clue in the dossier which I missed, though I wasn't quite so impressed by some of the other clues. But it's a pretty good story.

There are two noticeable differences from Q. Patrick's other crime dossier, File on Fenton and Farr. That story is longer, and I wondered whether it was originally conceived as a novel. And it was clearly inspired by a real-life case. This mystery, although it involves that classic Golden Age trope the seance, is less convoluted. The coming of the Second World War killed off enthusiasm for mysteries of this kind and Wilson and Webb never returned to this format. But the tide has turned and crime dossiers are undoubtedly attracting more attention now than in the past. And given that I've been interested in them for many years, I'm delighted about that.   

Men - 2022 film review

British folk-horror appeals to me, although it will probably be a long time before anyone tops the film that really catapulted this type of storytelling into the public eye, The Wicker Man. Men, a 2022 film written and directed by the very talented Alex Garland, is at the surreal end of the spectrum. It opens with a favourite song of mine, 'Love Song', performed by Lesley Duncan, and this is a clue to the central theme.

Jessie Buckley, who can do nothing wrong on the screen, is impressive in the role of Harper Marlowe, who has been traumatised by the apparent suicide of her husband James, after a row when he struck her after she made it clear she was going to divorce him. He'd tried emotional blackmail, threatening to end his life, reflecting a controlling attitude that, the film suggests, is a masculine characteristic. I don't go along with the generalisation, but the story is well made.

In the hope of getting over the tragedy, Harper rents a lovely country house for a fortnight, in a village called Cotson in the west country. The owner, Geoffrey, is an oddball, although apparently harmless. He's played by Rory Kinnear, and it soon becomes clear that all the men in the village are played by him. What's it all about?

I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it's fair to say that this is not a film for the squeamish. Harper finds herself stalked by a naked man, taunted by a youth, and fondled by the vicar as events build towards a tumultuous climax. This film isn't a masterpiece, but if you like folk horror, it's definitely one to watch. If only for the excellent acting of both Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear.

Affliction - 1997 film review

 

Affliction is a bleak film, a study of cyclical violence and psychological disintegration. If you're looking for something to cheer you up, this is one to avoid until you're in the right mood. But it is a very good film, directed by the accomplished Paul Schrader and based on a novel by Russell Banks, which lives up to its considerable critical reputation. It's a crime film, with a suspicious death and a troubled cop at its heart, but it's really a drama about human nature, not a mystery in the conventional sense.

Nick Nolte plays Wade Whitehouse, a cop in a small town in New Hampshire. He is divorced and his wife Lillian (Mary Beth Hurt, who was married to Schrader) has custody of their daughter Jill, to whom he is devoted, although their relationship isn't easy. He's now involved with Margie (Sissy Spacek, who is very sympathetic as she tries to cope with a disturbed lover) and he has a brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe) who provides crucial information in a voiceover at the end of the film - a device that would usually seem like a real cop-out, but which works quite well here, except for the fact that one crucial event, a killing, would surely have worked better if we were shown it, with some build-up, rather than in effect being told about it.

The death of Wade's mother means that his alcoholic and violent father Glen (James Coburn, who won an Oscar for his performance) comes to live with him and Margie. Meanwhile, Wade becomes fixated with the death of a crooked businessman called Twombley, who was shot while on a hunting trip with a local guide called Jack (Jim True). Jack claims the death was an accident, but Wade isn't convinced.

Wade's behaviour as he unravels becomes increasingly illogical and scary for those around him, and the final scenes are upsetting. I've seen this film described as a 'neo-noir crime drama', but that really doesn't convey the flavour of a movie that deals thoughtfully with the question of violent impulses. I've always had a dread of violence, and perhaps that's why I find it fascinating. So often violent movies are crass, but Affliction, although a mostly understated, slow-burn of a film, is compelling.

Forgotten Book - Panic

Helen McCloy was one of the most interesting American woman crime writers of the twentieth century. I say this on the strength of having read less than half of her extremely varied output, but it's a claim I make with some confidence. Her debut, Dance of Death (1938) introduced her series character Dr Basil Willing and was an extremely impressive performance; it marked the start of a long and impressive career.

Today, though, I'm focusing on a stand-alone novel that she published originally in 1944. This was Panic, a book that I think is not only very unusual but also very well-written. However, the novel wasn't published in the UK until 1972. According to that edition (under the admirable imprint of Victor Gollancz), British publishers turned it down 'on the curious grounds that English readers were not interested in such puzzles'. That edition was also modified to remove some wartime references.

This does seem amazing, but it's a little easier to understand when you discover that a large portion of the novel is devoted to discussion of a complex cipher, created by elderly Felix Mulholland, an expert in the ancient Greeks, whose death from an overdose of digitalis occurs right at the start of the story. Even though McCloy's explanation of how different ciphers work is lucid, the material is challenging, and I must admit I didn't try to solve the cipher.

But there's more to the book than that. Has Felix been murdered, and if so, by whom? And when his niece Alison takes refuge in a remote cottage in the middle of nowhere, is she really safe - or at greater risk than ever before? McCloy combines an ingenious puzzle with skilfully created suspense and a decent whodunit (although some of the information about the culprit's motive was not foreshadowed quite as much as I'd have liked). This is a memorable novel, despite some imperfections, and I plan to talk about it in more detail in a future Life of Crime newsletter.  

The Detection Club - exciting times...

Today sees the Detection Club's AGM and summer lunch - which will take place in the Lake District, the first time the Club has ever met in the north of England. This was a decision taken by the members at last year's AGM and I'm excited about it. We will also have some fantastic news to celebrate, and I can do no better than quote the press release issued by Quercus Books:

'Quercus is delighted to announce the acquisition of The Detection Club Murders, a collaborative crime mystery written by current members of the Detection Club, the oldest and most prestigious social network of some of the most successful and prominent crime writers in the world.

The Club was founded in 1930 and amongst its first members were Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers, all of whom became Club Presidents. Over the years other leading names such as Margery Allingham, John Le Carre, and Len Deighton followed.

Set in the present day, and featuring a premise that mirrors a real-life Club dinner, The Detection Club Murders opens with a mysterious killing. During the Club’s legendary induction ritual for new members, the room is plunged into darkness when, suddenly, a shot is fired. As the lights come back on, a dead body lies amongst the guests – but we don’t know who has been murdered, or why. Or perhaps even how…

As the police begin their investigation, members of the Detection Club themselves try to work out whodunit through a witty and mind-boggling maze of clues, red herrings, and unexpected twists.
The project is masterminded by the current President of the Club, Martin Edwards, who brings together a stunning raft of today’s leading crime authors, who will craft a classic locked room murder mystery reminiscent of the very best Golden Age detective fiction. All participating names will be released in stages and as a key element of a major marketing campaign.

Publisher Stef Bierwerth says, ‘The minute I opened up Martin’s proposal I was struck by how perfect the finished novel will be for all fans of the classic murder mystery. Built on the decade-long tradition of the world’s most iconic crime writer union, The Detection Club Murders will combine many of the most well-known crime writing brands under one banner, collaborating on a contemporary crime novel. Part of our campaign will be to reveal the different participants step by step – and trust me, you won’t be disappointed by who is taking part in this project.’

Martin Edwards says, ‘Ever since I proposed this book to Club members, I’ve been bowled over by their enthusiasm for the project. Agatha Christie and other founder members of the Club wrote collaborative mysteries in the 1930s, notably The Floating Admiral, and this book will be published to coincide with the centenary of the dinner meetings that led to the Club’s formation. We’re writing The Detection Club Murders in an original way, so as to bring our members’ individual talents to the fore and result in a mystery which reinvents classic crime and gives our readers rich entertainment.’  

The Detection Club Murders will be published in 2028.' 

The White Lotus - season 3 review

To my delight and surprise, season three of The White Lotus (expanded again, this time to eight episodes, but thankfully with little or no padding) was even better than the first two seasons. And that's saying something, because I think this is absolutely first-rate commercial television fare. Writer-director Mike White has achieved something special.

This time the setting is the White Lotus resort in Thailand, a country I've never visited but which looks fascinating. White makes excellent use of the background, and explores (amongst various other things) the way different people approach spirituality. Again there's plenty of satire, especially when the lives of the haves are contrasted with those of the have-nots. But one of White's strengths is that he doesn't depend on the obvious. Far from it. Characters we thought really had a moral compass turn out to be flawed. Even unpleasant individuals can have a pleasant side. 'Justice', as most people would see it, certainly does not always prevail.

Two characters whom we've encountered previously make return appearances that are unexpected by me - and by them. Their renewed acquaintance becomes an important strand in a complex storyline, which opens with another variation on the 'whowasdunin' theme, with an unknown person shooting manically before we flash back to the arrival of a fresh group of guests at the resort.

Jason Isaacs, an actor I've always liked (and once imagined as Harry Devlin - yes, he's a Scouser, even though here he plays an American businessman), and his wife and three children, are amongst the guests who play a pivotal part in the story. We also, once again, become invested in the lives of select members of the hotel staff, including the likeable security guard Gaitok and the pretty colleague whom he fancies. There's a mysterious and rather menacing chap called Rick and his Mancunian girlfriend Chelsea (a great performance by Aimee Lou Wood): see the photo above.

There's a lot of discussion online about the class and privilege issues which crop up in The White Lotus. But there's something else that strikes me about the scripts. A central recurring theme is the sheer randomness of fate. Whichever character you become attached to, you can't be sure they will survive.   

Forgotten Book - The Singing Masons

 

A few years ago, I had the chance to pick up, at a very modest price, an inscribed copy of a novel called The Singing Masons, written by Francis Vivian. I didn't know much about Vivian or his work, but the inscription featured both his pen-name and his real name, Ernest (in fact, his full name was Arthur Ernest Ashley), so I snapped it up. However, I didn't manage to get round to reading it and it slipped slowly down my TBR pile. These things happen.

It leapt back up that pile when I was invited to give a talk about Francis Vivian by Nottinghamshire Libraries, for whom I've done quite a number of events over the years. The idea was to give the talk at Retford Library, where I've spoken before, since Ashley came from that neck of the woods. So my first step was to read The Singing Masons! I didn't know how good it would be, though the fact that the book was published by Hodder, in 1950, I found quite encouraging.

This is an enjoyable book, featuring a likeable Scotland Yard man called Knollis, a series character who works hand in hand with the local inspector, Wilson. The investigative style is faintly reminiscent of Freeman Wills Crofts, but we get a reference to the film version of Chandler's The Lady in the Lake, as well as mention of Poe's Dupin. And the epigraph is a highly relevant quotation from Henry V.

There's a useful map at the start of the book, which I should have studied more closely (though I did figure out whodunit by other means). The story opens with a veteran bee-keeper called Heatherington recounting a lengthy and rather rambling story about the discovery of a corpse. It seems as though the weight of detail is excessive, but in fact Vivian cunningly conveys some very important information in the first chapter.

An unpleasant philanderer and chancer called Batley has been murdered, and suspicion shifts around a small group of suspects. There is a lot of discussion about bees and their habits and care - Vivian himself was a keen bee-keeper - and although the story slows down after a bright start, it is well-written and well-constructed. And it sounds glib to say that there is a sting in the tail at the end of the novel, but it's true. The finale is unexpectedly dark and quite memorable. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this novel, and I'm very glad I bought it.

  

Operation Finale - 2018 film review

Operation Finale tells a story from real life that I was aware of, but wasn't familiar with in any great detail. It is set mainly in 1960 and concerns the hunt by Mossad agents for the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and their attempts to bring him to justice. The director is Chris Weitz, the writer Matthew Orton, and the big draw so far as I was concerned was the casting of Ben Kingsley as Eichmann.

The lead agent is Peter Malkin, played by Oscar Isaac, an actor I don't recall coming across before. He does a solid job as a man haunted by a past mistake, and Melanie Lauren is good as Hanna, the one female member of the team. One thing that surprised me was that less than half the film's running time is devoted to the actual hunt for Eichmann in Argentina (which became home to a lot of Nazis in the Peron era in particular).

The focus then switches to the attempt to get Eichmann out of the country, after the getaway flight on an El Al plane is delayed, Eichmann plays cat and mouse with his captors, and Ben Kingsley gives a fine performance. His mobile features are very effective in conveying and indeed concealing the thoughts and feelings of the character he is playing.

There are small but important parts for Simon Russell Beale and Greta Scacchi. The need to be (roughly) true to the real life story is inevitably a constraint, but on the whole, the film works well. The second half, post-capture, could, however, have been a little shorter. Even with that caveat, I must say that I was glad to watch it, and although one should always be a bit sceptical about films which purport to be based on real life events, I think I did learn quite a bit about what actually happened.  

  

The Dark - ITV review

The clue is in the title of this new six-part TV serial. The Dark isn't a misnomer - it's a dark, Gothicky story about a serial killer, and it's filmed in a suitably dark way. The screenplay is written by Matt Hartley and others and is based on a novel by G.R. Halliday called From the Shadows. I have to admit that I'd never heard of G.R. Halliday, let alone the novel, but this really reflects the fact that in recent years, although I read as much crime as ever, my main focus has been on books from the past - researching titles for the Crime Classics list is fun, but of course it takes up a lot of time. So I'm not as well versed on the latest books as I was in the past.

Anyway, this is a story set in Scotland, and it's got elements of Scandi noir about it: whether Scandi noir was an influence on the author, I don't know, but it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that it was. The scenery is, of course, gorgeous, though I was struck by the number of scenes in which a detective drives on a narrow, winding road with no other cars in sight. I just know that if I did that, I'd soon encounter a tractor coming in the opposite direction. 

Laura Donnelly gives an intense performance as DI Monica Kennedy, the lead detective who has a curious backstory, having been involved in the past with a mysterious cult. She is a single parent, with a young child and a concerned mother. And she's a great one for going into obviously dangerous situations without back-up. I wouldn't say that I really warmed to Monica, but I'm not sure we are meant to do so. The cast also features Helen Baxendale, in a very, very different role from that of Cordelia Gray, the part I most associate with her, in the TV version of P.D. James's An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.

The serial killer is targeting young men and there are a number of creepy suspects who might be culpable. I have to say, though, that I didn't find it difficult to decide which of them was actually the guilty party. The story might have been better told in four parts rather than six, but for the most part it kept me engaged. Not a masterpiece, perhaps, but pretty good television all the same. If you like dark stories, that is. 

Forgotten Book - The Perfect Murder

I have a long-standing interest in collaborative detective novels. The Floating Admiral is an old favourite of mine, a Detection Club classic that is still earning the Club royalties, more than ninety years after it first saw the light of day. Of course, it has the advantage of being associated with Agatha Christie, that most bankable of writers. The Queen of Crime wrote an early chapter in the book, and it's a highlight of the novel.

The Perfect Murder is an extremely unusual example of a collaborative novel and is very different from books such as The Floating Admiral. It began life as an exercise organised by Jack Hitt, a senior editor at Harper's magazine. He had a round-table discussion with five leading mystery writers of the day - three Americans, two Brits - and this was published in the magazine. From there, it grew into a full-length book.

The five writers were Donald E. Westlake, Tony Hillerman, Lawrence Block, Peter Lovesey, and Sarah Caudwell, and one of the merits of choosing this particular quintet - quite apart from their literary ingenuity is that each of them has a distinctive voice. I was especially entertained by Peter Lovesey's contributions, and noted that he managed to include a reference to his favourite 'true crime' - the Brides in the Bath case.

The set-up is that Hitt, in the person of wealthy 'Tim', is contemplating murdering his wife and framing her lover for the crime. He seeks to enlist the aid of gifted mystery writers in order to achieve his aim. Each of the five authors comes up with a highly elaborate scenario, and the plot thickens from there. Very definitely a one-off, but intriguing, it's a book I'm hoping to explore further in a newsletter soon, as Peter Lovesey gave me some of the background information, including a letter from Jack Hitt discussing the project and the original magazine article.