Forgotten Book - Case without a Corpse

Case Without a Corpse was Leo Bruce's second book about Sergeant Beef, appearing in 1937 and following up the highly successful Case for Three Detectives. Again, the narrator is Beef's patronising writer friend Townsend. The story opens in a local pub, with Beef playing darts. A local rascal, young Rogers, bursts in and announces that he has murdered someone - and promptly takes poison and dies.

This is as dramatic an opening as you could wish for in a Golden Age novel, and overall the story lives up to its initial promise as Bruce surmounts the so-called 'second novel hurdle' with quite a degree of ease. There's also a lot of fun to be had. Bruce pokes fun at Golden Age tropes regularly, and he does so in a very entertaining way. I liked his disappointment at Beef's readiness to call in Scotland Yard, for instance, and the by-play between Inspector Stute of the Yard and Beef is a lot of fun, as is Stute's bafflement about the fact that one of the local constables is called Galsworthy (a joke that has not, perhaps, aged too well, but it pleased me!)

Even better is Townsend's comment when he's admitted to a police conference: 'my reading of detective stories...had taught me that an outsider, with no particular excuse, was often welcomed on these occasions, especially if he had the gift of native fatuity, and could ask ludicrous questions at the right moment...'

It's fair to say that things get a little bit bogged down in the middle section of the book, but I thought the final revelations made the wait worthwhile. At the end of the story, Beef hankers after a transfer to Scotland Yard, and says that if he doesn't get his just reward, he'll retire from the force and set up on his own as a private investigator. And Bruce's writing is so likeable that it will be a pleasure to see what happens next in Beef's career.  

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.   

Unhinged - 2020 film review

There are plenty of psychopaths about in the world, and all most of us can hope for is not to fall foul of them. Especially not in a road rage incident. One remembers, for instance, the terrible road rage murder of Stephen Cameron, a young man who had the misfortune to cross paths with the most unpleasant antagonist imaginable. In Unhinged, a young single mother encounters someone even more violent.

That someone is Tom Cooper, played by Russell Crowe. Before the credits roll, we're introduced to him, a malevolent figure parked outside a house (which, we will discover, is occupied by his ex-wife). He goes inside, armed with a hammer and a can of gasoline and proceeds to wreak havoc. 

Attention then switches to the difficult life of Rachel Flynn (Caren Pistorius). Her marriage has broken down, although she seems to have got involved with the lawyer handling her divorce (never a great sign of judgment on either side), but her main interest in life is her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), who belongs to that currently fashionable group of children in movies who are irritatingly smarter than their admittedly inept parents. She's driving Kyle in a rush, as usual, when she is annoyed by Cooper's failure to move quickly at a green light. When he challenges her and asks her to apologise, she is tense - having just lost a major client - and irritable. Big mistake.

Before you know it, Cooper has launched on a horrible campaign of vengeance. The film moves at a brisk pace. The script is by Carl Ellsworth, whose CV includes Red Eye and Disturbia, and although it was never going to win an Oscar, it's a competent piece of work, sliding over the improbabilities (the limited involvement of the police above all) in a way that - just about - enables the viewer to suspend disbelief. Russell Crowe gives a compelling performance as the madman, and it's his contribution to the film that makes it worth watching.  

Back from the Seabourn Ovation

Last spring, I had my first taste of life as a 'guest conversationalist' on board a Seabourn cruise ship. This was a short but delightful trip, so I was very pleased to be invited back by Seabourn, for a much longer trip. I was asked to become a conversationalist on a trip that involved flying to Barbados, where I stayed for one night, before boarding the luxurious Seabourn Ovation, with over 500 guests, as one of a team of four conversationalists working alongside the talented, highly capable, and incredibly hard-working entertainments team. 

The trip involved nine sea days as we headed for Morocco, with stops at Casablanca and Tangier, both of which I've visited in the past, and then at Portimao, for the Algarve, which was new ground for me. The crossing was, therefore, even longer than that I had on my trips as a speaker on the Queen Mary, but there was never a dull moment. I met some delightful people from all four corners of the world and had a fantastic time.

My brief was to hold six conversations, about different aspects of crime fiction, and also to host three dinners; in addition, I hosted a murder mystery event, the very first time I've done anything like that on board ship. It was a great experience, made all the better by the terrific performances of the cast - cruise director Nick Martland, entertainments manager Caroline Miller, and entertainers Nicole and Matthew. I was very pleased by reaction to the event and felt I learned a lot about how these things can be done to best advantage while on the ocean wave. I also met (for example) someone who had actually known Gladys Mitchell, someone who told me about G.K. Chesterton's old home in Buckinghamshire, and someone who had (by pure coincidence) brought several of my books on board. 

After so long at sea, it was fun to visit the medinas in Casablanca (and to see Rick's Cafe!) and Tangier, where it was fascinating to visit St Andrew's Church, a unique survival with gorgeous gardens. 

On the Algarve, there was a trip to Cape St Vincent, aka 'The End of the World', which is the south westerly most point of Europe and quite special. We also travelled to the historic and delightful town of Lagos. The ship finally docked at Lisbon, and the journey home took rather longer than the original trip to Barbados, thanks to the new ID requirements and the fact that everyone's luggage failed to arrive at Manchester airport. But it finally arrived the next day. All in all, a wonderful trip. I'm hugely grateful to everyone at Seabourn, not only for inviting me, but for making it such a great experience.  

Forgotten Book - Men for Pieces

Thanks to Steve Barge, who blogs as The Puzzle Doctor (and if you don't know his blog, it really is consistently interesting and I recommend it unreservedly) and Dean Street Press, most of Brian Flynn's long-neglected detective novels are available again at modest prices. I've read several of them, and the latest is Men For Pieces, which was the 36th Anthony Bathurst mystery and first hit the shelves in 1949.

The title comes from Omar Khayyam, suggesting that Brian Flynn was keen on literature. However, it has to be said that his own writing was unsophisticated. He was mostly published by John Long, whose main market was the libraries and they don't seem to have bothered much with the tedious task of editing. I could quote innumerable examples of Flynn's clunky prose, but perhaps this simple example will suffice: 'Senora Garcia looked incredulously surprised.' 

But even if Flynn wasn't, in terms of the quality of his prose, a good writer, he was a pretty good storyteller and more specifically he had a real gift for coming up with interesting ideas for mysteries. At the time this book appeared, he had been published for almost a quarter of a century, and there were times when I felt the padded and ornate style suggested a certain loss of energy. 

A young man who works for a bank goes missing unexpectedly, and a young woman who is devoted to him becomes concerned. She involves Bathurst and he discovers the missing man's body - an apparent suicide. There's a lot of inconclusive discussion, and no shortage of red herrings, one of them (an enigmatic note) a bit irritating - but the story really comes alive in the later stages. After a slow start, the puzzle proves to be unexpectedly ingenious. I'm not convinced, mind you, that Flynn plays totally fair with the reader in the way that he presents some information, especially relating to two key characters.

Good editors make a big difference to their authors. For instance, I have no doubt that my own writing has benefited from the work of several very good editors over a long period of time. Brian Flynn's writing gives me the impression of an affable man - in this book, for example, there's a very witty reference to a crime writer called Charles Wogan, which happens to be his own pen-name - and I think he would probably have been receptive had his editor made a serious effort to help him to improve his writing skills. Ruthless editing of the first two-thirds of this book would have improved it, for sure. Nevertheless, in all the books of his that I've read, there has - at the very least - been something of real merit that made me glad that I've overcome my reservations about his style. So I'll be very happy to read more.

Blood on Satan's Claw - 1971 film review

I like horror fiction and films, but there's no point in denying that quite a lot of it is...well, horrible. The title of the film Blood on Satan's Claw didn't exactly incentivise me to watch it, but then I discovered that Mark Gatiss, whose judgments on popular culture I always find interesting, rated it as an important example of 'folk horror'. He even ranked it alongside The Wicker Man, a film I have always admired. So I decided to give it a go.

Was it trashy or terrific? Well, I can see why there are arguments on both sides, but first things first. This is a movie that came out before The Wicker Man, but although the two films have one or two common elements (including the highly effective use of music), I don't think anyone can deny that the Anthony Shaffer film is much more sophisticated. Blood on Satan's Claw was written by a young Cambridge graduate, Robert Wynne-Simmons, and originally it took the form of an anthology film, with three stories in one. The director, Piers Haggard, persuaded him to combine the stories into a single tale, and this was a sensible idea. But the storyline remained somewhat fragmented. As a result, there's something disjointed about the film, a major difference from The Wicker Man. 

The story is set in the early 18th century. A farmer ploughing a field uncovers a deformed skull, which mysteriously vanishes. Shortly afterwards, a young woman (Tamara Ustinov) goes mad as a result of an encounter with a mysterious creature in the attic of a house where a judge (Patrick Wymark, in his last role before his tragically early death) is visiting. In the local village, a young boy is hunted and killed, and then his sister suffers a dreadful fate. It's clear that a girl called Angel (played by Linda Hayden in her customary sexy way) is at the heart of the mischief. But what exactly is going on?

This isn't a film for the squeamish, and it has exploitative elements, as Piers Haggard later acknowledged, which I didn't like. What's more, it's definitely not strong on subtlety. On the other hand, the cinematography has been rightly acclaimed - the visual presentation of the English landscape, lovely yet menacing, is impressive - and the very unevenness of the storyline contributes to the sense that rural life is unpredictable and disturbing. So, very far from a masterpiece, but a cult curiosity at the very least.  

Goldeneye - 1989 film review

Goldeneye is the title of a James Bond film, but before that it was the title of a 1989 biopic, the story of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming. And the first thing to be said is that it has some wonderful ingredients. Fleming's life, the subject of several published biographies, was very interesting. The cast, led by Charles Dance, who is ideally suited to the role of Fleming, is excellent. And the screenwriter, Reg Gadney, who has a cameo role in the film as James Bond, was undoubtedly a good writer.

Gadney is someone I never met, but he was a writer of varied accomplishments, whose career I've followed with some interest for many years. He wrote well-regarded spy novels, was a reputable academic, and also developed an expertise in art and art history. On top of that, he was a capable if occasional screenwriter. I remember The Sculptress, which he adapted from Minette Walters' novel, with particular admiration and indeed I fancy watching it again before long.

The trouble is, this is a slow-moving film, episodic and unsatisfactory. Fleming was, whatever his shortcomings, a gifted storyteller whose novels always moved at pace. So it's weirdly contradictory that a story about his life should plod along as Goldeneye does. Nor do I think that the characterisation of Fleming in the script is particularly compelling. There's too much about his complex love life, but we don't really get under the skin of the man or his motivations.

A shame, because this film brought together a number of talented people. The cast includes the excellent Phyllis Logan and also such interesting actors as Marsha Fitzalan and Richard Griffiths; Adrian Edmondson also features in a tiny part. I really wanted to enjoy this film, but I feel the definitive Fleming movie has yet to be made. Maybe one day... 

Forgotten Book - The Silent Murders

Over the course of just five years, between 1928 and 1933, A.G. Macdonell, the Scottish writer best-known as author of England, Their England, applied his wit and facility for writing entertaining prose to the detective genre. He co-wrote one novel, The Bleston Mystery, with Milward Kennedy, under the name Robert Milward Kennedy, produced six novels as Neil Gordon, and two as John Cameron. And then he moved on to other things. His early death in 1941, at the age of 46, means we'll never know if he would have returned to crime writing. Perhaps not. But his books deserve not to be forgotten.

The Silent Murders, which dates from 1929, is an example. In fact, I'd rank it as outstanding for its time, if it were not for the fact that the clever idea at the heart of the story had been used by another novelist a couple of years earlier. Whether Macdonell simply nicked it, or whether the idea was simply in the zeitgeist, I don't know. Either is possible. But he makes good use of it, and writes his book in such a different and agreeable way that it's definitely worth reading even if you have - as I did - a pretty good idea of where the story is ultimately heading.

The book begins with the murder of a tramp. Tramps were a regular feature of Golden Age detective fiction, and this reflects social issues that aren't so often discussed. For some people down on their luck, it really wasn't a golden age at all. But when someone else is killed and it emerges that there is an inexplicable connection between the two crimes, the story begins to take shape.

The main detective in the story, Inspector Dewar, is an appealing character, and Macdonell hit on a good way of complicating the mystery. The tension builds nicely, although one question (where was the culprit hiding out all the time?) didn't seem to me to be clearly answered, as the book ends rather abruptly, almost as if the author had run out of steam. So, not a masterpiece, and not totally original, but I really enjoyed it. It's a pretty rare book (the illustration comes from the excellent Hadwebutknown website, but that first edition will set you back £225), but deserves rediscovery. 

Guest post - Michael Ridpath and Operation Berlin

I've been a fan of Michael Ridpath's work since before I first met him, which in itself is quite a long time ago. He's a versatile and interesting writer and I'm very glad to feature a guest post from him:

'There comes a point in the middle of my research when it’s time to read The Times. 
I suppose it would be possible to do this online somehow, but that’s not the way I like to do it.  In the basement of the London Library in St James’s Square is The Times Room.  Large red leather-bound copies of The Times, each heavy, each three feet tall, line the shelves in cabinets, one for each month.  There are special lecterns upon which you can open them and browse; the Foreign and Colonial news is usually on about page 8.  I love it down there.

My latest novel, Operation Berlin, takes place in August and September of 1930, and so I read through copies of The Times for each day, taking notes of what the Berlin correspondent had to say.  At that time, he was an old hand named Norman Ebbutt, but he is never identified in the paper itself.  There is usually at least one article – or maybe two – on the goings-on in Germany each day.  But I allow myself to be distracted: by the advertisements on page 1 for domestic servants and enigmatic personal messages in a rudimentary code; by the page-long descriptions of the Belvoir Hunt’s outing a couple of days before; by the minutiae of cricket scores by batsmen with at least three initials and two hyphenated last names.  And the advertisements, of course, for Bovril, Beecham’s Laxatives, Imperial Airways and the Austin Seven.

But back to ‘our Berlin correspondent’.  My eye was caught by a short article on 29 August 1930 about a Frau Amlinger who had thrown herself out of a Lufthansa mail plane flying from Frankfurt to Erfurt.  She was the wife of a Reichswehr cavalry officer, Captain Sepp Amlinger, who served in the air force during the war and who had died in an aeroplane accident in Russia.

Interesting.  Very interesting.

Further investigation on my part paralleled that of The Times’s correspondent.  It turned out that Captain Amlinger was part of a secret contingent of the Reichswehr being trained as fighter pilots at a training facility in the Soviet Union.  Cover-ups ensued, and a nice little subplot was born.  Now, all I need to do is book myself onto an Imperial Airways flying boat to Alexandria for £55.  Not tempted by the Beecham’s Laxatives, though.'

Michael Ridpath’s Operation Berlin is published by Boldwood Books on 12 April

 

Sharp Corner - 2024 film review

Stories which focus on characters who experience gradual psychological disintegration are often harrowing, but if told well, they can be engrossing. Some of Julian Symons's best novels, such as The Narrowing Circle and The Man Who Killed Himself, are good examples. Sharp Corner, a newish film based on a short story by the Canadian writer Russell Wangersky, is another.

This is a slow-burning film, but it's never boring. Josh (Ben Foster) and Rachel (Cobie Smulders - quite a memorable name!) are a happily married couple with a young son, Max, whom they adore. They move out of the city to a new house and everything seems fine. But as Josh and Rachel celebrate their good fortune by making love in the front room, a tyre crashes through the window. There has been a fatal car accident on the sharp bend in the road just outside the house.

One small point I have to make is that the corner that causes all the trouble doesn't actually seem that sharp to me. There's a much more terrifying right-hand bend in a road close to where I live. No matter. This tragedy unsettles the family, and worse is to follow, as it becomes clear the sharp corner is an accident blackspot, and more crashes follow. Josh becomes obsessed with the crashes, and his work and personal life suffer. So, before long, does his marriage.

Josh is in many ways a frustrating character, and although one sympathises with him at first, it becomes increasingly difficult to do so. He is not a 'bad' man - far from it - yet eventually he will do something terrible. The end of the film came a bit unexpectedly and I'm still not quite sure what I make of it. Overall, though, this is a thought-provoking film and I was impressed.