The Locked Cabin

I've edited more than my fair share of anthologies - around forty - but there are two British anthologists who were putting together fascinating crime collections long before I started and who continue to do excellent work in the field. They are Mike Ashley and Maxim Jakubowski, two men whose remarkably wide knowledge of popular fiction extends far beyond the crime genre. Both of them have both been kind enough, over the years, to include occasional stories of mine in their books.

My latest short story is "The Locked Cabin", and it kicks off Maxim's new anthology, The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths, published by Mango. The book is another entry in a series of collections Maxim has been putting together, which also includes a set of Extraordinary Historical Mysteries, to which I contributed "The Sound of Secrecy".

There's no doubt where the inspiration for this particular story came from. When I was wandering around the Queen Mary 2 last year, I read with great interest the wall panels detailing the illustrious history of the original Queen Mary, and one particular anecdote from the 30s sparked an idea in my mind. When I went on a second crossing on the ship, I gave the idea further thought and realised that it could make an interesting variation on the concept of the locked room mystery. So, not an entirely typical locked room riddle by any means, but a spin on the idea that appealed to me. When I arrived back in Britain, I set about writing the story.

There are some very interesting contributors to this volume, including a number of good friends of mine such as Christine Poulson, Amy Myers, Jane Finnis, Len Tyler, and Paul Charles, all of whom have a track record of successful short story writing. In recent times, I've also got to know David Quantick, who has enjoyed great success in TV with shows like The Thick of It and is now pursuing a long-standing interest in crime fiction. There's a good deal of variety in this book - it's by no means a conventional collection of stories in the John Dickson Carr vein - and quite a bit of experimentation. I'm glad to be part of it.

Raymond Flynn and Dorothy Lumley

In the crime writing world, the increasing number of conventions and events mean that there are many more opportunities for socialising between crime writers than was the case even when I started out as a published writer. As a result, one bumps into people from time to time who may not become close friends but who nevertheless prove to be pleasant acquaintances.

I'm sorry to say that a couple of people who fall into that category as far as I'm concerned have recently died. One is the novelist Raymond Flynn. Ray was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton two or three years before I joined their list and we met at a Dead on Deansgate conference in Manchester at the end of the Nineties. Ray also joined us, as far as I remember, for a very enjoyable Hodder author dinner at which those attending included those very interesting writers Andrew Taylor and Nick Blincoe. Andrew has of course gone on to great things in the crime world, while Nick Blincoe has not (as far as I know) stayed with the crime genre, but has moved on to other literary projects (and I gather he was also once an adviser to Nick Clegg...)

Ray inscribed for me a couple of his books, Busy Body and A Public Body, both of which featured DCI Robert Graham. He had been a career police officer in Nottinghamshire, and his experience strengthened the books. Like me and many others, however, he departed from the Hodder list, and I lost track of him in recent years, though I gather he continued to attend CWA regional chapter meetings in the West Midlands. He is, perhaps, a good example of an enjoyable mid-list writer who faded from sight all too soon because of the vagaries of the publishing world, rather than because of any lack of ability.

Another recent loss is that of Dorothy Lumley, often known just as Dot. I was quite shocked to hear of her passing. A former publisher, she was a literary agent whom I met at a few CWA events and also at the memorable Las Vegas Bouchercon. We once had a meal together and she told me she wanted to submit a short story for a future CWA anthology.I asked her about this a few times afterwards, but she never got round to doing it - too busy representing her clients, I think. She had a loyal set of writers on her books, including that very entertaining crime writer Amy Myers, and they will miss her greatly as agent and friend .