Top Ten Escapist Crime Reads

As promised yesterday, here are ten escapist crime reads. I call it a "top ten" but my inner lawyer advises me to include, well, if not a disclaimer then at least a note of explanation! I've opted for books that are British (I may do more top tens with other criteria, for instance American books, if this little list finds favour), and easy to obtain, here if not everywhere. So I've excluded some great stories that are harder to find, such as Henry Wade's Heir Presumptive and Robert Player's The Ingenious Mr Stone. I've limited myself to one book per author (sorry, Agatha) and I've tried to inject some variety, so that these are not exclusively Golden Age stories or novels inspired by the Golden Age.

With that in mind, here goes:

Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans? a light-hearted mystery with a clever clue in the title and a likeable pair of amateur detectives.

Anthony Berkeley - The Poisoned Chocolates Case - a cerebral whodunit with six solutions, which must represent good value. Christianna Brand (whose own books make excellent escapist reading) and I both had the temerity at different times to come up with additional solutions, which can be found in the British Library reprint.

Dorothy L. Sayers - Murder Must Advertise - never mind the dodgy sub-plot, the main story is enjoyable, the advertising world wonderfully well evoked, and there's even a cricket match...

Michael Gilbert - Death Has Deep Roots - a consistently lively blend of courtroom drama and thriller, this is one of the best books of a writer I have always admired.

Donald Henderson - A Voice Like Velvet - a BBC radio announcer as a cat burglar! A great premise and good story from a very talented writer whose life and career were sadly cut short.

Cyril Hare- An English Murder - this Christmas mystery features an engaging sleuth in Dr Bottwink and a classic closed-circle setting.

Pamela Branch - The Wooden Overcoat - Branch was one of the most amusing crime writers of the 1950s, matched only by the excellent Colin Watson, and it's a shame that she only published a handful of books. This is probably the best of them.

Peter Lovesey - The False Inspector Dew - Peter's award-winning slant on the Crippen is characteristic of his entertaining and imaginative work. I've limited myself to just one living writer, which means no place for Simon Brett, Ruth Dudley Edwards, or L.C. Tyler, but all of them are splendid entertainers too.

Sarah Caudwell - Thus Was Adonis Murdered - the mannered style will take some readers a bit of getting used to, but once you're in the swing, reading about the exploits of Chancery barristers is, surprise, surprise, enormously pleasurable.

Robert Barnard - A Scandal in Belgravia - Robert was a gifted maker of mischief in life and in his fiction. There's a lot of fun to be had in novels like Sheer Torture but the brilliant finale of Scandal makes it my favourite of his books.

Golden Age Books for Christmas

Following on from my last post, today I'll focus on books for Christmas with a strong Golden Age connection. And a good place to start is Agatha Christie's Golden Age by John Goddard, sub-titled: "An Analysis of Poirot's Golden Age Puzzles". It's a meaty tome, with a short intro from Christie expert John Curran. Publishing non-fiction books traditionally isn't easy these days, because publishers are wary about the reams of factual information freely available on the internet. So John Goddard produced this book himself, via the Stylish Eye imprint, but that should certainly not put you off. The analysis is extremely cogent. It's best to read the book when you are already familiar with the stories, because John Goddard explores the plots in great detail. I have been dipping into the book over the past few months, perhaps the best way to tackle a densely written volume of this kind, and I've very much enjoyed so doing.

Now for fiction. I have to start, of course, with the British Library's Crime Classics, a series which continues to lead the market. This year, once again, there has been a diverse range of stories. Among the Golden Age mysteries, I'm especially fond of those by E.C.R. Lorac, which are in the orthodox mould, such as Murder by Matchlight, and those by Richard Hull, such as Excellent Intentions, which are anything but.

Harper Collins have continued with their nicely produced Detective Story Club hardback series, and among the titles for which I've contributed an intro is Donald Henderson's A Voice Like Velvet, which I found delightful and gripping. It's such a shame that Henderson died young. The diverse mix of titles to have appeared in the series this year include Freeman Wills Crofts' The Pit-Prop Syndicate and Vernon Loder's The Shop Window Murders, both of which I've reviewed on this blog, and Lynn Brock's The Deductions of Colonel Gore, which I hope to cover in due course. Brock was another very interesting writer; although his books are variable in quality, I find his ambition as an author generally admirable.

Then there is Dean Street Press, which continues to do splendid work in producing a large number of books in ebook and print on demand format. Thanks to their efforts, many of the books written by the prolific and capable Christopher Bush, among others (for instance, the long-neglected Francis Vivian), are now available at a reasonable price.

Finally, an anthology of a different sort, a handsome collection of five anotated American classics from Les Klinger, whose company I enjoyed when visiting New York in January to deliver the annual lecture for the Baker  Street Irregulars. Les is a leading Sherlockian, but his full range of interests is extensive. Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s includes books by Queen, Van Dine, Biggers, Hammett and Burnett. On the back cover are endorsements from A.J. Finn and a number of leading American novelists - plus myself. And we all agree that it's a splendid volume.   

Mr Bowling is Back!

I'm delighted that Harper Collins have republished Donald Henderson's Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper in their splendid Detective Story Club series. It's an interesting book by an extremely interesting author. And it was lauded by, among others, Raymond Chandler. He referred to the book in his famous essay "The Simple Art of Murder", and separately he said: "I think it is one of the most fascinating books written in the last ten years."

Many years ago, it was Chandler's essay that caused me to search out the book, but it wasn't easy to find. He pointed out that it hadn't sold many copies, and added "There is something wrong with the book business". Well, the book business is certainly odd at times, and always unpredictable. Henderson was unlucky, although at last he's receiving his due, a nicely produced and very reasonably priced hardback reprint.

I hope the book does really well, because Henderson and his work deserve to be better known. Another book of his, Goodbye to Murder, was published as a Pan paperback, but other than that I'd never seen any of his other novels until last year, when I came across several. And my interest has in part been inspired by Paul Harding, who has researched Henderson's life, and allowed me to see Henderson's unpublished memoir, "The Brink". I've written the intro to this new edition, and the information Paul shared with me was not only fascinating but really helpful.

Henderson had a life that was often sad, and he died in his mid-forties, just when his career might finally have been about to take off. But he really could write, and I hope and expect that this won't be the last of his books to gain a fresh life in the twenty-first century.

Forgotten Book - The Announcer

I've talked previously about Donald Henderson, a writer who has long intrigued me. Because he died young, his work fell out of print quite quickly, and he's hardly ever been discussed in reference books (though I do talk about him in The Story of Classic Crime). Recently, I read his 1946 book, The Announcer, and found it extremely enjoyable.

The book's alternative title in the US, and perhaps a better one, was A Voice Like Velvet, which is a phrase taken from the story, concerning the protagonist, Ernest Bisham. He happens to be a BBC radio announcer by day. But he is also, by night....wait for it...a cat-burglar!

As a premise this carries, perhaps a whiff of the absurd, but in a pleasing way. Henderson worked for the BBC, and he has a great deal of fun with his account of BBC life. I'm sure it appealed to his ironic sense of humour to imagine a very correct announcer as a master-criminal. His wit reminds me of Francis Iles, and he shares Iles' interest in true crime: Crippen, Jack the Ripper, and Neil Cream are among the killers name-checked in the story.

Like Iles, Henderson had considerable gifts as a novelist. This is a well-written story, with plenty of nice lines, but he also manages to create suspense in a very pleasing way. I found myself rooting for Ernest even when he behaved foolishly, and especially when he found himself in tricky situations, facing almost certain discovery. This really is a hidden gem.

Forgotten Book - Murderer at Large

Murderer at Large, by Donald Landels Henderson, was published in 1936,when the author was in his very early thirties. It's an extremely obscure book, and I was unaware of it until I began correspondng with Paul Harding, who has undertaken invaluable research into Henderson's work. Henderson is today remembered, if at all, for two later books, Goodbye to Murder and Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper, which I reviewed a while back.

Murderer at Large is an early book by a relatively inexperienced novelist, but its central concerns prefigure those addressed in the later,more renowned books,and I found it a startlingly powerful piece of work. There are touches of the irony and black humour that we associate with Francis Iles and his followers,and the seedy London atmosphere is not dissimilar from that of a later, much more widely acclaimed novel, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square.

Erik Farmer is a rather unpleasant young man, son of a villainous father, and the story opens with his employer about to confront him about a series of embezzlements. Undeservedly, Erik manages to get away with his crime, and flees to London with his ill-gotten gains. A more accomplished crook quickly relieves him of them, and Erik faces destitution. But his luck turns, and he finds a way to get back on his feet financially. Soon, however, he finds himself tempted to resort to the ultimate crime in order to preserve his lifestyle. Having committed one murder, he quickly finds that it becomes a habit.

I much admired the skill with which Henderson kept me interested in the fate of someone as loathsome as Erik, who flirts with one calamity after another. There are passages that are truly suspenseful, and the pace is maintained from start to finish. Henderson wrote this book in a hurry when he, like Erik, was impoverished, and in his unpublished autobiography, he mentions that he drew on the case of William Palmer (although the details of the plot are very different) in creating Erik. I think this book deserves to be much better known.

Forgotten Book - Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper

In my last post before Christmas, I'd like to wish all readers of this blog a very happy and peaceful time over the festive season. Thanks for all your feedback; it's always good to hear from you, and I've learned a lot from people who have taken the trouble to get in touch. Today's blog is a case in point, as a correspondent has greatly increased my knowledge and understanding of a writer who has long intrigued me.

Donald Henderson died young in 1947, just three years after the publication of Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper. It's his most famous book, thanks to words of admiration from Raymond Chandler, which prompted me to search it out many moons ago. I re-read it recently, and for me, it has much the same darkness as Patrick Hamilton's better-known Hangover Square, but it's nevertheless distinctive. Sensibly, Henderson kept the book short - a greater contrast from Georgette Heyer's over-long Penhallow, discussed here yesterday, would be hard to imagine.

We know from the outset that William Bowling, public school educated and superficially charming, is a murderer. Henderson conveys with economy and skill a rather complex psychological profile, and we follow Bowling as he moves from one more or less motiveless crime to another. It makes for chilling and compelling reading. Very different from Chandler's style, but you can see why the great man was taken with it.

The title, seemingly innocuous, is rather creepy. Mr Bowling buys the newspapers only to find out what the latest is on the murder he's committed. He is skilled in getting away with murder without really trying. This is a dark and ironic book, and there are echoes of Francis Iles as well as of Hamilton. I don't claim that Henderson was as good a writer as that pair, but perhaps had he lived longer, he would have achieved a great deal more.

Henderson was an interesting chap, and I'm indebted to Paul T. Harding, who has researched his life over a good many years, and presented his archive to the University of Reading, for giving me fresh information about him, as well as the chance to read autobiographical material that has aided my understanding of him as a writer. Henderson's other major book is Goodbye to Murder, which was published in a Pan paperback edition, but his earlier crime novels, such as Murderer at Large, are very obscure. Both Paul and I hope to have more to say about Henderson in the future.