The Last Seance and Tales of the Troubled Dead

I like ghost stories, and enjoyed writing one a while back - "No Flowers", which appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and which I even recorded for their website podcast. Over the years, quite a few crime writers have dabbled in stories of the supernatural. Agatha Christie is a notable example, and now HarperCollins have had the bright idea of putting together a chunky volume of twenty of her tales of the uncanny (but not those featuring Harley Quin). It's called The Last Seance, and it's just come out.

There are one or two well-known stories here, perhaps most notably "Philomel Cottage", while  no fewer than eleven of them (including the title story) were included in The Hound of Death, an interesting and under-estimated collection. Christie is famous as an exponent of highly rational whodunit plots, but this book illustrates that she had an abiding interest in the supernatural, and quite a flair for writing about it. There is no introduction (I believe one was planned, but fell through: a pity), but there is a good bibliography.

Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History, is very different. It's a non-fiction study written by Catherine Belsey and published by Edinburgh University Press. The author is an experienced academic, and although I find academic books about popular fiction interesting, all too often I find the style of writing depressingly dense. A tendency to overload the text with cross-references (surely books written for academics should assume that the readers are capable of finding page numbers for themselves) is another recurrent weakness. Happily, this book is an exception, because Catherine Belsey writes entertainingly and with insight, and doesn't feel the need to encumber her text with tedious material designed to prove that she knows her stuff.

"Ghosts don't stay put" is the opening sentence, and perhaps my favourite illustration of Belsey's pleasing literary style can be found in an engaging chapter about Women in White: "Ghostly dress codes vary". I also liked her wry reference to Tony Blair: "The ex-premier, however, is not entirely fictitious." The book veers around its subject in a discursive way that I found agreeable. It's not in any way a text book, and all the better for that. Many other academic writers could benefit from adopting a more relaxed, less insecure approach to their writing in the manner of Belsey. 

Audio books and Gallows Court

This week, Sheila Mitchell has been recording the full-length audio book version of Gallows Court. I was thrilled when she proposed this to my publishers, and so were they. Over the years, I've been lucky in the actors who have recorded my books for audio. Gordon Griffin in particular has done sterling work, and last month I had the pleasure of meeting Julia Franklin, who recorded The Cipher Garden some years back. But this is the first time Sheila has been involved with any of my books.

Sheila has been (as was her late husband Harry Keating, formerly a distinguished President of the Detection Club) a friend for many years. I've learned a great deal from her about such things as voice projection - not that I'm much good at it, even now, though she's done her best to train me! Harry, I gather, recorded one of his own novels, before concluding it was best left to the professionals. I very much agree, and I can't see myself ever wanting to record a novel of my own, even though I did once record a short story, "No Flowers", for an Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine podcast.

Done well (as it needs to be), audio recording is a demanding job. Sheila has recorded countless audio books over the years, and her preparation continues to be absolutely meticulous. During recent conversations, I was interested to find out how she goes about it, and it's become clear to me that an in-depth understanding of the characters and incidents, as well as oddities of pronunciation, is invaluable for someone about to embark on a marathon of reading aloud.

I was greatly impressed by the list of questions she fired at me after her second reading of the text; thankfully, I managed to figure out the answers. Her incisive analysis of the tricky bits will, I feel sure, be a real benefit. She spent the first three days of this week full-time (about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) in the studio, recording Gallows Court. That she's been willing to do this is something I regard as an honour and I very much look forward to listening to the result.

Malice Domestic and the Poirot Award

After weeks of breathless globe-trotting, I'm back in sunny Cheshire for a while now, and I've a chance to reflect on some marvellous trips, most recently to Malice Domestic 29 in Bethesda, Maryland (a suburb of Washington DC). Malice is an exceptionally well-run and friendly convention which focuses on the traditional mystery. This was my fifth time at Malice, and after receiving one of their prized Agatha awards last year, I was extremely fortunate to be honoured again.

This time I was presented with the Poirot award; which is given in recognition of a significant contribution to the traditional mystery genre. It isn't awarded every year, and the contribution in question may be quite distinct from writing books - the very first recipient was David Suchet, and last year the Poirot went to Barbara Peters and Rob Rosenwald, whose Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Press have made such an impact over the past twenty-odd years.

It was a great honour, and I was delighted to share the evening of the awards banquet with some special guests, including Doug Greene (a past recipient of the Poirot), Steve Steinbock, and British writers Ann Cleeves and Frances Brody. Also on my table was Cathy Ace, originally from Wales but now Chair of the Crime Writers of Canada, who interviewed me about my career and did a fantastic job. I also enjoyed being part of a panel including other honorees such as Charlaine Harris and Elaine Viets, and signing copies of the Malice anthology, Mystery Most Historical, which includes a story of mine. To my delight, Crippen & Landru produced a specially published edition for convention delegates of my short story "Acknowledgments". .

As ever with conventions, I tried to fit in some sightseeing, and I can certainly recommend a river cruise on the Potomac. One of these days I'll make it as far as Mount Vernon....The weather was gorgeous, so I spent as much time as I could outside, visiting various monuments as well as the botanical garden. Washington is a great city. As for the convention, it passed all too quickly, but I was delighted to spend quality time with old friends and new, including Janet Hutchings of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Gin Malliet, Michael Dirda, and Elaine and English Showalter. It was good, too, to meet John Norris, whose blog Pretty Sinister Books I've long enjoyed, for the very first time. My thanks and congratulations go to the Malice Board, who always do such a fine job. I've already registered for next year, and if you like crime conventions, this is one I can strongly recommend.

   

Ghost Stories for Christmas

Ghost stories are often told around Christmas, and I'm getting into the seasonal mood by writing one myself, for a forthcoming anthology. It's provisionally entitled "Through the Mist". I've dabbled in the genre before, and in the spring, I had the, for me, unusual experience of recording one of my own stories, the ghost story "No Flowers", for an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast. Great fun.

I've also been getting into the right frame of mind by reading more of Robert Aickman's stories of the uncanny - four collections of his stories were republished earlier this year by Faber, and they are excellent and memorable. They are, really, stories of the uncanny, rather than just ghost stories, and all sorts of strange, often inexplicable things, happen in them. Strongly recommended.

I've also started reading Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Face in the Glass, a paperback collection of stories published by the British Library, who get everywhere these days, and a very good thing too. I've written about Mrs Braddon before on this blog, but these stories were all new to me. One particularly good one is "The Island of Old Faces", which features a Balliol man in unexpected surroundings...

This is my last blog post until Boxing Day, but from then on, I'll be scheduling daily posts until early January, as I've noticed that readership of the blog usually rises quite sharply at around this time of year (an escape from seasonal merriment or just because there's more time to read? I'm not sure.) Before I go, I'd like to wish all readers of this blog a very merry Christmas, and to say thanks once again for your interest and support, your comments and your emails. Very much appreciated.

"Strange Stories" and Robert Aickman

The best ghost and horror stories can be extremely memorable, and both genres appeal to me a good deal. I enjoyed writing "No Flowers",my first published supernatural story, for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and this is now, of all things, a podcast on the EQMM site. Janet Hutchings, the wonderful editor, persuaded me to read and record it myself, at the Malice Domestic Convention in May.

In terms of influences, I'm bound to name Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, and along with M.R. James, top of the list of my favourite writers in this field is Robert Aickman. I first came across his "strange stories", as he liked to term them (and it's the perfect description) in the Eighties, having enjoyed a number of anthologies that he'd edited. However, by then he was already dead (he lived from 1914 to 1981) and, to be honest, I have not read him for a long time.

All that has changed thanks to an excellent initiative from Faber. They are reprinting Aickman's work, some in mass market paperback and some as Faber Finds, and so far I've had the chance to enjoy three paperback collections of his stories. Dark Entries, Cold Hand in Mine, and The Wine-Dark Sea. As a result, I've become an Aickman fan all over again. His cool, elegant writing, and seducttive, intensely imagined storylines are genuinely gripping, and his work is much more original than most in this field.

An outstanding feature of these three books is the valuable added material that they contain - pertinent introductions by famous fans of Aickman, and personal reminiscences of the man by people who knew.him. Every single item is well written and interesting. Aickman seems to have been as fascinating as his work - not always an easy man (he was a prime mover in the worthy field of preserving inland waterways, but apparently fell out spectacularly with his colleagues) but charming and civilised. Neil Gaiman and Ramsey Campbell are among Aickman's admirers, and I feel sure that these nicely produced books will earn many more. I look forward to reading the rest of this excellent series.

Malice Domestic

I'm just back from Washington DC after a truly memorable trip to Malice Domestic 26. I've been to a good many conventions over the years, but very few have matched this one for sheer enjoyability. Yet the trip came out of the blue, after I was contacted by the organisers, and asked to write an essay for the convention brochure about Reginald Hill, whose memory was being honoured this time. Each year, Malice honours, n addition to a range of present day notables, a deceased writer who achieved great success in the field of the traditional mystery (personally, I prefer to dodge the word 'cozy', and I'm quite sure Reg would have felt the same.) Shortly after this, the Malice Board asked me if I would be willing to attend in order to talk about Reg. I didn't need to think twice before accepting.

Because Malice has now been running for more than a quarter of a century, and is always based in Washington DC (or, strictly speaking nowadays, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland) it is very slickly organised indeed. Although the Board prides itself on the character and quirkiness of the convention, you don't arrange an event for about 600 people, and make sure it runs without a hitch, without undertaking a huge amount of work, and I must say that Verena Rose and her team managed to combine supreme efficiency with unfailing good humour and generosity. Verena and Rita Owens have compiled Not Everyone's Cup of Tea, a very entertaining history of the convention, which deservedly earned a shortlisting for an Agatha Award - the Awards banquet being one of the highlights of the week-end.

My itinerary was packed, although before the convention opened, I was able to get in a little sight-seeing in the sun-soaked city. I've attended Malice once before - I'm amazed to realise it was nine years ago - when Harry Keating was international guest of honour - and I joined forces with Ann Cleeves for a bus tour around the sights. That trip too was full of pleasures, and it's a sign of how Ann's career has flourished since then that she will be the international guest of honour at Malice in 2015.

After an initial dinner with the Malice Board, and a chance to meet other guests such as Margaret Maron, I was interviewed by Steve Steinbock about Reg Hill and had a chance to recount some of my favourite stories about him, as well as talking about his books. Then followed a panel with other guests, including Dorothy Cannell, whom I first met when we were in the same quiz team at Crimefest last year. The following day, Leslie Budewitz moderated a panel about legal mysteries - and a few hours later, Leslie was among the Agatha winners herself. On Sunday, I met up with Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and recorded a podcast of my story "No Flowers", which should be available on the EQMM website before long. EQMM continues to flourish, and has embraced the digital age with great success, something that I find truly gratifying,because it is a terrific magazine. This is my first involvement with a podcast and I was interested that Janet chose "No Flowers" for the recording, as it is a story which took my writing in a fresh direction.

As ever with crime conventions, there was a chance to catch up with old friends, such as Janet and Steve, and to meet some fascinating people for the first time. Tomorrow, I hope to say more about some of the splendid writers who made the convention such a huge success.

Murder Squad at Southport

It was great fun to go back to Southport at the week-end for a Murder Squad event at Waterstones. Since the six members of the Squad are based in different parts of the North, it isn't often that we are all in the same place at the same time, and on this occasion Chris Simms couldn't make it, but it was good to see Margaret Murphy, Ann Cleeves, Kate Ellis and Cath Staincliffe again.

The Squad has been doing well. Ann has not one but two TV series on the screens, with Shetland now expected to air in January. And the fact that Margaret and Cath shared the CWA Short Story Dagger for their contributions to Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories, the second and more recent of our two anthologies meant that the book sold especially well on Saturday.

Southport, for readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with it, is a very attractive seaside resort, but unlike so many other seaside resorts it does not have a faded and melancholic air in winter, as it is very good shopping centre. Waterstones was certainly busy in the run-up to Christmas, and we were grateful to Sharon, for organising the event, and to Sharon's son Harry Ovenden for his excellent work as event photographer - he gets the credit for the picture that accompanies this post.

Southport is where I first enjoyed literary success, when a short story I'd written won the annual writers' competition. That story, "Are You Sitting Comfortably?" later appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and a few weeks later I heard that my first novel, All the Lonely People, had been accepted for publication. A happy time. And we had another enjoyable afternoon in Waterstones on Saturday before repairing - needless to say - to a local bar to catch up on everyone's news.

Changing Direction as a Writer

One of the biggest dangers for any writer, at least in my opinion, is that of finding yourself on a treadmill, perhaps trapped in a formulaic type of writing. Even if it’s a winning formula, there is a real risk of becoming stale, and of losing the excitement that is so important to writing. If an author doesn’t feel excited by what he or she writes, there’s little chance that the reader will be excited, either. So it’s very important to keep fresh.

That’s one of the reasons why I like writing short stories – not only a break from writing a novel, but also an opportunity to change pace, and direction. You can take risks with a short story that may seem impossible with a novel. Many writers can’t face the prospect of writing something experimental for a year that in the end simply doesn’t work out. But experimenting with a short story means that you are only sacrificing, say, a couple of weeks’ work if the story doesn’t gell at all.

A few months ago I decided to have a crack at a type of story that has always interested me, and that I’ve never tried before. I’d been reading a book about ghost stories and I couldn’t resist having a go at a ghost story myself. Writing ‘No Flowers’ was a very enjoyable experience indeed, and once I’d finished it, I returned to my novel-in-progress refreshed.

Rather speculatively, I submitted ‘No Flowers’ to ‘Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’, and I’m delighted to report that it’s just been accepted for publication. Of course, it’s very different from my ‘usual’ brand of crime writing, but over the years, I have tried my hand at a fairly wide range of stories, and I’d like to continue doing so. It’s not because I’m dissatisfied with crime writing – on the contrary. I’m sure this approach helps me to return to, say, a Lake District Mystery with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. As to whether I’ll write more ghost stories at a future date – well, why not?

Kirkus and reviews

From the United States comes the news that another source of crime fiction reviews is to cease publication. This time it is Kirkus, which that I’ve never actually seen in the flesh, so to speak, but only via extracts either photocopied or online. For those unfamiliar with it, Kirkus was well-known for including quite a number of rather harsh reviews, and at least one good crime writing friend of mine becomes quite animated (not in a happy way) if ever Kirkus is mentioned. But we are all prejudiced by our own experiences, and when Kirkus reviewed my books, it always seemed positive. So I’m sorry to see Kirkus disappear from a personal perspective – but more important, this development means that mid-list writers will tend to get even less attention from now on, and that’s a shame.

On a much happier note, I am in the debt of that witty blogger (and notable crime writer) Bill Crider, who kindly supplied me with a scan of a marvellous review of Dancing for the Hangman in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Jon L. Breen is one of the most respected crime reviewers in the US, and so I’m especially gratified that he said that the book is ‘one of the finest fictionalizations of a classical criminal case I’ve ever read.’

Suffice to say that this is a quote I’ll long cherish. Jon Breen also mentions ‘excellent and sometimes amusing writing’, and he picks up on the fact that the book contains one or two crime fiction in-jokes – not many readers have noticed this. For instance, as he points out, my ‘Notes for the Curious’ at the end of the book are so called in tribute to the great John Dickson Carr,

Publishers’ Weekly adds that the book ‘ranks among Edwards’s best work’, and I’ve been lucky enough to have The Serpent Pool noticed by the same publication at almost the same time. And kindly noticed, too: ‘The musty, sedate world of old books provides the backdrop for a series of gruesome murders in Edwards's absorbing fourth Lake District mystery.’

Good reviews are no guarantee of huge sales, that’s for sure. But they do help, and in any event they are great for morale. One can only hope that online reviews of quality fill the gap that Kirkus will leave.