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.

Ruso and the Root of all Evils

The latest book by R.S. Downie arrived on my doorstep recently, and is a reminder of the enduring popularity of books set in Roman times. The leader of the pack has for a good many years been Lindsey Davies, whose books about Falco have achieved a great deal of acclaim not only in Britain but throughout the world.

There are quite a number of others, however, who work in classical territory to very good effect. The American Steven Saylor is one, and closer to home we have Jane Finnis (whose new blog is a recent arrival on my blogroll.) And now we have Ruth Downie – it is, incidentally, an interesting question as to why some authors opt to be published under their initials rather than their first name; suffice to say that it has never done P.D. James any harm! There’s a suggestion on Ruth’s website that research shows that some male readers might be deterred from reading a book obviously written about a woman, which I think would have been extraordinary when P.D. was first published, let alone today.

Ruso and the Root of All Evils is the third novel about Gaius Petreus Ruso, whom the author describes neatly as a ‘Roman army medic and reluctant sleuth’. It follows Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls (published in the US under the less evocative title Medicus) and Ruso and the Demented Doctor (Terra Incognita in the US).

The Ruso books have been well reviewed both here and overseas, and I’m pleased to have discovered them. In this story, our hero’s family falls under threat, but apart from the mystery, one of the merits of this series is the entertaining style of writing. The pattern is set right at the outset, when a witty summary of Ruso’s misadventures is provided, culminating in the news that he is ‘argued with, slept with, and abandoned (again)’ by the lovely Tilla. We are told early on that Tilla ‘had never fully subscribed’ to Ruso’s view that stealing is wrong', and the light and agreeable way that Ruth Downie has of capturing her characters is one of the key elements in the success of this likeable series.