Another Caribbean Mystery Tour

I've just returned from a wonderful trip, exploring the Caribbean (for reasons which I'll talk about a little tomorrow). Drinking rum punch at 90 degrees Fahrenheit in lovely St Thomas (above) in the US Virgin Islands, as I was last Friday, is - I need hardly say - a great way to run up to Christmas. Even if it does mean that my Yuletide preparations so far are more or less non-existent.and  the process of adapting back to chilly Cheshire is a bit of a challenge.

The trip started with a couple of days in Puerto Rico (above and below photos). It's an island which was for many years home to Muna Lee, one half of the writing duo Newton Gayle which produced five high calibre mysteries in the Golden Age. Murder at 28:10 is an atmospheric story set on the island during the hurricane season which I enjoyed some time ago, but of course there's no substitute for seeing the real place. I was very taken with Puerto Rico,and the historic capital San Juan.

After San Juan came a cruise, mostly to islands that I'd never visited before. There are many reasons why I enjoy cruising - prime among them is the chance to sample fresh places, and expand my knowledge and understanding of the world, and the different people who live in it. It's something that, I've had more of a chance to do in recent time than for most of my life, and for any author, that exposure to fresh cultures and fascinating people has to be hugely beneficial.

Two islands I had visited previously were Barbados and St Lucia. Holidays on Barbados inspired Agatha Christie to write A Caribbean Mystery, one of the first detective stories I ever read, although she located her crime on the fictional island of St Honore. I don't, however, know which island inspired the setting of Roger East's rather less well-known, but memorably titled  Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors, which is set in a fictional West Indian republic. .

Murder in Cornwall and the Lake District

I'm able to share some exciting news - well, exciting for me and, I hope, some of the Golden Age fans among you. In the new year, the British Library will be publishing two more rare Golden Age novels, and each book will include a new introduction, written by me. The novels are both written by John Bude, and were his first two published detective stories.

John who? Well, until a couple of years ago, I'd never heard of John Bude either. Then I visited a friend who has a wonderful collection of Golden Age books,and he told me that he thought Bude was very under-rated. He was even kind enough to give me a copy of one of Bude's later books, Death in Ambush. Before long, I discovered that Bude was actually a member of the small group that founded the Crime Writers' Association, exactly sixty years ago. But he died about four years later and his reputation soon died too.

A pity,because my friend is right - Bude writes both readably and entertainingly. His work may not have been stunning enough to belong with the greats, but there is a smoothness and accomplishment about even his first mystery, The Cornish Coast Murder, which you don't find in many debut mysteries. I was, naturally, fascinated to discover that his second book was set in the Lake District, and I felt he captured the atmosphere of the area rather more interestingly than the more acclaimed Newton Gayle, whose Sinister Crag I discussed here a while back.

The British Library has, I think, done a very good job with the artwork for the covers, and I'm really pleased to be associated with these revivals. Bude's two long lost novels are well worth reading - I wouldn't describe either as a complex whodunit, but the setting and characterisation is definitely a cut above what most of his contemporaries managed. And of course I hope that more Golden Age reprints will follow before long.

Forgotten Book - Sinister Crag

Newton Gayle is a writer I've featured previously in this blog, and today's Forgotten Book is his last, Sinister Crag, which first appeared in 1938. I say "he", but the Gayle name concealed the identities of an American poet, Muna Lee,and a British businessman, Maurice Guiness, who did write three books on his own in the early Sixties.

This novel features the usual Gayle duo, Jim Greer and narrator Robin Upwood, who form a likeable Holmes-Watson type of pairing. What is especially fascinating to me about the story is that it is mostly set in the Lake District, in the fictional valley of Wannerdale. This seemed, as far as I could tell, to be located not far from Thirlmere, but unfortunately there is no map, and it is one of those Golden Age stories where a map would have been very useful, rather than simply an adornment of no great value, as is occasionally the case.

Three men have died in an accident while climbing the eponymous Sinister Crag. But was it really an accident? Greer thinks not, and spends most of the book climbing the fells along with Robin as apprentice mountaineer in order to prove his point. It's clear that one of their fellow guests at the Herdwick Hotel is the culprit, and suspicion is skilfully switched around the possible bad guys.

This book has great strengths. The description of the Lakes is excellent, and there is plenty of information about climbing (though if, like me, you have no interest whatsoever in climbing,you may find it slows the story down a bit). The writing is generally of a much higher standard than is the case with many Golden Age mysteries - perhaps this is due to Lee, who was a poet of distinction. Guinness, no doubt, was the climbing fan and responsible for the plot, and I did feel that there was a lack of fair play. I wasn't especially interested in the victims, and there were some aspects of the solution that bothered me, although there were some neatly handled twists. In essence, Newton Gayle was a much more gifted writer than, say, Christie, but a much less talented plotter of traditional mysteries. What is for sure is that this appealing and atmospheric book does not deserve the almost total neglect it has suffered.

Forgotten Book - Murder at 28:10

Newton Gayle is one of the most obscure writers to have been elected to membership of the Detection Club during the Golden Age. In fact, the pseudonym conceals the identities of two writers: the American poet Muna Lee and the British businessman Maurice Guinness. Their third joint effort, Murder at 28:10, is my Forgotten Book for today.

The strange title refers to barometric pressure, and this is surely the only crime novel to feature a series of barometric charts. They were no doubt intended to increase the sense of realism in a story about a devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico. But I rather think they were unnecessary, because the writing is highly effective in evoking the terror caused by the hurricane, and some of the descriptive passages rank with the best descriptions of setting to be found in mysteries of the 30s (this book appeared in 1936.)

The politics of the day play an important part in the story, but didn’t mean a great deal to me. An attempt is made to murder an “internationalist and anti-imperialist” and, when the hurricane strikes a lonely mansion, the culprit takes advantage of the chance to finish the job. The setting provides a closed circle of suspects, and the build-up of tension is very well done. But although the plot is sound, I felt that the characterisation was the flimsiest part of the book – for instance, a promising suspect, a woman novelist, is never adequately developed. I was also rather disappointed by the murder motive. Had the people in the story, including Greer and Upwood, been more memorable, this would have been an outstanding book.

My guess is that Lee did the writing and Guinness the plotting, though I’m not sure about this. Nor do I have any information as to whether either of them ever played any part in the activities of the Detection Club – I doubt very much whether Lee did, though Guinness (whose cousin, a literary agent, was the ex-wife of Sir Hugh Greene, and engaged to Raymond Chandler at the time of Chandler’s death) may have done. But on the evidence of this novel, “Newton Gayle” was certainly a capable writer.