Bognor is Back

I never got to see Bognor when it was first shown on television. It ran for 21 episodes from 1981-2 at a time when I wasn't watching much if any TV. Years later, I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Heald, author of the books on which the show was based, and asked him about it. To cut a long story short, he felt that Thames TV had made a bit of a mess of it. For instance, he'd very much favoured Derek Fowlds being cast in the lead as Simon Bognor, but in the end the role went to David Horovitch, a decent actor but perhaps not ideal for the part. They also put the shows out at times which were unlikely to attract a big audience.

Thanks to Talking Pictures TV, it's now possible to judge Bognor for myself. This channel has a real knack of finding lost gems, as well as some shows and films that haven't really stood the test of time. They have run Public Eye, the downbeat series about the private eye Frank Marker, which was very low-key but pretty good, and the obscure but rather enjoyable anthology series Shadows of Fear as well as the original Van der Valk, which I found surprisingly disappointing.

Bognor comprised the adaptations of four books, starting with Unbecoming Habits, set in a monastery, with one of the monks played by Patrick Troughton. Bognor, who works for the Department of Trade, is sent to investigate a suspicious death. There are some pleasing moments in the story, but overall it's pretty lightweight and forgettable. Apparently the series was cancelled long before it came to an end, and in all honesty, I can see why.

I'm glad to have caught up with it, though. Tim was as amusing in person as he was on the page, and although he took the disappointment of the adaptations in his stride, his enthusiasm for writing about the character waned. I encouraged him to consider reviving Simon Bognor after a long hiatus, and he duly contributed a fresh Bognor short story to an anthology I edited for the CWA, Original Sins. Before long, he was working on a new Bognor novel. Thanks to Bognor, I've thought back to those times (too few, alas) that I spent in his convivial company, and those pleasant memories are enough to keep me watching, even if the scripts don't quite do the trick.

2016 - People and Places

Each year brings its ups and downs as well as many unforgettable moments. For me, 2016 has been a wonderful twelve months, but before reflecting on some of the lovely people I've spent time with, and some of the fantastic places I've visited, allow me to pause and remember some old friends who died this year, including fellow crime writers Stuart Pawson and Tim Heald. I've happy memories of both of them; not least driving around Arizona with Stuart and his wife Doreen (she took the above photo of Stuart and me) and spending a bizarre but convivial weekend with Tim at a book festival to which hardly anyone came.

This year I've taken part in events to which quite a lot of people did come, in the company of a fascinating range of people - John Simenon, son of Georges, at the Essex Book Festival, for instance, and Kate Summerscale, Simon Brett and James Runcie at the London Library's 175th anniversary celebration, while Mark Lawson interviewed  Ann Cleeves and me at the British Library. I've given talks at libraries in Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, as well as hosting a murder mystery evening in North Wales and giving an after-lunch talk to the Margery Allingham Society. The CWA's conference at Norwich was not only convivial; it gave me the chance to fulfil an ambition of taking a boat trip on the Norfolk Broads. Each event had its own character; each was pleasurable. And having met John, it was especially amusing to share a seat with a statue of his father when on the Simenon trail in Liege a few months later.

Further afield, I've met up with old friends at Malice Domestic in Bethesda and at the New Orleans Bouchercon. And I've made a number of lovely new friends, including Shelly Dickson Carr, grand-daughter of the king of the locked room mystery, and Cathy Ace, born in Wales but resident in Canada, another writer of distinction. One of the most surreal moments of the year was joining up with Ali Karim and Mike Stotter on a flight from Atlanta and then taking a stretch limo from the airport to the Bouchercon hotel. Amazingly, it was cheaper than the regular transport. Only in New Orleans, I guess...

Through my involvement with the British Library, I've attended some terrific exhibitions and. I can strongly recommend the current exhibition on maps. A murder mystery weekend organised by Joy Swift in Stratford-on-Avon was great fun - Joy's events are also a must if you love interactive mysteries. As for seeing Burt Bacharach and Joss  Stone on stage at the Royal Festival Hall in the summer, it was a special treat. So were a birthday trip on a steam train in Llangollen, and a climb up to the limestone pavement at the top of Malham Cove on a sunny day which ended with a Yorkshire supper at Betty's Tea Room in Ilkley, where I gave a talk about Gil North's Sergeant Cluff.

Quite apart from conventions, I've done a lot of travelling, to places as varied as Antigua, Avignon, and Antwerp, Seville and St Thomas, Cordoba and Costa Rica, Brussels and Barbados, Stockholm and St Maarten, Panama and Puerto Rico. I've eaten in one of the late Stieg Larsson's favourite dining spots, been a guest of Janet Hutchings at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine brunch in Bethesda, drinks party in New York, and dinner in New Orleands, as well as sharing a dinner table with Lee Child, Val McDermid and Andrew Taylor in Oxford. Nobody's lucky all the time, but I've certainly had a huge amount of good fortune this past year. Believe me, I'm grateful for it. .

Tim Heald R.I.P.

I was truly sorry to learn that Tim Heald died last Sunday, at the age of 72. Tim was a man of many parts, and novel writing was only one of the strings to his bow. He worked as a journalist, wrote biographies, cricket books, and books about royalty, and was a popular public speaker on a wide range of topics. He was also an entertaining crime writer, best known for the Simon Bognor books, which were televised, and he chaired the Crime Writers' Association. He was immensely convivial.

I'd been in touch with Tim by email for several years before I first met him in person, whilst he was on tour in the north, speaking at various cricket society functions. I took him for lunch at Liverpool's Athenaeum Club, where he regaled me with tales of his experience of the TV world (enough to make you want never to have your books televised) before presenting me with inscribed copies of several of his books, which I treasure. I also had the pleasure of including a couple of short stories he'd written in anthologies I edited. Years earlier, he'd edited a first rate anthology, A Classic English Crime.

Most memorable of all was a weekend I spent with him in July 2012. This was at the Kidwelly e-Book Festival, an extraordinary event where attendance figures did not exactly match the organiser's laudable ambitions. Most of the time, authors outnumbered attendees, but Tim's company was one of the things that made the whole weekend remarkably pleasurable. The photo shows him in the beer garden of the Red Lion in Kidwelly, where we recovered from the experience of the festival before enjoying a good many laughs over dinner..

The last time I saw Tim was in March last year, at the CWA conference in Lincoln. By that time, sadly, he'd been stricken with illness, and was not very well at all. Some years earlier, Tim had seconded the nomination that I be elected to the Detection Club, and he expressed his delight that I was to become the Club's President later in the year.. I asked if he thought he might be able to attend and he shook his head. But with a twinkle in his eye, he said, "I'll be there in spirit." And so he was.    

Dean Street Press

Last year, I was contacted by Rupert Heath, who is a well-known literary agent. His clients include such bright stars in the firmament as A.K. Benedict, a guest blogger here a while back. Rupert explained that he was setting up Dean Street Press - a new publishing company that aimed to revive a host of worthy books from the past, including some recent titles -and we have kept in touch since then. Now, I'm glad to say, Rupert's plans have come to fruition..

I'm especially pleased that DSP is making available once again the books of Tim Heald. They will be in ebook format, and this is good news for those of us who enjoyed Tim's novels about Simon Bognor when they first appeared, as well as for those yet to encounter them. It's easy to forget now, but the books were such a success that they reached the TV screens, with David Horovitch in the title role. In all, 21 episodes were screened.

By a happy coincidence, I was with Tim and his wife just over a week ago, at the CWA conference in Lincoln. The last time we met was at the most bizarre book event either he or I have ever attended - the unforgettable Kidwelly Festival - the photo was taken as we recovered over a drink, back at the hotel. Tim has not enjoyed the best of health in recent times, but I'm sure that the return of Bognor will give him a real boost. And DSP will at a later date be reissuing his Tudor Cornwall novels, and also his cricket books.

In the meantime, DSP have already brought out Stella Bingham's book Charters and Caldicott. These were the wonderful characters created for Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Oddly, they didn't appear in the source novel for the film, Ethel Lina White's The Wheel Spins. The Bingham book dates back thirty years, to the time of the TV spin-off series featuring the two men.

Going further back in time, DSP have also published ebook versions of two crime novels which were put out originally under the name of George Sanders, although I understand that the ghost writers were Craig Rice and Leigh Brackett respectively.The titles are Crime on My Hands and Stranger at Home,and I'm looking forward to reading them.

The good news doesn't end there. I'm delighted to see that DSP are planning to issue several Golden Age mysteries, and although the majority of these are likely to be in ebook only format, there will also be print editions of two early novels by Ianthe Jerrold; these titles will also include intros by Curtis Evans. Jerrold, a founder member of the Detection Club, only published books sporadically throughout her long career, occasionally under the pen-name Geraldine Bridgeman, and she faded from view long, long ago. .

And there's more to come from DSP at a later date. There will be a number of books by E.R. Punshon, featuring Bobby Owen, and it will be splendid to see more of his work readily available again (Ramble House in the US have done sterling work in producing paperback editions of a few Punshon titles, but he was much more prolific than Jerrold.) Two other authors to be featured by DSP, Annie Haynes and Harriet Rutland, are even less well known than Jerrold - they weren't even particularly renowned in their day. I know little about Haynes, but Rutland was a writer who impressed Dorothy L. Sayers..

All this is a reminder that new publishing methods are unlocking a host of long-neglected crime novels. Yes, we are overwhelmed with choice, and no, we can't read every book. But it's wonderful to have the opportunity to pick out titles we like the look of - a luxury denied to previous generations where the books in question were out of print. I'll be blogging about some of the other publishing newcomers before long, but in the meantime, I am delighted by Rupert's initiative.

Kidwelly

South Wales is a part of the UK that I hardly know at all, but I'm just back from a week-end in Kidwelly, a small and rather charming town in Carmarthenshire. It's a place with a notable history, and an excellent castle that I very much enjoyed exploring on Saturday morning. The main reason for the trip, however, was that I was one of the authors invited to take part in the UK's first e-book Festival, which was held at the new and very well appointed racecourse just outside the town.


Because Kidwelly is a long way from home, I wanted to make the most of the trip,and on the way, on Friday afternoon, I called on an old friend, Bob Adey, who lives near Great Malvern, and is the world's greatest expert on locked room mysteries. Bob has collected crime fiction for many years and I could have spent days just looking at his massive and deeply impressive collection, which includes - just by way of example - a number of first editions signed by John Dickson Carr. Fascinating.


Next stop after leaving Bob was Kidwelly, where at the Red Lion Inn in the nearby village of Llandyfaelog we met up with Tim Heald, the creator of Simon Bognor - a televised detective of some years back - and a more recent series featuring Dr Tudor Cornwall. On Friday evening we also met up with Julian Ruck, his wife and Matthew, a young and enthusiastic intern who had been working on the Festival for some months. Julian Ruck is a lawyer turned writer who had come up with the idea of an ebook festival in his home town, and devised a very ambitious programme indeed. During the course of the week-end, I also met Anthony, in charge of Festival publicity, who turned out to have been a journalist who interviewed me a few years ago when he was working on The Northwich Chronicle. It's a small world.


Although Tim and I were the only two crime writers at the Festival (Edna Jones, aka Clare Dawson, was there as a visitor), there were a good many other authors working in fact and fiction, covering a wide range of subjects and genres, who were also in attendance over the week-end. Among them,it was a particular pleasure to meet the prolific children's author Adele Geras, who also happens to be the mother of best-selling crime writer Sophie Hannah. Tim and I did joint events on both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The picture of Tim was taken in the sunny back garden of the Red Lion before we had a meal together on Saturday night. And suffice to say that there was plenty of opportunity for entertaining conversations during the course of a truly memorable week-end. 

Crème de la Crime

It was with real pleasure that I received a parcel recently containing four brand-new books. They are published by Severn House, a good firm I have mentioned before (and one of the reasons they are good is that they publish the CWA anthology!) But there is something a little different about these books – they appear under the imprint of Creme De La Crime.

Formerly a separate business, Crème De La Crime was acquired some months ago by Severn House, and the branding makes me hazard a guess that this represents an attempt to emulate the success of the late lamented Collins Crime Club. If this is so, I think it is a good idea, since there are plenty of readers who miss the guarantee of reliability that the Crime Club used to represent.

The imprint has got off to a very good start. One of the authors is Kate Ellis, whom I have often mentioned here. Kissing the Demons is her third book featuring Joe Plantagenet, and it is good to see that series continuing. Mind you, Kate's productivity does put me to shame.

I'm also delighted to see that Tim Heald has brought back Simon Bognor, in Death in the Opening Chapter. Bognor appeared in a story that Tim contributed to Original Sins, and I am glad that he has now been resurrected in a full-length novel. Maureen Carter, a lively and talented writer from Birmingham, starts a new series with A Question of Despair, while Roz Southey has produced her fifth historical mystery, The Ladder Dancer. I wish all four authors, and their enterprising publishers, every success in this new venture.

DCI Banks - review of Aftermath, part 2

DCI Banks – Aftermath concluded last night and having had a look at other reviews, I’m a bit worried that I seem to be in something of a minority in having enjoyed the opener for this new series starring Stephen Tompkinson as Banks and Andrea Lowe as Annie Cabot. But despite widespread reservations about the portrayal of Banks as a bit of a wimp, I found the second and concluding episode fairly entertaining and a bit different from many TV cop shows.

However, there was a heavily melodramatic element to the material and its presentation, and here perhaps there were too many concessions in the script to the perceived requirements of a TV audience. I’ve read many of the Banks books, but not Aftermath, so I can’t comment with authority, but even so I’m confident the novel is a good deal subtler than the screenplay.

Of course, it is in the nature of TV adaptations that they lose something of the flavour of the original. If the writer is lucky – think Colin Dexter – they add a lot, too. But Liza Cody, Tim Heald and Marjorie Eccles are among those who arguably were not well served when their books made the transition to the small screen. And even Reg Hill had to endure Hale and Pace as the original Dalziel and Pascoe, before his work moved to the BBC.

John Harvey, in a rather scathing assessment of the first episode of Aftermath, mentioned that Tompkinson was once briefly considered for the role of Charlie Resnick. It’s also the case that he was mooted for a TV version of Harry Devlin, and a script of All the Lonely People was written by one of the scriptwriters for Taggart. Alas, it never got made. Would I have minded liberties being taken with my masterpiece? Believe me, I could have coped!!

Natural Causes

Improbable as it may seem, I received a generous mention in The Daily Telegraph’s royal blog yesterday. This is not, sad to say, because of any blue blood coursing through my veins. The explanation, as you can see from his post, is that the blog is authored by that estimable writer Tim Heald, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person last year, after a long period of correspondence.

Tim mentions my contribution to Mike Ashley’s anthology of Royal Whodunnits. My story, ‘Natural Causes’, featured King George IV and that interesting character Henry Bolingbroke. Once the idea came to me, it was a story I enjoyed writing, and researching. If memory serves, it was a biography by Flora Fraser featuring Caroline of Brunswick which provided much of the raw material. And Flora Fraser’s mother is Antonia Fraser, herself a detective writer of repute and, like Tim Heald, a member of the Detection Club.

Mike Ashley, incidentally, has compiled a good many anthologies of note. I’ve been privileged to contribute to quite a number of them, very often with stories on historical themes.