Enid Schantz

I'd intended to cover a forgotten book by Anthony Berkeley today, but I've heard the sad news of the death of Enid Schantz, and so I've decided instead to pay a small tribute to her.

Enid and her husband Tom were American book-dealers, whom I met several times over the years. Charming and considerate people, with a great passion for mysteries. They ran a store called Rue Morgue, although in recent years they focused on online selling.

They also set up an imprint, Rue Morgue Press, which I've mentioned before on this blog, and which specialised in forgotten books - by such unlikely names as Maureen Sarsfield, as well as the better known Pamela Branch. I bought one of their Branch titles recently, when I was last in Oxford.

They also revived the complete works of Dorothy Bowers, a splendid writer, and their research on Bowers' short life was fascinating. When I last met them, they recommended me to try Clyde Clason, a very interesting writer I'd never heard of before. And their research on H.C. Bailey led to my pilgrimage to his home in North Wales a few months back. I tried to persuade them to republish Henry Wade, but alas to no avail; they weren't Wade fans. But if you check the Rue Morgue catalogue, you'll find plenty of little known gems.

Enid was a lovely lady, and I shall miss her, but I'll remember her not just with affection, but with admiration. I only wish I had been able to spend more time in her company.

'Character, Atmosphere, Plot and Pace...'

The Serpent Pool, and its forthcoming publication, were far from my mind over the weekend, as I cleared the last possessions from my mother’s home, and then set about trying to find a good place where she can be cared for in future. All very, very thought-provoking, but as if to remind me that Life Must Go On, I have been lucky enough to receive quite marvellous reviews of the new book on both sides of the Atlantic - and in major newspapers.

Here’s what Laura Wilson has to say in The Guardian:

‘On the face of it, the Lake District couldn't be more different from the frantic, grasping shallowness of [London], but in Martin Edwards's capable hands, it proves just as effective a backdrop to murder. Local "cold case" specialist DCI Hannah Scarlett is tasked with uncovering the truth behind a young woman's apparent suicide by drowning. Naturally there's more to it than meets the eye, and it soon becomes clear that the death is connected to some recent murders. With evocative descriptions of everything from landscape to cocktail parties, expert plotting, an engaging protagonist and strongly delineated characters, The Serpent Pool is old-fashioned, well-made crime fiction at its best, and the dénouement will have you choking on your Kendal mint cake.’

In The Denver Post, Tom and Enid Schantz said:

‘For whatever reason, it's taken a small press to publish this outstanding series of English traditional mysteries in the United States. All feature DCI Hannah Scarlett, a cold- case investigator, and Oxford historian Daniel Kind, whose policeman father was Hannah's mentor.

The setting is England's beautiful (but gloomy) Lake District, where both live and work. Like its predecessors, this one has a wonderfully convoluted plot, further complicated by a subtle chemistry between Hannah and Daniel that neither is ready to acknowledge.

In their fourth outing, the relationship between Hannah and Daniel continues to slowly progress, with Hannah now having problems with her live-in bookseller boyfriend Marc Amos and her insolent new junior officer and Daniel, now unencumbered, writing a biography of the opium-addicted 19th century writer Thomas De Quincey.

A cold case that Hannah is working on, the drowning of a young woman in the Serpent Pool near her home, seems to be connected to two more recent murders, and she thinks it's no coincidence that all three victims died in the exact way that would have been the most terrifying for each of them, and that all three cases have a rare-book connection that could disturbingly point to Marc.

Character, atmosphere, plot and pace — this series has it all, and fans of Stephen Booth and Peter Robinson would do well to check it out.’