Books about Crime Fiction

I've a long-held interest in books about crime fiction, as well as crime stories themselves. There's been an upsurge of interest in the genre and its history in recent years, and as a result, the quantity and quality of books about it have increased and improved. Today I would just like to highlight a couple of titles that have come my way.

First, a new(ish) biography of Raymond Chandler, written by Tom Williams and published last year by Aurum Press, who always seem to produce very attractive books. I don't often talk about Chandler on this blog, because there's no shortage of coverage of his work elsewhere, but I've enjoyed his work for many years,,and a long time ago I was commissioned by the Folio Society, of all people, to write an essay on "the Chandler Style", which was great fun to write.

Williams' book - his first - is extensively researched, and casts, as he says, an unflinching eye on his subject's character. He also makes the point that the more he understood the darker parts of Chandler's life, the more he admired his literary achievements. Inevitably, in a book like this, there are a few gaps, and I'd have been interested in reading more about his friendship with Michael Gilbert, and his interest in true crime - the Maybrick and Wallace cases, for instance. But this is just a quibble. Raymond Chandler: A Life is certainly a worthwhile addition to the list of books about a fine writer.

Very different in style and content, but most entertaining, is The Agatha Christie Miscellany, by Cathy Cook, published by the History Press, who also know how to turn out a nice book. This is a collection of bits and pieces about the Queen of Crime and her work with copious illustrations. It's small enough to fit into a pocket or handbag and makes an excellent dip-in volume. And a good present for a crime fan, I'd say.

Forgotten Book - Still Dead

Still Dead, by Ronald Knox, was published in 1934 and features Knox's regular sleuth, the insurance investigator Miles Bredon. The setting is Scotland, and the mystery is one of those vanishing-body puzzles. Colin Reiver's corpse was spotted, apparently, on a Monday, but then disappeared before turning up on the Wednesday. He seemed to have died of exposure - but had he been murdered, and if so, when and by whom?

The set-up is very good, and the unravelling of it so complicated that many readers will be glad of the footnotes Knox helpfully supplies to point out where relevant clues appeared earlier in the text. I did, however, feel that here -as in an earlier Knox book, The Footsteps at the Lock - my interest faltered because of the lack of sufficient incident after the initial flurry of activity. My old friend Robert Barnard often used to say that second murders in books are "vulgar", but a further killing here would, quite frankly,have livened up the second half of the story.

Colin is not someone for whom we feel much sympathy. He has killed a child in a road accident, although the criminal justice system didn't pin the blame on him. To get away from it all, he is sent by his family on a cruise to Madeira and the Med, but his death occurs as soon as he returns to the family estate in Scotland.

Although I was not greatly enamoured of the plot, I enjoyed some of Knox's little touches, touches which suggested to me that, had he taken the detective genre as seriously as, say, Dorothy L. Sayers, he could have made a more notable contribution to it as a novelist. In fact, he is now better remembered for a few good short stories, and his 'Decalogue', a tongue-in-cheek set of rules for writing detective fiction. But there are moments of genuine passion here, notably in his scathing words about a doctor who is a eugenicist - and eugenics were popular with many people until the horrors of their practical application in Nazi Germany became apparent. I could have done with more of this real feeling in the book, and a bit less of the almost interminable debate about what had actually happened to Colin's body. Not a masterpiece, then, but one with a number of points of genuine distinction which make Still Dead still worth reading.

Unknown: film review

Unknown is a 2011 film (there is another with the same title that I have yet to see, but which sounds good) starring Liam Neeson and January Jones. It opens with the pair of them arriving in a snowy Berlin. Dr Martin Harris, along with his wife, scheduled to attend a high profile academic conference on biotechnology. As they come to check in, one of their suitcases goes missing. Neeson hails a cab driven by a young woman and heads back for the airport.

However, the car crashes, and although the driver saves Neeson, he winds up in hospital and is out of it for four days. When he wakes up, he finds his wife has not asked after him. He goes back to the hotel, but his wife denies all knowledge of him - and is accompanied by another man, who says he is Dr Martin Harris. A quick internet search reveals the other man's face on the university website...

It's a wonderful premise, and the action seldom flags from that point. Neeson is a big man, but he also has a vulnerable quality that makes him a very appealing hero. But - is he a hero? What is going on? You do have to sympathise with someone who thinks he is married to January Jones and then finds she blanks him! Is she being put under pressure or blackmailed, or is there some other reason for her behaviour?

Of course, a story like this depends very heavily on the quality of the explanation for the puzzle. So often the answer is a let-down. But in my opinion, the story was well-structured, and the explanation worked for me. I was also reminded what a marvellous city Berlin is - I last went there when I was a student, and the Wall was still up. I was staying in a flat near the Wall and remember hearing shots fired one evening when we were having a meal. Must get back there, and see how it has changed. Unknown certainly encouraged me to return, though not, I hope, with the results encountered by Liam Neeson... There was one aspect which I felt implausible, but can't mention for fear of spoilers. Overall, though, a very gripping and well-made film, and I certainly have no hesitation in recommending it.

Agatha Christie's Marple:The Pale Horse - review

Agatha Christie's Marple - why do they call it that? It's not as if there's any need to avoid confusion,because Dorothy L. Sayers or someone else also wrote about a character with that name. What's more, I had one or two reservations about the casting of Julia Mackenzie as the great spinster sleuth, and I decided not to watch the adaptation of The Pale Horse, when it was first shown two years ago, because it introduced Jane Marple into a very good story in which she never appeared. It all seemed like a recipe for disaster.

But one or two Christie fans told me that this was one of the best adaptations of her work in recent years, so I decided to give in, and have a look at it. And to be honest, I'm glad I did, because on the whole, it was a pretty good piece of entertainment, despite the radical changes made to the original. The screenplay was written by Russell Lewis, a very experienced writer. I've never met him, but long ago he was mooted as someone to adapt the Harry Devlin books for TV. Sadly, that never happened.

The opening of the story is very different from that of the book. A vicar - played by Nicholas Parsons - is beaten to death after visiting a dying woman. But he is an old pal of Miss Marple, and has already sent her a mysterious letter containing a list of names and a reference to the Book of Revelation. Her enquiries quickly lead her to a spooky hotel deep in rural England called The Pale Horse.

The cast was excellent, including such stars as Neil Pearson, Pauline Collins and Nigel Planer. With a couple of exceptions, over-acting (which really kills the televised Christies) was avoided, thank goodness, and I thought Julia Mackenzie did well enough in the part to overcome my doubts. All in all, very watchable, if very different from the original, which was definitely one of the best Christies written after the 1950s, and a book that's certainly worth reading if you are unfamiliar with it.

Arne Dahl: The Blinded Man - TV review

The Blinded Man, a two-parter in the new Scandinavian crime series Arne Dahl, had its first episode last night on BBC Four. I thought I'd give it a go, even though I'm beginning to lose track of Nordic crime series, so commonplace have they become. I haven't read Misterioso, the book on which the show is based, and I must admit that I'm not familiar with the work of Arne Dahl, the Swedish author who gives the series its name. But evidently he's highly successful and the Dahl name is a pseudonym, for Jan Arnald.

In an eventful ninety-minute episode, a string of financiers were murdered rather spectacularly on successive days. Financiers have a long tradition as victims in detective stories - dating back at least to the book that launched the Golden Age a century ago, Trent's Last Case (incidentally, I've been surprised by the lack of discussion about E.C. Bentley's famous book at the time of its centenary, so I may say a bit about myself before long.)

The key premise is that a group of seemingly dysfunctional cops from different parts of Sweden are assembled to investigate the case. I suspect the book did a rather better job of explaining why this was such a good idea than the TV version. But the contrasting characters of the cops makes for good television, and this episode ended with one of them suffering a grisly fate at the hands of some very unpleasant gangsters.

In addition to the Swedish scenes, those in photogenic Tallinn were a welcome bonus; I enjoyed the show, without being overwhelmed with admiration. Some of this is to do with the fact that I have become rather bored with reading sub-titles. I'll watch Arne Dahl again, but like a number of other crime shows I've seen this year, it simply isn't in the same league as Broadchurch, which after five episodes I'm finding absolutely superb.

Criiminal London - Kris and Nina Hollington

Criminal London, newly published by Aurum Press, is written by Kris and Nina Hollington and has an explanatory sub-title: A Sightseer's Guide to the Capital of Crime. It's a very attractively produced book (I've noticed before that Aurum produce some good-looking volumes) with a lavish selection of excellent illustrations. And it's just about compact enough to fit into a large pocket when roaming the capital in search of murderous sites.

It's a book to dip into, I think, rather than one to read from cover to cover, and I've enjoyed my dipping so far. The range of cases covered is eclectic and I've yet to spot any obvious omissions, although the reality is that no single book can ever be totally comprehensive. What matters is the blend between what is well known and what is obscure - always desirable, I think, to include some material that seems fresh and unfamiliar. This is a test that the book passes with flyinig colours.

Among the classic crimes of the past that are featured, we have the fascinating Fahmy case, which is linked to the Savoy Hotel, and the Left Luggage Office at Waterloo Station, associated with Patrick Mahon's bungalow murder, which also made headlines in the Twenties. The authors also highlight a range of places linked with more modern crimes and criminals, such as the Krays.

There is a Jack the Ripper trail and a long section about the London of Arthur Conan Doyle. More than enough, I'd say, for the most crime-hungry tourist. There is a great deal of useful information here, and much of it was previously unknown to me. All in all, I'd say the Hollingtons have done a very good job.

Forgotten Book - Murder of My Aunt

Murder of My Aunt was the debut novel of Richard Hull, and is my Forgotten Book for today. Published in 1934, it was extremely successful - in fact, Hull struggled in a writing career that stretched for almost twenty years to match it. Arguably, Excellent Intentions and My Own Murderer were better books, but the ironic wit and cleverness of his debut were what made it stand out. The trouble, as far as a modern reader is concerned, is the key plot twist is foreseeable. How much that matters depends on how much you enjoy Hull's style of writing.

I'm one of those who do. Hull was working, very clearly, in the same vein as Anthony Berkeley/Francis Iles, and I do find those stories that play ironically with the reader's expectations to be very entertaining, provided one makes allowances for the passage of time. This is one of those relatively uncommon crime novels set in a remote part of mid-Wales. The narrator, Edward Powell, is a fat and unpleasant idler who is forced by circumstance to live with his Aunt Mildred, whom he hates, at her house on the outskirts of Llwll.

Edward decides that he needs to do away with Mildred, and the book recounts his various attempts to achieve his ambition. There is some degree of uncertainty in his characterisation - he is effeminate, but not above trying in vain to seduce a maid - but his loathsome selfishnes is consistent throughout. So one does not identify with him in the way that some readers may, possibly, identify with Dr Bickleigh in Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles. That's a weakness in the story, I think, but by no means fatal to enjoyment.

Over the years, I've managed to track down all the Hull books, and it's fair to say that they are a mixed bag. I go along with the general view that his post-war work was largely sub-standard, and his career petered out in the early 50s. Yet at his best, he was capable of coming up with interesting and amusing story-lines, and this book offers a good example. The fact that his idea has been re-used so many times since means that it's not easy to imagine how fresh it may have seemed in 1934. But it's a book that I enjoyed re-reading, even though I knew what was going to happen.

Oleander Press and The Charing Cross Mystery

Oleander Press is a small but enterprising publisher which has launched a brand new imprint, "London Bound". The clue, of course, is in the title - this is a series of London-based books, and they are vintage crime novels. I was delighted to receive through the post the first of them today. This is The Charing Cross Mystery by J.S. Fletcher, a prolific and once very successful author who is now pretty much neglected.

The book is very well produced, with striking jacket artwork, and I'm looking forward to reading it. Looking forward, also, to the appearance of further titles in the series. At present we are promised The Doctor of Pimlico by that larger-than-life character William Le Queux, due later this month, and another book of which I have very high hopes.

This is a very rare Golden Age book, one I've never seen, Fatality in Fleet Street. The author was Christopher St John Sprigg, who was a truly fascinating man. He wrote six detective novels, all now highly sought after, but was better known for his poetry, which he wrote under the name Christopher Caudwell. He became a Marxist and joined the International Brigades who were fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He was killed while manning a machine gun at the battle of Jamara. He was just 29 years old.

Well, that's a treat in store for me and I'm sure for many other fans of Golden Age fiction. It's such a good thing that publishers like Oleander are making books like this available again at long last. Meanwhile, it'll be interesting to see how The Charing Cross Mystery shapes up.

The Debt - film review

The Debt is a recent American remake of an earlier Israeli film, and it boasts a wonderful cast - Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas, to name a few. It's an espionage film, but although there's plenty of exciting, and sometimes chilling action and suspense, there's also an attempt to deal with important issues such as when it is better to tell the truth rather than sticking to a lie that has saved people from harm.

The early scenes need to be watched very carefully, as the action zips around and two different periods of time are involved. Mirren plays Rachel, a woman who in 1990s Israel enjoys a considerable reputation for courage, whose adoring daughter has just written a book about her past exploits in espionage. Wilkinsoon is her ex-husband, a spy who has become an important political figure, but who uses a wheelchair (we learn that this is because he had been blown up by car bomb.)

Various scenes flash back to a time, 30 years earlier, when this pair, along with another young man, go to East Germany during the Cold War, trying to capture a brutal former Nazi medic - the Surgeon of Birkenau. We see early on an apparently conclusive scene explaining what happpened, but later on, it turns out that we have been misled.

The tricky storytelling rather appealed to me. Playing games with story structure is something that is fascinating when it is well done, and here it is very well done. There are some very dark moments along the way, and I'm not entirely sure why Rachel made her final choice. In fact, I'm not absolutely convinced it was the right choice, but this is a consistently gripping movie, which made quite an impact on me. A good example of a strong story that is something more than just a straightforward thriller.

Jonathan Creek: The Clue of the Savant's Thumb: BBC TV review

Jonathan Creek returned tonight on BBC 1 with The Clue of the Savant's Thumb, a brand new episode written by David Renwick and starring Alan Davies as Creek and Sheridan Smith (whose acting career has been hitting the heights since we last saw her in this series) as his "Watson", Joey Ross. The supporting cast included Joanna Lumley, Nigel Planer and Rik Mayall, which indicates the focus of the show on "feelgood" television. And there's nothing wrong with the feelgood factor, especially after the winter we've had.

This story presented us with two mysteries. Fifty years ago, in a strict convent school, a young girl died in bizarre circumstances. Her death has haunted her old schoolfriend, played by Lumley, ever since. Now, Lumley is married to a terminally ill man (Nigel Planer) and is having an affair with her husband's GP. Her husband's blood-stained body is found by their adopted daughter. Lumley takes a photograph of the apparent crime scene. But by the time the emergency services arrive, the body has disappeared...

Meanwhile, Jonathan Creek has married and moved into the glitzy world of marketing along with his glamorous and wealthy wife. Joey tracks him down and persuades him to take an interest in the case, which is being investigated by Mayall, a brilliant detective in his own right, who is now confined to a wheelchair. There are plenty of clues, and even more red herrings, before first the old mystery is solved and then the puzzle of the disappearing corpse is explained, before a slightly cartoonish finale borrowed from a political conspiracy thriller.

David Renwick is a witty and clever writer, and his enthusiasm for the work of John Dickson Carr - which I share - is the key to what is most enjoyable about the Jonathan Creek storylines. Of course, you have to suspend your disbelief, but with Jonathan Creek, as with the Dickson Carr stories, the breezy writing means this is no hardship.

One of the great things about the success of Jonathan Creek is that it has shown that the classic elements of the traditional detective mystery can be adapted with great success for modern readers and audiences, if the writer is good enough, and shows respect for the form, rather than merely attempting pastiche (though I'd add that there have been a number of parodies and pastiches of Golden Age detective stories that I've really enjoyed.) This latest episode was entertaining, although I didn't think it was quite as effective as the last, The Judas Tree, but it may be that others will take a different view..

Impossible crime stories have long appealed to me, and I've written several over the years; short stories rather than novels, though. Just as Jonathan Creek tends to work better in a one hour episode than a ninety minute episode like this one, so do locked room tricks tend to be easier to pull off in short stories rather than novels. One of those stories, suitably adapted, forms the basis of my Victorian murder mystery event, "Who Killed George Hargrave?" This was performed a couple of weeks back at Holywell, in North Wales, by an excellent cast of library volunteers.

What interested me about this event (and another, at Knutsford a fortnight earlier) was that it was a sell-out, gaining much larger audiences than I find conventional talks or writers' panels tend to attract. In fact, I gave a talk about the locked room story as part of the event, and during the questions, again I was struck by the extent of people's enthusiasm for this type of story. As reaction to my Friday Forgotten Books posts shows, there is still a huge amount of interest in classic detective fiction - in fact, I'm certain there's more interest in it today than there was a few years ago. Jonathan Creek shows that this is not simply a matter of nostalgia. We still love a mystery, and there's plenty of room for the elaborate puzzle today, alongside all those relentlessly dark stories about autopsies and serial killers.