Agatha Christie's Marple - Endless Night - ITV review

Endless Night, screened this evening on ITV, made an appealing Christie for Christmas. Agatha Christie's Marple is not an entirely consistent series, but here, the Queen of Crime's last really good novel was capably adapted by Kevin Elyot, who is a seasoned writer of Christie stories for stage and screen. Introducing Jane Marple into a story in which she did not originally appear was risky, for sure. Yet on the whole Elyot did a highly professional job - even though this did entail Julia McKenzie popping up so often and so unexpectedly that she became a spookier presence than the gypsy whose curse sets the story going.

The brilliance of the original novel, lay in the fact that Christie, writing in the Sixties, repeated one of her most famous tricks, despite its being supposedly unrepeatably. I borrowed the book from the local library shortly after it first came out, and was much impressed. As a student, I also enjoyed the film version starring Hywel Bennett as Michael Rogers, the poor lad who marries a lovely heiress. The film's cast was superb - it also included the likes of Hayley Mills, Britt Ekland, George Sanders and Peter Bowles. I'd rate it as the most under-rated movie ever made of a Christie novel.

Back to tonight's show, which also had an impressive cast. Tom Hughes played Michael, while his architect pal was played by Aneurin Barnard (the young hero of Moonfleet - he's had as impressive a festive season as Jenna Coleman.) Tamzin Outhwaite was almost unrecognisable as Michael's miserable mum, while there were cameo roles for Wendy Craig and Hugh Dennis.

The unusual structure of the plot means that Endless Night is far from orthodox Christie fare. This has caused some commentators to under-estimate it. In fact, it's a good story, and although this version did not strike me as being quite as compelling as the film (though in saying that, I have to admit I've not seen the film for a very long time) nevertheless it made excellent Sunday evening entertainment.

Moonfleet - Sky TV review

Moonfleet aired last night on Sky TV, the first of a new two part version of this classic smuggling story, written by Ashley Pharoah, best known for the brilliantly conceived time-travel cop show Life on Mars. With Ray Winstone his usual commanding self as pub landlord and contraband king Elzevir Block, it was a very entertaining show indeed. There's a suitably nasty magistrate, a forbidden love affair between the bad guy's lovely daughter and the courageous young hero, and plenty of dramatic action. You'd think it was based on a story written by Robert Louis Stevenson - but it wasn't.

I first read - and much enjoyed - Moonfleet years ago, and I'd like to say a little about its author. J. Meade Falkner (1858-1932) was an Oxford-educated teacher who went into business, travelling the world and making a good deal of money before settling in Durham and devoting himself to a variety of leisure pursuits, including the study of ancient manuscripts.

Perhaps because he seems to have packed so much else into his life, Falkner was a far from prolific writer, though he did range from verse and fiction to writing topographical guides. Although Moonfleet is by far his most famous book, The Lost Stradivarius is a notable ghost story. I don't know if Falkner and M.R. James were acquainted, but I'd like to think so. And then there is The Nebuly Coat, a really good Edwardian novel whose neglect I find baffling. Fellow Golden Age fans might like to know that it's said to have been an influence on Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors.

One of the most memorable scenes in Moonfleet - done very well in this version - is the candle auction. Candle auctions can be legally valid, and still take place occasionally - I recall once reading a learned article about them in The Law Society's Gazette. Falkner uses this and other plot devices to great effect and I felt that Ashley Pharoah made very good use of the excellent material. One of the best shows of Christmas.

Forgotten Book - Arrogant Alibi

Is there any Golden Age novelist whose work is as fascinating and yet as frustrating as C. Daly King's? If so, I've yet to find him or her. My Forgotten Book for today is Arrogant Alibi, first published in 1939, and it's a case in point. Nowadays it's incredibly scarce. It took me years to track it down, and when eventually I got hold of a poor copy, I fell on it with delight.

And there are some superb elements in the story. A terrible flood in the vicinity of the crime scene lends atmosphere, while Eygptology and a mysterious mummy and other ancient artefacts play a part in the story. There's lot of complex plot material concerning alibis and the apparent impossibility of certain events. There's a neat double twist ending. Michael Lord, the cop who stars in King's books, and his pal Dr L. Rees Pons are on the scene as well. What's not to like?

The famous critics and Golden Age fans Barzun and Taylor really liked this book Since they could be very harsh judges, that's quite something. But I'm afraid I didn't get on with Arrogant Alibi. It's one thing to have all the right ingredients for a whodunit, quite another to make best use of them. And I'm afraid I felt that this is the sort of book that justifies people who don't like Golden Age novels in saying that they are boring. King spends pages, for instance, on explaining a telephone system that is connected to the storyline. I'm afraid this went so far beyond pleasingly authentic detail as to cause me to lose the will to live. And the characters didn't come to life at all as far as I was concerned. I wasn't expecting Sophie Hannah or Nicci French, but this wasn't even Freeman Wills Crofts.

Because my hopes had been high, I ended the book feeling disappointed, but not surprised that Arrogant Alibi hasn't been reprinted, as far as I know, in the intervening years. Yet this experience simply reinforces my curiosity about King, and the way he could veer from excellence, for instance in Obelists Fly High and The Curious Mr Tarrant, to tedium (and Obelists En Route shows both his best and his worst sides.) Dorothy L. Sayers admired some of his work, and so do I. And if you are lucky enough to find a first edition of this book in a fine dust jacket, it will no doubt be a good investment, even if not the best whodunit you'll ever read!

Death Comes to Pemberley - BBC One tv review

Death Comes to Pemberley, adapted from the novel by P.D.James, and BBC One's flagship crime show for Christmas, began this evening. Naturally, it boasts a glittering cast,including one of my favourite actors, Trevor Eve (I still mourn the premature demise of that excellent series of long ago, Shoestring). as well as the excellent Rebecca Front, whose very varied CV includes Lewis, and Jenna Coleman, seen yesterday evening in Doctor Who.

Traditional Golden Age detective fiction, of which the admirable P.D. James is - perhaps alongside Colin Dexter - the greatest modern exponent, is often associated with country house settings, and a storyline which presents a sort of homicidal sequel to Pride and Prejudice was James' neat way of combining the country house backdrop with a historical mystery paying due homage to Jane Austen. She isn't, however, the first British crime writer to have made good use of Austen's work. The late Reginald Hill wrote a notable story inspired by Emma, a book which he argued had many of the attributes of a detective novel.

This first episode of three began enigmatically, in the grounds of the Darcys' mansion. Two young women servants walking in the woods become frightened and claim to have seen a ghost, although we do not learn for some time the legend behind the apparition, or that it is (surprise, surprise!) supposed to be the precursor of misfortune. After this promising opening, though, the focus was for a long time rather more on pastiche Austen than on mysterious murder, and there were moments when I found myself wondering when the detective work was likely to get going.

Things did, however, start to warm up when, after shots were heard, a man was found dead in the grounds of the house. A local magistrate (Eve, in terrific form) was duly called in, and the credits rolled as the obvious suspect was driven away for further questioning while protesting his innocence. We can, of course, be sure that there is more to this crime than meets the eye. How much more, I don't know, because this is one of only a couple of James' books that I haven't read. But I'm looking forward to finding out..

The Tractate Middoth - BBC Two review, and Mark Gatiss on M.R. James

Well, then, what did Santa bring you? I am now the happy owner of Darryl Jones' edition of M.R. James' Collected Ghost Stories, and this acquisition coincided with a Christmas Day James-fest on BBC Two. Mark Gatiss wrote and directed an adaptation of The Tractate Middoth, and then presented an excellent documentary about James' life and work.

The Tractate Middoth is not one of James' most famous tales, even though it combines an atmospheric library setting with a malevolent testator of the kind often found in Golden Age detective fiction. I've always had a soft spot for fiction dealing with mysterious wills - so much so that I'm not sure why I haven't written more myself. As for.James' story, it has to be said, suffers from a central flaw - reliance on a huge coincidence. One question in my mind was how Gatiss would address this.

His approach was not to tinker with that part of the plot, although he did jazz things up by changing the period in which the story was set - an initial scene in the 30s preceded the events of the main story taking place in the 50s. Viewers were distracted from the coincidence by the inclusion of small but engaging parts for several well-known and likeable actors - Eleanor Bron, Roy Barraclough and Una Stubbs. David Ryall played the wonderfully named Rant, while John Castle was as intense and sinister as ever as one of Rant's hopeful heirs. Gatiss's method worked pretty well, though a more daring attempt to explain more plausibly how the young librarian happened to come across the one other person desperately seeking a book to be found in his library would have been welcome. The Tractate Middoth does not rank as an absolute masterpiece, either as prose or as television but nevertheless supplies good light entertainment in both media.

I really enjoyed Gatiss's study of James, whose sheltered life in Eton and Cambridge was one of comfort and privilege. Like so many other Victorian writers, though (Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and Stevenson are obvious examples) he was prey to dark imaginings, and although he was far from prolific, he produced ghost stories once or twice a year from the late nineteenth century until not long before his death in the 30s. Gatiss even discovered a charming old man who had known James at the end of his life, and liked and admired him. A fascinating man and writer, and having read his stories from time to time in anthologies for many years, I look forward to reading his collected works.

Ghost stories - a guest blog by AK Benedict

This is the right time of year for ghost stories, a genre I've always enjoyed. Last year saw the publication of my first ghost story, "No Flowers", and I'm tempted to write another before long. I'm also very much looking forward to seeing a new M.R. James adaptation and documentary, to be screened on the BBC on Christmas.Day.  Reviews will be forthcoming! Whilst in the mood for ghosts, I invited AK Benedict, who is not only a fan of the genre but an expert in it, to contribute a post to this blog. Alexandra is one of the most interesting and evocative new writers to have emerged in the last year or two, and her characteristically witty and thoughtful response delighted me. Here it is.

‘Tell me winter's tales,


And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night’

Marlowe

It is December 21^st, the winter solstice, and I am gathering ghost stories like logs in a forest that will blaze in the telling and see me through the longest night.

Ghost stories don’t sit well with summer: shadows are skimpy, days are long and spectres are rarely seen licking a Mr Whippy but now, in deepest December, when the wind slaps leaves on windows like parking tickets and the sun packs up early and slopes off to the pub, they are perfect.

The dark brings fear and uncertainty – we don’t know what lurks in the shadow in the cupboard at the bottom of the stairs. Ghost stories let fear out of the cupboard and allow it to run around the house before locking it back in again, worn out for now. Much like the crime novel, the spooky story acknowledges and exorcises darkness, if only until the fire dies out.

I’ve loved reading ghost stories in winter since I was a child, from Dickens’ ‘The Signalman’ to Lefcadio Hearn’s retelling of the Japanese supernatural tale ‘The Boy who Drew Cats’. The latter’s haunting advice: “at night, when in large spaces, keep to small” once had me sleeping on the floor of my wardrobe for all of Christmas week.

Reading stories of spirits at this time of year is a tradition that goes back to the winter’s tale spoken of by Marlowe and Prince Mamillius in Shakespeare’s own A Winter’s Tale who states that ‘a sad tale’s best for winter: I have one/ of sprites and goblins’. In 1820 Washington Irving wrote of ‘strange accounts of popular superstitions and legends’ told by the fireside on Christmas day; Dickens popularised the ghost story as a yuletide activity in The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain and other stories and Henry James brilliant ‘The Turn of the Screw’ is presented as a ghost story told at Christmas by the narrator.

Montague Rhodes James, provost of King’s College, Cambridge, read his ghost stories to his friends in the Chitchat Society on Christmas Eve. His stories begin in casual, conversational style with dry humour and a clear sense of place; his protagonists are men (always men!) of reason, curiosity and scholarship who, like in LeFanu and Lovecraft, end up knowing less about the world than when they started. Rationality is powerless when up against ‘a horrible, intensely horrible face of crumpled linen’ (‘O Whistle and I’ll Come to you, my Lad’) or ‘pale, dusty skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse black hairs longer than ever grew on a human hand’ (‘Canon Alberic’s scrapbook’). M R James was the reason I applied to King’s College and it was only when I got in, and sat in the dining hall beneath the stern gaze of his portrait, that I found out that he had obstructed degrees for women. Sometimes, what you most fear comes to pass, and no ghost story will stop them.

I will be inside on Christmas Eve, wine mulling, chestnuts burning, candles shivering, and reading from my pile of M R James, Sheridan La Fanu, E F Benson, Ambrose Pierce, E Nesbit, May Sinclair, Charles Dickens and Henry James. I will probably eat my body weight in mince pies at the same time, knowing that the sun will come back from the bar soon with a packet of nuts and a tale to tell. Meanwhile, sitting in a shadow-licked room, reading ghosts stories out loud, is a way of knowing that I’m not dead. Yet." 

Never Coming Back - review

Never Coming Back is the first thriller by Tim Weaver that I've read, and I came to it fresh, not knowing anything about either the author or his protagonist, an investigator called David Raker who specialises in finding missing people. It is, you might say, an "airport thriller", a chunky holiday read. But to say that is not to damn it with faint praise. I thought Weaver did a good job, and I'm not surprised the book is evidently selling very well. I'll be very glad to read more of his books.

The central mystery is: what happened to a family of four which disappeared from home one evening, never to return? There was no obvious reason why Paul, Carrie and their two daughters should suddenly vanish from sight. But Emily Kane, an old flame of Raker's, is Carrie's sister, and she wants him to find the answer. We are also presented with a couple of other puzzles, one dating back to a visit Raker paid to Las Vegas, and one concerning the discovery of a man's remains on a beach. Naturally, they all prove to be connected.

One of the things that appealed to me about Tim Weaver's book is that here is a writer setting his fiction in Britain, yet trying to compete with the likes of Harlan Coben and Lee Child, who take advantage of the much wider geographical canvas presented by the United States. Weaver displays considerable skill in the way he structures his puzzle, and I particularly liked his use of a "lost village", one of those mysterious places that always seem so fascinating.

As is sometimes the case with modern American thrillers, there was a touch of sentimentality in the story, especially arising from the final unexpected twist, but this didn't lessen my enjoyment. Of course, Weaver piles on the coincidences, and the central device, which involves a photograph, struck me as a little far-fetched. but by and large, I think he gets away with it. The pace and verve of the narrative swept me along. A good thriller, then, and an author's name to bear in mind. Especially if you're off on holiday and are in search of some enjoyable light entertainment.

On another note, tomorrow I'm offering something seasonal - a guest blog about ghost stories...

The end of The Tunnel - and Lucan - TV reviews

Two notable crime dramas came to an end this week. The Tunnel and Lucan were very different, and in fact illustrate well the range of crime drama. The tenth and final episode of The Tunnel was at times slower-paced than the sometimes frenetic earlier episodes, but it continued to grip me to the end, and the decision to avoid the obvious happy ending struck me as a sound one.

The performance of Stephen Dillane, as the cop whose character flaws had, though he didn't realise it for a long time, set in motion the events that led to the exploits of the "Truth Terrorist" was superb - what a fine actor he is. The convoluted plot required suspension of disbelief on a massive scale, but the storyline did have a crazy logic, and it worked for me, despite innumerable implausibilities. Because of the wildness of the story, I didn't find The Tunnel quite as affecting as Broadchurch, which I thought the best crime drama of the year (so far) but it was still very powerful..

I wasn't sure whether the decision to spin out Lucan to three hours was a good one, but it's a tribute to both Jeff Pope, the scriptwriter, and the excellent cast that it worked, and I didn't lose interest during the second and concluding part of the story. Who knows what Lord Lucan's precise fate was - in this version, he was thrown off a ship when his continued existence became an embarrassment to his posh friends. It can safely be said that he was no great loss, but above all I felt sorry for the parents of the luckless nanny who was killed simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As they said in the screenplay, despite all the fuss about Lucan and his circle, it is wrong for her to be forgotten.

Forgotten Book - The Wraith

Philip Macdonald was one of the major British crime writers of the Golden Age, and given that he also enjoyed much success as a Hollywood screenwriter, it is surprising to me that his work is not discussed more extensively. I've always liked his work, while recognising that his inventiveness was matched by a certain haste and carelessness that sometimes meant his books fell short of the high standards of which he was capable. Today's Forgotten Book, The Wraith, is an example of both his gifts and his shortcomings.

The book was published in 1931, and my paperback reprint makes the very bold claim that "Colonel Anthony Gethryn is no longer merely an extremely engaging character, he has become a permanent figure in crime fiction." Well, perhaps not, but he was one of the more appealing Golden Age detectives in my opinion. Here he tells the story himself, years after the events took place. It's a good device, and Macdonald handles it pretty well.

The setting is a small Fenland village in the aftermath of the Great War. Gethryn is staying there, and is invited to dinner at the local mansion. His host is duly murdered, and there is, as usual, a small circle of potential suspects, one of them rather wraith-like. The set-up is excellent, and there is an excellent twist, which is the most effective part of the story and was probably the idea that sparked the novel.

The downside is that there are too few suspects, and they are too thinly characterised. For this book to have become a classic, Macdonald would have needed to put more effort into building up the tension and background as well as the people of High Fen. As it is, The Wraith feels, in parts, almost as insubstantial as that eponymous ghostly figure. But it's a reminder of Macdonald's talents, and a book which certainly benefits from his crisp and readable style. And many years later, it was referenced by Desmond Cory in an even more intriguing book, Bennett.

In Their Skin - film review

In Their Skin is a film from last year, a creepy thriller that plays on our fears about having our home territory invaded. After a mysterious shooting in the open scene, a married couple with an eight year old son drive to an upmarket holiday home in the middle of nowhere. All is not well between Mark (Josh Close) and Mary (Selma Blair) but we don't fully understand why at first.

They are woken early by neighbours, a family of three whose behaviour is odd from the outset. At this point, I'd have been running for cover, but Mark invites Bobby (James D'Arcy) and Jane (Rachel Milner) and their son for a meal. Big mistake, needless to say. Things remain enigmatic for a while, but when the visiting boy pulls a knife on his young playmate, prompting Mark to ask his visitors to leave, mayhem ensues.

The second part of the film is conventional for the most part, with one or two unexpected sequences, as things go from bad to worse as far as Mark and Mary are concerned. Bobby is crazy, of course, and Jane is not as nice as she seems. Of course, there is an air of predictability about films which follow this pattern, but on the whole I felt that tension was maintained very well, and Selma Blair in particular is very good.

The script attempts to add a layer of meaning, in effect by pitting a bunch of weird people against a family which seems to have everything but really is far from perfect. I didn't think this aspect of the film worked too well, partly because we didn't care enough (or know enough) about the characters' lives and partly because it takes exceptional writing to turn a thriller like this into something deep and meaningful. In Their Skin is best regarded as entertainment, pure and simple, and if you like this sort of thing, it passes the time very well.