What is an Obelist?

C. Daly King was one of the most intriguing American writers of the Golden Age. His work could be fascinating, but also frustrating. He is best remembered for his short story collection The Curious Mr Tarrant, which features a number of ‘impossible crime’ situations, including a much-anthologised classic, ‘The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem’, as well as a fresh take on the Marie Celeste mystery. His six detective novels include Obelists at Sea, Obelists en Route and Obelists Fly High.

‘Obelist’ was a word that King made up. He defined it in Obelists at Sea as ‘a person of little or no value’ and then re-defined it in Obelists en Route as ‘one who harbours suspicion’. Why on earth you would invent a word, use it in your book titles, and then change your mind about what it means?

It beats me, but it illustrates Daly King’s quirky approach. He was a psychological theorist, author of books such as Beyond Behaviourism, which maybe explains things. It certainly explains, though it hardly excuses, the rambling debate about psychological theory in Obelists en Route (one footnote draws the reader’s attention to ‘as good an account of the hormic apologetics as can be found’ in a journal called ‘Psychologies’, which I’m sure is not the same as the glossy publication on sale in W.H.Smith.)

Julian Symons thought King wanted to demonstrate psychological theories through his elaborate whodunits, but if that is so, he wasn’t really successful. And yet there’s something about his work which compels interest, despite the failings. As Symons says, Obelists Fly High is ‘an astonishing performance…almost nothing is as it seems.’ True to form, King started the book with an epilogue and ended it with a prologue. As Symons said, the latter is likely to leave the reader ‘gasping and possibly indignant…There is a plan of the plane, and not one but two full pages given to the ‘reported movements’ and ‘actual movements’ of the characters at given times. Top this with the ‘Clue Finder’ which…suggests nearly forty points that might have led you to the murderer, and you have – well, certainly you have one of the most extraordinary detective puzzles of the twentieth century.’

Obelists En Route boasts no fewer than seven diagrams, a Clue Finder and a ‘bibliography of references’. Obelists at Sea under-achieves, with a measly five diagrams and no Clue Finder. I’ve never seen Clue Finders in any other detective novels, although I’ve heard it said that Elspeth Huxley used a similar device in one or two of her books. They were rather an appealing idea.

Daly King published three other detective novels. I found Bermuda Burial dull and disappointing. Arrogant Alibi and Careless Corpse are fabulously rare and I’ve never come across copies at an affordable price. But, because he was such a quirky writer, I will keep looking for them.

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!

Forgotten Book - The Complete Curious Mr Tarrant

My entry today for Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books is a collection that updates a book of short stories that is fondly remembered, I think, by a fair number of Golden Age fans. This is The Complete Curious Mr Tarrant, a Crippen & Landru ‘lost classsic’ which expands The Curious Mr Tarrant, first published in 1935.

The author, C. Daly King, was a psychologist, who wrote on his professional subject as well as venturing into detective fiction in half a dozen novels, some of them now fabulously rare in first edition. I’m still trying to trace Careless Corpse – in any edition. His plotting was labyrinthine, and occasionally eccentric. Obelists Fly High, which I’ve discussed before, is a truly remarkable mystery novel, well worth seeking out.

The original book of stories about Trevis Tarrant were not published in King’s native US until the 70s, but they deserved a better fate, and the expanded book, dating from 2003, contains four additional tales – fascinating finds, making the collection a true cabinet of curiosities. There is a nice introduction by the late Edward D. Hoch, who speaks fondly of King’s ingenuity, and his penchant for impossible crime stories.

The book offers ‘headless torsos, a haunted house, a vanishing harp, a museum mystery and other delights’, as Hoch says, along with a story about a murder solved only by the absence of a fish. ‘The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem’ was admired and anthologised by Dorothy L. Sayers, who knew a clever writer when she saw one. These stories are dated and sometimes quite barmy, but for me they have an irresistible appeal. What a shame that King’s one and only novel about Tarrant never saw the light of day.

Top 10 Golden Age novels

Here, as promised, is my highly subjective and apt-to-change-in-the-blink-of-an-eye list of top ten favourite Golden Age detective novels. I've imposed some limitations - just one book per author, and I've focused on detection rather than psychological crime (hence, no room for the wonderful Malice Aforethought.) I've tended to choose books that were in some way very original. Mike Linane made a very good suggestion that I should pick novels that are not too difficult to obtain, and I've gone part of the way to doing this. The Hull book, for instance, was an old green Penguin that you often find in second hand bookshops or at book fairs, although I can't claim that it's very easy to find. The King book was republished by Collins Crime Club in the 80s, and again is not terribly rare. So I hope anyone who wants to track them down will be able to do so, even if it takes a bit of perseverance. Next week, however, I shall develop a theme which Mike put in my mind by listing ten Golden Age books that are very obscure, but in my opinion undeservedly so.

Finally, I should say that, to show how difficult this game is, I changed my mind several times during the course of writing this post. And I'll probably change it a few more times as I'm reminded of classics I've overlooked...

10. The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr - I'm a great fan of "impossible crime" mysteries, and Carr wrote several superb examples. Hard to choose just one, but I did admire this mystery.

9. Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare - several of Hare's books appeared as late as the Fifties,but like Christie's and that of Edmund Crisipin and Christianna Brand, his work belongs in spirit to the Golden Age. This is a classic study of law and crime. Very unusual.

8. Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull - a strangely under-estimated book by a writer who was always trying something different. Very clever twist on the idea of the courtroom drama.

7. Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding - a wonderfully original serial killer whodunit, with a great twist and terrific seaside setting.

6. Obelists Fly High by C. Daly King - King wrote barmily implausible books, but this one is written with such gusto, and has such a detailed "clue finder" that I find it impossible not to include it in my list.

5. Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley - this is the book that was the catalyst for the Golden Age school of writers, and it's really very well done. Elegant and memorable.

4. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers - I find it very hard to pick my favourite Sayers book. They all seem flawed to me - but usually because she was so admirably ambitious. The Nine Tailors and The Documents in the Case are really good too. I'm not a member of the Gaudy Night fan club, I'm afraid, even though again I respect what Sayers was trying to achieve.

3. Lonely Magdalen by Henry Wade - a police story, and much darker than most Golden Age books. But very impressive, and a landmark title in terms of police procedure mysteries.

2. The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley - witty and clever, this is a masterly example of the multiple solution detective mystery. Both Sayers and Christie loved it, and so do I.

1. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - as I said on Monday, this one is simply unbeatable in my opinion...

Forgotten Book - Careless Corpse

My forgotten book today is an obscure but extraordinary novel written by a fascinating, idiosyncratic and sometimes maddening American Golden Age storyteller. The book is Careless Corpse, first published in 1937, and the author C. Daly King. And it included that odd paragraph on economics that I teased you with yesterday.

I’ve mentioned King before in this blog. He was a psychologist who wrote books on the subject, and he drew from his professional expertise for his novels. But this did not take him down the road of “psychological suspense” – his fiction bears no resemblance to that of Francis Iles, say, or C.S. Forester. On the contrary, he specialised in elaborate puzzles, often weighed down by strange digressions into academic debates. An example is the passage I quoted in my quiz question.

In this novel, a series of deaths occur among members of a party of celebrities – including a concert pianist, a violinist, a dancer, a composer, and a musical critic. The party is organised by a wealthy scientist, and the setting is an island amid the ice-floes of the Hudson River.

As so often, King provides helpful diagrams – no fewer than five – and arranges the text in a series of “movements” to underline the musical aspects of the story. The plot is elaborate and wildly ingenious (and, of course, improbable) and there is some entertaining writing mixed in with a bit of padding here and there. I don’t claim this book is great literature, but I really did enjoy it as a light, escapist read.

100 American Crime Writers - Steven Powell

Palgrave Macmillan publish an interesting list of academic books on a variety of crime fiction topics. One gripe - common, alas, to almost all academic publishers - is that the books are very pricey. This means that, for the overwhelming majority of individual readers who don't have the book-buying budget of some institution, they will be out of reach in terms of a personal purchase. But they are often worth tracking down via a library.

I mention this because 100 American Writers is a book that I think will appeal to a significant number of readers. The writers are discussed in short, snappy summaries by a range of writers, and the book doesn't become bogged down by academic jargon, footnotes or endless appendices, although there is a bibliography and a useful list of suggested further reading.

I came across the book a few weeks ago by chance, as it is edited by Steven Powell, who organised Liverpool University's recent conference about James Ellroy. Steven has provided introductory editorial material, and also gathered together a pleasing range of contributors, including among many others J.Kingston Pierce of the Rap Sheet, one of the best crime blogs around. Steven's wife Diana, a fellow Liverpool academic, but originally from the US, is another, and I was glad to find that she was the author of the section on that fascinating Golden Age writer C. Daly King., Another contributor is Chris Routledge, whose guest blog here about a British novelist in the Golden Age tradition, Simon Nash, attracted a good deal of interest.

The authors covered are predominantly more modern than King (for instance, Diana also covers Megan Abbott), but there were several names from the past that I was glad to see featured, including Melville Davisson Post and the brilliant Fredric Brown. For anyone seeking an introduction to American crime fiction, this book will make a very good choice.

How many characters?

One question that any writer has to answer is this: how many characters (excluding the walk-on parts) shall I create for this book? For a writer of detective stories where plot is important, there is a particular challenge. Too few credible suspects, and the mystery suffers. Too many, and it’s hard for the reader to get a handle on who is who; it may also be difficult for the author to draw the people in sufficient depth.

A traditional stand-by in the Golden Age was the ‘cast of characters’ which helped readers to keep all the suspects straight in their mind. Ngaio Marsh and Christianna Brand were among those who made use of this device. So did the eccentric, but interesting, American C.Daly King, author of the ‘Obelist’ books. (I'll post more fully about King another day.)

Cast lists have fallen out of fashion to some extent in modern times. Some readers positively object to them, arguing that if a cast list is required, it’s a sign that something is wrong with the book. I understand this argument, but don't think it's necessarily correct. Cast lists are still to be found in some books, notably history-mysteries. Good examples are to be found in a couple of highly successful, high quality series set in the past: Lindsey Davis’s Falco books and the 1950s Lydmouth series by Andrew Taylor.

I tend to like reading and writing books with reasonably large casts of characters. From a writer’s perspective, perhaps large casts are easier to handle within a series, where the core cast is already established. Existing relationships can be nudged forward, while space is given to developing the characters who haven’t appeared before.

But the right answer to the question posed by the title of this post is probably that there isn’t a right answer. It all depends on the book in question, and on what the writer is trying to achieve.

Forgotten Book - The Rynox Mystery

Philip Macdonald was one of the breezy entertainers of the Golden Age, an author with a flair for coming up with enticing scenarios. The republication of The Rynox Mystery in the Detective Story Club reprint series gives present day readers a chance to appreciate one of his most appealing set-ups. The book begins with an epilogue, a device used in other crime novels (for instance C. Daly King's Obelists Fly High). But I can't think right now of an example that predates this one, from 1930.

In the epilogue, two large and heavy sacks are delivered to the offices of an insurance company. When the unexpected delivery is opened, it turns out that the sacks contain more than a quarter of a million pounds. A lot of money today, never mind in 1930. What's the meaning of it? We go back in time to find out, and Macdonald presents his chapters as "reels"; no wonder he later moved to Hollywood.
This is a light thriller rather than a whodunit, and it's short and snappy if at times a little too whimsical.

The puzzle concerns the misadventures of a company called Rynox, and the demise of its presiding genius. The identity of the killer appears obvious, but the police struggle to identify him. What is going on? Well, I think most astute readers will figure out the answer, but not to worry. It's not a bad story, and this edition benefits from an intro written by Macdonald himself in the 60s, which I found interesting. He explains that he was aiming to satirise a number of people and institutions, though I'm afraid some of the point of the satire has been lost due to the passage of time.

Another extremely pleasing touch, given that the novel is a short one, is that Harper Collins have added value by including the one and only short story to feature Macdonald's Great Detective, Colonel Anthony Gethryn (who doesn't feature in the novel). The story is called "The Wood-for-the-Trees", and it's a serial killer mystery, with a plot device that crime fans will associate with a rather famous novel.

Foreign Bodies - a new British Library anthology

Over the past twenty-plus years, I've had the pleasure of compiling and editing a great many anthologies of crime writing. This year sees the publication of no fewer than five of my anthologies - four from the British Library, and the CWA collection Mystery Tour, due later in the year. But of all the anthologies I've been associated with, Foreign Bodies is one of the most exciting. And after a great deal of work behind the scenes, it finally hits the shelves tomorrow.

Classic crime fiction is usually associated in the public mind with stories written in the English language. Christie, Sayers and company in Britain, of course, and their American counterparts, the likes of Ellery Queen and C. Daly King. Few people realise how many detective stories were written in other languages at much the same time. And not only those by Georges Simenon, either.

The appeal of the detective story is worldwide,and that has long been the case. Sherlock Holmes inspired a host of writers to flatter Conan Doyle by imitation. Maurice Leblanc's stories about Arsene Lupin (which feature "Holmlock Shears",among other characters!) are quite well-known, the tales by the German Paul Rosenhayn about an American sleuth in the Holmes mould are long-forgotten. And even writers in Asia and South America were taking note of what Doyle and his successors were doing in Britain, and seeking to follow their example.

There are a number of reasons why compiling Foreign Bodies has proved quite a challenge. For a start, it's far from easy to track down some of the stories in their original forms. Acquiring the rights has sometimes been far from easy - we missed out on one intriguing "impossible crime" story aa a result of rights problems, for example - and getting the translations sorted out with a satisfying period feel has been another hurdle. Thankfully, I and the British Library have benefited from a great deal of help, in particular from John Pugmire of Locked Room International and American short story writer and translator Josh Pachter. I hope that readers find the result of our labours as fascinating to read as I have found it to put together.

All the Fun of the Book Fairs

One of the sub-plots, so to speak, of The Golden Age of Murder concerns the stories that are evident, or implicit, in some of the inscriptions by authors in their Golden Age whodunits. This is a subject that has intrigued me for a number of years, and in the book,I've discussed inscriptions by Agatha Christie, Henry Wade, and others that I find appealing. But of course, it is rather hard to track down such books.

I succumbed to temptation, therefore, when down in London on Friday..For the first time,two major book fairs, one run by the PBFA, the other a major international event, were run in tandem, with a shuttle bus linking the two events. I met up with a couple of friends, including the doyen of Golden Age commentators, Barry Pike, and set about haunting the bookstalls.

There were many fascinating books on display. Some of them would have been totally irresistible had they been affordable. But I did pick up a number of titles. Most of these come from the collection of the late Bob Adey, who assembled many treasures over the course of about fifty years. I've never seen such a remarkable collection, and I'm glad that I've been able to acquire just a few of them. Among those that were out of reach,by the way, were two editions of the famously rare The Curious Mr Tarrant, by C. Daly King. One of them had an ownership signature of Ellery Queen - wow...

My haul was more modest, but I was very pleased with it nonetheless, and I did find some very interesting inscriptions. One example is to be found in a copy of Robert Player's first book, The Ingenious Mr Stone, and another in John Dickson Carr's Fire, Burn! - Carr often wrote lengthy inscriptions, and this is a good one, though not easy to read! The Evelyn Elder novel in the picture above is not inscribed, but it was such a lovely copy that I couldn't resist it, knowing that I'm never likely to see another.

I'll be talking more about the inscribed books on another occasion, but suffice to say that it was a thoroughly satisfying pair of events. And it was rounded off by most enjoyable dinner with Barry Pike and a notable collector, my friend and fellow employment lawyer Nigel Moss. Barry has, by the way, already written his talk on Allingham and Sayers for the Bodies from the Library conference on 20 June, and I'm sure fans of those two writers would love to hear it. Book now while a few tickets remain available - the event is expected to sell out.

Looking back on 2011

So, today we say goodbye to 2011, and for me it’s been an immeasurably better year than the previous two. Events on the day job front dominated, above all negotiating and helping to implement my firm’s merger, and as a result of that, I’ve done much less fiction writing than usual. A pity, but a price worth paying, as I am now hopeful that I will have more time to devote to fiction in the future, reducing from full time working in the not too distant future. The photo was taken on a research trip around Ullswater and I hope the memories of that lovely day will inspire me to write more next year.

In publication terms, it was a productive year, though largely because of work I’d done in 2010. The Hanging Wood was published, and earned terrific coverage in The Times, The Guardian, The Literary Review and elsewhere. I was really gratified about that. Reviews are bound to be subjective, but they do matter to any writer (as well to his or her publisher.) And I also edited two anthologies, Guilty Consciences and Best Eaten Cold.

I was lucky enough to be directly involved in some great events, including no fewer than six festivals of different kinds – The Wordsworth Festival, the Newcastle Winter Books Festival, the Lymm Festival, Crimefest, the Harrogate Theakston’s Festival, and St Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Week-end. I wrote a new murder mystery event set in the 1920s, gave a range of talks, and was awarded a Red Herring for services to the CWA. So perhaps I was busier on the literary front than I realised at the time.

I was also very fortunate to spend a delightful week-end on the Isle of Man, much of it spent in the company of that fine writer Chris Ewan and his wife, as well as going on four trips overseas – all of which provided me with background material for future short stories.

I’ve read excellent novels by friends such as Peter Lovesey, Ann Cleeves and Kate Ellis, and the most impressive contemporary American book I read this year was The End of Everything by Megan Abbott. I also continued my research into the Golden Age and read some excellent books from the past. For me, the highlight among the latter was The Pursued by C.S. Forester, a remarkable discovery. I've also enjoyed discovering Jessica Mann's early work, and some classics by John Dickson Carr, Henry Wade, J.J. Connington, C.Daly King and others.

One area where I have been remiss is in keeping up with other people’s blogs. I’ve spent much less time on this than I’d have wished, but I must say that the quality of some of the crime-related blogs, many of which are listed on the blogroll, is quite splendid. And it seems to keep improving. An interesting feature is the increase in the number of blogs dealing with Golden Age books - very pleasing to see this trend.

I do feel very grateful for the interest taken in this blog by so many people, and when I get the chance to meet some of you in person (for instance, this year I’ve had the very welcome opportunity to chat with Dorte, Kerrie, Karen and Paul Beech among others) I find it an enormously enriching experience.

So – thanks for all your support and generosity in 2011 and let’s hope that 2012 is a good year for the crime fiction community, and (is this too much to hope for, given the economic climate?) is a better year for the world as a whole.

Forgotten Book - The Odd Flamingo

My latest entry for Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books is by an author who is very far from forgotten. Nina Bawden is a writer of considerable distinction, now in her 80s, but it’s often overlooked that, early in her career, she published a couple of detective novels.

I came across The Odd Flamingo when it appeared in a series of Jubilee reprints celebrating 50 years of the Collins Crime Club, back in 1980. Julian Symons selected and introduced a dozen titles, many of which were relatively obscure. All are worth seeking out, especially the books by Shelley Smith and C.Daly King.

The Odd Flamingo is a first person story, narrated by solicitor Will Hunt. Humphrey Stone, a respectable head teacher, gets himself into embarrassing difficulties and his wife calls on Will for help. Murder follows, and Will’s enquiries lead to a strange and disreputable club called The Odd Flamingo. The book first appeared in 1954, and inevitably aspects of it are dated, but Bawden’s ability to tell a good story is an enduring strength.

Symons’ comments are characteristically astute: ‘The fact that it is the work of a young writer, lacking experience although not skill, shows at times. Will seems occasionally too naive to be true, and the club...has a slightly unreal air. Partly, no doubt, this was because Nina Bawden didn’t know such clubs well...’ But he liked the book (‘an ingenious puzzle and an interesting novel’) , and so did I.

Forgotten Book - The Lucky Policeman

Although I didn’t contribute to Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books when I was sailing in the Med last Friday, I was busy at the time sitting in the sun and devouring a minor classic of the past which deserves to be highlighted this week.

Rupert Penny is a British writer who flourished briefly just before, and at the start of, the Second World War. He wrote convoluted puzzle stories in the best traditions of classic Golden Age detective fiction – and then he disappeared from sight (at least as a crime writer – a lover of flowers as well as ciphers and puzzles, he spent time working in Bletchley and he later became a doyen of the British Iris Society.)

Penny’s books were published in the UK by Collins Crime Club, but have become very scarce and expensive. Happily, that excellent publisher Ramble House has brought out several of his books, and supplied my copy of The Lucky Policeman. Suffice to say that it is the most enjoyable Penny novel I have read so far.

The set-up is excellent. An American shrink, Hilary Peake, has come to England and set up a private asylum (oddly, to my mind, it only has two patients, one of whom plays no effective part in the mystery, rather dashing one of my own theories about the puzzle.) When Simon Selby escapes from his quarters and disappears, we are presented with a variant on the ‘locked room’ concept, but matters take a more serious turn when a series of murders take place in the New Forest nearby. The local police are duly baffled, and send for Penny’s regular detective, the likeable Inspector Beale. Beale, as usual (although inexplicably) is accompanied by his pal and personal Watson, Tony Purdon, though Tony doesn’t play much of a part in the story.

There is a direct challenge to the reader to guess what has happened – shades of Ellery Queen and C.Daly King. I confess that I fell for Penny’s red herrings and got the solution wrong .The explanation for the mystery is cunning, if inevitably far-fetched and all in all this was wonderful holiday reading. Ramble House deserve heartfelt congratulations for making this lost classic available to modern puzzle fans at a very reasonable price.

Back to reality

I’ve had chance to draw breath (and, because all good things come to an end, go back to work) after my summer holiday – a break all the more welcome as it gave me a chance to make at least a small impression on my massive to-be-read pile.

A couple of nights in Barcelona were followed by a seven-night cruise of the Mediterranean on a ship called the Norwegian Gem. The highlight in Barcelona was undoubtedly a trip to the marvellous Parc Guell, with its Gaudi sculptures, which reminded me that I’ve yet to write up the short story idea I had on my last visit in October, for a tale to be called ‘Gaudi Night’. But the sight of all the living statues on the Ramblas gave me another storyline…

Cruising has provided the backdrop for a number of mystery novels. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie must be the best-known, but others include Too Much of Water by the under-estimated Bruce Hamilton, and Obelists at Sea by that writer of extraordinary puzzles, C. Daly King. And listening to one of the shipboard pianists gave me yet another cruise mystery idea. The only question is when I’ll get round to writing up these stories…

This was my first cruise for nineteen years – since before children arrived on the scene, that is. Cruising has changed in the interim – the ships are much bigger, the facilities much better, the food even more plentiful and fattening than before. For lazy travellers like me, it’s the ideal way to sample fresh parts of the world. And among the sunny spots I visited were Valletta (the signboard in the picture was the closest I camee to spotting the fabulous Falcon), Naples, Pompeii, Livorno, Pisa and its leaning tower, Tarquinia and Cannes. The Bogartesque artwork, by the way, comes from Cannes – not far from where some of the scenes of To Catch a Thief (which I covered in this blog recently) were filmed by Hitchcock.

And one final thing. All authors like a morale boost now and then. And I got one when I found some of my books in the ship library, which was otherwise dominated by American bestsellers.

Books, books, books

One of the highlights of the second day of the North East tour was a visit to Alnwick and Barter Books, one of the largest second hand bookshops in the country. Like another of the best bookshops, the Hay Cinema Bookshop, Barter Books is housed in a building converted from a very different previous use. It was once a railway station. Now the trains that run are model engines, traversing lines inside the shop and above head height.

Showing what I claim was incredible restraint (maybe threats of dire consequences from my family if I added to the mass of books in our house had a bit to do with it as well) I didn’t actually buy a book there. I did, however, see a sign offering for sale a Golden Age mystery I’ve long sought after. It is Careless Corpse, by the maddening but enjoyable C. Daly King. Alas, its price was prohibitive. I’ll have to keep searching.

After that, it was on to a very different, and much more contemporary, collection of books – the one held by South Shields library, venue for another Victorian mystery. Pauline Martin, who was in charge of the event, proved a very friendly companion – even though she’d worked a twelve hour day and must have been exhausted by the end of it - and I was surprised and delighted when she presented me with a framed watercolour.

Pauline’s efficiency was yet another reminder, not that I needed one, of how good the best librarians can be. I’ve met a great many generous and charming library staff in my travels over the last few years. The libraries are a wonderful public service and I wish that the government would invest more heavily in them, since I’m convinced that they play a vital part in fostering the identity of communities, in prosperous and deprived areas alike, as well as helping to foster the love of books. People with disabilities, for instance, often benefit hugely from having a good local library and I was glad to have the chance to chat to quite a number of those who were present at the South Shields event.

Footnotes and The Athenian Murders

David Ellis wrote an interesting article on Chekhov’s career as a crime writer (yes!) in the latest issue of CADS. He also added an interesting ‘footnote about footnotes’, commenting that ‘there is surely a treatise to be written on the role of footnotes in crime and detective stories.’ As he points out, footnotes can be found in Poe’s ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’, as well as in Chekhov’s The Shooting Party and the work of John Dickson Carr

Several whodunits of the Golden Age made regular use of footnotes, sometimes merely for the purpose of advertising previous books by the same author. C. Daly King, whom I mentioned recently, used footnotes extensively, sometimes perhaps to bolster the impression of erudition in the field of psychiatry.

Ellis also makes mention of The Athenian Murders, by Jose Carlos Somoza, published in the UK very successfully a few years ago. It’s an astonishing performance, quite unlike anything I’ve read – a one-off to rank, arguably, alongside two strange masterpieces: The Face on the Cutting Room Floor by Cameron McCabe and The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers. I don’t wish to spoil the story, but Ellis summarises the relevance of footnotes well: they ‘at first appear to be helpful comments from a translator [but] become more frequent and assertive until the translator intrudes into the actual story.’ Suffice to say that it’s a very clever book. Some may say it’s too clever for its own good, but I found it refreshingly different.

An Afternoon to Kill

Reprinting neglected classics of crime fiction is a great service performed by a small number of admirable publishers. It’s still a great service, even if the books turn out, in the cold light of day, not to live up their reputations. In the field of short fiction, Doug Greene’s Crippen and Landru have done a marvellous job in resurrecting innumerable splendid stories that would otherwise still be gathering dust. I’ve mentioned Rue Morgue Press recently in connection with Dorothy Bowers, and their books are always worth a look Ramble House have reprinted the weird yet unforgettable Harry Stephen Keeler, as well as some books by such interesting and varied authors as Rupert Penny and Joel Townsley Rogers.

I’d like to think that one day, someone will reprint the hard-to-find books by C. Daly King that I mentioned the other day. Obelists Fly High was reprinted in the UK in 1980, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Collins Crime Club (a great imprint, sadly no more – killed off by the accountants, I guess.) Symons chose and introduced twelve titles in all. Some were familiar – such as Christie’s The ABC Murders. Others were competent but unexceptional – books by Freeman Wills Crofts, Elizabeth Ferrars and Andrew Garve. And there were one or two gems.

Best of all, I thought, was Shelley Smith’s An Afternoon to Kill. Smith was a very good writer, whom Symons plainly admired, but who seems to have given up on crime fiction prematurely after producing some very good books (the same is true of Margot Bennett, again someone I read and enjoyed on Symons’ recommendation.)

An Afternoon to Kill is such a terrific story that I don’t want to say much about it, for fear of giving the game away. But it really is very enjoyable, as well as clever. Time for another reprint, perhaps?

Julian Symons

I exchanged comments with fellow blogger Maxine Clarke a few weeks back about the late, and in my opinion great, Julian Symons. His study of the genre, Bloody Murder, was published when I was in my teens, and it influenced my choice of reading for many years. It was Symons who made me aware of writers such as C. Daly King, Margot Bennett, Edward Grierson and Cameron McCabe, whose very varied work I found delightful to read. There were some good authors whom he overlooked, but never mind; there is a limit to how much ground can be covered in a single volume.

Symons’ basic theme was that the detective story has transformed into the crime novel. Probably that is an over-simplistic analysis – not long after he published the first edition of his book, a writer called Colin Dexter emerged, who proved triumphantly that the classic detective story was very far from dead and gone. Symons could be scathing about the writing of authors whom he described as ‘Humdrums’, and fans of those writers – understandably – have always been a bit miffed about that as a result. But Symons had a very acute intelligence, and he was always open to ‘reasoned contradiction’.

He will probably be best remembered as a critic, but in truth his range was astonishing – he was a poet, biographer and social historian, as well as author of some of the best British crime novels of the post-war era. The End of Solomon Grundy, Progress of a Crime, and (a special favourite of mine for its sheer entertainment value)The Man Whose Dreams Came True, were all excellent, and his other novels were never less than interesting. Some of his books focus on social attitudes, but he had read so widely in the genre that his twisty plotting was of a very high quality. The Plot Against Roger Rider is ingenious, and Sweet Adelaide shows his insight into true crime cases. A very late book, Death’s Darkest Face, was among his finest achievements, although sadly, it has never attracted the attention it deserved. Anyone keen on British crime fiction who is unfamiliar with his work has a real treat in store.