Getting Away with Murder




          Last Posting

It has been another depressing month for funerals, this time of my chum Reg Gadney, an academic who straddled the world of art and film, a thriller writer of some renown, an award-winning television scriptwriter and accomplished painter.

His funeral, in Central London, was attended by representatives of all the worlds he had been involved with, including playwright David Hare, actor Bill Nighy and film director Don Boyd and, as a former Coldstream Guards officer, there was even a uniformed bugler to play the Last Post.

I was fortunate to know Reg for the last six years of his life and had the honour of editing new editions of his first two thrillers from 1970 and 1971, with covers designed around Reg’s paintings.

I think Reg was pleased with them as he painted my portrait, deliberately making me rather severe ‘as editors should be’, as a thank you.

Reg died, aged 77, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer on 1st May, two days before his last novel Albert Einstein Speaking  was published by Canongate. It is not a thriller, but rather an ingenious and at times impishly funny fictionalised biography of the great scientist and I recommend it most highly.

 

Ambler Still Lying

Legend has it that when Eric Ambler’s cheekily-titled autobiography Here Lies Eric Ambler was published in 1985, many of his fellow thriller writers complained that he had perhaps been too circumspect, not to say vague, and surely must have more stories about thriller writing, fellow writers and working in Hollywood up his sleeve. Ambler is supposed to have replied ‘Don’t worry, you’ll all be in Volume 2!’  but when The Story So Far was published in 1993, it showed Ambler was still being economical with the full story.

   

Ambler’s second volume of ‘Memories and Other Fictions’ is heavier on the fictions than the memories with nine short stories interspersed with snippets – far too few and skimpy – of Ambler’s life in Hollywood (he was good friends with Alfred Hitchcock), Switzerland and finally returning to his native London. Very few fellow authors get a mention, not even Australian Charles Rodda (Gavin Holt) with whom he co-wrote several thrillers under the pen-name Eliot Reed.

He does acknowledge Julian Symons whom, he thinks, proposed him for the elite Detection Club in 1952 when Dorothy L. Sayers was president, although he maintains he was never ‘initiated’ as he was ‘not given to swearing foolish oaths’ and was about to decamp for America.

On his return to England in the late 1970s, he was, however, pleased to find the Detection Club still functioning. ‘Fortunately for me, Miss Sayers no longer attended meetings.’ (She had died in 1957!) ‘I cannot believe we would have seen eye to eye on almost anything.’ And when the Club asked for a detective story to celebrate Julian Symons’ 80th birthday, Ambler said he was ‘happy to try’. That short story, The One Who Did For Blagden Cole, which is the conclusion of The Story So Far, appeared in the 1992 anthology The Man Who, edited by H. R. F. Keating and was probably the last piece of fiction Ambler wrote in a career which lasted more than half-a-century and was instrumental in transforming the British thriller.

 

De-Blake-ing

My mention of Jack Trevor Story and his connection to the ‘Sexton Blake library’ in last month’s column provoked numerous responses, some from those who fondly remembered the work of Story and others who fondly remembered the Sexton Blake stories as they appeared in myriad form over more than half a century.

One correspondent, Tony Bird, wrote in to tell me that Jack Trevor Story had actually written so 20 Sexton Blake ‘novelettes’ and in 1962, one: ‘became an undistinguished film with Donald Sinden and Adam Faith called Mix Me A Person. For whatever reason, Sexton Blake was omitted from the film. I remember, as a youngster, having a letter published in SBL (Sexton Blake Library) complaining about this shocking omission!’

  

I then discover, courtesy of the blog run by the erudite John Norris in America, that Jack Trevor Story had been doing what in the trade was known as “de-Blake-ing”: taking a Sexton Blake book, rewriting it mainly by removing the character of Sexton Blake, then giving it a new title and often selling it on to a new publisher.

The film Mix Me A Person (directed by Leslie, father of Barry, Norman) was actually based on the novel Mix Me A Person by Jack Trevor Story, published in 1958. That was in fact a rapid re-write of Nine O’clock Shadow, his Sexton Blake ‘novelette’ of 1957, which he suitably de-Blaked, making a female psychiatrist his lead detective character.

So technically, this was not a Sexton Blake film without Sexton Blake, though if it had been, I would have blamed Donald Sinden, who seemed to be something of a jinx in these matters. In 1956 he starred in the big screen adaptation of Margery Allingham’s Tiger in the Smoke, a film infamous for having dispensed entirely with Allingham’s famous detective Albert Campion.

 

The Complete Durbridge

Whenever I am asked – which is occasionally – about Francis Durbridge, who was a household name in Britain and parts of Europe for a fair chunk of the 20th century, I always reply ‘I know nothing, but I know a man who knows everything.’

Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) was a prolific writer of crime fiction, not just novels but also for the stage, radio and television over a period of around sixty years, his most famous creation probably being the detective Paul Temple. The man who has studied and catalogued his considerable output with scholarly thoroughness, is Melvyn Barnes, O.B.E., a former president of the Library Association and, it has to be said, something of a fan of crime fiction, to put it mildly.

Now, twenty years after Durbridge’s death, Melvyn has written what is surely the definitive guide to his work – and I’m not just saying that because it says that on the cover of Francis Durbridge The Complete Guide now published by Williams and Whiting.

Telling A Book by its Cover

At first glance, you might think this 1950 American paperback of The Nine Waxed Faces was, well, a 1950s American pulp crime novel, perhaps involving G-Men or an over-dressed private eye. The tag line ‘Lovely To See…Deadly To Love’ only adds to that impression.

In fact, The Nine Waxed Faces by Francis Beeding (a prolific two-man writing team) was a 1936 very British spy thriller set in a Europe on the edge of meltdown. Beeding’s thriller were immensely popular in the 1930s, with far bigger sales than those of ‘Golden Age’ detective writers, though the author(s) also wrote cracking crime stories as well.  I am working my way through the thrillers of ‘Francis Beeding’ and others, with a view to discovering just how soon British thriller writers realised that the Nazis and their methods were a genuine threat to peace and civilisation and also ideal villains for their fiction.

I may well submit my findings for a PhD; there again, I may just bore you with an article on the subject in this esteemed organ.

 

Team Players

Writing partnerships such as ‘Francis Beeding’ (John Palmer and Hilary St. George Saunders) are not uncommon, but married co-authors are. The best- known couple who manage to live together and write together without (seemingly) to murder each other is probably ‘Nicci French’ the writing name of Sean French and Nicci Gerrard, who have a new novel, Day of the Dead out from publisher Michael Joseph in July.

In August another married couple enters the crime fiction lists with a medical mystery set in 19th century Edinburgh, The Way of All Flesh published by Canongate and written by Ambrose Parry, the pen-name of husband-and-wife team Christopher Brookmyre and Dr Marisa Haetzman. That the novel is grounded in fact should come as no surprise, given that Marisa Haetzman is a consultant anaesthetist who also holds a Master’s degree in the history of medicine.

 

           

Bagley Remembered

Desmond Bagley (1923-83) was one of the biggest names in British adventure-thriller writing in the 1960s and ’70s and, unusually, a writer much loved by readers, publishers and other writers in equal measure.

He lived for many years on the island of Guernsey where, last month, he was duly honoured, with an official blue plaque unveiled at his home, Câtel House which has been re-named Bagley Hall and an exhibition in the Guilles-Allés library in the island’s capital St Peter Port.

Masterminding the exhibition and giving a lecture to mark its opening was Bagley uber-fan Philip Eastwood, whose website www.thebagleybrief.com is a fund of information about Bagley and his books.

 

Rula Rules, OK?

I all-too-rarely cover audiobooks as I am not a particular fan of the medium, despite many of my friends being resting members of Equity. However, I have to express a pang of jealousy over the fact that my old chum Stevyn Colgan has secured the services of the mellifluous Rula Lenska to do the honours on his wonderful spoof cosy mystery A Murder To Die For.

































































































































































































































































               

          































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































           































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































 

Ruth in Demand Edwards

Crime writer, journalist, biographer and historian Ruth Dudley Edwards has been much in demand recently. As the guest speaker at the AGM of the Margery Allingham Society, which is always combined with a birthday luncheon to mark Margery’s birthday – in this case her 114th – she entranced her audience by examining the differences between the London of Margery’s classic 1952 thriller The Tiger in the Smoke and the present day. The first difference, of course, being the fog and smog of the London ‘smoke’ of the title.

[picture credit: Margery Allingham Org]

 

And before her appearance on Radio 4’s Question Time, Ruth managed to squeeze in several panels as both guest and moderator at Crimefest in Bristol, before closing that glittering event in the grand finale I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Cluedo as captain of the victorious Ladies team, which included Yrsa  Siguarddottir and Alison Bruce.

Ruth even managed, assisted by Alison Bruce, whilst blindfolded, to identify by touch alone, mystery guest Felix Francis, who was determined to make identification difficult by wearing shorts.

If you want to see what the teams and quizmaster got up to, you can view the exclusive videos here.                                                                

CrimeFest, on its tenth anniversary, lived up to its reputation as the friendliest of crime fiction conventions, attracting guests of honour and delegates from all over the world. It was here I discovered the noble art of ‘photo-bombing’. I managed to interpose myself between the official delegates from Hungary and Canada and also ruined Lee Child’s portrait as he posed with his Bristol Blue Glass trophy.

The mere mention of Bristol Blue Glass trophies reminds me that one of the highlights of the convention was Robert Thorogood’s role as toastmaster for the Gala Dinner. I was disgracefully unaware of Robert Thorogood’s work as the creator and writer of the hit television series Death in Paradise but after his barnstorming and very funny performance in the often thankless task of entertaining a room full of hot and bothered guests straining to get to the bar, I will now follow his career with interest.

 

The Secret Social Life

Hot on the heels of an exhausting convention came the inaugural dinner of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bangers Club, or the most recent gathering of The Wild Geese or a nosh-up by people celebrating the release of the new James Bond novel. Whatever, it was a jolly convivial evening held in ‘The Admiral’s Cabin’, a secret location off Trafalgar Square, with guests of honour from America in the charming form of Gerald and Amy Wadsworth.

Gerry Wadsworth is a graphic designer and illustrator whose work is well-known to the security services of his own country, especially his paintings on the theme of James Bond. His work is exhibited in the International Spy Museum in Washington DC – below is his painting ‘Official Secrets’ and more examples can be seen at www.jamesbondart.com.

Much of the deeply intellectual discussion as the port circulated naturally concerned the new novel Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz on his second ‘continuation’ mission.

Containing material by Ian Fleming (a tense card game, which is no surprise as few did those better), Forever and a Day is a prequel to Casino Royale and tells how Bond inherited the designation ‘007’, explored the French Riviera and became a drug addict. (Oops! Spoiler!)

Sadly, I was unable to attend the launch of Anthony’s book at the spiritual home of British spying, Bletchley Park, but fans seeking a signed copy will be able to way-lay the author at bookshops in London, Canterbury, Glasgow, Edinburgh Brighton, Reading and Manchester in the first half of this month. In his ‘author’s notes’ to Forever and a Day, Anthony generously acknowledges the Artistic Licenced Renewed website (https://literary007.com/) which, entirely coincidentally, has just published an article of mine on British thrillers of 1953 which formed the competition for James Bond’s debut in Casino Royale.

 

Signed Copy

I am not a collector of first editions as such, though I am the proud owner of around 150 crime novels and thrillers signed and given to me by the authors. At the recent Crimefest, though, I saw the opportunity to increase my collection.

Having already complained that I had not been sent a review copy of John Lawton’s Friends and Traitors, published last month by Grove Atlantic, and also publicly declaring that ‘I suppose I’ll have to buy a bloody copy’, albeit with charm and good grace, I had to do that very thing. To make sure the author appreciated the sacrifice on my part, I required an autograph from John Lawton – not in the book (one has to think of eBay these days) but on the till receipt from the bookshop, thus proving that a bona fide payment had taken place.

     

I have to admit that Friends and Traitors, one of John’s ‘Troy’ series but featuring some famous names in British treachery (Burgess, Blunt, et al), is an absolutely outstanding historical thriller and, though it pains me to say it, was money well spent. You will search for it on eBay in vain.

 

A Pair of Rogues

I am a lifelong fan of the work of Geoffrey Household (1900-88) and took immense pride in getting his novel Rogue Justice back in print as a Top Notch Thriller in 2011. I even wrote an Afterword to that edition which I was recently complimented on by a reader who had just purchased the 2016 Orion paperback. Which rather surprised me as I had no idea my scholarly Afterword had been reprinted by Orion.

Cue some red faces at Orion headquarters when I enquired as where permissions had been sought and (more in hope than expectation) whether payment had been offered. However, profuse apologies were offered - and accepted, as I regard it as an honour to be associated in any small way with Geoffrey Household’s work, plus I received a parcel of other Household titles in their Orion editions.

Rogue Justice was, of course, the famous sequel – written more than 40 years later – to the famous Rogue Male, a recognised classic of British thrillerdom, where the excruciatingly tense climax takes place deep (literally) in the Dorset countryside.

From the Introduction to the 2014 Orion edition by Robert Macfarlane, I learn that in 1988 Household’s son (also called Geoffrey) attempted to scatter his father’s ashes in the actual ‘holloway’ or sunken lane, which featured in his father’s famous book, but could not find the exact location. In 2005, Robert Macfarlane and his friend the late Roger Deakin, embarked on expedition to Dorset to try and establish the exact location in which Rogue Male’s lone hero makes his last stand for themselves.

Now another Household enthusiast, Chris Newell, has made a detailed study of the area, around Chideock in Dorset, and come up with several possibilities.

For the full story of Chris Newell’s researches and speculations, I recommend consulting his website at http://www.wildot.co.uk/rogue/rogue.htm.

 

Find of the Month

With so much happening recently – not only conventions and funerals, but also weddings – there has hardly been time for reading, but I have made one exciting discovery: James Carlos Blake. In some ways it was like discovering Elmore Leonard all over again.

The Ways of Wolfe from No Exit Press is the first novel by James Carlos Blake that has crossed my path but it will not be the last; indeed there are at least three other novels in his ‘Wolfe’ saga alone, covering the activities of a family running parallel legal and criminal enterprises on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.

The writing is nail-head sharp and the plotting taut even though this crime saga stretches back to the 1820s and it is, I am told, a classic example of ‘Border Noir’. This is a sub-genre I have not comes across before, possibly because Professor Barry Forshaw has not written a book about it.

Yet.

 

And finally

I am told I really must mention the fact that when I went to Crimefest they gave me this:

To win an award from one’s peers is pleasant; to win one which honours that fine writer, distinguished critic and generous human being Harry Keating, is special. 

           

Pip! Pip!

The Ripster

Read more articles by Mike Ripley



Home
Book Reviews
Features
Interviews
News
Columns
Authors
Blog
About Us
Contact Us

Privacy Policy | Contact Shots Editor

THIS WEBSITE IS © SHOTS COLLECTIVE. NOT TO BE REPRODUCED ELECTRONICALLY EITHER WHOLLY OR IN PART WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE EDITOR.