Golden Age authors & characters living on

I recently posted this brief article about follow-ups to the Queens of Crime, written by modern authors, on my library's Facebook page:

Fans of the Golden Age queens of crime: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham and Josephine Tey may like to know that their characters and indeed lives carry on in a number of recent books.

Agatha Christie’s infamous 11 day disappearance in 1926 when she absconded to Harrogate has never been officially explained and she does not refer to it in her autobiography. Was it illness after the death of her mother or revenge on her philandering husband that prompted her flight? Or was it due to aliens as postulated by the Doctor Who episode, The Unicorn and the Wasp (available on iPlayer)? The Channel 5 film, Agatha & The Truth of Murder, now available on Netflix, also looks at this event. In books, rather than television, we have Andrew Wilson’s crime series featuring Agatha as the main character which begins with A TALENT FOR MURDER and has another and more sinister take on her disappearance.

If you can’t get enough of Christie’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot, then you’ll be pleased to know that Sophie Hannah has brought him back to life in a series of books beginning with THE MONOGRAM MURDERS.

Ngaio Marsh’s debonair sleuth Roderick Alleyn returns for one last case in THE MONEY IN THE MORGUE a novel begun and abandoned by Marsh, but now completed by Stella Duffy.

Jill Paton Walsh took up the Lord Peter Wimsey mantle back in 1998 when she was invited to complete Dorothy L Sayers’s THRONES, DOMINATIONS. She has written another Wimsey book based on clues left by Sayers, plus two more from her own ideas.

Margery Allingham is probably best known for her Albert Campion series, televised in 1989/90 starring Peter Davison. Her husband, Pip Youngman Carter, continued the Campion series with two book and an unfinished one which has recently been completed by Mike Ripley as MR CAMPION’S FAREWELL. Ripley has gone on to write six more original Campion novels.

And finally Josephine Tey stars in a series of crime novels by Nicola Upson. As Gordon Daviot, Tey (real name Elizabeth MacKintosh), wrote plays including the hit ‘Richard of Bordeaux’ which starred John Gielgud. And it is this play which forms the backdrop to the first book in Upson’s series, AN EXPERT IN MURDER. In a later book in the series, FEAR IN THE SUNLIGHT, Tey is mixing with the Hitchcocks at Portmeirion.

Josephine Tey: Fiction & Fact

The sixth book in Nicola Upson's series featuring Josephine Tey will be out in June. It's called London Rain and is published by Faber. This is one of my favourite series and I do have a slight preference for the books set, like this one, in London, such as An Expert in Murder and Two For Sorrow.

May, 1937, and London prepares to crown a new king.

Bestselling writer Josephine Tey is in town to oversee a BBC radio production of her play, Queen of Scots - but adultery, treachery and pent-up jealousies stalk the corridors of Broadcasting House.

At the height of the Coronation celebrations, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose is called in to investigate the murder of one of the BBC's best-known broadcasters. A second victim - his mistress, and the play's leading actress - suggests that the motive lies close to home, but Josephine suspects that the killings are linked to a decade-old scandal.

With Archie's hands tied by politics, and his attention taken by another, seemingly unrelated death, it is left to Josephine to get to the truth. As her relationship with Marta Fox reaches a turning point, she is forced to confront at first-hand the deadly consequences of love, deceit and betrayal.

Rich in the atmosphere of coronation London and the early days of Broadcasting House, the sixth novel in Nicola Upson's 'Josephine Tey' series sets an audacious, deeply personal crime against the backdrop of one of the most momentous days in British history.

And I'm also really looking forward to November's Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson, published by Sandstone Press:

Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952). Born in Inverness, MacKintosh lived several 'lives': best known as Golden Age Crime Fiction writer 'Josephine Tey', she was also successful novelist and playwright 'Gordon Daviot'. Originally trained as a P.E. teacher, she returned home to keep house for her widowed father. Tey's novels include The Franchise Affair, Brat Farrar, and the unique Richard III mystery The Daughter of Time - once voted the best crime novel of all time. Her work was adapted for radio, TV and film, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock. Meanwhile, as 'Gordon Daviot', she wrote smash-hit play Richard of Bordeaux, making a star out of her leading man, John Gielgud. She worked with actors such as Laurence Olivier, and was friends with many of the stars of London's 1930s Theatreland. At one point, she had plays on simultaneously in the West End in London and on Broadway, and even wrote for Hollywood - all from her home in the north of Scotland. Romantic yet practical, Josephine Tey was a fascinating woman who led a life full of contrasts. Genuinely modest, the full scale of her achievements, and her significance to Scottish fiction, has not been recognised until now.

New Reviews: Brodrick, Brooks, Ceder, Chatterton, Conway, Dahl, Kray, Meyer, Upson

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Terry Halligan reviews William Brodrick's The Day of the Lie, the fourth in the Father Anselm series;

Susan White reviews Kevin Brooks' Until the Darkness Comes the second in the John Craine, private detective, series;

Maxine Clarke reviews Camilla Ceder's follow-up to Frozen Moment, Babylon tr. Marlaine Delargy which sees the return of Gothenburg detective Christian Tell and co.;

Mark Bailey reviews Ed Chatterton's first foray into adult crime fiction, A Dark Place to Die set in Liverpool;

Lynn Harvey reviews and thoroughly recommends Rock Creek Park by Simon Conway;

Earlier this week I reviewed The Blinded Man by Arne Dahl, tr. Tiina Nunnally also published as Misterioso;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Roberta Kray's Nothing But Trouble which is now out in paperback;

Terry wishes all books he reviewed were as good as Deon Meyer's Heart of the Hunter tr. K L Seegers

and Susan also reviews Nicola Upson's Fear in the Sunlight the fourth in this series featuring Josephine Tey, now out in paperback

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Becker, Carter, Ellis, Fantoni, Jansson, Krajewski, Mogford, Nadel, Upson

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website, and they include two related to the 2012 Olympics plus the settings include Gibraltar, Poland, Sweden, USA (twice) as well as London and Devon:

The first of the Olympics related books is James Becker's Echo of the Reich reviewed here by Amanda Gillies;

JF reviews Chris Carter's The Death Sculptor the fourth in the Detective Robert Hunter series set in LA;

Terry Halligan reviews Kate Ellis's The Cadaver Game, the latest in the Wesley Peterson series which is now out in paperback;

Lynn Harvey reviews Barry Fantoni's Harry Lipkin P.I. starring "the world's oldest detective" (set in Florida);

Guest reviewer Bernadette Bean reviews Anna Jansson's Killer Island tr. Enar Henning Koch set on Gotland;

Norman Price reviews Marek Krajewski's The Minotaur's Head, tr. Danusia Stok, the fourth in the Eberhard Mock series;

Maxine Clarke reviews Thomas Mogford's debut, Shadow of the Rock a thriller set in Gibraltar and Tangier;

Susan White reviews the second of the Olympics related books, the first in Barbara Nadel's new series: A Private Business

and I review the audio book release of Nicola Upson's Two For Sorrow the third in the "Josephine Tey" series.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: Two For Sorrow by Nicola Upson (audio book)

Two For Sorrow by Nicola Upson read by Sandra Duncan, Whole Story Audiobooks, September 2010, 13 CDs, ISBN: 9781407459271

TWO FOR SORROW is the third book from Nicola Upson to feature real-life crime writer Josephine Tey. Josephine doesn't do any detecting, rather she leaves that to (the fictional) Archie Penrose from Scotland Yard.

We're back in London, after Cornwall in ANGEL WITH TWO FACES, and Josephine is staying at the women's-only Cowdray Club, run by her old teacher, Celia Bannerman. Josephine is writing a fictional account of the Sach and Walters case (two women who were hanged for “baby farming” ie baby murdering) thirty years before and Celia was one of the warders at the time and knew Amelia Sach.

There is to be a gala ball at the Club and Josephine's friends, the Motley sisters, are creating the gowns. However tragedy strikes when one of their seamstresses, a former prisoner, is sadistically murdered in the Motleys' shop and the woman's father is also found dead, just outside. Archie is called in to investigate.

As Archie digs, his investigation increasingly overlaps with the subject of Josephine's writing until he is forced to keep secrets from her for her own safety...

As well as being on the periphery of the investigation, Josephine's emotions are in turmoil with the reappearance of an old friend who wants more than perhaps Josephine is willing to give.

TWO FOR SORROW is quite long but always interesting. As well as a crime novel it's a fascinating look at the role of women in the 1930s and highlights how things were so much worse for women than men in prison. “Baby farming” is a term I'd only come across recently in a teenage fiction book (VELVET by Mary Hooper) but in this there is a lot of shocking and upsetting detail and Archie goes to some grim places in pursuit of his enquiries.

I do love the showbizzy glamour of the books set in London (see also AN EXPERT IN MURDER) with real-life actors and thinly disguised actors flitting in and out and I have one eye on Google to see who and what is real and who and what's fictional. So little is known of Tey's life that this series is like reading a biography of her, fleshing out the few known facts that there are.

Sandra Duncan gives an outstanding performance with a warm Scottish accented Josephine and clipped, attractive upper-class accent for Archie plus many more different vocalisations for the supporting cast.

Harrogate - The Golden Age?

My next panel was on Saturday morning about The (A?) Golden Age.

From the programme:

For many, the Golden Age of British crime fiction was the 1920s and 1930s, when writers such as Christie, Allingham, and Sayers were at their peaks. Others would argue that we are currently living through crime fiction’s true Golden Age and that contemporary writers are more than a match for the Golden Oldies. Banging the drum for the here and now are Stuart Neville and Robert Wilson, while Nicola Upson and David Roberts will be talking up the cosies. Chairman, Martyn Waites (aka Tania Carver) will do his best not to take sides.

My notes:

The Golden Age dead or is it now? Was it the Golden Age and what made it so?

NU crucial age of crime fiction was between wars as lots of writers working with set conventions. TGA established a genre of crime fiction with set rules that can then be broken.

DR hates that word cosy - demeaning and patronising. TGA started 1920 and died out in 1950s; there were some superb novelists eg Dorothy L Sayers, who despised own books; Agatha Christie was a good writer, Tey, Nicholas Blake - that's what makes it GA - very good writers and better than a lot today (ooh! -  controversy)

RW said after WW1, needing to set the world to rights. He reminded self of GA by reading Strong Poison (DLS); ruling classes wiped out the working class by bad decisions, but business as usual in novels. DR disagreed - upper classes suffered great losses too, first over the top life expectancy of two weeks for young officers. Rules about good and evil, which are not so clear in modern novels as "evil" is explained by social reasons. RW said that by the end of WW2 knew what is evil is : Hitler.

NU: direct correlation between WW! and GA but not due to class. Books show the importance of an individual life -  one life can matter against mass slaughter of war.

SN asks who's reading GA?

MW:  Christie villains often a foreigner or a member of working class. But DR said don't forget Poirot ia foreign refugee and that Miss Marple is part of a despised generation and a spinster. Upper classes can ask questions and and travel so as not restricted to a couple of villages like Midsommer Murders - so convenient  to have aristocratic sleuth, not just snobbery.

Character of today's crime fiction.

SN said not *the* GA,  several GAs eg Chandler, Hammet, Irish (though not sure that's true), Scandinavian.
 
SN writes about a sympathetic mass murderer. Sophisticated readership needed?

DR said there was too much violence in RWs books. The constant use of violence is like a drug, keeps needing to be increased.

MW said have moral responsibility to put violence in book as dealing with a violent death.

NU:  Tey made a distinction between legal and moral justice.

DR:  Harret Vane (in DLS) almost died,  not because of murder but because of not being married to the person she was living with.

MW: when read GA didn't recognise the England in it as he grew up in Newcastle.

Is it yearning for an England that didn't exist?

SN - all crime fiction is escapism. Amplified compared to real life and you get justice - also rare in real life.
RW - Scandinavian crime fiction popular as seen as ideal countries, now no-one want to go there!

MW - original titles of TGWTDT - Men who Hate Women - could be a title for any noir novel.

NU - Not all GA set in village eg Tiger in the Smoke by Allingham is set in London. Read Tey to see what it's like for women between the wars.

DR - why would you reread once you know the killer but AC still read in France, USA. How many books written today would people go back to? No cohesive school.

SN - there are movements rather than individual novels: tartan noir, Irish, Scandinavian.

GA definition excludes writers such as Patrick Hamilton.

Books read from that period do seem to be crime fiction rather than best sellers/classics (eg Huxley)

MW - nice if bit sooner didn't have to wait 50 years to be feted.

RW is term cosy patronising? Yes says DR.

AC is fondly remembered as bridge gap between child and adult reading.

MW suggests that cosy has mutated into forensic novel? eg Patricia Cornwell doesn't look at psychology behind it, less cake and more blood.

NU: best novels put character forefront.

DR would put P D James into GA. He hates violence and serial killers in modern stuff. Detective who is alcoholic, chip on shoulder and close family is investigated and they go and investigate - "word for it, self-indulgent comes to mind".

MW mentions Knox's The Decalogue, the ten rules for crime fiction reads out many of them eg must not include a Chinaman.

SN love writing from villain(s) pov, if couldn't write from that then couldn't write at all.

DR asks do you identify with killer? SN says evil doesn't know its own reflection. In their mind are doing the right thing. NU loves to write murder's pov as well. People like you and me not evil. Doesn't see self as writing GA novels as writing with modern sensibility re sex, violence set in the past. MW every one is a hero in their own story.

DR greatest proponent of this is Patricia Highsmith with Ripley - a modern GA writer, little violence but MW disagrees. There is violence but not modern torture.

RW re Thomas Harris - M Mann version of Lecter was evil, Anthony Hopkins version is a vaudeville character but more popular.

What have we gained/lost from GA?

SN it established a framework. Variety crime fiction can take. (leading onto phrase) transcends the genre - MW "twatish phrase that is!"

NU books we can enjoy, in bucket-loads. People return to Tey

DR more than just taking a sweetie - put aside Henry James and pick up Aggie with a guilty sigh.

Question from the audience:
Why do people keep creating defective humans?

MW - people like to read about damaged people and so feel better about self.

SN - deals with phsical rather than emotional damage in new book.

MW - happy is hard to write about. SN - Brian McGilloway does it well

DR - write about decent people not necessarily happy

NU  - most damaged person she's written about- Alfred Hitchcock. Day to day morality for Tey and DLS - they didn't always write abut murder

SH - defective detective - can work if genius eg Sherlock Holmes.

DR - loves P James books but wishes Grace would "only find his bloody wife" and then he could relax.

MW: any good novel should make you laugh/cry/think.

First GA was female, English writers and second one influenced by Americans.

Chandler and Wodehouse in same class at Dulwich. Imagine Marlowe & Wooster together!

Flapper sleuths = pretty covers

This gorgeous cover for the paperback of Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder caught my eye. Shame I've already read it. This is the first in the proposed series starring Josephine Tey and was reviewed on Euro Crime, here and here. The paperback is out in February. Though AEIM is set in the 1930s, the following series are set (or at least begin) in the 1920s:

Carola Dunn's Black Ship is out any day and is the 17th of the Daisy Dalrymple books.

Australian Kerry Greenwood has finally got a UK publisher (Orion) for her Honourable Phyrne Fisher series which saves me from importing them any more. Murder in the Dark is the 16th in the series and was published earlier this month (in the UK).

The Winter Ground is the fourth in the Dandy Gilver (society sleuth) series by Catriona McPherson and is due out next month. (Cover shown is from January's paperback edition.)

New Reviews: Camilleri, Conway, Larsson, Schenkel, Upson and White

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the new competition (which is open to all):

Latest Reviews:

Euro Crime's Camilleri expert, Norman Price, strikes again as he reviews the latest Montalbano novel - The Paper Moon - which he says is "another little gem";

Geoff Jones reviews the new title from Peter Conway, Deadly Obsession - the latest of his books to contain the theme of "incest and corporal punishment";

Maxine Clarke reviews the paperback edition of The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson calling it a "rich story" with a slightly unsatisfying ending;

Maxine reviews a short but not sweet offering from Quercus in the shape of Andrea Maria Schenkel's The Murder Farm, a fictionalised version of the real-life murder of a whole family;

I review Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder where Josephine Tey enters the real world of murder in London's West End

and Amanda Gillies calls Fallen Idols by Neil White "a masterpiece".


Current Competition (closing date 30 June):

Win a copy of Death on a Branch Line by Andrew Martin*

* no restrictions on entrants

An Expert in Murder - on the radio

Wrote this last night and completely forgot to post it this morning before heading to the Big Smoke and the Ian Fleming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum...

Starting today, An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson, the first in a detective series starring Josephine Tey, is being serialised in ten parts, on Woman's Hour.

It's on at 10.45-11.00am or 7.45-8.00pm or use the 'listen again' feature (for seven days from broadcast).

Read the Euro Crime review of An Expert in Murder.

Enter the competition to win a copy.

Hat tip to Alison in Liverpool.

New Reviews

Here are this week's new reviews and a reminder of March's competition:

Latest Reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews John Harvey's return to his Resnick character, in Cold in Hand, writing, "this is going to be one of the very best novels I read this year";

I review Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski which introduces Criminal Inspector Eberhard Mock, a most unusual policeman;

Declan Burke reviews Sean Moncrieff's The History of Things calling it "a fascinating tale rooted in criminality";

Terry Halligan heaps praise on Deanna Raybourn's Silent in the Grave, the first in a Victorian series starring Lady Julia Grey and Nicholas Brisbane

and Maxine reviews a fictionalised Josephine Tey's first foray into detection in Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder.

Current Competition (closing date 31 March):

Win a copy of A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley (UK & Europe only)

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

Detective Josephine Tey

Here's more about Nicola Upson's detective novel 'starring' Josephine Tey which is expected in March from Faber:

An Expert in Murder is the first in a new series which features Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey as its lead character, placing her in the richly-peopled world of 1930s theatre which formed the other half of her writing life, and using real events as the basis for an original murder mystery.

It’s March, 1934, and Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. The play has been the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes which strike a chord in a world still haunted by war, but a seemingly senseless murder – which takes place as soon as Josephine arrives in London and which Detective Inspector Archie Penrose feels sure is connected to her work – puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat.

A second killing confirms Penrose’s suspicions that somewhere amongst this flamboyant theatre set is a ruthless and spiteful murderer. As his investigations lead him from the romance of the West End to the stark reality of the trenches, he must confront his own ghosts in a search for someone who will kill and kill again to right the wrongs of a past generation.

Cleverly blending fact and fiction, An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and an atmospheric detective novel in its own right.

Meet Josephine Tey, amateur sleuth

From Publishing News:

London theatreland in the 1930s is the setting for a new series of detective novels by Nicola Upson, who has worked in theatre management and been crime fiction reviewer for the New Statesman. Faber's Walter Donohue clinched a two-book deal for UK/ Commonwealth rights from Karolina Sutton at ICM. An Expert in Murder features real-life playwright Josephine Tey, who divided her time between Scotland and the West End, enjoying extraordinary success and launching the career of John Gielgud, among others. Already, P D James is a fan, and Donohue believes the novel is “an exhilarating read and a remarkably authentic tribute to the golden age of British crime fiction”.