The novel that
introduces the likeable but fallible Inspector Alan Grant
The Arrow edition of The Man in the Queue
A man is
found with a stiletto in his back, having been stabbed to death while queueing
for the last night of a popular West End show. The main problems for Inspector
Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, who is deployed to investigate the killing, are the
lack of clues to the victim’s identity and the fact that no one in the queue seems
to have seen what happened.
The Man in
the Queue, the first detective novel by Josephine Tey, was published in 1929,
just eight years after Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at
Styles, and six years after Dorothy L Sayers published her first novel, Whose Body?
But unlike
Poirot and Wimsey, Alan Grant is a detective by profession and not an amateur
sleuth. The novel is an early version of a police procedural and shows Grant
interacting with his superiors and subordinates and making use of the forensic
tools the police had at their disposal in the 1920s to try to solve the case.
Josephine Tey
was a pseudonym used by the writer Elizabeth MacIntosh, who was born in 1896 in
Scotland. She trained as a Physical Training instructor and taught at schools
in Scotland and England. In 1923 she returned to her family home in Inverness to care for
her invalid mother and keep house for her father and it was then that she began
writing.
The Man in
the Queue was her first mystery novel and introduced her series detective,
Inspector Alan Grant. It was awarded the Dutton Mystery Prize after it was
published in America.
MacIntosh’s main
ambition was to write a play that would have a run in the West End and her
drama, Richard of Bordeaux, was such a success when it was first staged in 1932
that it was transferred to the New Theatre, now the Noel Coward Theatre, where
it had a year-long run and made a household name of its young leading man, John
Gielgud.
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacIntosh
As Josephine
Tey, MacIntosh produced six novels featuring Alan Grant. The fifth novel, The Daughter
of Time, published in 1951, was voted the greatest crime novel of all time by
the British Crime Writers Association in 1990.
There is a
lot to like about The Man in the Queue. There are beautiful descriptions of Tey’s
native Inverness, where she sends Grant in pursuit of a suspect. All the
characters, police and suspects alike, are interesting and believable. Grant is
a well-rounded policeman, not just a caricature, who is looked after by his
landlady, dines regularly at a French restaurant, and is popular with the
ladies, making me keen to read the next book in the series, A Shilling for Candles.
Perhaps the
most strikingthing about the novel is
the clever plot. Like other writers of the period, Tey is not afraid to show
Grant arresting the wrong man and feeling dissatisfied with his solution. She
also manages to keep the true identity of the murderer a secret right up to the
end.
The Man in
the Queue was republished by Arrow Books in 2011.
Remembering an early writer of the police procedural
The British Library Crime Classics edition
Bats in the Belfry, the 13th novel in the series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard by E C R Lorac, has a complex plot with the focus on the way detectives in the 1930s used standard police procedure to solve cases.
First published in 1937, the novel may seem rather dated in 2022, but it is fast moving and presents a challenging puzzle for the reader. It was reissued in 2018 by the British Library in their Crime Classics series and is now also available in large print.
Bats in the Belfry is the story of a failed novelist and his wife, a successful actress, who lead separate lives in their smart house in London. When the husband is called away suddenly to Paris, he seems to disappear completely. His suitcase and passport are later found in a sinister artist’s studio, the Belfry, in a dilapidated house in Notting Hill.
The novelist’s friends set out to investigate what has happened to him but find things at the Belfry are so sinister they decide to enlist the help of the police and Chief Inspector Macdonald, already an established series character, takes over the case.
By the time
Lorac wrote Bats in the Belfry, she was an experienced writer of whodunnits and
had developed the skill of being able to shift suspicion from one character to
another while keeping up the interest for the reader.
The opening
scene introduces most of the characters who will play a central part in the
story. They have gathered together following a funeral and before long the
conversation turns to the subject of how to dispose of a body. This conversation
contains a vital clue for those alert enough to spot and remember it…
E C R Lorac was the pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett, who died 64 years ago today. She wrote under the pseudonyms E C R Lorac, Carol Carnac and Mary Le Bourne during the Golden Age of Detective fiction.
Lorac
chose her pseudonym because it was the name Carol, which was part of her name,
spelt backwards. Her first detective novel, Murder on the Burrows, which
introduced Chief Inspector Macdonald, was published in 1931 when she was 37. She wrote 48 mysteries as E C R Lorac and 23 as Carol Carnac along with other novels, short stories and radio and stage plays, before her death in 1958.
Campion meets a flame-haired beauty who is a most unconventional heroine
A Vintage Books edition of Sweet Danger
There is the first sign of a love interest for the mysterious Albert Campion in Sweet Danger, the fifth novel written by Margery Allingham about her hero’s adventures.
Campion meets the plucky Amanda Fitton, a beautiful teenage girl, who works with him to thwart a deadly enemy intent on defrauding her family of its inheritance. The novel is full of action, danger and eccentric characters and ends with the most delicate of hints that there might be romance in the future for the noble adventurer, Campion.
Sweet Danger was first published in 1933 in the UK. However, it is not a typical novel of its time. Amanda Fitton is not a damsel in distress for Campion to rescue. She is a hard-up and not very well dressed 17-year-old, who is interested in experimenting with radio signals and electricity.
Campion has been tasked by the British Government with finding proof of ownership of Averna, a small, oil rich principality on the Adriatic, which has become a vital port after an earthquake has given it a natural harbour. He goes to the village of Pontisbright in the depths of the Sussex countryside, where he meets Amanda and her family who, as rightful heirs to the principality, insist on joining Campion’s quest.
Although Campion and his friends agree to join forces with the Fitton family, whose ancestors were given the principality way back in history, an unscrupulous financier and his hired thugs are also on the trail. The family suffer violent attacks and Campion’s friends are tied up in sacks and shot at, while Campion himself goes missing.
During a showdown with the main villain, Amanda saves Campion’s life, but she has been shot herself in the process. Thankfully, her wound is not life threatening and in the last pages of the book she asks him to take her into partnership in his business ‘later on’…
Allingham's writing was notable for her insight into character
In 2022, Sweet Danger might seem like a far-fetched story to modern crime fiction fans, but I think it is well written and a gripping page-turner and still worth reading.
Margery Allingham, who died on this day in 1966, was a prolific writer during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. She left a legacy of 18 Albert Campion mysteries, six volumes of short stories about the detective and many stand-alone novels, novellas and volumes of short stories.
Margery died of cancer in hospital in Colchester six weeks after her 62nd birthday. She was in the process of writing her last novel, Cargo of Eagles, and had mapped out the story long before her death. Her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, was able to finish it, as she herself would have done, following her plan.
In a preface to Mr Campion’s Clowns, an omnibus of novels by Margery Allingham, published in 1967, Youngman Carter paid tribute to his late wife as ‘a generous, kind and courageous woman with a rare gift for friendship’.
Margery showed wonderful insight into character and her books abound in witty and accurate observations of people. As she matured as a writer, her books became deeper and started to encompass significant themes, such as love and justice, good and evil, and illusion and truth. Her works have now attained classic status and she has, at times been compared with Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson
Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all Margery’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion.
The creator of academic sleuth Dr Priestley also invented Eric the Skull
Cecil Street, whose pen names included John Rhode
The writer known as John Rhode, who wrote 72 detective novels featuring the academic turned amateur detective, Dr Priestley, was born as Cecil John Charles Street 138 years ago today in Gibraltar.
Street also wrote 61 Desmond Merrion crime novels under the pseudonym Miles Burton and several detective stories under the pen name Cecil Waye.
He served as an artillery officer in the British Army and during World War I became a propagandist for MI7, rising to the rank of Major.
After the war, Street worked in both London and Dublin as an Information Officer during the Irish War of Independence.
Street produced his first detective novel, The Paddington Mystery, featuring Dr Priestley, under the pseudonym John Rhode in 1925. He then wrote at least one Dr Priestley novel a year, sometimes more.
Writing as Miles Burton, his Desmond Merrion novels began in 1930 and went on until 1960. He also wrote other non-series novels, short stories, radio plays, stage plays and non-fiction.
The Dr Priestley books are classics of scientific detection, with the elderly academic demonstrating how apparently impossible crimes have been carried out.
In The
Paddington Mystery, a young man, Harold Merefield, returns to his lodgings in
the early hours after visiting a night club to find the dead body of a man
lying on his bed. Although an inquest gives a verdict of death by natural
causes, Harold finds his reputation is tarnished as a result of all the
publicity and he is determined to solve the mystery to prove the death had
nothing to do with him.
The great Dorothy L Sayers, pictured with Eric the Skull
He turns to
an old friend of his father’s, Professor Lancelot Priestley, a mathematician, for
help. Dr Priestley is an armchair detective, who sometimes helps the police. He
solves mysteries through logical reasoning, guided by facts and facts alone,
not by flashes of intuition or guesswork. Some of the scenes, where Dr
Priestley, does most of the talking because he hates to be interrupted, seem long
and unexciting, but as he considers each fact on its merits and chooses to accept
it, or discard it, he takes the characters and the readers nearer and nearer to
the truth.
Dr Priestley
was an immediate success with the public and Street, as John Rhode, quickly produced
another six novels about his cases.
By 1930,
Street was no longer just a distinguished, retired army Major, he had written
25 books under various pseudonyms and he was still only 45 years old.
Street was a founding member of the prestigious Detection Club in 1930, where crime writers dined together regularly to discuss their craft. He edited Detection Medley, the first anthology of stories by members of the club and also contributed to the club’s first two round robin detective novels, The Floating Admiral and Ask a Policeman, along with other distinguished writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers.
Perhaps Street’s most important contribution to the club was Eric the Skull, which he wired up with lights so that the eye sockets glowed red during the initiation ceremony for new members. Eric is said to participate in the initiation rituals for new members to this day.
Cecil Street died at the age of 80 in 1964 in Eastbourne.
First
appearance by author turned sleuth Roger Sheringham
The paperback edition of The Layton Court Mystery
The Layton
Court Mystery, published in 1925, was the first detective novel by journalist
Anthony Berkeley Cox, who was to become one of the founding members of the
elite Detection Club.
His series
detective, Roger Sheringham, is one of the guests at acountry house party being held at a Jacobean
mansion called Layton Court. The character, who is an author, was to feature in another ten detective novels
and many short stories by Berkeley.
The party is being hosted by Victor Stanworth, a genial and hospitable man, aged
about 60, who has taken Layton Court for the summer to enable him to entertain
his friends in style.
At the start
of the book, Sheringham has been enjoying Stanworth’s generous hospitality for
three days until the party is given the grim news during breakfast that their
host appeared to have locked himself in the library and shot himself.
Sheringham
is not convinced that his host has committed suicide and sets out to
investigate the mystery himself, using his friend, Alec Grierson, who is also
in the party, as his ‘Watson’.
Anthony
Berkeley was just one of the pen names used by Anthony Berkeley Cox, who died
51 years ago today (9 March 1971). He also wrote novels under the names Francis
Iles and A. Monmouth Platts.
Anthony
Berkeley Cox helped found the Detection Club in 1930, along with Agatha
Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. It was to become an elite dining club for
British mystery writers, which met in London, under the presidency of G. K.
Chesterton. There was an initiation ritual and an oath had to be sworn by new
members promising not to rely on Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo
Jumbo, Jiggery Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God in their work.
Berkeley Cox wrote 19 crime novels before returning to journalism
In The
Layton Court Mystery, Sheringham does not conceal anything from his friend,
Alec Grierson, and therefore the reader has the same information to help them
solve the crime as the detective himself.
I found The
Layton Court Mystery unexciting and stilted at the beginning, but the writing improved
a lot as the book progressed.
I thought Roger
Sheringham had the potential to be a good character, although some of the rather
fatuous dialogue at the beginning reminded me of Lord Peter Wimsey at the
start of Whose Body?the first novel by
Dorothy L Sayers that he appeared in.
Sheringham
sometimes tells Grierson what detectives in books would do in particular
circumstances, showing that the character, like his creator Berkeley, is a
devotee of the genre.
The amateur
detective jumps to a few wrong conclusions along the way and
follows up each of his theories until he accepts that they are disproved. He
tells the other characters that he is asking questions because he has ‘natural
curiosity’, to cover up the fact he is interrogating people he doesn’t really
know, which was not considered good form at the time.
He sometimes
says he is looking for material for his next novel and one of the characters
actually says to him: ‘Everything’s “copy” to you, you mean?’
He also
finds clues, such as a footprint, a hair, a piece of a broken vase and a trace
of face powder, to help him work out what has taken place in the library.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case sold more than a million copies
Anthony
Berkeley Cox was born in Watford in 1893 and educated at Sherborne School and
University College, Oxford. After serving as an officer in the First World War,
he began writing for magazines, such as Punch and The Humorist.
He wrote 19
crime novels between 1925 and 1939 before returning to journalism and writing
for the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. From 1950 to 1970, the year
before he died, he contributed to the Manchester Guardian, later, the Guardian
newspaper.
Berkeley’s
amateur detective, Sheringham, had his most famous outing in The Poisoned
Chocolates Case, which was published in 1929. The novel received rapturous
reviews and sold more than one million copies. It is now regarded as a classic
of the Golden Age of detective fiction.
At times, The
Layton Court Mystery reminded me of Trent’s Last Caseby E C Bentley, published in 1913, which was
originally intended to be a skit on the detective story genre. Like Trent,
Sheringham doesn’t actually solve the case until the real murderer confesses to
him right at the end.
However, by
the end of The Layton Court Mystery, I had taken to Roger Sheringham and I now look
forward to reading the next book in the series.
The Layton
Court Mystery was first published in London by Herbert Jenkins in 1925 and in
New York by Doubleday, Doran and Company in 1929. It was republished by
Spitfire Publications Ltd in 2021.
How to avoid doing things that will postpone your literary success
Not having the ideal office chair should not stop you putting pen to paper
People talk
a lot about 'writer’s block' and how it can hold up a work in progress, but in my
experience a far more dangerous thing to watch out for is 'writer's delay'.
Not getting
on with writing is often called procrastination, but I don’t like that label as
it implies there is something deliberate about doing things to avoid writing,
such as stopping to tidy your office, or sharpening all your pencils, or going
on social media.
Many ‘How to
Write’ books start with advice about finding a finding a suitable place in your
house to write. Then there will be suggestions about what IT equipment you
should have installed and many paragraphs will be devoted to the importance of choosing
a comfortable chair.
I’m not
saying any of these things aren’t helpful, but I don’t think they should stop
you getting on with your writing if you already have some good ideas for a
novel or a short story.
My advice
would be to get your ideas on paper as quickly as possible. You can always type
them up later and then revise what you have written as many times as you need
to.
I recently
read a book about how to write a crime novel that had several pages at the
beginning dedicated to the importance of attending writers’ conferences, just
to make you feel more like a writer!
I think that
is a bad idea as it will just hold you up from starting to write. All you
really need in order to get going are some strong ideas and a notebook and pen
so that you can write the ideas down as soon as they occur to you. You should carry
the notebook with you everywhere and note the ideas as quickly as you can
while they are still fresh in your mind.
The other
thing you need to do is to decide what genre your proposed novel or story
belongs in and read some examples written by successful authors.
Make sure you carry a notebook and pen or pencil at all times
But you may
well be a regular reader of the genre already, as most writers tend to want to
write a book or short story of the sort they enjoy reading themselves. If you
are already familiar with the genre, you can get straight on with writing. The main thing
is to be clear about what type of fiction you are attempting to write before
you start.
It is
hopeless to try to write a detective novel, or a Regency romance, if you don’t ever
read that type of book. If you write the sort of book that you enjoy reading
yourself, you will already unconsciously have picked up the rules and
conventions of the genre and will have a feel for what is right and what isn’t,
as you write your own.
The plot of
a book never comes to you fully formed, but you will get ideas for characters
and settings as you go along and will need to make a note of everything that
occurs to you straight away.
It can all
be woven into a plot for a book with a beginning, middle and end and, hopefully,
a satisfying conclusion for the reader, later on.
I sometimes
get ideas for the novel I am currently working on as I am waking up in the
morning. If it is the weekend, it is tempting to turn over and go back to sleep,
and if it is a week day, you might be under time pressure to get up and start
your day. But if you can possibly spare a few minutes after you have woken up,
it is a good ideato write your ideas
down in your notebook before they are lost to you for ever.
Another
thing I find useful is a project book with coloured tabs separating the sections, so I can list in an organised way all the information about characters,setting, plot and themes that have occurred to
me randomly and been jotted down in my notebook.
Of course, it’s
nice to set up a smart, well-equipped writer’s office with a lovely,
comfortable chair to sit in, but it should not be at the expense of getting on
with your novel or short story.
It will
probably be obvious where you will find peace and quiet in your house to write
and you can make do with just the basic equipment and stationery you already
have, to begin with. If you later find your chair is uncomfortable, just swap it
with another one from somewhere else in your house.
Prolific and
successful writers, such as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, probably didn’t
waste a second thinking about their chairs, but just got on with writing all
those books.
You could take a leaf out of the great Andrea Camilleri's book and write a letter to yourself
If you do
suffer from writer’s block after you have started the first draft of your
novel, your project book, with its information about plot, setting, characters
and themes, should provide you with the inspiration you need to keep on writing.
Another
trick I have heard of is to just write anything you can think of on to the
blank page to get yourself going, even if it is a couple of lines of poetry, or
a paragraph of description that has no real connection with the story you are
working on.
You could
also take a tip from the great Italian crime writer, Andrea Camilleri, which I
once read about in one of his Inspector Montalbano novels, The Potter's Field. Montalbano has reached
deadlock in a case and can’t see any way forward, so he sits down and writes
himself a letter, taking himself to task for his obtuseness and what he feels
he has done wrong during his investigation.
You could
write to yourself along the same lines and say: ‘Dear author, What is the connection
between these two characters? Who has properties overlooking the field where
the body was found and has your detective been to see them all yet? What would your
protagonist usually do at this time of the day? How can you get him or her
further forward with what they are trying to achieve?’ Usually, the answers you
think of will help you get going with your story again.
But whatever
you do, don’t let trivial things delay you from starting to write in the first
place! You can wait until you have made some money from your first novel or
short story before you buy yourself a smart writer’s chair!
A detective
novelist who brilliantly describes backstage life
Ngaio Marsh, who
was one of the leading female detective novelists of her time, died on this day
– 18 February – in 1982 in her native New Zealand.
Ngaio began
writing detective novels in 1931 after moving to London to start up an interior
decorating business. Stuck in her
basement flat on a very wet Saturday afternoon she decided to have a go at
writing a detective story and came up with the idea for her sleuth, Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective.
Ngaio Marsh came to be seen as one of the Queens of Crime
She sat down
to write what was to be the first of a series of 32 crime novels featuring Alleyn,
who she named after an Elizabethan actor, Edward Alleyn. Her detective was to work
for the Metropolitan Police in London, even though he is the younger brother of
a baronet.
Her second
novel, Enter a Murderer, published in 1935, and several others, are set in the
world of the theatre, which Ngaio knew well as she was also an actress,
director and playwright at times during her life.
After leaving
school she had studied painting before joining a touring theatre company. She
became a member of an art association in New Zealand and continued to exhibit
her paintings with them from the 1920s onwards.
Ngaio allows her
detective, Alleyn, to meet and fall in love with an artist, Agatha Troy, in her 1938 novel, Artists in Crime.
She directed
many productions of Shakespeare’s plays in New Zealand and Australia and the
430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand is
named in her honour.
In her 1946
short story, I Can Find My Way Out, which features Alleyn, Ngaio once again
uses the theatre as her setting. A new playwright, Anthony Gill, is waiting
nervously for the premiere of his first play at The Jupiter Theatre in London.
The female
lead, Coralie Bourne, has been kind to him and advised him on his play, but the
male lead, Canning Cumberland, is known to have a drinking problem and can be
unpredictable, which worries Gill. Two of the other actors also resent Cumberland,
one because he was given the best part and the other because he was given the
best dressing room.
Meanwhile,
Roderick Alleyn and his now wife Troy are entertaining a friend, Lord Michael
Lamprey, for dinner. He is keen to join the police but his conversation with Alleyn
is constantly interrupted by phone calls that are actually meant for a delivery
firm. When one of the callers asks if they can deliver a suitcase to playwright Anthony Gill at the Jupiter Theatre, Lord Michael thinks it would be fun to
take the job as he has been unable to get a ticket to see the play.
Sophie Hannah's collection of stories is published by Apollo
Before he
reaches the theatre, the case falls open and he discovers a false ginger beard
and moustache, a black hat, a black overcoat with a fur collar and a pair of
black gloves.
On an impulse
Lord Michael puts the whole outfit on and insists on being allowed to deliver
the case in person to the playwright backstage.
As Coralie makes
one of her exits from the stage, she sees him standing in the wings wearing the
beard and black clothes and faints. The male lead, Cumberland, also reacts with
horror when he sees him and locks himself in his dressing room.
Lord Michael
continues to watch the play from the wings with fascination, although he becomes
increasingly aware of the smell of gas. Eventually, he traces the smell to one
of the dressing rooms, gains access and drags out the unconscious occupant, but
sadly it is too late to save him.
He rings
Alleyn and the detective arrives at the theatre with his men, where it does not
take him long to discover that one of the actors has been murdered.
In just 18
pages, Ngaio sets up the story, establishes the characters and their
relationships, brilliantly describes the dressing rooms, equipment and
atmosphere backstage, drawing on her experience of the theatre, and allows
Alleyn to solve the crime.
Along with
her fellow Queens of Crime, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L
Sayers, Ngaio was to dominate the genre of crime fiction from the 1930s onwards
with her novels, short stories and plays.
In 1948 Ngaio
was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in
connection with drama and literature in New Zealand. She became a Dame
Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts in the
1966 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Ngaio’s autobiography,
Black Beech and Honeydew was published in 1965. She was inducted into the
Detection Club in 1974 and received the Grand Master Award for lifetime
achievement as a detective novelist from the Mystery Writers of America.
Her 32nd and
final Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was completed only a few weeks before her
death. The story revolves around one of her greatest theatrical passions,
Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.
Ngaio died in
her home town of Christchurch and was buried at the Church of the Holy
Innocents, Mount Peel.
The Ngaio
Marsh Award is given annually to the writer of the best New Zealand mystery,
crime or thriller novel. Her home in Christchurch is now a museum and displays her
collection of antiques. On her desk lies her fountain pen filled with green ink,
which was her preferred writing tool.
Ngaio Marsh’s
32 Roderick Alleyn crime novels and her collections of short stories are available in a variety of
formats from or