POWDER SMOKE . . . Between the covers

I absolutely adored Andrew Martin’s Jim Stringer novels from the word go. The Necropolis Railway was set around the actual railway line near Waterloo that took hearse carriages containing the coffins that would be buried in the relatively new Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, and introduced Jim Stringer, a young railwayman who would join the Railway police, and solve many mysteries, including novels set during Jim’s wartime experience on The Somme, Mesopotamia, and post-war India.

Now, we are in 1925, and Jim is a Detective Inspector based in York. The story is based on a strange encounter Jim had at the York Summer Gala in the summer of that year. He meets his boss, who insists they go and watch one of the attractions – a Wild West Show. They see the usual antics – a fake Red Indian, a ‘gunslinger’ who throws knives at his provocatively dressed female partner, then shoots clay pipes out of her mouth. Both the woman, the Red Indian and the cowboy are about as American as Yorkshire Pudding, but in the audience is a genuine American (who acts as a stooge for the performers, and a celebrated couple in the entertainment business, celebrated film star Cynthia Lorne and her producer husband, Tom Brooks.

The gunslinger, Jack ‘ Kid’ Durrant, is not only good with guns, but has ambitions to writer cowboy novels, rather after the celebrated author of Riders of The Purple Sage, Zane Grey (1872 – 1939) Not only that, the relationship between Lorne, Brooks and himself is, as they say, interesting. When Lorne is found dead, with Brooks and Durrant both missing, it is assumed that Durrant is the killer. Although it is not strictly a matter for the Railway Police, Jim feels personally involved, and visits the place where the three were last seen – the grounds of Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale. This allows Andrew Martin (left) to introduce us to what is known as one of the most dangerous rivers in Europe, The Strid. This natural phenomenon sees the River Wharfe forced through a narrow ravine, just a few feet wide. It has been described as the river ‘running sideways’, rather like a twisted ribbon and is believed to be prodigiously deep. No-one goes into it and ever comes out alive.

The best series are enlivened by recurring subsidiary characters, and one has been ever present in the Jim Stringer novels, in the shape of his wife Lydia. We met her when she was young Jim’s landlady in the first novel. Although understandably distant when Jim was on military duties in France, Mesopotamia and India, she has remained by his side. I am not sure how Martin does it but, without being in the least explicit, he makes her quite the most alluring copper’s wife in detective fiction, and their courtship in The Necropolis Railway was – and you’ll have to read the book to understand the contradiction – chastely erotic.

Central to the appeal is, of course, the heartbreaking descriptions of a railway that we once had, but threw away in various acts of criminal negligence and wrong-headedness. The magnificent smoke and almost animal fury of the engines, the cathedrals that were the stations, the legions of uniformed officials, and the fact that in 1925 you could take a train from almost anywhere to somewhere else with minimal discomfort. All now gone and, in the words of the hymn;

“They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”

Jim, of course, tries to get to the bottom of of the mystery, party because – in spite of his devotion to Lydia – he was slightly smitten by the deceased movie star. The melancholy denouement involves a London and North Eastern Railway locomotive,and a definite sense of closure – if not satisfaction – for our man. In one sense, none of this matters, as our total engagement with the pubs, hotels, railway world, social quirks of the 1920s, and the lingering legacy of The Great War has given us that comfortable sensation we feel after feeling sated after a delicious meal. Powder Smoke is published by Corsair and is available now.

July 31, 2025 0

ONE MAN DOWN . . . Between the covers

Crime fiction and comedy can sometimes make strange bedfellows, but in the right hands it can be beguiling. Back in time, The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill shared the same kind of subtle social comedy employed by George and Weedon Grossmith, while the Bryant and May novels by the late Christopher Fowler were full of excellent gags. So, how does One Man Down by Alex Pearl measure up?

For starters, this has to be tagged as historical crime fiction, as it is set in a 1984 London, in the strange (to me) world of advertising copywriters and their attempts to secure contracts to sell various products. It may only be forty years ago, but we are in the world of Filofaxes, Psion personal organisers and IBM golfball typewriters. The main thread of the plot involves two lads who are connoisseurs of the catch phrase and sorcerers of the strap-line. Brian and Angus become involved in a complex affair which includes a depressive photographer who is arrested for exposing himself to an elderly former GP on the seafront at Margate, and the attempt to blackmail a gay vicar. Incidentally, the Margate reference is interesting because in recent times the seaside town has been somewhat rehabilitated thanks to the patronage of Tracey Emin, but at the time when the book is set, it was certainly a very seedy place. Along with other decaying resorts like Deal, this part of the Kent coast was prominently featured in David Seabrook’s All The Devils Are Here.

When Brian and Angus find the photographer – Ben Bartlett – involved in blackmailing the vicar, dead in his studio, things take a macabre turn. This thread runs parallel to events that have a distinctly Evelyn Waugh flavour. The two ad-men are speculating about just how dire some of the industry’s efforts are, and Angus takes just four and a half minutes to dash off a spoof commercial for a chocolate bar campaign they know the agency has been booked to handle. Angus makes it as dreadful as he can. The pair go out for a drink, leaving the parody on the desk, forgetting they were due to meet one of the firm’s top men to talk about the real campaign. Annoyed to find them absent, the manager finds the sheet of A4, thinks it wonderful, and promptly takes it to the Cadbury top brass, who share his enthusiasm.

Alex Pearl (left) isn’t a reluctant name-dropper, and walk on parts for Julian Clary and Kenneth Clarke (in Ronnie Scott’s, naturally) set the period tone nicely. 1984 was certainly a memorable year. I remember driving through the August night to be at my dying dad’s bedside, and hearing on the radio that Richard Burton had died. Just a few weeks earlier we had been blown away by Farrokh Bulsara at Wembley, while Clive Lloyd and his men were doing something rather similar to the English cricket team.

Back to One Man Down. All’s well that ends well, and we have another murder, but one that saves the career and reputation of the blackmailed vicar. This is not a long book – just 183 pages – but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a sucker for anything that mentions cricket, and here the story more or less begins and ends on the cricket pitch. The solution to the murder(s) is elegant and subtle. The book is published by Roundfire Books and is available now.

July 30, 2025 0

THE DAY I LOST YOU . . . Between the covers

This is one of those books, and I use the italics advisedly. The basic story that we are led to believe is that a married couple called Hope and Drew have entered into surrogacy arrangement with a woman called Lauren. Presumably, this involved Lauren’s ova and Drew’s sperm, and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, the two combined in Hope’s womb, and she gave birth to a boy called Sam. Again I use ‘presumably’, because the bulk of the book comprises first person narratives from the three main characters, and we have no way of knowing if they are reliable accounts or not.

The book begins in the present day, and Lauren, having taken Sam from Hope and Drew, is living in a remote fishing village in Spain. Meanwhile, an Interpol warrant has been served on her and she is visited by the Spanish police. Sam is packed off with Lauren’s new boyfriend to stay with his relatives, and Lauren returns to Britain to face the music. So far, so straightforward.

Then the narrative goes into recall/split time frame mode, full of ‘two years earlier’ and ‘six weeks later’ chapter headings. Personally, from an enjoyment point of view, I hate this device, but so many authors seem to use it, so it was a case of ‘grimace and bear it’. It’s almost certainly just a personal thing. Different first person narratives are one thing, and I can think of no better example in literature than William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, but there, the time frame didn’t confuse things. It was simply different people observing events in their own way, and the narrators were witnessing the same events at the same time.

What follows next is a master class in deception from Ruth Mancini. She lures us into one false assumption after another, until we have Lauren, Hope and Drew in a virtual suspects’ line-up, leaving us to look into their eyes trying to decide who is lying and who is telling us the truth. The answer, when it finally comes, is a devilishly clever solution to what seems an impossible conundrum. The Day I Lost You is a very apt title, as it could be argued that it applies equally to the three main adult characters. Each has lost someone and so, in a way, this is three different tragedies woven into one powerful story. I suppose that there is a happy ending, of sorts, but Ruth Mancini shines a bright and revealing light into the lives of women who long to have children, and how they suffer when fate – and biology- seem to conspire against them. This book will be published by Century on 31st July.

I have a mint copy up for grabs in a prize draw, and entry is simple. Follow me on X at @MaliceAfore (I will reciprocate), then DM me the code printed below. You will then be in the digital hat, and I will draw a winner at 10.00pm on Monday 4th August. UK addresses only.

46329

July 26, 2025 0

HOME BEFORE DARK … Between the covers

November 1967, Iceland. Fourteen year-old Marsi has a secret pen pal, a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister’s name. Now, she is excited to meet him for the first time. But when the date arrives, Marsi is prevented from going, and during the night, her sister, Stina, goes missing. Her bloodstained anorak is later found at the place where Marsi and her pen pal had agreed to meet. No trace of Stina, dead or alive, is ever found.

The narrative jumps backwards and forwards between 1967 and 1977, the 1967 voice being that of Stina and the 1977 voice belonging to Marsi. Marsi receives a letter purporting to be from her pen pal of ten years earlier and, when a Danish au pair is found dead by the roadside (apparently from exposure) another letter addressed to Marsi is found on the body.

If you wanted an archetypal Nordic Noir novel, this certainly ticks all the boxes. The unrelenting climate and landscape dominate everything; angst, suspicion, nightmares, neuroses and dark thoughts combine to make a vast umbrella which keeps out anything remotely humorous or optimistic. Marsi dreams:

“Not long afterwards, I drifted off to sleep. For once, I dreamt about Dad. Dreamed he came and sat on my bed, stroked my cheek and gazed at me with staring, deep-set eyes.But every time he opened his mouth to speak, I heard the croaking of a raven.”

One of the problems the reader may face as regards working out what is going on, is that Marsi is, to put it mildly, a rather disturbed young woman. Some might say that she is as mad as a box of frogs, but how reliable a narrator is she? Is her memory warped by trauma? I should remind readers that the book consists of two first person accounts of events, that of Marsi and that of Stina. This, of course, raises the technical dilemma of Stina’s account. Because she is telling us what is happening in the winter 0f 1967, are we to assume that she is still alive? It is not quite such a conundrum as that of Schrödinger’s Cat but, outside the realm of supernatural fiction, the dead cannot speak.

Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (left) gives us few clues as to the fate of Stina until a violent denouement finally reveals the truth, but before that happens we are drawn into the mystery of a reform school for girls thought to be wayward – think of an Icelandic version of the Magdalene Laundries – and, in particular the fate of one young woman suspected of having a ‘special relationship’ with an American soldier. There is certainly an air of perpetual darkness about this book, which has all the aspects of a particularly unpleasant nightmare from which, despite your having reached out and turned on the bedside lamp, and no matter how many times you blink or shake your head, you simply cannot wake up and leave behind. Home Before Dark was translated by Victoria Cribb and was published by Orenda Books on 17th July.

July 24, 2025 0

HORROR AT THE CORN METRE . . . A double tragedy

The year of 1926 was not a particularly momentous one for Wisbech.The canal was officially closed, the first cricket match was played on the Harecroft Road ground, and greyhound racing came to South Brink. For one Wisbech family, the year would bring a trauma that would haunt them for the rest of their lives

The Corn Metre Inn, like dozens of other pubs from Wisbech’s history, is long gone. It had two entrances, one more or less opposite Nixon’s woodyard on North End, and the other facing the river on West Parade. The name? A Corn Metre was a very important person, back in the day. He was basically a weights and measures inspector employed by markets and auctioneers to ensure that no-one was cheating the customers.

In 1926, the landlord of the Corn Metre was Francis William Noble. He was not a Wisbech man, having been born in Shoreditch, London in 1885. He had met and married his wife Edith Elizabeth (née Bradley) in nearby West Ham in 1907. Noble volunteered for service in The Great War, and survived. By 1910 the couple had moved to Wisbech.

The 1921 census tells us that the family was living at 73 Cannon Street, that Noble was a warehouseman for Balding and Mansell, printers, and that living in the house were Edith Violet Noble (12), Phyllis Eleanor Noble (9) and Francis William Noble (6). Another daughter, Margaret Doris was born in 1923, and by 1926 the family had moved in as tenants of The Corn Metre Inn. A local newspaper reported on the events of Tuesday 15th June:

What they saw was truly horrendous. Propped up on the bed was Mrs Noble, covered in blood with terrible wounds to the throat. But beside the bed was something far worse. In a cot was little Peggy Noble. And her head had been almost severed from her body. She was quite clearly dead. The police were fetched, and then a doctor. Mrs Noble was still alive, and was rushed to the North Cambs Hospital, where she died on the Wednesday Evening.

I suppose that the treatment and awareness of mental health issues has advanced since 1926. It must have, mustn’t it? I am reminded of the tragic murder/suicide In Wimblington in 1896 (details here) when a distraught mother killed herself and her four children. Sadly, there are cases today where mental health treatment is frequently misguided and inadequate. In 2023 Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane was a patient of the local mental health trust. He killed three people in a psychotic attack. There was talk, in 1926, that Edith was ‘unwell’ and that neighbours had been looking in on her. The last note written by Edith is chilling, and is clearly the work of a woman in distress. It was in some ways, however, crystal clear, and written by someone who was aware of the consequences of what she was about to do.

So many unanswered questions. So many things we will never know. Why did she think that Peggy was too young to survive with husband Francis and the other children? It is also revealing that she referred to the 8 year-old boy as ‘Son’, rather than his given name, Francis.

For reasons that can be imagined Francis Noble had had enough of Wisbech, because records show that in February 1928 he remarried, in Rochester His bride was a widow, Beatrice Emily Gadd. In July of that same year, Beatrice gave birth to a son, Peter Eddie. As the Americans say, ‘do the math”.

It is not for me, or any modern commentator to cast blame. Three things stand out, however. Firstly, the three surviving children left Wisbech as soon as they were able, and each appeared to have led perfectly ordinary lives in other parts of the country. Second, Francis Noble, within months of the terrible event at The Corn Metre had left the town, and impregnated another woman who, to be fair, he then married. Thirdly – and this part of the story will haunt me for a long time – poor little Margaret ‘Peggy’ Noble was so savagely cut with the razor that her spinal cord was severed. The coroner, in measured words, recorded that her body bore signs of a violent struggle. What kind of anger, despair and rage fuelled the assault on that little girl? And what was the cause?

July 23, 2025 0

CLASSICS REVISITED . . . Sleeping Dog

In 1985, Dick Lochte presented us with perhaps the most extraordinary detective pairing in the long history of the genre. Leo Bloodworth is an LA investigator, Korean war veteran in his 50s, overweight, unfit, and tends to come off second best in fights with the bad guys. Serendipity Renn Dahlquist is 14 years old, as smart as a tack but would probably be described as ‘on the spectrum’ in these ever-so-enlightened days. Her dad never made it back from Vietnam, her mum is, as they used to say, ‘no better than she ought to be’, and the girl lives with her grandmother, an actress in a long-running TV soap.

What brings them together? Bizarrely, it is because Sarah (for short) has a dog, a bulldog called Groucho. And he has gone missing. When she goes to the police, one of the officers jokingly refers her to Bloodworth. While he never formally agrees to take on the case, events force Leo and Sarah into a reluctant partnership. In one Chandleresque paragraph, Bloodworth describes the situation:

“I had a dead partner. I had a plastic faced knife artist. I had guys in suits tossing my office and my apartment looking for something called the Century List and talking about blackmail. I had an old lady who’d had a wall toppled on her. I also had a kid with a lost dog and her mother was mixed up in dog fights with some low life from the Mex Mafia.”

The plot spins this way and that, and draws in financial swindlers, the grim subculture of dog-fights, impersonations enabled through cosmetic surgery, and incompetent PIs. The core of the book, however, is the relationship between Bloodworth and Serendipty. It would have been as fraught with risks in 1985 to suggest any sense of sexual spark between the two as it would be now. However, on a couple of occasions, Lochte (left) flirts with danger. There were several subsequent novels featuring Leo and Serendipity, but I have not read them, so I am unable to report on how their relationship developed.

This novel, 40 years on, will not disappoint fans of LA investigator crime fiction. Of course, Lochte doesn’t hold a candle to Chandler, but then who did? I would nominate Robert B Parker as a contender, but then Spencer operated in Boston, so the milieu was altogether different.The plot spins this way and that, and draws in financial swindlers, the grim subculture of dog-fights, impersonations enabled through cosmetic surgery, and incompetent PIs. The core of the book, however, is the relationship between Bloodworth and Serendipty.

The story behind the initial search for Groucho is as complex as anything ever dreamed up by Chandler. At least we do not have to ask, “Who killed the chauffeur.?” In a rather contrived ending, Bloodworth, several tequilas to the good, explains it all away to his former cop partner, Rudy Cugat – and, of course, to us.

July 17, 2025 0

THE BETRAYAL OF THOMAS TRUE . . . Between the covers

Thomas True is the son of the Rector of Highgate. Now a sought after London suburb, in the early 18th century, at the time in which this novel is set, it was a country village. The young man has, for some years, been aware of his homosexuality and, unfortunately, so has his fire and brimstone father, who has done his best to beat out of his son what he sees as ‘the Devil’. Thomas has saved up his allowance and is determined to escape the misery.

Unknown to his parents, Thomas has been writing to his cousin Amelia in London, with a view to living with her and her parents. Within minutes of jumping down from the mail coach into the mire of a London street, he has been drawn into a world that is both breathlessly exciting and profoundly dangerous. The world of the molly houses in London was already well established, and would continue as a forbidden attraction well beyond the scandal of the Cleveland Street raid in 1889 in which Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor was implicated, although there has never been any conclusive evidence that he was a customer of this male brothel. A molly? There is a lengthy explanation here.

Thomas meets a young man called Jack Huffins who is quick to recognise the lad as a kindred spirit, and he introduces him to Mother Clap’s which is, I suppose, the eighteenth century equivalent of a gay nightclub. We also meet a significant figure in the story, a burly stonemason called Gabriel Griffin. Working on the recently completed St Paul’s cathedral is his day job, but by night he is the bouncer at Mother Clap”s. He is also a man in perpetual mourning, haunted by his wife and child who died together three years earlier.

Hovering in the background to the revelry at Mother Clap’s is The Society for the Reformation of Manners. They actually existed, as did Mother Clap’s. The Society was, collectively, a kind of Mary Whitehouse (remember her?) of the day, and they existed to root out what they saw as moral decay, particularly of a sexual nature. They were far more sinister than the Warwickshire-born Christian campaigner however, as back then, men convicted of sodomy, buggery and ‘unnatural behaviour’ could be – and often were – hanged. The Society has inserted ‘ a rat’ into Mother Clap’s community. Quite simply, he is paid by his masters to identify participants, and give their names to two particularly repugnant officers of The Society, Justice Grimp and Justice Myre (Grimpen Mire, anyone?) The main plot centres on the search for the identity of ‘the rat’.

At times, the picture that AJ West (his website is here) paints of London is as foetid, grotesque and full of nightmarish creatures as that seen when zooming in to a detail in one of Hieronymus Bosch’s apocalyptic paintings. West’s London is largely based on history, but there are moments, such as when Thomas and Gabriel are captured by a tribe of street urchins in their dazzlingly strange lair, that the reader slips off the real world and drifts somewhere else altogether.

What the author does well is to show up the anguish and insecurity of the men who feel compelled to posture and pose as mollies, in an attempt to nullify the boredom of their respectable family lives. The bond of love that develops between Thomas and Gabriel is genuine, and certainly more powerful than the silly nicknames and grotesque flouncing at Mother Clap’s. The book ends with heartbreak. Or does it? Given that Gabriel is susceptible to ghosts, he is perhaps not a reliable narrator, and AJ West’s last few paragraphs suggest that the Society has, like the President of the Immortals at the end of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, ended its sport with Thomas and Gabriel. This paperback edition is out today, 3rd July, from Orenda Books.