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Friday's "Forgotten" Books: A Different Kind of Summer

Gwendoline Butler (1922-2013) had limited success as a writer before she began a police procedural series featuring a young Scotland Yard Inspector, John Coffin, penning eight Coffin novels between 1956 and 1962. When Butler's husband took a job teaching in St. Andrews, Scotland, the author decided she wanted a change from Coffin and found her inspiration one day when she saw a young red-haired Scottish policewoman. She later asked the local police chief about the young officer and was told she was a recent graduate on a rapid promotion track. Thus was born the character of Detective Charmian Daniels of the fictional Deerham Hill CID and, as some have given credit to the author (written under her pen name of Jennie Melville), the birth also of the woman's police procedural.

Melville also dipped her pen into the romantic suspense well for a time, evening receiving a Romantic Novelists Association Major Award in 1981, but eventually returned to both Inspector Coffin and Detective Daniels. She went on to write over 70 novels and was a recipient of the Crime Writers Association Silver Dagger in 1973 and shortlisted for the Golden Dagger for another novel.

One critic elevated Melville/Butler to a status equal to the Four Great Founding Mothers: Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh, not only due to their writing, but in light of how many other elements they had in common: all well-educated (Butler lectured at Oxford), all prolific writers, all wrote on subjects other than detective fiction, and four of the group had supportive husbands. If she is not as well remembered as the others, it may be due to the fact that writers who she helped paved the way for, such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, eventually eclipsed her in acclaim.

Melville's writing of her female detective, Charmian Daniels, shows elements of early feminism, and as the character grew through the years, Detective Daniels also reflected the changing roles of women and attitudes toward them, particularly in a traditional man's field, law enforcement. Daniels grows in her career through time and is eventually promoted to Chief Superintendent with a move to Windsor. In an interview with Clues: A Journal of Detection in 2000, Butler said, "I was determined she [Daniels] should be a success and I suppose in a sense I was basing her on what would have happened to me if I'd remained in academic life when on the whole in my day, even more so now, women do climb the ladder. I was in the generation that was expecting to be successful as a woman in whatever field they ventured."  

In Melville's A Different Kind of Summer, dating from 1967, the fifth outing for Detective Daniels, Daniels is still a sergeant when an unidentified body arrives on a train into town in a coffin minus head or hands. It's up to Daniels to figure out which of many missing women this could be, including an increasing number of young girls vanishing in London. As she gets deeper into the case, she tries to stay objective and focused even as she starts receiving menacing phone calls and has to deal with a new young assistant, Christine Quinn, and a hysterical troublemaker who claims she's lost her sister.

There's been a lot of hue and cry lately about the amount of violence against women in crime fiction novels, and a mutilated female corpse would fall into that category, but in a commentary included in the original publication of A Different Kind of Summer, Melville said that she was interested in people committing crimes and why some people, usually women, form the victim syndrome in that the bad guys sense these victims are afraid (a reason why policewomen acting as decoys often fail to lure attackers, because their sense of confidence is too obvious).

Melville has a low-key writing style, blending social commentary with quirky characters, detailed plotting, and thoughtful writing for the most part, although in general, it's her novels with Inspector John Coffin where she's had her greatest success. One wonders if writing from a woman's point of view was too close to home to provide the inspirational distance required or if perhaps the fact the author's brother was Warden of the Toynbee Settlement in London gave her more of a first-hand experience with male protagonists. In either case, with Melvill's Daniels or Butler's Coffin, there's a lot of good material there, enough to show that grouping her with the "Four Great Founding Mothers" isn't that much of a stretch. If you're a fan of the "Golden Age" of detective fiction, then you'll enjoy these series.

Mystery Melange

Libby, the leading library reading app, unveiled the winners of the third annual Libby Book Awards. Celebrating the best in digital reading, the awards recognize outstanding ebooks and audiobooks across a variety of genres, highlighting the most compelling, thought-provoking, and widely loved titles of the year. Titles are selected by Libby's on-staff librarians, and the finalists and winners are voted on by public libraries across North America. The Best Mystery nod went to The Librarians by Sherry Thomas, with the runner-up being Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman. Liann Zhang's Julie Chan Is Dead snagged the Best Thriller award, with runner-up honors going to The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. 

The latest recipient of the Dove Award is Stewart King, associate professor of European languages at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), a specialist in Spanish and Catalan crime fiction who has edited or co-edited six books, as well as serving as co-editor of the journal Crime Fiction Studies.The Dove Award, established in 1986 and named after George N. Dove, past President of the Popular Culture Association and author of numerous articles and books on detective fiction, is presented each year by the PCA Mystery and Detective Fiction Area for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery/detective/crime fiction. Previous winners include Barry Forshaw, Martin Edwards, Janet Rudolph, P.D. James, H.R.F. Keating, Julian Symons, and more. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Sisters in Crime has two upcoming online sessions via Zoom for members and the general public. The first, on March 15th, is titled "Why You Should Write Short Stories," with Ashley-Ruth Bernier, Barb Goffman, and P.M. Raymond, where attendees will learn how writing short stories can help them develop their craft as well as their career. The second, on March 17th, covers "Business of Writing: Indie Publishing," a panel discussion with three successful indie published authors who will explore the business side of indie publishing, covering topics such as finding copyeditors and cover artists, promotional schedules, direct sales, working with libraries and booksellers and more. The sessions are free for SinC members and $15 for the nonmembers.

This coming Monday, March 16, there will be a Noir at the Bar event in Kittery, Maine at The Dance Hall, 7 Walker St, with doors opening at 6pm. Literally Kittery bookstore is co-sponsoring and will provide books for signing. Authors scheduled to appear include:  Allison Keeton, Brenda Buchanan, Carolyn Wilkins, Gabriela Stiteler, Gregory Bastianelli, John Nardizzi, Matt Cost, Rebecca Turkewitz, Sarah Lamagna, and Zakariah Johnson. Drinks (wine and beer) will be available for purchase, and there will be complimentary snacks to keep you fortified between frights. Tickets are $10.


About 10,000 writers published an "empty" book in protest over AI using their work without permission or compensation. Titled Don’t Steal This Book, the only content is a list of their names. Copies of the work are being distributed to attenders at the London book fair on Tuesday, a week before the UK government is due to issue an assessment on the economic cost of proposed changes in copyright law. Several crime fiction authors have contributed to the copyright protest, including Slow Horses author, Mick Herron, and Richard Osman (of the Thursday Murder Club series). Publishers will also launch an AI licensing initiative at the London book fair.


Writing for the Promoting Crime Fiction blog, Lea O'Harra profiled Japanese crime fiction, which has  been enjoying a renaissance of late, even then only a tiny percentage have been translated into English. The American-born O'Harra did her postgraduate work in Britain and then worked full-time for thirty-six years at a Japanese university. She notes that the detective novel or, in Japanese, Tantei Shosetsu, is one of the most popular literary genres in Japan and one of the oldest, and offers up a brief history of the genre in that country.


Lisa Under gathered a panel of crime fiction authors for Crime Reads to discuss "The Greatest Dangerous Female Characters in Literature." In addition to her own picks, Unger snagged input from Megan Abbott, Ace Atkins, May Cobb, Laura Lippman, Kate White, Heather Gundenkauf, Alafair Burke, and Ruth Ware.


In the Q&A roundup, Isabel Booth, the pen name of Karen Jewell, a former trial attorney and now a writer, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Then He Was Gone; on Promoting Crime Fiction, Dot Marshall-Gent was in conversation with Carol Westron about her writing career, her Galmouth Mystery series, and more; and Writer Interviews chatted with Lyla Lane about her new mystery, The Best Little Motel in Texas.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
 
Jason Clarke (A House of Dynamite) has signed a deal to join Viola Davis in Ally Clark, a new thriller coming together at Amazon MGM Studios, although no details were released regarding the role to be played by Clarke. The project is written by Jose Ruisanchez and Irwin Winkler, with Phillip Noyce on board to direct. The plot description per Deadline:  "Ally Clark takes us from the towering skyscrapers of New York City to the sweltering bayous of Louisiana and the icy peaks of Alaska, following investigator Ally Clark (Davis) as she embarks on a perilous inquiry into an international conglomerate following the suspicious death of a close friend."


TELEVISION/STREAMING

After a bidding war, See-Saw Films (Slow Horses) has landed the rights to adapt the Lovejoy detective novels for TV, which were made into a popular BBC series in the late 1980s and early 1990s starring Ian McShane. Set in East Anglia, Lovejoy is about a charismatic antiques dealer with an almost mystical knack for spotting genuine artifacts and scams. He frequently pivots from dealer to detective, outmaneuvering rivals, criminals, and occasionally the police. Published under the nom de plume Jonathan Gash, Lovejoy is a set of 24 books from Dr. John Grant, published between 1977 and 2008. See-Saw wants to create a "contemporary reimagining of the Lovejoy novels that will strip away the nostalgia of the 1980s adaptation and return to the unrulier spirit of the books."


The BBC reported that a series of cozy crime books by Glenda Young set in Scarborough are being developed for television. Inspired by the author's childhood holidays on the North Yorkshire coast, the four-book series follows the escapades of a bed and breakfast landlady-turned-amateur-sleuth solving quirky murders.


AMC is developing The New Gothic from One Tree Hill star Hilarie Burton Morgan. Burton Morgan is writing the series with her frequent collaborator, Nick Gray, and is producing through her Mischief Farm banner, which she set up with her husband, The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Per its logline, The New Gothic redefines the legendary storytelling of the American South as it follows the collision of the enterprising Bloom family with the resurrected Mississippi Mafia. "Set in a landscape stained by red clay and bad blood, villainy is commonplace—but power is singular."


Molly Griggs (The Residence) has been tapped to star opposite Damon Wayans Jr. in the NBC drama pilot, Puzzled, from writer Joey Falco and Universal Television. Based on the Danielle Trussoni novel, The Puzzle Master, the drama follows once-promising college athlete Mike Brink (Wayans), who is transformed by a traumatic brain injury that gives him the unique ability to see the world in an unexpected way and helps him solve crimes with local police. Griggs will play Quinn Abbott, a tightly wound Atlanta PD detective. The smartest kid in class, she always knows the answer and isn’t afraid to correct you when you’re wrong. In addition to Wayans Jr., Griggs joins previously cast series regular Christina Elmore who plays Angela, the head of Atlanta P.D.’s Major Crimes Section.


Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) will star opposite the previously announced Matthew Gray Gubler in CBS's Einstein. Fumero will play Teri, a Detective Inspector for the New Jersey State Police. Rosa Salazar was originally cast in the role but wanted out of her option after the network decided to delay the series until the 2026-27 season. Einstein follows Lewis Einstein (Gubler), the brilliant but directionless great-grandson of Albert Einstein. He spends his days as a comfortably tenured professor until his bad-boy antics land him in trouble with the law, and he is pressed into service helping a local police detective (Fumero) solve her most puzzling cases. Lewis is a popular professor at Princeton … when he actually shows up for class. Irreverent and misguided, his genius and famous name weigh heavily on him, but using his gift to help solve homicides may finally offer his life some direction and purpose.


Jon Beavers (One Battle After Another) has been set to star opposite Emily Deschanel in the untitled one-hour crime drama written by Dean Georgaris and John Fox.  The project is inspired by the work of expert profiler and author Dr. Ann Burgess, subject of the 2024 Hulu docuseries Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer. It follows Professor Georgia Ryan (Deschanel), a trailblazing psychologist who challenges the field of criminology by shifting the investigative focus to the victim rather than just the perpetrator in order to uncover the crucial clues that more traditional methods leave behind. Alongside her team, this pioneering expert consults with the FBI to solve the most baffling and elusive cases. Beavers will play Will Andover, who was the top profiler in his class at Quantico, but then he had a fall from grace. Now at a crossroads in his career, he desperately needs a win.


Netflix has ordered a fourth season of the political action thriller, The Night Agent, starring Gabriel Basso, which will shoot in Los Angeles after two seasons in New York following the Canada-based first installment. In Season 3, Night Agent Peter Sutherland (Basso) is called in to track down a young Treasury Agent who fled to Istanbul with sensitive government intel after killing his boss. This kicks off a sequence of events where Peter, working with a relentless journalist (Genesis Rodriguez), investigates a dark money network while avoiding its paid assassins. Season 3 was the first without Luciane Buchanan as female lead, Rose, opposite Basso’s Peter.


High Potential is returning to ABC for a third season with a new showrunner following the exit of Todd Harthan, who is leaving to focus on Eragon, the live-action adaptation of Christopher Paolini’s YA The Inheritance Cycle book series. High Potential stars Kaitlin Olson as Morgan, a single mother with an IQ of 160 working as a cleaning lady at the Los Angeles Police Department who becomes a consultant for the LAPD’s Major Crimes division. The cast also features Daniel Sunjata as Karadec, Javicia Leslie as Daphne, Deniz Akdeniz as Lev “Oz” Ozdil, Amirah J as Ava, Matthew Lamb as Elliot, and Judy Reyes as Selena. The show is currently in the back half of its second season with the Major Crimes unit investigating a complicated murder and Morgan dealing with her kids growing up.


MASTERPIECE on PBS has announced that Miss Scarlet will conclude its run with Season 7. The series stars Kate Phillips (Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light), Tom Durant-Pritchard (The Forsytes), and returning cast members Paul Bazely, Tim Chipping, Evan McCabe, Felix Scott, Cordelia Bugeja, and Ansu Kabia. Filming has started for six episodes to wrap up the story of Eliza Scarlet, Victorian London’s first female private detective. Inspired by her father’s work as a private eye, Eliza (Phillips) has spent the last six seasons breaking the glass ceiling while solving countless mysteries. She hasn’t done it alone though – within Scotland Yard, she was first aided by her childhood friend William “The Duke” Wellington (Stuart Martin), then by police Inspector and love interest Alexander Blake (Durant-Pritchard). Colleagues Moses (Ansu Kabia) and Clarence (Paul Bazely) have backed her up on case after case, and Ivy (Cathy Belton) has been a mainstay of support at home.

PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

On Spybrary, Tim Shipman sat down with thriller author, James Wolff, who worked as a British intelligence officer for over ten years, to unpack his latest spy novel, Spies and Other Gods.


Dana Stabenow joined the Poisoned Pen podcast to discuss her latest novel, Harvey Girl.


Debbi Mack's latest guest on the Crime Cafe podcast was Joy Ann Ribar, author of the Deep Lakes and Bay Browning mystery series.


On Wrong Place, Write Crime, host Frank Zafiro spoke with Dan Bronson about his Jack Shannon series, including the new release, Shout at the Devil, and some great Hollywood stories.


House of Mystery chatted with Robyn Harding (The Drowning Woman), about her latest novel, Stranger in the Villa, a psychological thriller about a couple rocked by infidelity who move to a villa in Spain’s Costa Brava to rebuild their relationship, only to welcome a pair of visitors who have no intention of leaving. 

Sunday Music Treat

Sadly, we lost musician Keith Emerson ten years ago this month when the founder/keyboardist of Emerson Lake and Palmer took his own life after a series of illnesses and depression. Most fans know of Emerson for his work with the ELP band, but did you also know he had a classical bent? Including composing a piano concerto that he recorded in 1974 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Critical reception was mixed, but the third movement is fun and exuberant. Here's a performance with Jeffrey Biegel as the piano soloist:

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: First Cases

Before they were stars, everyone's favorite literary private eyes had to start somewhere. Many jumped to life fully-formed in novels, but others began their lives in short stories. Robert Randisi, a lifelong champion of P.I. fiction and founder of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) in addition to being an author himself, put together a collection of First Cases: First Appearances of Classic Private Eyes in 1996. Fortunately, that volume was successful enough that Randisi was able to compile three additional collections, the last in 2002.

The 1996 volume (and the one that started it all) includes stories in which now-beloved protagonists first saw the light of day, such as Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective in "It’s  a Lousy World," first published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in 1968; Joe Gores's Dan Kearny and company in "File #1: The Mayfield Case," printed in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1968 (a banner year, it seems); Linda Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle in "Lucky Penny," published in New Black Mask in 1986; and Robert Randisi's own ex-boxer Miles Jacoby in "The Steinway Collection," first published in Mystery Monthly in 1977.

Other entries are the first short story appearances of detectives who had already made a splash in a novel, such as Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder in "Out of the Window,"  Sara Paretsky' V.I. Warshawski  in "The Takamoku Joseki," and Max Allan Collins's Nathan Heller in "The Strawberry Teardrop," all three of which were published just barely one year after each character’s debut novel.

Most of these authors and their detectives went on to win major awards, including several Shamus nods—awards Randisi initiated as part of the PWA. In this book and the following volumes, the stories and characters include hard-boiled and soft-boiled, covering a range of settings (Block's Manhattan, Jeremiah Healy's Boston, Gores's San Francisco), but the most interesting aspect, as Randisi says, "It's interesting to go back and read an early story about a series character. In some cases the character you meet is very different from the character as he or she appears in later stories." In some cases, these include a switch of POVs from third to first, or major life changes as with Block's pre-AA Scudder who still drinks bourbon with his coffee.

These collections should be both inspiration and caveat to contemporary writers of crime fiction short stories. If you're fortunate enough to produce a long-lived private eye series after having auditioned the character first in the short format, you might just wind up in a future Randisi anthology. So make it good and make it count.