CLASSIC CRIME
NINE LESSONS by Nicola Upson (Faber £12.99)
IT TAKES pluck for a crime writer to put an illustrious predecessor at the centre of her novels. But in choosing to invent an afterlife for real-life author Josephine Tey, one of the crime-writing golden age greats, Nicola Upson rises to the challenge.
Josephine is in Cambridge, house- sitting for her partner. In overlapping plots, a serial killer and a multiple rapist are on the loose.
Against her will, Josephine is embroiled in an investigation that leads to conflicts of loyalty and threatens old friendships.
Nine Lessons is not for the faint- hearted. Moments of horror make it hard to keep to the page.
But with its underlying theme of good intentions having tragic consequences, the story is strong enough to carry us through to a dramatic finale.
If Josephine Tey were alive, she would be the first to welcome a major talent.
TURN ON THE HEAT by Erle Stanley Gardner
(Hard Case Crime £7.99) KEEPING up with Erle Stanley Gardner is like trying to catch a high-speed train after it has left the station.
his plots whizz along at a pace that defies understanding of the finer points of the action. But this hardly matters when we are in the safe hands of private detectives Donald Lam (the brains) and Bertha Cool (the brawn). here, the indomitable duo take on a case of a missing wife, police corruption and blackmail, with a murder thrown in for good measure.
This is American pulp fiction at its best. Gardner made his fortune with Perry Mason — but it’s a safe bet that the Cool and Lam series, belatedly rediscovered after 50 years, has equal staying power.
AN ENGLISH MURDER by Cyril Hare
(Faber £8.99) ALL the ingredients for a traditional Christmas mystery are here. A remote, snowbound country house is the refuge for an illassorted party. It includes an old and ailing patriarch, his thuggish heir, a senior government minister with his Special Branch minder and the enigmatic Dr Bottwink, an Eastern European refugee scholar who is researching the family archive.
When the young heir drops dead, it is Bottwink who pieces together a motive for murder.
Dismissed by his fellow guests as an outsider who knows nothing of the British class culture, the professor turns the tables by showing a knowledge of the history of his adopted country that leads to the killer.
Cyril hare was a star of the golden age, but with a literary output constrained by an active legal career, he soon fell out of sight. his rediscovery is to be loudly applauded.