Crooked Herring
Page 6
It was early evening before I had a chance to phone Henry. He answered at once, almost as if he had been waiting for my call.
‘I’m back on the case,’ I said.
‘I thought you weren’t interested?’
‘Something has happened,’ I said. ‘There’s somebody trying to frighten me off helping you. I’m not going to let them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I had a hand-delivered letter first thing this morning. It informed me that I risked becoming the second corpse in the story unless I took no further part in your case.’
‘Second corpse?’
‘I agree that implies there’s a first corpse out there somewhere, but it doesn’t follow you killed the person concerned, still less that it is Crispin.’
‘That’s what you think?’
Well, Elsie felt it ought to be Crispin, but I decided not to give Henry the other key piece of information: that my literary agent was also on the case in a low-risk capacity. I didn’t feel it would cheer him up as much as she supposed.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what I think. I don’t believe you’ve killed anyone.’
‘But the person who wrote the note reckons I have? Who are they, though?’
‘I suppose you didn’t tell anyone else that you’d asked me to look into things?’ I asked.
‘Certainly not. I don’t want anyone except you to know for the moment.’
‘Well, somebody has clearly managed to find out,’ I said. ‘And, whoever it is, he or she actually seems to know more about it than we do – if somebody really has been killed.’
‘Look,’ said Henry, dismissing the issue of my death, ‘I may have remembered something else. I told you about that church? Well, I think it may have been in a village called Didsbury Common or Dilling Green or something.’
I thought for a bit. ‘Didling Green?’ I asked. ‘That’s a real place, unlike the other two you mentioned.’
‘Could be. It’s just, whenever I try to recall that picture – the church and the trees – a name like that comes into my head. Did-something. There’s another image I can’t get out of my head too – a lonely track leading up into the hills. It’s tarmac at first, then just mud and rocks. There are hedges on either side and a smell of damp and decay.’
‘A track? Leading from Didling Green up onto the Downs?’
‘It could be. Do you know Didling Green then?’
‘It’s right at the foot of the Downs. I’m sure there’s a road more or less as you describe it. I can’t swear to the damp and decay bit, but the rest sounds right.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ll drive over there and check it out,’ I said. Then, following Elsie’s advice, I added: ‘Nobody’s going to frighten me off this.’
I waited for him to say something that suggested I had gained his respect.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t want to put you at any risk. Not at your age.’
‘I’m scarcely senile,’ I said. ‘I’m as capable as anyone else of staying out of trouble.’
‘Well, that’s pretty courageous of you,’ said Henry. ‘Carrying on with the case, I mean. At any age.’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I can handle it.’
Because all the time I was thinking: no serious death threat has a semicolon in it. And I needed some decent reviews.
CHAPTER NINE
Amazon.co.uk
A Most Civilised Murder
(#2 in the Buckfordshire Series) [paperback]
Peter Fielding (author)
Customer reviews [newest first]
* Dull, dull, dull 15 December 2012
By Thrillseeker
There are varying grades of crime fiction. At the top are the genuinely exciting and realistic accounts of the investigation of a contemporary murder. Below these are the many competently written, but slightly out-of-date novels that make up the bulk of the police procedurals. At the bottom of the heap are all books featuring amateur detectives and quilt-makers. Sadly this book fails to live up to even the last of these. The police in Buckfordshire clearly follow procedures known only to them and Lord Peter Whimsy. I have to concede that this book was written some time ago, but Sgt Fairfax does not seem to have moved beyond smoking a pipe in his study as his main method of investigation; and surely even then the police must have had access to some sort of computerised records? You get the impression that Fielding (aka Ethelred Tressider) popped into a police station for ten minutes in the late sixties, but has not done much research in the meantime. This is lazy writing by a lazy writer. It is difficult to know why anyone would buy these books when they might be buying Peter James, Chris Ewan or MR Hall. One star is generous.
Fairfax’s Way
(#4 in the Buckfordshire Series) [paperback]
Peter Fielding (author)
Customer reviews [newest first]
* Dreadful 15 December 2012
By Thrillseeker
If you enjoy a good detective story, don’t bother with this one. It sucks. Fielding tried to pension Fairfax off in the first book in this series. Sadly, he did not succeed. The lugubrious Sergeant kept his job and so has been able to bore us through a dozen or so sequels. He is probably my least favourite character in any form of crime fiction – make that any form of fiction, full stop. Not that the book is exactly interesting even when Fairfax is out of the picture for a bit. (Inevitably he gets taken off the case at one point, allowing him to go off and do a bit of amateur detection. Yawn.) Fielding (aka Ethelred Tressider) waxes lyrical about the Buckfordshire countryside for whole pages at a time. I could listen to him for hours going on about the lesser spotted wagtail’s plaintive call. Not. Then there are the lectures on Norman architecture, ponderously delivered by Fairfax to whichever unfortunate villain he’s questioning. It’s amazing they don’t break down and confess in case he starts on Early English. I’ve rarely come across such a slow plot. Even the squad cars seem to travel around at 20 mph. Proust (to whom there is a knowing nod in the title – God knows why) is a laugh a minute compared to this guy. I won’t give the storyline away. Let’s just say if you read page 17 carefully, you’ll spot the discrepancy in the witness statement that it takes Fairfax until page 253 to notice. Of course, Fairfax must be about 87 years old by now, so maybe that’s understandable. I thought of giving this two stars on the grounds that it isn’t the worst book in the series; but then I thought, no, I just can’t be arsed.
Thieves’ Honour
(#6 in the Buckfordshire Series) [paperback]
Peter Fielding (author)
Customer reviews [newest first]
* Why? 15 December 2012
By Thrillseeker
The more of this series you read, the more you wonder why Fielding’s publisher has tolerated this tosh for so long. The plot is in many ways a rehash of at least one of the earlier books in the series. Several passages seem to have been lifted from it almost word for word. The constant wandering from pub to pub in search of evidence – what a cliché! When a writer starts to repeat himself like this, it is a sure sign that the series has gone on far too long. Fielding (aka Ethelred Tressider) may have once had ambitions to write upmarket fiction, but has settled for this nonsense; when there are so many honest ways of making a living – stacking supermarket shelves for example – you have to ask why he does it. Probably, let’s face it, his shelf-stacking simply isn’t up to it, any more than his books are.
CHAPTER TEN
From the journal of Elsie Thirkettle
Still Friday 4th January, which Pepys would have called the 26th December since they were still on the Julian Calendar then, not to mention Old Style and stuff like that. I’m amazed Ethelred doesn’t insist on using the Julian Calendar, thinking about it. He’s just about reconciled to British Summer Time, but you can see the look of relief on his little face every autumn when he can set his gold pocket watch back one hour to Greenwich Mean Time. Maybe I’ll try to get him a genuine Juli
an Calendar as a Christmas present next year. One where the year number doesn’t change until March, like they used to do until 1752. He’d like that.
Anyway, when I got home from Sussex, I took a look at Ethelred’s bad reviews on Amazon because, though I am immensely sympathetic to all my authors’ little troubles, illiterate diatribes can actually be very funny and provide an agent with many a relaxing evening.
The first thing I noticed about the Thrillseeker reviews was that they were pretty well put together. He (for it seemed to be a man – he occasionally pulled his punches in a way that a woman would not have done) had certainly read each of the books, if not from cover to cover, then at least up to a point that allowed him to put in some very effective plot spoilers. Many of the criticisms were of course ones that I had pointed out to Ethelred myself, but do authors listen? Some of Thrillseeker’s other remarks were heavy-handed, but most had more than a grain of truth in them.
In the old days the only people who wrote reviews were professional critics or other writers. They weren’t necessarily polite, but they did it under their own names and if they didn’t like something they normally gave reasons. These days any tosser can be a book reviewer by logging on and typing in whatever crap comes into their head. And you don’t have to say who you are. Thrillseeker hid like a creep behind his alias. But in one way I respected him. Some reviewers might have occasionally wavered or accidentally given Ethelred two stars, But no. Thrillseeker gave a single lonely star every time.
And, when you thought about it, Thrillseeker had actually put a lot of work into his criticism. He’d read at least twenty of Ethelred’s books – no mean feat, I’m telling you. And, the more I read, the more I wondered, as Ethelred had, why anyone would bother to buy (or even borrow from the library) book after book that they disliked so much. What had Ethelred done to upset him so much?
And another question struck me.
If Thrillseeker didn’t like Ethelred’s books, what the hell did he like?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amazon.co.uk
A Bad Way to Die [paperback]
Crispin Vynall (author)
Customer reviews
***** Bloody Brilliant 3 December 2012
By Thrillseeker
Crispin Vynall does it again! It’s rare to find an author who combines a fine literary style and the ability to produce page after page of riveting action. Looking at the sad crop of so-called crime writers we have today, Vynall may be pretty much unique in this respect.
In A Bad Way to Die, Joe Smith finds himself the only witness to a gang-land killing. Bravely he goes to the police, who promise him protection if he will testify, but a corrupt officer lets the killers know where to find him and Joe is nolonger safe. Soon he is on the run not knowing who, if anyone, he can trust. The plot never ceases to hold your attention, never ceases to produce surprises right up to the immensely satisfying conclusion.
There is a lyricism to Vynall’s prose that makes him stand out from any of his contemporaries. Only the nauseating envy of the literary establishment on the one hand and the incompetence of the pathetic clique that runs the Crime Writers’ Association on the other prevent him from being hailed as the finest writer of his generation.
Hear No Evil [paperback]
Crispin Vynall (author)
Customer reviews
***** The book of the year! 30 November 2012
By Thrillseeker
The ability of Crispin Vynall never ceases to amaze me. The man is a genius.
In Hear No Evil, DI Arrowsmith of the Liverchester Metropolitan Police is asked to look into a complaint against one of his fellow officers. It quickly becomes clear that the policeman concerned was responsible for the death of a drunken football fan and that his colleagues are covering up for him. Soon Arrowsmith realises that he has been given the investigation only because it is assumed he will quietly go along with the cover-up. When he refuses to do this, first he is threatened and then his family are targeted; his daughter disappears on her way home from school. CCTV shows her walking along the main road near the family home, with a white car parked just ahead. In the next shot she and the car have gone. Arrowsmith suspects that the police are themselves involved in her abduction; and the only way to get her back is to take the law into his own hands. What follows is a roller coaster of a plot in which every other page springs a new surprise.
It is a complete mystery to me why this book was passed over for the CWA Gold Dagger, but it is undoubtedly the finest crime novel to appear this year or indeed for a very long time.
Cliffhanger [paperback]
Crispin Vynall (author)
Customer reviews
***** Vynall Does It Again! 29 December 2012
By Thrillseeker
I’ve been so impressed by Vynall’s recent books that I dipped into this gem from the late 1980s, one of his earliest publications. A tourist vanishes, having last been seen taking a stroll along a cliff-top path. A search of the area by coastguards reveals nothing. Has she fallen or has she somehow been spirited away? A young detective is sent to the small seaside town to investigate and meets a wall of silence. Nobody is willing to admit even to having seen the woman. When a falling boulder narrowly misses him, he begins to fear his own life may be in danger; thus begins the most frustrating and dangerous investigation that DC Christie (DI Christie in later books) will ever have to undertake.
This is a superb early work from a master of his craft, and one that, sadly, received remarkably little attention at the time of its publication.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The phone had possibly been ringing for some time when I stretched an arm from under the warm duvet. I groped for a moment in the icy air and eventually made contact with the handset. The green figures on my bedside clock showed me that it was just after one o’clock in the morning. Only one person in the entire world would think that I would be delighted to take her call in the middle of the night.
‘Hello, Elsie,’ I said.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.
‘It’s ten past one,’ I interrupted. ‘I was asleep.’
‘No you weren’t. You had to be awake to pick up the phone.’
‘I was asleep before that,’ I said.
‘Not immediately before that,’ she said. ‘You also had to be awake to hear the phone ringing.’
‘Yes, because the phone woke me.’
‘There you are, then. You were awake. I don’t know why you have to make such a fuss about things. I’ve been checking up on Thrillseeker’s reviews for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s odd he’s reading so many books he hates.’
‘His problem, not mine.’
‘But interesting. He’s reviewed you twenty times and given you one star each time.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You’ve counted them? That’s sad.’
‘You’ve counted them too.’
‘It’s my job. I’m your agent. Do you know who else he’s reviewed?’
‘You’ve checked?’
‘Absolutely. It’s not difficult to search for other reviews. Would you like me to give you a tutorial on the Internet sometime?’
‘No, I can manage quite well, thank you.’
‘So, who do you think he gives five-star reviews to? He likes thrillers.’
‘Yes, the clue’s in the name.’
‘So, guess,’ Elsie invited me.
I looked at the clock. 01.12. I yawned. ‘Could this wait until the morning?’
‘Of course it could. So are you going to guess who else he’s reviewed?’
‘I don’t know. Dennis LeHane?’
‘One rather grudging four-star review.’
‘Dan Brown? Stieg Larsson? Jeffery Deaver? Lee Child?’
‘Nope. None of them.’
‘Ambler? Harrison? Patterson? Ludlum?’
‘Negative. Somebody you know well.’
‘Not Henry Holiday?’
‘Who then?’
‘Who does Henry imitate slavishly?’
‘Crispin?’
‘That’s right. Crispin Vynall. Thrillseeker really loves Crispin Vynall.’
‘Well, I suppose there won’t be a lot of people who like my work and his.’
‘There aren’t a lot of people who like your work full stop, Ethelred. But that’s a discussion for another day. My point is: isn’t it a bit weird that of all the writers in all the world, the one he likes is precisely the one whose disappearance you are investigating?’
I gave this some thought. In a darkened room in the early hours of the morning a lot of things seem weird. I could hear the wind blowing in the trees and, in the distance, I thought I could make out the sound of the coal-black sea, breaking on a bleak and lonely shore. From inside the house I heard a creaking sound: perhaps the last contraction of still-cooling copper pipes, as the central heating system finally settled down for the night. Or perhaps …
‘How many reviews from Thrillseeker for Vynall?’ I asked.
‘About the same as for you. All five star. Vynall’s the finest writer of his generation, it would seem.’
‘Where does Thrillseeker live?’
‘London, so he claims.’
‘Any other details? Blog? Website?’
‘Nope.’
‘And it’s just me and Vynall he’s reviewed?’
‘LeHane, as I say. And a five-star review for an old John Le Carré. But it’s mainly just the two of you.’
‘A coincidence,’ I said.
‘But a weird coincidence.’
Out of nowhere rain suddenly lashed against the window, making me jump. I pulled myself into a sitting position and switched the light on.
‘Are you still there?’ Elsie was saying.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m just switching the light on.’