Phil Brett's Blog

For people who love punk and the music which followed, I totally recommend The Lost Women of Rock: Female Musicians of the Punk Era to read. Thoughtful and interesting. Ditto, Rip it Up and Start Again

I used both greatly for my far humbler web article: http://culturematters.org.uk/arts-hub...

A kind review from Ian Birchall on my novel Comrades Come Rally

http://culturematters.org.uk/arts-hub...

See my article for the Culture Matters website on why I think it is.

http://culturematters.org.uk/arts-hub...

That director Mike Leigh is, following his superb Mr Turner, considering making a film about the Peterloo massacre is great news. Too much of our history has been under-used in the arts. Even in some periods which seemingly have been well covered – the Victorians for example, it tends to be of a particular type. In this case, being toffs and servants, street urchins and Jack the Ripper.

Yet, having just finished reading a few books covering the late nineteenth century it strikes me that there is so much more there to enjoy. Two of those I’ve read are biographies of Frederick Engels (Frock Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life Of Friedrich Engels) and Eleanor Marx (Eleanor Marx: A Life). Both figures have been treated a little shabbily by historians; suffering neglect in the shadow of Karl Marx. Old Fred is usually seen merely as a meal ticket and Eleanor the daughter of.

Holmes and Hunt go some way in counter balancing that. Here is not the time to explore either the substantial work of Engels or Karl Marx (see below for a few suggestions) or the writings and translations of Eleanor, because I just want to ponder what incredibly exciting times they lived in and question why so few people have thought of dramatizing their lives. Eleanor Marx’s alone would make for a great movie or TV drama.

I should say that I enjoyed the Holmes book more than Hunt’s, who seems to sometimes subscribe to the good bloke/bad bloke view of history; Engels was wrong to back one against another when clearly he was a rum old chap sort of thing. There is also an over-keenness to find fault with his subject, although interestingly, despite this, he can’t help himself being drawn to Engels.

But let us return to what a great source of drama this history provides. Unrest was rocking British society. Bloody Sunday, the Bryant & May match girls strike (for a very readable account of this readers should consider a look at Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History), dock workers - even the onion skinners at Crosse & Blackwell. Surely, they’d make any audience cry. The upsurge affected all areas of the body politic; Paul Foot in The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined links the strikes with the campaign for women’s suffrage and here you’d have a costume drama where women are strong, articulate and inspiring. It would be action packed, with few of struggles not including Eleanor Marx. These are all well covered in the Holmes book but for a more condensed and more focussed look at her politics I would suggest Siobahn Brown's A Rebel's Guide to Eleanor Marx.

The locations too would be fantastic – Victorian Britain, Germany, France of the 1871 Paris Commune, maybe even the United States with Eleanor’s speaking tour of the country addressing large crowds.

And what a cast could be assembled - Tom Mann, George Bernard Shaw, Keir Hardie, Clara Zetkin, Havelock Ellis and Annie Bessant are just a few of the radicals who could be featured shaping and leading politics of the times. Yet how many books let alone films, are there on them? Combine all their biographies and they would struggle to compete with the booming Ripper industry. Holmes enjoyably details how seemingly anyone of note was acquainted with Eleanor. The most obvious one being William Morris who is now known mainly for his designs but who was also a close comrade of hers (I recommend the excellent Crossing the 'River of Fire': The Socialism of William Morris for a good concise introduction to his politics). With so many beards on display, the hipster actors would have a field day. Even the doctor who pronounced her dead (sorry did I give the ending away there?) was a Dr Henry Shackleton (father of Ernest, who was planning an expedition to the Antarctic). You could imagine a leading British actor playing him in a cameo.

Even if personal tragedy or a turbulent love life is more your cup of tea then in Eleanor’s life and Frederick’s there is enough material there to satisfy a sub-plot. But then I fear that might launch a whole new genre of the com rom com.

But perhaps it is the case that these histories don’t fit into the neat boxes that modern drama demands and that watching inspiring struggles against austerity might just inspire people to do so again. So until the TV and film industry wakes up to their epic stories we can enjoy them through these books.

A few other suggestions:
The Communist Manifesto
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
History of the Paris Commune of 1871

In the City: London Crime Fiction

“In the city there's a thousand men in uniforms. And I've heard they now have the right to kill a man.”
In the City. The Jam. (Polydor Records. 1977)

A truly comprehensive map of the world’s fictional crime hot spots would be interesting to see (if there is one, then please contact me and let me know). I say this, and I know this is hardly going to get me a job as the Professor of Literature at Cambridge, that location can have a great effect on the narrative of a novel. Like any story, its setting can play a huge part in the success of a crime story. Not that it has to be a realistic. I mean, how many murders are there in the average Inspector Morse novel – three/four? That’s in a time span of a few days and matches what the real Oxford might see in a whole year. But of course, the Colin Dexter novels are not travel guides but crime novels. It makes me laugh when every so often TV or a newspaper digs up an ex-detective to denounce crime fiction as not being realistic; I always want to point out to the good ex-officer the fiction part of the description. Oxford is a brilliant location for using aspects of the town that it is known for, rightly or not, to add atmosphere. Aging professors, jealous academics, historic buildings full of secrets and ambitious public school boys come to mind when you think of the town. Ideal for murder! Other places have them too, but can they match the instant mental picture you get when you just say – Oxford?

The same is true of London. Just its name; its reputation; its history can save pages of description or explanation. Just the names, ‘The West End’ or ‘East End’ will evoke images sometimes far removed the reality. For most. ‘The East End’ will probably be the East End of the Krays; not the reality of over-priced 'designer flats' in the gentrifying social cleansing of the working class out of the area. It’s literary shorthand.

Take these quotes from Margery Allingham’s 1952 novel, The Tiger in the Smoke: “The fog was like a saffron blanket soaked in ice-water. It hung over London all day…” and “It oozed ungenially, to smear sooty fingers over two elegant people…” Magnificent; in just a few words your mind thinks of fog-bound London, by the Thames, in the streets. The same words could have been used for other places but would they have been as evocative? Replace London with Croydon or Portland or Melbourne and the picture is very different. For London has its baggage; and its fog, its smog, is one that is too big for mere hand luggage. Allingham’s uses it to surround, even hinder, her gentleman sleuth, Albert Campion, as he moves around London’ alleys and dingy pubs tracking his quarry. London is not just a place where it happens but is a major character of the book. Although this is post-war Britain, it so easily could be that of Charles Dickens.

I’d wager (using Dickensian language here for effect) that if you think of talented amateurs searching master criminals in the fog you are unable to avoid bumping into the gent with the deerstalker - Sherlock Holmes. The Sign of Four (1890) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is for me the best of the Holmes’ stories, ending as it does, with the chase down the Thames. The man from 221B Baker Street, who practised forensic detection when CSI were merely letters thrown together, is forever associated with Victorian London, even when his most famous novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), is set in Dartmoor.

The Sign of Four is not alone in using Thames as a major resource. Its banks were a byword for poverty and criminality as people battled to survive; for hundreds of years south of the river was home for prisons, polluting industries, dodgy taverns and asylums. Or in other-words a hot bed of crime. But it is even more than that with the river itself can be used to demarcate the city; suggesting no-go zones. Few think of crossing north to south or the other way. In Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs (2003) set in 1929, the narrator says of one character: “They must have thought that no one would recognise James south of the river. His sort rarely crossed the water”. Tom Thorne, a detective in modern Britain, in Michael Billingham’s novels (2001 onwards), feels much the same; being a right north London boy. Here’s a detective who spends much of his time (when not listening to Country & Western) chasing the most warped and brutal serial killers but cringes when thinking of going of crossing the Thames.

London has grown from a series of villages which have linked to become this huge metropolis. This localism within a capital still lingers today. Indeed, it has been requisitioned by the middle classes to name any recently gentrified area by tagging ‘village’ to the place name, thus assuring house prices and rents will rise. Being a city of an immense population (the largest in Europe) you get the very rich and the very poor living within its confines. And with the very rich you get the powerful, with London long being a centre of political, financial and legal power, thus opening up possibilities of crime in the better postcodes, these ‘villages’ with characters from such circles.

Oliver Harris’ The Hollow Man (2012) begins, “Hampstead’s wealth lay unconscious along the edge of the Heath, Mercedes and SUV’s frosted beneath plane trees, Victorian terraces unlit,” as detective Nick Belsey of Hampstead CID sees a missing person’s report come in from one of the most expensive streets in London.

That said, it might be suggested that in actual fact, much of the capital’s crime occurs in the City itself, within the financial services, but not only is it undetected but it is rarely included in detective novels. Perhaps it is simply the fact that a white-collar crime resulting in the ruin of millions of lives is a whole lot less interesting or sexy than say, the murder of a fictional museum owner, as with PD James’ Murder Room (2003) when Neville Dupayne of the Dupayne Museum is killed in the same locale as The Hollow Man. Dead toffs being far racier stuff than bent hedge fund managers, means that Commander Dalgliesh investigates.

With a history dating back to AD50 London can provide a mouth-watering array of historical locations. Victorian times are a popular landing place with its class disparity, the massive growth of London as a modern capitalist city but without the infra-structure to cope. Holmes is not alone there. There is Sargent Cribb in the Peter Lovesey novels (1970-1978) and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (2009) for starters. The latter based on the true-life detective who was one of the founding detectives of Scotland Yard; the inspiration for amongst others, Morse; Charles Dickens’ Inspector Bucket (one of the first detectives in British fiction. Bleak House. 1853) and Sargent Cuff in Wilke Collins’ Moonstone (1868) generally regarded as the first detective story in English. But there are many others: for example, A Metropolitan Murder (2004) by Lee Jackson which involves Inspector Webb investigating a strangled body on the newly built Metropolitan line (London’s transport links could be added to the list of what makes London a selling point for fictional crime; for example, in Billingham’s Scaredy Cat (2002) the first victim is chosen at Euston whilst the second is found behind Kings Cross).

But although Victorian London can claim to have great pulling power there have been novels which have used periods before that. Hawksmoor (1985) by Peter Ackroyd includes a parallel story Nicholas Dyer, who builds churches in 18th-century London with one set in the 1980s. The wonderful Shardlake series by C.J Sansom is set in the mid-sixteenth century and although the lawyer travels Britain from Portsmouth to the north, he is based in London. Lamentation (2014) has the hero coming to the aid of the beleaguered Catherine Parr. He like, so many detectives, private and state, traipses (they rarely stroll, with perhaps the exception of old Sherlock) around London: “I rode under Temple Bar then turned up Gifford Street which led to the open space of Smithfield. Many people were travelling in the same direction along the dusty way, some on horseback, most on foot.” S.J Parris and Rory Clements have also written crime novels set in this era.

Into the twentieth and twenty first century and London grows ever more popular. The Second World War is a time which is useful for many novels, sometimes laced with a touch of espionage. Barbra Nadel, perhaps better known for writing murder mysteries set in Istanbul, wrote Ashes to Ashes (2011); a story of murder and kidnap during the blitz. D.I. Stratton investigates a suspicious death of a silent movie actress in Stratton’s War (Laura Wilson. 2009) with the Luftwaffe once more making things even harder for everyone.

Performing a similar function as the Thames to divide sub-genres (south and north London), the war can similarly be used (pre and post WW2). Maisie Dobbs is set in the nineteen twenties; Cameron McCabe’s The Face on the Cutting Room Floor (1937) is set in London between the wars. McCabe was the pseudonym of Ernest Bornemann, a socialist, who had fled Nazi Germany; whilst, The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark (1963) takes place in Kensington just after VE day. Michael Gilbert further looks in post-war Britain, this time, in the world of lawyers in Smallbone Deceased (1950).

And on we go past the 1960s and into modern Britain; as society gets ever more organised so do the criminals and gangs become more popular, the quaintness decreases and the brashness ups in volume, such as J.J. Connolly’s Layer Cake (2004). Indeed, his use of a Layer Cake as a metaphor for the different levels of crime could also be used to describe London as a crime fiction hub. In Dangerous Lady (Martina Cole. 1992) the London gangs are taken on by an 18 year old woman, which if that wasn’t enough, also has to contend with organised crime but also the police.

Ahh, the London police. Of course, there’s the posh gentleman detectives whose hobby is to solve crimes and a few private eyes such as Cormoran Strike from the Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) novels who in Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) hangs out in Soho, but in the main London crime novels are police procedurals. They are usually portrayed as hard working honest coppers. Some can be quite cultured, for example, Commander Dalgliesh, who can put writing poetry on his CV. Now, I might be wrong, I haven’t done the research, but I would hazard a guess that such a past-time is not the norm. Indeed, with scandals of corruption, some high-profile cases not being solved and several deaths of black people at the hands of the police, there are many people who would even question the ‘good honest cop’ mantle. Detective Sergeant Brant (Ken Bruen. Blitz. 2002) isn’t one to be worried by such a tag; he’s one of those brutal, uncompromising types who breaks the rules but gets results: Dirty Harry comes to Kennington.

Whether you like your fictional police officers (or indeed private eyes) to be Brant or Dalgliesh is a matter of personal taste. It does not necessarily even have to coincide with your personal view of the police. Paul Foot, the socialist campaigning journalist, was someone who could not be accused of being overly in love with them, writing several books highlighting miscarriages of justice (e.g. Who Killed Hanratty. 1971) but wrote a review of praising the TV adaptation of Morse, saying, “Morse is not real. He is most people’s role model of what a policeman/detective ought to be like” (Socialist Worker. 1993). For what it’s worth, I am one who likes their fictional detectives to be the good guys, although interestingly, I have a soft spot for American PI’s doing a bit of the rough stuff (I never said I was consistent).

This will not get me that professorship either, but Foot’s comment can be adapted to fit London fictional crime. It is not real. It may use almost mythical fears (for example, the clever sadistic serial killer who has the time, space and equipment to keep their victims for long periods of time) with faith in what a police officer should be. Even in the case of the ‘bad cop’ novels, what they ‘should be’ is still there – they punish the even badder guys.

London can provide a lot of inspiration for writers and it is still not done yet. One aspect of London which is puzzlingly under-utilized in crime fiction is the richness of cultures, religions and beliefs present. According to the 2011 census 36.7% of the population were foreign-born making it second only to New York for its size of immigrant population. As someone who lives in London that is a major reason for making it such a great city; for fiction writers its makes for a superb cast of characters so it is surprising that there have not been more crime novels using them more.

There’s a lot more London crime fiction to be written.

“In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you”
In the City. The Jam. (Polydor Records. 1977)

Eleanor Marx: A LifeRachel Holmes' biography of Eleanor Marx reclaims Eleanor Marx from being merely Karl's daughter.

A major figure in her own right, Eleanor Marx fought for workers' and women's rights and was a significant figure in the international socialist movement of the late nineteenth century. Involved in issues such as poverty, the 8 hour day, suffrage, child labour, unionisation and even the formation of the British Labour Party, it is shocking that she has been so neglected by history.

But then she suffers the double whammy of being a woman and a revolutionary. Things which mainstream historians are want to neglect.

So it is an important book but it would be wrong to see it merely as being worthy but dull. How could it be? For starters, Eleanor was also an accomplished writer and translator and amateur actress amongst other things.

Also, included is a whole cast of major Victorian figures who appear in her life. Revolutionaries such as exiles fleeing from the collapse of Paris Commune, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht; writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Edith Nesbit; British Labour figures like Keir Hardy and Annie Besant plus others as diverse as William Morris and actress Ellen Terry. Not to mention Karl Marx and Frederick Engels!

Add to this a complicated and tortuous personal life, which ends tragically, and you cannot fail but to find this interesting.

Written in an assessable style, it reads like the best of novels. Indeed, reading it I wondered why no-one has made her life into a film. But ah yes, she is a woman and revolutionary.

But its not fiction: it is the reclaiming of a significant life, which, with many of the things that Eleanor Marx fought for coming under attack, is one which is highly relevant today.

Writing it was the easy bit. The ups and downs of a self-published author Part 3.

Really, is there anything, if not soul-destroying then soul slapping, than receiving another returned manuscript with a pre-typed note apologising that the literary agent think that my book - which I have put my heart, and YES MY SOUL, into - is not for them? Well maybe, being a school teacher I might put a visit from the government school inspectors, OFSTED, up (down?) there with it.

It took roughly 10 months to write Comrades Come Rally. Work days would be: get to school early to prep for lessons; teach; stay a short time to tidy up; then home to mark and then two hours of writing. Weekends would allow longer for writing. It would take seconds to see said returned manuscript on the welcome mat to get another whack to the soul.

Yes indeed, writing was the easy bit. For starters, in my head there were no missing words, grammatical errors or plain old cock ups. That was certainly proved wrong when my partner would go through proof reading it. To which I would give a measured and thoughtful response by banging doors, throwing tantrums and generally doing a fair impression of a teething two year old. (Later I had matured to a surly teenager when receiving the comments of the professional proof reader). Still, it made me know how my pupils feel when I take the teacher pen to their work.

Having no idea whatsoever about how to get a book published I did extensive research. Well…I bought a copy of the Writers and Readers Yearbook. Then I sent the manuscript out to as many literary agents as I thought appropriate. Hence, the returns. Most had the reply, ‘We are not taking on any further clients at the present’, which I thought had several possible meanings: (a) what it said (b) they couldn’t be arsed to read it (c) they felt it was not a saleable product (d) Christ, it was truly crap.

Some did give personal advice and there were some kind – handwritten - comments. But alas, no-one begged to take it. So I decided to self-publish. Now here perhaps, to medicate my soul (OK, I have flogged that metaphor to death), I should let rip and denounce publishers/literary agents as establishment types, mostly drawn from a similar class who only see the lowest common denominator quick-buck. Who only see distinct genres whilst mine is a mix of them. Who dislike anything political (and it is true that one agent did say that she liked the story but could I cut the politics!). And because of this, I self-published to put two fingers up to the establishment; to stick it to ‘the man’. Er... yeah. Trouble is, that I self-published through a subsidiary of Amazon, so I maybe won’t raising that red flag just yet. Let’s face it, Amazon is pretty well - THE MAN.

Some of the criticisms of the publishing world might be valid and the argument that only the crap doesn’t get published is obviously wrong (God, I have read some real stinkers in the last twelve months and avoided far worse – I mean, celebrity memoirs of twenty-something comedians anyone?). Certainly though, there are some who have a sneering hostility to self-published authors. Why? Is it because technology allows too much rubbish to be printed (as if publishers don’t do that themselves)? Or is it a threat that they fear to their profit base? Is it snobbishness?

But then on the other hand, I don’t see self-publishing as inherently radical. Let’s face it; it depends on what is being published. Marx, Trotsky, Lenin et al are all available through major publishers and equally, there are badly written romance novels self-published. So it is not so quite ‘them and us’. And true, a lot of self-published work is inferior. And let’s also be honest, I would have much preferred to have a major publisher. If nothing else, I would not have had to set myself up as a one man (plus partner and cat) PR department.

It used to be known as vanity publishing. Obviously those published through a publishing house don’t suffer vanity and are completely ego-free (hmm). Maybe it is vanity publishing, maybe not, but I will put my hand up (the one, with the three fingers which I type with) and say that when I got the proof copy of Comrades Come Rally sent to me, I was proud. I had done it. What I had dreamt of doing, since being a kid (well, alongside at different ages – being Arsenal’s centre forward, working as a vet, being David Bowie, being in the Style Council, designing cutting-edge buildings, leading the revolution and so on) had come true. I had written a novel.

And now it was time to get the reaction of friends…

To order it from the Bookmarks Bookshop

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Follow me on twitter @philjbrett or Facebook Comrades Come Rally.

Am I in it? So which characters are based on people you know? The ups and downs of a self-published author Part 2.

It was my embarrassing secret, something which should be kept hidden, so questions on Comrades Come Rally came later. But when I had finally come out the closet and announced (or more accurately, mumbled with acute embarrassment) what I had done, it was interesting what people wanted to know. (Here I should pause and make an obvious point, obviously I refer to friends and colleagues because with sales on the modest scale, it is not yet on the GCSE curriculum, so the wider public have no idea of its existence.)

The reaction of some friends has been, shall we say, intriguing, with a determination to locate some of the characters in mutual acquaintances. There was one such who was/is utterly convinced that one of the major characters was someone we both know. This is despite the real person being of a different age, having a very different personality, different dress sense, radically different politics and…oh…er…a different ethnicity. Still, both shared a gender and a first name. So it must be them!

Then there’s Pete Kalder – he must be you, virtually everyone shouts. That’s because we both wear suits and used to be a librarian. The other marked differences don’t appear to be important (smart apparel seemingly more important than having a wife, daughter and being able to swim and drive a car. All the latter attached to Kalder but not, as yet, to me). Then there’s his personality: God, do people really think I am like that? But they won’t let it go. He has a cat – so have you! He supports Arsenal! So do you! Now, at the moment of writing this, I haven’t access to the internet so I can’t tell you how many cat owners support the Gunners (I’m sure that such data is available somewhere) but I bet it’s a fair few. Still, lots of people I know are convinced that Pete Kalder is me. That’s worrying. It is worth a minute or two of my time to weigh up whether a call to a psychiatrist or lawyer is in order.

But the reality is that the characters all just came out of an idle imagination; day dreaming hours away, after work, trying to relax after another stressful day. Writing about them was an antidote to the scores of maths and literacy books which I have to mark as a primary school teacher. (I love my job but believe me; you sometimes need a break after writing thirty odd times how to find a fraction of a number when the numerator is greater than one).

The idea of a smartly dressed detective, rather separate from the world, didn’t stem from basing it on me (I actually rather dislike being alone) but from the standard genre of private investigators. When I was in my early twenties, someone gave me a Ross Macdonald novel and the character of Lew Archer – a loner, sharply dressed and with a sharp wit but a touch of humanity – just blew me away. I promptly read every Macdonald book I could find. Hammett, Himes and Chandler followed before getting onto the Brit crime novels. I loved them – I wanted to write one.

But I wanted it to be based in Britain. But then what would a private eye investigate that the police wouldn’t? I tried several scenarios, revolving around police corruption, racism or incompetence. Let’s face it; there have been a number of real life instances which have involved all three. But then the obvious struck me. Since leaving school I have considered myself a socialist of various types; since the great British miners strike of 1984, a revolutionary socialist. I believe people have the power to change society and have done so throughout history. More importantly, I believe that they can do so to create a world based on need and not profit. In other words - socialism. So why not base the story in a revolutionary upheaval in Britain? Where would the police be in a pre-revolutionary Britain?

From that premise, I started writing. Some writers plan out their stories. I didn’t. I had a main character, a central idea of what happens and how it ends, but other than that, I just started writing. The story flowed from what seemed logical whilst writing it. The question of what might happen to a Britain facing a revolution would be a constant theme to it. Not that people would have to have read the collected works of Marx and Engels to enjoy it, or indeed believe it to be a possibility. My politics might have shaped the story but they weren’t a requirement for others to enjoy it. After all, you don’t have to believe in boy wizards, small creatures with hairy feet, possessing a ring or an invasion of Earth by alien creatures to enjoy the works of Rowling, Tolkien or H.G Wells. Of course, one slight drawback in that analogy is the skill of those three writers to create an alternative world. Well, whilst writing in secret, I could at least imagine being on par with them.

Being set in the near future of huge social upheaval did give me the freedom to imagine what I wished. Even those people who believe that a worker’s revolution is possible cannot say in what form it would take. A problem I did face, and have discussed previously, was technology. Although, with no set dates, I imagined it to be roughly thirty years from now, so obviously things would be different. However, I did not want rockets flying all over the place and such like, because firstly, I wanted the reader to concentrate on believing in the revolutionary situation and not pondering on whether this or that form of travel would be available. Secondly, in a sense I did not think it was important. The essence that however automated a society is, you still need human labour at some point, was the main issue, And lastly, I barely know what end of the remote to point at the TV, let alone, think of anything more technical.

The story and the characters evolved. Whilst it is true to say that none were actually based on any particular individuals, I did take bits from people I knew, had read about or saw on TV (at times when the remote had been correctly aimed) but they got so mashed that now I cannot remember who they are.

Some things were put in because they interested me. Art for example is there, not just because I thought it a great job for Kalder to have, but one that interests me. Sometimes though, I might wander off the point because Pete Kalder’s brain works like that. Sometimes, it was my brain doing it and I would find the experience of my day’s work ‘guiding’ me right off the beaten track, into the bushes and up a tree of a narrative. So chunks might be written featuring goggle-eyed, blood thirsty, rabid, evil, education inspectors. Entire chapters on killer OFSTED inspectors had to be edited out.

It was important to keep writing though, - every night - as otherwise having a full-time job would become a reason for it not get done.

Writing it did I think, make me look around a bit more, looking for ideas. Dare I say it? For inspiration. For example, whilst writing, the Arab Spring was filling the news and the amazing footage of people seizing control of their society could but not but have an effect on me.

I didn’t want it to be a worthy tome though. I wanted humour and a good sprinkling of naff jokes (which in my own little world I took to be high-concept Wildean wit) with over-extended metaphors and bad puns. Why? Simply, because they made me laugh…after a hard day’s work etc etc.

So people I know are not in it. But maybe they could be in the sequel. I have been told that some writers accept money to include people as characters in their next books. I presume, for charity. This could be an idea, so perhaps for ten quid in a brown envelope you could be in the next one. Hey, for another fiver, you could be the main character. Now there’s an idea.

To see me interviewed about the book.

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To order it from the Bookmarks Bookshop

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Since publishing Comrades Come Rally one of the first questions people ask me is - what made you write it?

It’s a good question, although, an occasionally worrying one, if the person has read it and I think I can detect a tone of critical disbelief. So far though, they have assured me that it isn’t a reprimand, and to be honest, I choose to believe them. But the answer isn’t easy.

It certainly wasn’t from a dream of getting rich by outselling J.K. Rowling and purchasing an island next to Richard Branson’s. I’ll be lucky to get into the three hundreds so J.K can sleep soundly. And I can do likewise, on the impossibility of the latter purchase (it would be hell wouldn’t it - like living beneath Heathrow’s main flight path as wannabes fly to see him, seeking fame, fortune and cheap Virgin space flight tickets to the Moon).

Nor was it from pure ego. I know it used to be called vanity publishing, but strangely, for someone who can spend hours gazing into a mirror to see if that shirt will go with that jacket, it wasn’t for that either. In actual fact, I have found the need to self-promote rather embarrassing (just take my word for it that I am blushing right now). Okay, if thousands of people came up to me and said the book was brilliant and so was I, I could handle that, saying ‘aw shucks’. But having to do it myself is rather…er…tacky.

I have heard some authors say that the story demanded to be told. Well, as the original idea occurred to me twenty odd years ago it wasn’t that clamorous. There have been flower pots which have been more exacting. That said, I did want to write a private eye detective story set in Britain; I did want to set it against a socialist revolution and I did want to reclaim the suit from bankers and politicians. A trio of noble aims you will agree, but they were not knocking inside my head on a daily basis.

Others have said that reading novels and believing that they could do better had been the spur. Well, like anyone else I have read some right duffers. Including it has to be said, some which have won trunk loads of awards. I have just sat there gob smacked, pondering whether the writer was a relative of both the publisher and the literary judges. Or perhaps they just went to the same school. But then there have been many more which have just made me go – shit! That IS bloody good! And slunk off, feeling totally unworthy.

Actually pointing to what made me want to write it is difficult. Like many people (who are often the ones who ask the question this blog began with) I have always wanted to write a book. As a kid I loved writing stories and was at school at a time when creativity and imagination was the premium, which as a teacher myself, I worry is being eroded by a fanatical concern with the technical aspects of language. Children leaving primary school with semi-colons and non-finite verbs, but also feelings that writing is a chore. But for me it was a joy.

So with such a love it was obvious that my first job at 16 was…er…as a mechanical engineering apprentice. Needless to say, I was crap. (Actually, saying I was crap is being far too kind to me – I was positively life threatening on a lathe). I soon left, pompously announcing that I was off to be a man of letters/a journalist/a novelist. Well, I can say that I close to that. I unpacked boxes of novels; I piled up pallets of collected works of journalism and shelved selections of letters. I was no teenage literary wunderkid, but a processor in the goods inwards department of a book wholesaler.

But I always wanted to write. Over the years, ideas came and went, but some started to stay. What was keeping me from writing it was the same as with most people – life, work, housing, relationships etc etc. I started, then stopped. Then started again. It was unfinished business. It was only when my partner pushed me into starting; into thinking, that you get one life and to try and live it with as few regrets as you can, that gave me the impetus I needed. Some people’s dream is to have children, others to climb a mountain or running a marathon. Some might want all three (though probably not at the same time). Mine was to write a book. I should give it a go, otherwise, I could end up reproaching myself for not doing so. What made me write it, was simply so I could say to myself - I did it.

So I made a serious start. And that occasions the next question people ask me– where did you get the ideas from?

A Score to Settle

Twenty of my favourite crime novels: in no particular order and shamelessly mixing sub-genres. I’m not saying they’re the best and there are notable omissions because the only thing they have in common is that I love them.

1. Ross Macdonald: The Drowning Pool
Macdonald is possibly my favourite crime fiction writer. This is one of the many I devoured when I was in my early twenties. Lew Archer is a PI who is funny and tough, who leads us in an exciting and witty journey through the underbelly of Californian life. There should be a law forcing people to read Ross Macdonald.
2. Carl Hiaasen: Double Whammy
Set in Florida, Hiaasen’s novels usually have an eco-theme. They always have a humorous surreal realism. Here PI R.J. Decker is hired to investigate cheating on the Florida bass-fishing circuit. I smile when I read Hiaasen…which does make me look a bit odd.

3. Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: Laughing Policeman
Change of genre. Here is a police procedural and an early (1968) example of Scandinavian crime fiction. It’s the fourth of the (ten) Martin Beck novels by the left wing husband and wife team. Their aim was not only to write great crime books but to show that Sweden wasn’t the utopia people believed it to be. Much more was to follow from that part of the world.
4. Mark Billingham: Sleepyhead
I saw this in a bookshop and bought it on impulse. Good move. It’s the first DI Thorne novel and shows what Billingham fans have grown to expect – tightly written plots which show a real nasty side to our species. A London resident to boot.

5. C.J Sansom: Dissolution
There is a sub-genre of historical detectives, which can be either great or truly awful. This is the former. This is the first of the Shardlake series, which has the Tudor lawyer working for Thomas Cromwell investigating a murder in a Suffolk Monastery. Not only a gripping detective story but brings the turbulent times of Henry VIII alive. Cromwell is a looming presence. I am impatient for another one to be published.
6. P.D James: A Shroud for a Nightingale
If I was going to point a finger at my favourite Brit police procedural then it might possibly be a P.D James one. Adam Dalgliesh is honest and a poet, which in light of recent news about corruption at the Met seems rather quaint. But I still believe in him; here he investigates murders of nurses. I first opened this book, intending to read a few pages before going to sleep; I ended up staying awake for hours and reading the whole thing.

7. Chester Himes: Cotton Comes to Harlem
Written in 1965 the novel fizzes as NY detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed (surely contenders for the best character names ever) investigate murder and double crosses. Himes as well as being a fine novelist had quite a life himself, with a friend list which included Langston Hughes, Picasso and Malcolm X.

8. Robert Harris: Fatherland
This features an alternative future which is far bleaker than CCR. Hitler has won WWII and is about to celebrate his 75th birthday. A high ranking Nazi is murdered and Berlin detective Xavier March investigates. Like all Harris’ novels it moves along at a great pace.

9. Stieg Larsson: Girl with a Dragon Tattoo
The phrase, ‘Publishing Sensation’ is a cliché but what else can you call Girl with a Dragon Tattoo? Also in Lisbeth Salander it contains one of the great female characters of crime fiction.


10. Val McDermid: Fever of the Bone
A good crime book needs a hero you can get hooked by and a baddie, which even if the reader doesn’t know their identity, is similarly bound to them. Both boxes are ticked by this book. McDermid’s clinical psychologist Tony Hill is a marvellously complex character.

11. Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress
Jazz, smoky bars of 1948 LA and Easy Rawlins (rivalling the pair from Himes’ detectives written 40 years earlier for the best name award) is down on his luck until he falls into investigating the whereabouts of Daphne Monet and ends with him deciding that PI-ing is his future. It also features a great character, in his friend Mouse.
12. Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep
What’s left to say? Not only one of the greatest crime novels but one of the great novels full stop. Philip Marlowe – the greatest PI? One of the coolest characters? A novel to measure other hard-boiled detectives by? One of the greatest films? Humphrey Bogart’s greatest role? There’s strong arguments in favour of each of the these, even allowing notable contenders.
13. Dashiell Hammett: Maltese Falcon
Talking of which. A rival for all the above.



14. Sue Grafton: A is for Alibi
First of the Kinsey Millhone alphabet series. A wonderful female PI and the book which introduced me to what LBD meant. (Sad I know). I am aware that in some quarters this is a much sniffed at phrase but I think this has readability.

15. Ian Pears: Instance of the Fingerpost
Set in Oxford after the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War this is almost the reverse of Comrades Come Rally.It’s told by different narrators, none of whom can be taken at face value. This novel shows that crime fiction doesn’t not have to be formulaic. And is so good that numerous friends of mine received this a
birthday present.

16. Asa Larsson: The Black Path
One thing’s for sure in crime novels and that is that there are rarely straight forward deaths. Murderers tend to do it grisly. Actually, make that two things: rarely are people happy. Both are true of this Swedish novel.

17. Jo Nesbo: The Redeemer
It is almost impossible to go into an airport book shop and not see Jo Nesbo books on sale. His Oslo detective Harry Hole is everywhere. This, like the others is truly a page-turner, beginning with shots in a cold December night. Great fun. I even forgive Nesbo his support for Spurs.
18. Robert Galbraith: Cuckoo’s Calling
Most the publicity surrounding this is the fact that it is J.K Rowling. Personally, I’m not that bothered that it’s her or if it was a bloke from Kings Lynn because I think it is a real fun read. Maybe not top of the realistic-story-list but then most crime fic isn’t. The cast of characters are exotic and PI Cormoran Strike (another great character name) is a great creation.

19. Michael Cox: Meaning of the Night
It’s as much an evocation of the dark alleyways of Victorian London as a crime mystery but the rivalry between book lover Edward Glyver and poet and criminal Phoebus Rainsford Daunt is gripping.

20. Arnaldur Indridson: The Draining Lake
The Reykjavik Detective Erlunder investigates a case which has its roots in cold war Eastern Europe. It is another quality detective creation from northern Europe. They are on a roll; it must be the cold weather and long nights.