 Good evening everyone. The warmest of welcomes from the British Library and thank you all for attending. I'm John Lee. I head up the British Library Book Publishing Division. Welcome to this evening celebrating the craft and the history of crime fiction. We're also looking at the publication of two absolutely fantastic books in recent weeks. One is Martin Edwards' Life of Crime and the other is Reverend Richard Coles' Murder Before Evening's Even Song. All of these books and indeed the 100th crime classic, which is Death of a Bookseller, are available from the tab at the top of the screen. There are indeed all of the crime classics on three for twos and the brand new published British Library crime classic Crookaloon by ECR Lorak, all from the British Library shop. The British Library crime classic series has now published its 100th volume, which is Death of a Bookseller by Bernard Farmer. As part of that process, the publishing team just wanted to, as a warm-up, introduce the series by means of a few curious statistics of what has happened in those eight years since the first volume published in 2014. And we've done that by means of some statistics and I just wanted to give you them. They're put together by Johnny Davidson, who is our in-house editor for the series and is a publishing team in terms of how he manages to put these together working with myself and indeed series editor Martin. So just to sort of get us rolling, here's a few of the statistics. We have a total of 38 authors. If you include all the short stories, we have 171 separate writers in the series. The number of anthologies of short stories edited by Martin is 19. The number of authors writing a pseudonyms, which actually makes up a quarter of the entire series writing a pseudonyms. There are 11 women authors for the novels. And there are then in total 36 women writers if you include short stories. We have traced down 12 author estates that we didn't know that are not represented anywhere else and actually made brought those authors back into print and revive their work. We have found 39 separate lost books. Once I only had a first edition and then I've been brought back into print through the British Library. We've published eight British Library crime classics. We've published 20 impossible crime locker room mysteries and a total of 278 short stories. There's only one mystery featuring the real life Arsenal football team. There are five separate Santa Claus, either as suspects or victims. The most novels were published were actually shared between 1934 and 1938, so 36 with eight each. Unsurprisingly, the decade in which the most novels were published with the 1930s with 46 titles with a close one or close second but a second up with the 1940s with a total of 17 titles. There is one death by jellyfish in the series. There is one classic manuscript recovered that had never been published in the in the first place by ACR Lorac which is her two way murder. There's one joint husband and wife authorship team which is not long birds murders of swine. And there's only one author descended from William the Conqueror is Rupert Latimer. The series and novels are 360. And we've sold over a million paperbacks into the UK market, and then, you know, a number of different international languages as well. So with that set of statistics I'm delighted to hand over to Laura, who's going to introduce our guests for this evening. Good evening. I'm Laura Wilson. I'm a crime fiction writer, and the Guardian's crime fiction reviewer, and I'm going to be chairing this event. The crime genre is these days at least a very broad church. And of course, there are trends in crime fiction, as there are in anything else. And in recent years Nordic noir and domestic noir to name but to, and then over it all the pendulum swings from hard boiled to soft boiled and back again. We had the huge and unexpected success of Alexander McCall Smith's number one ladies detective agency, which was published in 1998, and was seen as a reaction to mainstream crime novels becoming increasingly violent and gruesome. But right now, although there are good sales in all areas of the genre. The gentler and more ludic, if you like, and of the crime fiction spectrum is having another moment. They've been stratospheric sales for Richard Osmond's a Thursday murder club titles. And of course, there are plenty of reissues of golden age authors as well as the ones on the wonderful British library list. And we'll be discussing possible reasons for this and the appeal of the modern cozy, as well as of golden age crime later on. And now to the personnel, as well as being the consultant to this highly successful series of gems from British crime fictions past Martin Edwards is an astonishingly prolific and award winning prime author. He's written over 20 novels and 70 short stories. He's widely recognized as really leading the way as an authority on the genre. He was the author of the acclaimed study, The Golden Age of Murder, as well as a second study, The Life of Crime, which is detecting the history of mysteries and their creators, it was published in May this year by Collins. Martin is also president of the detection club, about which I think we'll probably hear a bit more later on, as well as being a former chair of the Crime Writers Association. In 2020, he was the very deserving recipient of its highest accolade, which is the Diamond Dagger. The Reverend Richard Coles needs very little introduction from me, I think, formerly half of the synth pop duo The Communards, whose dance version of Don't Leave Me This Way went to number one in the summer of 1986. It's one of my favorite songs. The writer, a broadcaster, strictly come dancing and celebrity martyr chef alumnus, and for the past 11 years he's been the victor of finding in Northamptonshire. He retired from the church this Easter for a new life in Sussex, penning books that may well become future crime classics. Murder Before Even Song, the first in a projected series featuring Canon Daniel Clement, rector of Champton St Mary, was published earlier this month by Weidenfeld and Nicholson and is storming up the book charts. So without further ado, I will hand over to Martin Edwards, who's going to talk a bit about the British Library crime classics list. Well, thanks very much indeed, Laura, and it's great to be with you with Richard and with all our participants online in this session. John said rightly that the crime classic series really got going in 2014. And in fact, my involvement, my association with the series dates back just a little earlier to middle of 2013, when I had a chance conversation over coffee with John's predecessor in the publications department here at the British Library. We had a cup of coffee. We chatted about books and crime fiction generally. Rob Davis and I, and he told me about his ideas for future projects. And in fact the British Library had had the idea previously of publishing 19th century crime classics and a number of those have been published titles such as The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Felix and Revelations of a Lady Detective, which perhaps slightly less racy than the title suggests. And those books were very interesting historically, but perhaps hadn't made quite the impact that was hoped for. So the library had shifted to the 1930s and published three books by a little known author from the Golden Age, called Mavis Dorial Hay. And the third of these was a book called The Santa Claus Murder, and this is the original cover. And Rob told me that that book was was due to be published shortly, but that he'd had an idea for relaunching the series. And what he planned to do was to have fresh introductions to little known stories from the 20s, 30s, 40s and so on. And a new look to the series because covers do, whether writers love it or not, covers do sell books. He had the idea of using vintage railway poster artwork for the covers and he explained this to me, it all sounded very interesting. And the very convivial conversation ended with Rob inviting me to contribute to introductions to the next two books in the series. And one of those was the Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude, then a really a forgotten author, long forgotten. He died in 1950s and hadn't really been reprinted at all. And the other was the Lake District Murder also by John Bude. So I wrote my introduction sent off to Rob, he was happy the books were put into production. What I knew was that I had an excited message from Rob saying that the sales had really taken off the pre-orders, the booksellers, waterstones and many independent bookshops were really getting behind the series. And it was really quite astonishing what what what had happened and of course I would love to think it's it's the wonderfully well informed introductions, but in fact, of course, the covers were all important. The Cornish Coast Murder, this is the Lake District Murder and these these vintage railway posters used as artwork on the books really made them very attractive. They're very well produced in any event. And the sales absolutely from from a relatively low base took off and I think it's fair to say that the crime classics have never looked back. So these books were published in early 2014. In the Christmas of that year, a little known Christmas mystery was published, Mystery in White by another long forgotten author, J. Jefferson Farjub. And that sold a colossal number over 100,000. It outsold Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, great modern domestic noir author. So it's clear that something was going on. And the series gathered ahead of steam and that has continued to this day. And as John has said, we've recently passed 100 books with Death of a Bookseller by Bernard J. Farmer, who was a part time policeman as well as a bibliophile. And it's really been quite a wonderful and exhilarating experience to be to be part of it. And my role as consultant, Robert points me as consultant and John has kept me on in that role today. And my role has really been to act as a sounding board for ideas when suggestions come in to make suggestions of my own about particular authors, particular books that I think might might fit well into the series such as John Dixon Carr, The Dream of What, True Mystery, E. C. R. Lorac, John has already mentioned an author who's a great favorite of mine and indeed of my parents would have been out of print for 60 years. But those books have been incredibly successful. And one of the great pleasures has been not just to reprint those books but to find a lost manuscript. And it was this book that John mentioned, Two Way Murder, which had never been published before. Now the British Library is I think doing great service, not just in resurrecting titles that deserve to be brought back to modern readers, but also in this case introducing a book that's never been published at all ever. And it's a 1950s book and it still reads very well to this day and it's been very well received by the readers. And I think it's quite interesting, we may perhaps talk a bit more about this to, to wonder what the, what the secret is of the success. Clearly the cover artwork does play a part, the books are very collectible. And I know many people who've collected all 100 and counting books in the series and they look rather beautiful on the shelves, because you do need several shelves now for this number of books. The anthologies that John mentioned 19 so far, and again more in the works. And the example is this one murdered by the book Mysteries for Bibliophiles, stories about books and authors and publishers. And that, that one has done particularly well. And one of the things I've been very keen to advocate as, as a fan, as well as a novelist is, is to try to showcase the sheer variety law has already talked about this the sheer variety of the crime genre. And that variety is, is not a new thing. It's always been a very broad church, the crime fiction genre. I think this is one of its great strengths that has one particular subgenre may fall out of fashion for a period of years. And that one comes along. And that keeps it fresh and keeps renewing enthusiasm for the genre. And so you get the classic who done it slightly the poison chocolates case one of my personal favorites by Anthony Barclay and the British Library. The British Library agreed to reprint a second solution by Christiana Brown, the then invited me to contribute an eight solution, which was a really fun thing to do one of my all time favorite tasks. It's quite interesting, I think, to see the, the revival of some of those earlier books, which might not have sold quite so well initially, but the Santa Claus murder has now in its in its new incarnation within a cover in the same style has has done exceptionally well. But that mix of stories that that I mentioned is very important. So in addition to having the very traditional mysteries that there are books that you might not necessarily accept books that are certainly far from cozy. A very good example I think is due to a death by Mary Kelly, quite a bleep but written by a very distinguished woman writer who died a few years ago, but who won a gold dagger for the spoil kill which is also in the series. And I think that, including this, this diversity of style of novel of crime story to show that it's not just one thing the crime genre it's a whole mix of different authors, different settings, different methods by which they tell their tails. I think this is part of the enduring appeal. I was asked a few years ago to write companion volume to the series. This is it, it's the story of classic crime in in 100 books. And that's an attempt to look at the first half century, the 20th century, and to tell the story of the evolution of the genre, from the Hound of the Baskervilles to strangers on a train by Patricia Heismith and you see, just in those two titles the share. Not just the, the evolution, but the, the range of types of story that that this wonderful genre that we all love can encompass. So, so I must say in closing that that my association with the British library and with this series has been quite unexpected from my perspective but it's been a great joy it's been enormous fun from that that first cup of coffee with Rob Davis to working with John and Johnny and their colleagues right now so I think that we have a lot of exciting ideas and titles in the pipeline. And I'm certainly hoping that this series will indeed go from strength to strength and all the signs are that it will. I'm sure that's right. Thank you very much Martin and we will be coming back to the golden age bit later on. But first, I'd like to ask Reverend Richard Coles to talk about his crime novel is debut murder before even song. Now to give you a flavor of this, the observer described it as charming and funny and Jake carriage in the telegraphs mentions your splendidly caustic wit and says that you rival Barbara Pym, no less, in your ability to make no low stakes conflict gripping, although of course the turn out to be much higher than we originally think. And I have to say one thing I particularly loved about the book was the descriptions of the quiet moments that Daniel spends as it were with God in the church. I love the balance of that with the other elements of the book, and because it made me completely believe in the character. Can you maybe just tell us a bit about the book the characters the plot and where the idea came from clearly the apple didn't fall too far from the tree. Well, you know, we're kind of yesterday, but it's sort of the story begins so we're in Champton St Mary it's 1988 I want you particularly to set a book towards the end of the 1980s, although I'm not too explicit about that. I don't make that very obvious to begin with. And it's a familiar setting. It's an English village with an ancient church and a lovely rectory and they're Daniel Clement canon clever lives with his mother Audrey and their two Daxons Cosmo and Hilda. There's a small village with a large estate and aristocratic and grand family that the floors who live there so all that stuff is familiar I think. And then one day Daniel in church announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, and that sets in sets of a sort of change events which leads to murder and mayhem, and Daniel has to figure out why and try to put it all back together again. It began actually with me announcing in church one Sunday that we were planning to install a new laboratory, which you think would be an innocent and sort of innocuous thing to do, because our sanitary needs were not adequately catered for. And nobody got murdered, but it did lead to the biggest row I think I've ever presided over in a church apart from one in my previous parish which was over whether you should have one bite or two bites of its pies. And then the carol service, these seem like trivial things indeed they are, but they connect to deeper things. And I think one of the things that fascinates me about church life. Why I'm very flattered to be even in the same sentence as Barbara is, we bring stuff to churches, important stuff. And I think what the Christian said he was not a man renowned for piety a serious house on serious earth it is. And I think there we, the devices and desires of the human heart is the common prayer puts it, bubble away, and they become places where we work out really deep and powerful and sometimes violent and angry impulses. And I was fascinated but I was like, that's a bubbling up in crime fiction, and, and I wanted to have a go. Okay, now you have written a bit about being a clergyman before in your memoirs. But this is based, it's feature in truth if you like but it's thick. Why, now why fiction and why crime particularly. Because like every parish priest I've nurtured fantasies of murdering my parishioners so that was an opportunity to indulge that. Not all of them and not, I'd like to not really do it obviously with fantasies. But probably because I just love crime fiction I've read it all my life the first proper book I ever got given me by my grandfather was the complete Sherlock Holmes short stories and I think from about eight I think. And very early on I was just captivated by this idea of this kind of odd extraordinary unusual strange somehow even a tiny bit sinister character who had this extraordinary ability to look at a pattern that to another would look undisturbed and unremarkable and see in it. And that fascinated me and funny enough I found once I was ordained and getting involved in parish ministry. I was having to do the same thing that you're looking at the surface of things and you'll see just a tiny kink in the pattern. And from that you will have to kind of work out what's going on and that helps to explain the impulses and the rage and the misunderstanding. My brother is a detective is a retired detective now in the Metropolitan Police. And it was surprising how often we would check in with each other in the course of our very different careers, looking at for those disruptions in patterns and seeing what they told us about communities and people. That's interesting was he helpful to you. I thought he'd be helpful in sort of police procedural stuff but then I realized I wasn't really interested in police procedural stuff and they really understand it, but it was really just looking about where you develop how you develop experience, how you form judgments how by looking at patterns and disruptions and perhaps the resolutions, you begin to understand how the mysterious behavior of people begins to make some sort of sense I think. I think actually with with the novel with an amateur sleuth it's better not to have too much police business you just say at the end the police turned up and they were very efficient. It is so boring. Most of most of everything is so boring isn't it if you were writing Vika procedural that too would be pretty dull filling in your statistics for mission. Because I found that fascinating as well it was quite a lot of Vika procedure which I rather enjoyed and I learned new words and I thought that was very, it was rather good that it was. Somebody said that there can't be many prime novels published this year with the word Norsex, which is which is perhaps true. I think that's probably quite likely that there aren't yes I had to look that one up. It's interesting that one thing I've just noticed in my ministry is very few people are interested in Christian doctrine. Fewer and fewer people recognize a him few of your people want to sit through a sermon, but they seem to be irreduciably fascinated in people who do it because in particular. I don't know why that is maybe it's just something that's written so deeply into our cultural memory that somehow somebody to see with the dog collar turning up. I think it's because we have a confessor role. And I think one of the reasons why perhaps Vickers do make detectives is because people tell us things. It happens even if I sit on a train in a dog collar, someone will start talking and often they will reveal stuff which I think is more than they intended to reveal. This is the dog collar acts as a sort of lightning conductor for stuff that someone has in Abingdon in an Indian restaurant. There's a while ago and so the conversation with somebody was extraordinary story emerged. It was so fascinating much intense it was stone cold by the time I go back to it. Yes, I don't well I imagine it is. And actually the other occupational hazard which had never occurred to me before to mention when Daniel goes into a shop to get a pencil eraser which he says very carefully instead of saying a rubber, because he's very aware that the Vickers is always this target for humorists which I should think that probably is something that makes you want to kill people really quite a lot isn't it. The first line of the joke or whatever the big bar or something. The journalist friend of mine said the problem with you lot is that Vickers rhymes with Nickers. And I think that that's true so we are only a step away from situation comedy and also being ridiculous. But actually there's something to be said for being ridiculous now rather like those characters, not just in crime fiction within all sorts of fiction who appear to be ridiculous, and sort of blink howlishly from behind the glasses and turn up actually to be quite steady and thoughtful. I think he's compassionate. I think. I think the crime fiction, I like most is crime fiction, which gives thoughtful weight and dignity to people who are often treated either as kind of Marjorie Allingham is that she's really interested in what the char thinks, and I love that. And I also think in your, in your book smart enough to say so. I think you have this very steady compassion for people that I've just noted with people that we get involved in the criminal justice system. It's hard not to because you realize that all sorts of people's lives go astray. For reasons which seem so haphazard. And so, in a way, not blameless exactly, but I've spent a lot of my time in ministry in prisons. And, you know, drug dealers look like drug dealers. Armed robbers look like armed robbers but lifers, kind of like anyone and everyone. And often you'll find talking to someone first that in the background of their own lives which may have produced terrible offending is often them having suffered themselves often abusing care or something. But the other thing is you think if you've been 20 minutes early, or turned left instead of right, you wouldn't be here. Yes, maybe I would, you know. Well, that was actually something that in the room in the times of your book that Jones Smith picked up she called it moral clarity. And I think, I mean there's a long and honorable tradition of clergymen, usually sleuths thinking of Chesterton's Father Brown and then you've got James Runces. Sydney chambers who's who's CV. And the only woman I could think of was Phil Rickman's merrily Watkins who's also a list, which must come in quite handy. And there's Harry Camelman did the rabbi, Rabbi small man, and there are a few nuns as well, and brother cad vile. And I think I don't know if any of the one of those particularly inspired you when I was thinking about it I was thinking actually certainly do you have spiritual authority you're able to talk to people from all walks of life. But you also are able to give absolution aren't you and, and I think somewhere deep down, most of us obviously haven't committed murder, but we all want forgiveness for our sins. I think it's really interesting I think you're right and I think perhaps that's why the dog collar does act as a conductor of something so I think people do want absolution. I think also a lot of people want to be heard, and I started my ministry in rural Lincolnshire, where people who live there are very often overlooked and have a reputation perhaps a bit taciturn, and on people who speak very freely about their inner lives. That's your ordain that they will speak to the Padre they will speak to the vicar in ways that are just fascinating and so obvious but it's sometimes forgotten is interesting fascinating complex challenging lives are lived everywhere by all sorts of people in all places, and also our impulses for good nil, you know, not, not, not infrequently. I was before I was in my parish, I spent 11 years which was finding rural parish in Northamptonshire I was in central London. And a friend of mine said well gosh you're going to go it's all going to be you know bizarre and splatter rat and PCC nowadays, won't you be a bit bored of the thinner diet that we'll get there in the first week of finding we had a murder. So, you know, actually it turned out to be quite lively. Well, it defined an or to champion St Mary isn't it the church is it's sort of what I think Colin Watson who wrote a book called snobbery and violence and then the 70s, called mayhem Parva, which is the little sleepy village, where it all kicks off and it's got a higher murder rate than downtown Detroit. Kind of like midsummer murders on the television. Now I think, correct me if I'm wrong that that champion you haven't actually said where it is was that. No I haven't. I mean, I think of the brother comes from London and how you know trying to do little sums in my head but you're quite clever. It's a shire county in the middle of England. Right. And there is a clue actually, but I'm not going to say what it is. I'm going to go back and have another look now. But I wanted to sort of not be too to sort of directed about that so you know, people can work it out if they want to they don't need to work that and the other thing was about so I really wanted to set in the 1980s partly because I'm fascinated by the decade and what was happening there, but also because it was 40 years and a bit after the end of the Second World War. And another thing that has come my way because of my ministry has been what happens to people when they suffer terrible trauma and 3040 years past. There's some evidence that I was walking someone the other day who's their academic field was saying that they just seem to be this kind of long bake with traumatic experience and people who have suffered as, as you know as veterans of war, or various other things in my own life so 35 years ago it was the AIDS pandemic. And it's a point after maybe 30 years where you start to look at that again, and stuff comes up, and I would often be at the deathbeds of people. And I'm talking about. Often they were the people with the blazer, and the neat moustache could be bowling on a Sunday reading the express. But they've been a group captain or something. Yeah, war or something like that. Yeah. And I've discovered that they've been at Anzio, or they have been automatic convoys or they have been in North Africa and extraordinary stories of what they've experienced and often what they had done. That was the stuff that was most charged. And stuff they've never told me or perhaps they shared with veterans for the Legion, but they're not shared with their families. Because it's too difficult. Now, actually setting, setting in the 1980s you kind of did yourself a favor because you don't have to worry about mobile phones. Yeah, or the internet or you know you could no one can say to anyone I would just Google it or anything like that. I mean, those things aside, how did you find the technical aspects of making stuff up. I mean I know you've written memoirs obviously written sermons. It's different isn't it. I would say my memoirs read like fiction about which honestly nothing, but no it is completely different. I mean, probably it's because if you're writing nonfiction, you do have a check, you know you can kind of measure what you're doing with the metric of what actually happened there are various ways of doing that. Although I think Mary Warner said that memory and imagination the same thing to discuss. Because you're, you're creating a world is to grandiose word for it but you also creating a framework and putting some characters in it and seeing what they do and what surprised me. What I didn't think was reading fiction is not the same as writing fiction. So obvious, but it was a kind of lesson I learned and relearn. I have an idea about what I was doing. And then all of a sudden things went off in different directions and some things which I thought were promising turned out to be less promising. That's just the other thing is you learn how to write a novel by writing a novel. Yes. So I'm really I'm doing book two at the moment and I feel I'm so really fascinated now with what I've, what's changed since book book one. Yeah, I was going to say can I ask it's not it's not meant to be an impertinent question at all but now Dan and Clement does share certain things with you, the lovely Daxons. I don't know your mother I don't know I don't want to presume or anything, but there, there was a Catholic priest who read a lot to Ronald Knox sorry, God, Reginald, Ronald, not the creator, who wrote this thing called the Decalogue, which members of the detection club which I'm sure Martin and Delos about later have to sort of swear by to abide by on pain of losing our sales. And now it's quite precise and it says that there should be no pretty natural supernatural agency whatsoever so divine intervention or aid is out. And what he doesn't mention, but what a lot of people at the time thought was that the sleuth should have no private life, no relationship no because it would detract from the vocation, if you like of solving crimes, and there are some secular problems like a poro for example Jane Marple, they don't have anybody. And I think quite a lot of people got a bit fed up when Lord Peter whimsy married her at vain and so on, proposing to her in Latin which was, you know, she's still married him though. I just wondered, is Daniel going to. I got the impression that there was sort of scope for something there but maybe I sort of that was wishful thinking on my part. Well I've got some ideas about what might happen, Daniel. And I mean, I think another thing that happened in the 1980s that happened particularly in the church was that the love that dare not speak its name began at least to whisper it. It's very interesting how that shaped and changed the lives of people I knew who will be about the same age as Daniel, but I mean I don't want to have there are twists and turns to that story. I think what was interesting about Monsignor Knox was, I'm interested that he said that he was so rigorous about that that are the no supernatural fancy business, although actually, I'm kind of interested in some of the supernatural fancy business not as a kind of Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower and all of these will be in a dream, but actually the way it interacts with how you perceive things and how you think about things so that's why. And the other one is the kind of the silence around the private life because everyone has one after all. And I'm interested in how that silence began to break a little bit in that period. And also what it does is, I mean, I am not I'm really not everyone's always like you because of the confine but actually he's a much more buttoned up person and he's a much more punctilious person than me. And I'm interested a bit in maybe how those buttons get undone and maybe done up again. Anyway, there's some button stuff happening. Yes, now at this point I'd like to bring Martin and John back in. Just now I've just talked about about Knox and we talked very slightly about really the serpent of murder that gets into this peculiarly British Eden. Yes, but that is champion, you know, and obviously, as you pointed out, I mean you've got a mystery that is set in the arsenal football stadium and all sorts of other things and they're not all in English villages, but there is something about. It's almost like it's an idea in our minds, isn't it? Is Jim Evelyn John Major and I think 1993 was talking about how we'll be in Europe will carry on being English and he said that the old maids he was quoting Orwell and said old maids cycling to church in the morning mist and the long shadows on the cricket ground and even the people who mocked him and what he was knew exactly what he was talking about. Yeah, he's our Eden, isn't it? It is. And of course you do have this paradox, don't you, because you have this, this, this, at least superficially very appealing attractive straightforward simple picture of this apparently idyllic world. And yet of course, even in the days of Agatha Christie, bad stuff was happening. And sometimes, even in Agatha Christie and other authors of that time, that there are echoes of what's going on in the real world. In the novels, it's not done explicitly, but if we think of two of the all time classics, Murder on the Orient Express, and then there were none, written at a time in history when the dictators were on the march in Europe, Hitler, Malini, and things were looking pretty bleak. You've had, you've had the slump recession, all that kind of things. The 30s were not comfortable for many people, despite these tropes that that we think of. But both those Christie novels, I think, have at their heart. So quite a profound question, which is, how do we do justice if the system of law lets us down and doesn't achieve justice. And that was, to me, very much in keeping with what was going on in the world at the time. And it's woven in very artfully into classic detective fiction, so that you don't really notice it, but there's something. Those two books rather give the lie to this idea that the world of the cosy or the golden age mystery because of course we had capital punishment then the right person will be caught and order will be restored. And no peaceful reign. This person will be dispatched by the hangman he cannot come back. Usually he not always he she cannot come back and wreak havoc ever again and that it's a comforting thing. That's right. And yet, yeah, when I listen to the points that Richard has been making, making, even within the context of a traditional mystery, there is serious stuff going on in the background. It may not be rammed down the reader's throat, but there are significant issues. And Richard, I think, touched on something that interests me a great deal and interested Agatha Christie a great deal. This idea of the way that a murderer terrible crime can affect a community. And of course Christie wrote a book that specifically address this theme or deal by innocence. It's the suffering of the innocent people who are suspected of this crime if the crime isn't cleared up. And again, there's something quite profound about that and and also something very true. Yeah. Oh, please, by the way, Richard and John do absolutely feel free to, to come in on any of this. I just want to say that I was having an argument with someone the other day who was talking about the kind of soft center and hard center approach to things that really did it was that it was not a rewarding strategy to set murder mysteries in places with vicarages and churches or anything because it was an indulgence of nostalgia. And I had to put out well actually that is my world. It's not, it is actually a real world as well as a world in which we project our own. I think it's very interesting that the two words they're kind of like conjoined twin words and I wish they wouldn't go together as gritty realism. I mean, it's very interesting that people will say oh the vicarage is that's not realistic, but they will accept that a serial killer is stalking London, killing people in the manner of I don't know the 10 plagues of Egypt, but it's realistic because it's got a bit of police procedural and a bit of swearing. That absolutely baffles me, I think it's very odd and it's a very common misperception. And why does realism have to be unpleasant, stroking a cat is realistic. And I think nice why why can't you have both said I find that very strange. What I've taken from the novels is just the detail that you get across and the sort of things that you would never ever be able to find in a history book and I can start by Richard selection of 1980s biscuits which I was very pleased to sort of revisit at one point. But, you know, I've obviously, my father was just born in the 1930s and the sort of the social history that you find that the author never knew that someone in 2022 was going to be reading this and just the way that that's, you've got the moral issues and that social history detail which is just, I think that does account for a certain amount of, yes, what a crime classics does. But I think also, you know, there are certain titles within the classic series that are set in villages, but something like progress of a crime is set in a village but it's actually about a motorcycle gang. They go around their sort of James Dean Teddy boys and it's the way that those things progress I think is in the range so the village does does does appear but then you've got, you know, the range of the series that Martin was talking about earlier they, it's not only Britain for example there's international stories. There's one that said in the House of the parliament you know it's that there's, there's also much that comes from this and that what you can do with classic crime and it is the murder before even some is the first one I've read from the 80s. It's a fabulous way. The contrast, don't you I mean I think WH Jordan wrote this essay called The Guilty Vicarage about how much he loved crime now, Jordan, the man who said that slag heaps were his ideal scenery said he would not read one unless it was set in rural England. I won't read it. So I would have loved yours. And I also just said, there is an Arsenal game in my book to be asked on the FA Cup final of 1988. But Auden also said that it was the contrast it was when like a dog makes a mess on a beautiful drawing room carpet is much more shocking than when a dog makes a mess in a dirty street. Yes, that's important as well. And it is the fact and it is often said that the appeal, particularly of the traditional mystery, but at some I prefer to cozy really I think it's a bit more accurate is this restoration of order but but if you look at quite a number of the golden age even by the likes of Christie, you know the murder, murder on the orange express the in one sense the the culprit isn't brought to justice in a sense. And that's true in one or two of the other books as well why didn't they ask Evans, for instance, and I think that with crime fiction there is something else going on. And I wonder if it helps to explain contributes to explaining why during the pandemic, the enthusiasm for crime fiction has has risen so much. All kinds of crime fiction both high Smith and, and all the golden age books. And to me, the question of dealing with uncertainty crime rates uncertainties. So even if, as in Patricia high Smith, you don't get a neat solution. These are these not who done it's that they're not conventional mysteries in a sense, but but the appeal to some extent is to see a world disrupted, perhaps permanently in the case of some individuals. And, and I do think that for most of us in the world. I'd be interested to know what Richard thinks about this for instance, with the parishioners he's spoken to over many years for most of us, uncertainty disruption change. And indeed changes, I think mentioned right at the start of Richard's novel. And this, this is very unsettling. And I think that if we look at crime fiction in a very broad way. The question of uncertainty is one of the things that connect different types of crime story in different ways crime authors are addressing it. And this is something that taps into what all of us wonder about. We've had a particular example of the pandemic and everything that that has brought. And of course what's going on in the wider world at the moment as well. But uncertainty is, is a feature in my way of thinking of so many crime novels, ranging from the golden age classics to the very dark novels of suspense. And what do you think about that. Well I think it's really interesting, actually, and I'm seeing what you were saying I love the, the, you know, these classic mysteries and it's just striking how many of them come to the 1930s and this atmosphere of gathering tension and anxiety because we know what's to come. They didn't know at the time but all those wonderful novels which are set in country houses where you just get the sense that there's having a last hurrah before you're descending to chaos and pandemonium. And, you know, it's perhaps not unthinkable that we might draw some comparisons of our own time. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why these books are so resonant with people, because we live in a time of anxiety. And I'm great, I'm a great admirer of the French sociologist and critic René Girard who developed skateboards who argued that we compete for resources which are insufficient for our needs and that creates tensions, whatever human society you care to look at, and that we need to earth those tensions and we do it by creating skateboards that we send out into the community. That earths the anxiety and allows us to return to some kind of functional order. And I think detectives and murderers kind of get some of their energy from that really. But I think that resolution absolutely speaks to the sense we have an uncertainty and anxiety and how much that disrupts our lives. I also think that that you know as you say that the uncertainty there's a sort of element of self soothing I mean I've always thought it wasn't an accident that really the beginning of the mysterious affair of styles which was 1920 was it Martin something like that. Those books, they began to be very very popular after the Great War when there's everyone very traumatized, but at the same time as the development of and fascination with the crossword, a morally neutral puzzle. And now of course we're all mad about wordle, you know spin offs, and I can't help feeling that we're in the sort of self soothing where there's maybe some kind of link. And there's something more to say is that resolution is imperfect, because actually what's happened has happened a fascinating conversation with a guy who came to see me who was an armed police officer have been and we were talking about he'd been involved in a notorious episode where someone had been killed actually by him. We were just talking about what that was like and he was saying oh well you know it's training so you are trained to do it and you do what you have to train and everything was done by the book so he had nothing to trouble his conscience after it although clearly he did. But he said something at the end of it he just doesn't aside he said, once you killed someone, nothing is ever the same again. You can't undo that. And there's resolution but actually we're changed by stuff and that resolution might be shaking. Yes, that actually that was something else I was, I was going to ask about the old fashioned mystery school at that. And again I think of the amateur sleuth, because up until certainly 10 years ago when I started, which was in the last century, they were, people were very snary about them. And now they're everywhere. And I do wonder if that's maybe also something to do with the fact that the police in this country their reputation has become, shall we say somewhat tarnished. I know various people I know who who write police procedural sort of saying oh this makes me rather uncomfortable. The idea of this, this hero. Yes. I think also and Richard is again alluded to this in connection with his own book that that this year reliance on technology. And complicates any account of police procedure in detail, it's perfectly possible to do it and we know many wonderful writers who do it superbly. But for many other writers. It can be a bit daunting and sometimes that you can get in the way of the story and characterization. So, I think that, as you've said Laura, one way of squaring the circle is to bring back the amateur. Another connected option is to go for the historical mystery, not got the same technological issues. Yes, I'm assuming most of the books in the British Library series are amateur detective rather than. Is that right? We've got more police. It's better than the like, yes, very much so. It's going across. Yeah. I wonder if there's something that you think of all those stories about activity in particular where the police are rather kind of ploddish and dull of wit. I wonder sometimes that now where we have a highly bureaucratized police force, and the kind of interventions to create those resolutions that people seek. Often they're much more ambiguous than that now. And I wonder if there's a sort of way which the amateur sleuth finds a way forward through that, because the police are so restricted in what they can do in terms of delivering the sort of exciting information that we want. So they're too busy filling in their forms, or, you know, the kind of getting stuck in. Yes, I suppose back in the day there was more class deference so you've got the TOF detective telling the police what to do and it's saying oh yes governor you've solved the case. And it's all, all sort of wonderful. I think the rise of forensics where you can actually find these things out in a slightly different way or, you know, as a not necessarily the same way as deduction. Yes. Now, Martin actually is something I wanted to ask you which sort of touches on that is, what are the criteria for choosing a crime classic I mean obviously there are issues there with copyright and who owns what and so on and so forth but I was thinking about looking at all these books of the beautiful covers the branding is so on point is brilliant. And then I was thinking about a British author in fact although you wouldn't know it something like no orchids for Miss Blandish, famously sort of sadistic sexual violence and I think it got toned down, but I read the original and was shot the pants off me I mean was crikey and it does not have a happy ending. What about something like like that I mean that was super popular in 1940 at a time when you think everyone was getting quite enough sex and violence at home you know there's war you've been bombed but but but as somebody pointed out that actually the what they used to call the action story was maybe because in war actually rather like in COVID we were you can be very passive. You know you're sitting there in a trench waiting for a bondfall on you or but you know sort of carrying a narrow shelter or whatever, and you want to be the action person you you know you want to identify you want to be doing something, or at least reading about somebody doing something. There are two questions in one Martin I'm sorry. You're absolutely right it's certainly true that that for instance the Second World War changed things, and it definitely changed the direction of travel of the crime novel. It is not that golden age style stories cease to be written because Christie carried on writing Lorac and many others. But, but a new type of writing emerged where in the wake of the Holocaust, the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki readers were increasingly interested in writers are interested in exploring what what drives someone to do something truly evil. This was a change from the reaction that you mentioned earlier to the First World War, when after that terrible slaughter, people wanted to have fun and do the crossword itself. It was, it was a different kind of reaction for perfectly rational historical reasons. And in the series to address your other question, what what we've tried to do is to showcase a range of different types of books ranging from the late 20s right up to the late 60s. And so you have people like Julian Simms, John mentioned the crime of a crime, which is actually based quite closely on a real life miscarriage of justice. Some, some young boys killed somebody on Clapham Common and also lab at the time, and Simmons fix lies this in in a pretty impressive way, a prize winning book. And, and that is quite a different type of story, even though it's got a good plot from the type of story that characteristically was being written in the 1930s. And, and of course, Christie was still writing at that time, but we're interested in this series I've mentioned Mary Kelly, and due to a death which is a particularly remarkable book from the 60s. Quite different. I did wonder when I tentatively suggested it to to John and Johnny whether it would be acceptable as a story because it is so dark and so different from so many of the traditional mysteries in the series but I'm delighted that they took it on board. And it's been very well received, because it is a really beautifully crafted and well written example of a different way of addressing moral issues, character issues within the context of a detective story. And there is actually a private detective in it, a veering on an amateur detective but but he's, he's by profession a private detective in this story. So, I think that this is quite a good example of the range that John and I were talking about earlier that in looking to maintain and enhance reader enthusiasm for the series which has been so great. Well, I do think it's important to focus on two things. First of all, quality, if you want good stories, and secondly, range. So it's not just the same old same old. There are things that I would like to think even the really seasoned crime fan won't expect to come along. And actually in the 60s, you say sort of the Cold War era, I was associated that with a lot of spy novels. Are you getting those as well I mean I think if you're sort of thinking oh my god we've got to do a drill and if the wrong person presses the button bones will be turned to lace and that's quite stressful. In fact there's basically no period of the 20th century which wasn't totally thinking about it. But have you been doing those as well. There's a series and we're talking about Mary Kelly in general and actually the student Simmons we're just pushing things in certain directions and just seeing how what the reaction is and obviously you know we're driven by sales as well we have to be. And I think you know, we're, we're always having conversations about new particular ways to go and I think you know they have they have been once, but you know about thrillers and spies. And we put that into what is called the British Library Crown Classics and whether you know whether that would work but it's wonderful to sort of have that and have this sort of measure and what works and we're not solely publishing certainly not to in terms of numbers we're publishing because we're a public institution and we want to, you know, delve down into the unit of this building and find what's there and bring it out for the first time in, you know, it's like the book equivalent of a diamond line or something. It's wonderful. It is and you know the reason we're, we're doing this obviously online is because you can't get to the basements because of the problem. And they're all because of the problem we've been having. But yes, I mean, it's an absolute privilege to come in here and realize that you know I mean I sort of laugh when we're in the publishing team you know it's we're a good publishing team with not a bad library attached. Well indeed. So much. It's the texture of that life in the 19th. I mean obviously the technically accomplished some of them. I love the John Bude I think I think they're terrific. The Cheltenham Square but that's him isn't it, which I love. But it's the texture. And one of the things trying to recreate 1988 you can do all the things you can do the biscuits you can do the Arsenal Luton game you do all that stuff. What did it feel like what we worried about what were our fears that's the stuff that really interests me I think the mood. Yeah, I'm also struck actually by how readers from that period that what they expect you to know I remember reading in the, is it the floating animal isn't it. But the first one which is this tag team story by members of the detection club and Canon whoever it is you'll be able to tell me clearly thinks that you'll know what the seventh commandment is. We should all know this and I found myself sort of scratching my head. It's very interesting. I must confess. I was in church and somebody just said I broke in the fifth commandment and I couldn't remember a second which one it was if you've had a considerable bearing on how serious the offense was if there indeed there was but it was okay. Yes I mean I know giving giving cheek to your mum and dad is a bit different to murder and it falls very close to adultery in the list and you have to remember which ones which were you might get your own approach very drastically. That would be a major faux pas wouldn't it. It would be a good plot. Yes it will actually would be a brilliant jumping off for a plot. I think we have to wrap up quite soon but what Martin what what you have you did mention a couple of titles, what are your particular favourites. What's the one you would press into somebody's hand and insist they read. Well well well in terms of personal prejudice I would say The Poisoned Chocolate's Case by Anthony Barkley which is a book I've loved since I was a teenager and I think of all the others it is of course really hard to pick but I've got a very soft spot for a book that's done very well by Michael Gilbert called Small Bone Deceased. Michael was a was a slister and Small Bone Deceased is set in a slister's office and that's pretty dull setting but it is a wonderfully witty and incredibly entertaining and clever novel and and I've been overjoyed by the reception that it's received since it's come back into print. That's lovely and John how about you do you have personal favourites. I've only been in post here for about four years so I haven't actually gone back and read all of the hundred because I've got so much else to read. We'll let you off. I suppose probably the one that I really enjoyed the most so far is the Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Will Concern which is is the one that said in the House of Parliament with intriguing kind of murder and the sort of just what that tells you about that particular time. Ellen was the first female MP and we were delighted to welcome Rachel Reeves to the library to our what the conference we do called Bodies in the Library which we're doing tomorrow. And she gave a presentation on the histories of MPs you know women MPs. All the mix of that just said to me that's what a fantastic thing that the library should be publishing. And Richard, do you have favourites from that period. I mean whether or not they're in the list but. When this is I think the Cheltenham Square murder is I didn't know John Pude writing at all and I think he did the Sussex Downs murder as well. Yes. I like very much too but I like that because it was interesting is the way he kind of created almost a village within a city is the way that the square kind of worked as a sort of frame within a frame which I thought was fascinating. I've just been rereading Niomarsh, who I love my grandmother love Niomarsh, and what's the one, the theater one set in the theater. Oh, I'm of an age where I can't remember the title of anything, but the way her to her overlapping lines the crime writer, and also as a director of theater, met and in a happy way I thought that was fascinating. Opening night. That's it. My, my one of my favourites in the British library series, at least I think it's one of yours is is green for danger. Yeah, on a brand which is set in the hospital, which is very, very clever. I love that. And I also although I don't think you publish it. You know, Melissa for thought by Francis Isles may actually be Anthony Barkley. See, he is a terrific writer who was so innovative everything he he wrote with there's something different about it and something usually groundbreaking is quite remarkable. And, of course, for thought is a genuine classic extraordinary and based on a real case, I think. Yes, yes, the strong case. Yeah. Um, okay, I think we've got sort of four minutes. Martin, can you just very quickly explain about the detection club being very careful obviously because if you reveal secrets you will. I'll be expelled. The detection club was the world's first social network of crime. It was founded in 1930 by Anthony Barkley we've just been speaking about assisted by Dorothea says and Ronald Knox we've we've spoken about earlier. And it was a small self selecting group of writers who wanted to elevate the standards of the detective story and the literary standards though they're ambitious. And this was a time when when writers didn't didn't know each other. So it was also convivial meant a great deal to the people. And that you mentioned floating Admiral the book they wrote collaboratively and we've continued to produce books over the years you've collaborated. Yes, I remember struggling greatly with my chapter in the sinking Admiral. Yes, thanks for that. Yeah, so so the detection club thrives to this day it's still a small group of writers, and it's purely a social club but it's, it's great fun, and it's now a part of British crime writing heritage rather like the crime classics. Yes, and it is fair to say that past and present and whatever they write crime writers are some of the most convivial and friendly and supportive people that you'll ever meet. Thank you for that note. Thank you very much, Reverend Coles thank you Martin Edwards and John Lee. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you on thank you Laura for being such a fantastic host with a really really interesting set of questions that really got some some Oh you're welcome we could talk on this subject all night. I just wanted to conclude by saying that Martin's magnificent but the life of crime, which has just been published which is breathtaking in terms of is the depth and the range is available from the British Library shop, along with all of the British Library crime classics and of course murder before even stung by the Reverend Richard Coles. And there's a tab at the top of this screen to go to the shop and obviously purchase this, but thank you everybody thank you for a lovely evening and really really wonderful to wrap this one up and thank you all.