This week, I’m reading two pieces of historical fiction. They’re both set in Twentieth-Century England, one in London in 1930 and one in Yorkshire in 1979. One sets out to be a crime story, the other has a killer at its centre but isn’t a genre novel. One is by a prominent and prolific crime writer whom I’ve only known as an editor, the other is a debut novel by a writer drawing heavily on their own childhood.
‘Gallows Court’ (2018) by Martin Edwards
The only Martin Edwards book I’ve read is ‘Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries‘ a collection of Christmas-themed crime short stories that he edited. Other than that, I’ve only come across him as a writer of introductions to the British Classic Crime Library books, an imprint that he seems to have brought to life on the back of his knowledge of and enthusiasm for Golden Age Mysteries.
I’m curious to see how he writes crime fiction. I decided to start with ‘Gallows Court‘ because it’s set in the period that the Golden Age Mysteries were written in (Christie’s ‘The Murder At The Vicarage‘ and Sayers’ ‘Strong Poison‘ were published in 1930) and because it’s the first book in his most recent series. The fourth Rachel Savernake book, the colourfully titled ‘Sepulchre Street‘ was published in 2023.
I’m hoping that Rachel Savernake will become a character who I’m keen to follow.
Martin Edwards was born at Knutsford, Cheshire and educated in Northwich and at Balliol College, Oxford University, taking a first class honours degree in law before qualifying as a solicitor. He published his first legal article at the age of 25 and his first book, about legal aspects of buying a business computer at 27; after thirty years as as an equity partner of his firm, he is now a consultant. He is married to Helena with two children (Jonathan and Catherine) and lives in Lymm. A member of the Murder Squad collective of crime writers, Martin was the longest-serving Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association since its founder John Creasey. In 2015 he was elected eighth President of the Detection Club; his predecessors include G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie. He is Archivist of the CWA and of the Detection Club and consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics.
‘The List Of Suspicious Things’ (2024) by Jennie Godfrey
That a book set in Yorkshire in 1979 should be classified as Historical Fiction is one of the many things that remind me of how old I now am. I was studying in Yorkshire back then, on the cusp of graduation. To me, this isn’t history, it’s memory. I expect to be reminded of how things were or, at least, how they appeared to someone a few years younger than me, to whom Yorkshire was home and not a place that they were relatively newly arrived at.
Although it was forty-five years ago, my memory of my hatred of Thatcher and her war on the North is still strong. I will never forgive her and her party for the destruction she wrought. My memory of the Yorkshire Ripper is less clear. perhaps because he wasn’t in my city and I didn’t know the people who felt under threat. I do remember that it reinforced my dislike for the police in Yorkshire.
One of the things that pulled me to ‘The List Of Suspicious Things‘ is that Jennie Godfrey excavated her past to write the book, rather than basing it on research of events that hadn’t touched her life. If you’d like to know more about that, click HERE to go to Penguin’s article on the story behind the book.
My wife read ‘The List Of Suspicious Things‘ as soon as it came out. She was impressed by how well it captured the reality of being a teenage girl in 1979, so I’m looking forward to an engaging read.
Jennie Godfrey was raised in West Yorkshire and her debut novel, The List of Suspicious Things, is inspired by her childhood there in the 1970s. Jennie is from a mill-working family, but as the first of the generation born after the mills closed, she went to university and built a career in the corporate world. In 2020 she left and began to write. She is now a writer and part-time Waterstones bookseller and lives in the Somerset countryside.
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