Modern Classics (Bello)

Classic author of the month

Margaret Pemberton

Margaret Pemberton is the bestselling author of over thirty novels in many different genres, some of which are contemporary in setting and some historical.

She has served as Chairman of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has three times served as a committee member of the Crime Writers’ Association. Born in Bradford, she is married to a Londoner, has five children and two dogs and lives in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

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Classic series feature: The Londoners

The first book of Margaret Pemberton’s Londoners trilogy is set in friendly and vibrant Magnolia Square in South London, home of Kate Voigt and her father, Carl. In the uproar following the outbreak of the Second World War, everything changes for Kate. Bereft of her former support, thanks to both her German blood and a tragic death, Kate turns to a new source for comfort and friendship – wounded sailor Leon Emmerson. The Londoners tells Kate’s story as the community in Magnolia Square heals following the disruption brought about by the war then in the concluding parts of the trilogy, Magnolia Square and Coronation Summer, Kate’s story continues as London rebuilds and her family grows.

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Classic of the month

The Londoners – Margaret Pemberton

Magnolia Square in South London was a friendly and vibrant place to live, not least for Kate Voigt and her father. Carl Voigt had been a prisoner of war in the First World War who had married a cockney girl and never gone back. Now widowed, he and Kate were part of the London life of the square with all its rumbustious and colourful characters. Then came the war.

Suddenly it seemed the Voigts were outcasts because of their German blood. When Carl was interned, Kate’s only support was her best friend Carrie, and Toby, the R.A.F. pilot whom she loved. Finally, when Toby was killed, and even Carrie turned against her, she found herself pregnant and totally alone.

Late one Christmas Eve, during the Blitz, she was approached by a wounded sailor asking for lodgings. Leon Emmerson, like Kate, was also a lonely misfit because of his parentage. It was to be the beginning of a new friendship, of startling and dramatic events in Kate’s life. And as the war progressed, as the Londoners fought to help each other while their city was bombed and burned, so the rifts in the community were healed, and Kate and those she loved became, once more, part of Magnolia Square.

‘This book transported me back in time and gave a superb inside of the hard life in london during the war. The description of the closenit community made me feel like I was part of their life. The story is full of twist and turn. I could not put it down. ****’ Amazon.co.uk

‘A great read *****’ Amazon.co.uk

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Reviewed: Death and the Maiden

Written in 1978, I read this book first time around in 1992! I enjoyed this introduction to Chief Inspector Quantrill and his enthusiastic if somewhat aggressive Sergeant and read others in the series which runs to only nine books. Having investigated Radley’s background, you can see that she enjoyed the country life and had been raised in that environment allowing her to bring Ashthorpe and Breckham Market to life in her book. Radley has a way with dialogue and with subtlety draws her characters for her reader.

The pleasure I derived from this book is Radley’s sharp prose. There are beautifully written sections in the book, potent and emotional pieces. She conveys perfectly the sadness of Quantrill whilst also understanding the intensity and frustration of Sergeant Tait. She brilliantly shows Quantrill’s emotional impotence with Mrs. Bloomfield who he once thought of with such passion many years before and yet still feels like a schoolboy upon their re-acquaintance during this enquiry. There are no car chases here - except for a little one at the end which lasts all of one paragraph! ‘Death and the Maiden’ encompasses people’s beliefs about youth and death and dying when living life at its zenith. Radley puts all this across with succinct prose without rambling. For me the writing style of ‘Death and the Maiden’ harks back to early P.D. James and if you hanker for something similar to the early Wexford's then this is a strong contender. Quantrill has the charm and self doubts of a younger Wexford. This is a forgotten crime novel I feel deserves to be re-discovered. And as this book is currently only seventy-four pence on Kindle you would be mad to miss a great opportunity to read this addictive, well-written detective novel.

Reviewed by: CrimeSquad

CrimeSquad Rating: 4/5

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Modern Classics (Bello)

Out Now

We’re reading: A Game of Murder

A Game of Murder by Francis Durbridge is a fast-paced, light-footed, well-plotted thriller with an engaging cast of characters. Harry Dawson, at home on leave, is rocked by the sudden death of his father, Tom Dawson, on the golf course. It seems that Tom was knocked on the head by an errant ball but Harry is unconvinced and suspects foul play. Thus begins a chase from one dead body to the next and an quickly twisting plot, culminating in one of the most exciting and enjoyable thrillers I’ve read in a long time.

– James Long, Editorial Director

‘Good twists and turns which keep you guessing right to the end. Full of suspense and enough 'red herrings' as well.’ – M Taylor, Amazon.co.uk

‘A pleasure to read’ – stillarobin, Amazon.co.uk

Introduction to Francis Durbridge by Martin Edwards

Francis Durbridge was certainly a household name in his day. He was perhaps unique among crime writers in that although he wrote plenty of novels, some of them in collaboration with others, he earned greater fame from his work on radio, TV and stage. Leading contemporary crime writer Christopher Fowler has called him “first of the popular multimedia writers”. At the tender age of 25, the young Yorkshireman, not long graduated from Birmingham University, created the detective novelist and gentlemanly sleuth Paul Temple. Send for Paul Temple was an instant hit, and Temple’s adventures, first on radio and then on television, spanned more than 30 years.

The stories were later turned into books, but for Durbridge the spoken word usually came first. A master of the cliff-hanger, he wrote some of the most popular crime serials ever seen on British television, and Francis Durbridge Presents achieved audience ratings that modern screenplay writers would kill for. It is easy to under-estimate the skill needed to keep viewers hooked as Durbridge did, but it is significant that a writer as gifted as Alan Bleasdale struggled to pull off the trick when he paid homage to Durbridge by writing a new version of the classic mystery Melissa more than 30 years after the original was screened.

In his later years, Durbridge concentrated increasingly on work for the theatre, which suited his emphasis on dialogue rather than description. A Game of Murder, like some of his other novels, began life as a highly successful six-part TV screenplay starring Sixties heartthrob Gerald Harper as Bob Kerry. The story was first screened in 1966; the book came out nine years later, and shows the author’s flair for springing one surprise after another. Durbridge’s characteristic blend of pace and vivid action was a recipe for success in its day – and it still is.

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Crime author of the month

Sheila Radley

Sheila Robinson, who wrote under the pen names Sheila Radley and Hester Rowan, had various jobs from teaching to working in advertising, until the 1960s when she set up a village store in Norfolk with her partner. She then began writing in her spare time and penned a number of crime novels. In the 1980s & 90s, she wrote ten detective novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill.

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Crime Series Feature: Inspector Quantrill

The first book in Sheila Radley’s series featuring Inspector Quantrill, Death and the Maiden, was published in 1978 and a further eight books followed, finishing with Fair Game in 1994. In order, these are:

Death and the Maiden (1978)

The Chief Inspector’s Daughter (1980)

A Talent for Destruction (1982)

Blood on the Happy Highway (1983)

5. Fate Worst than Death (1985)

Who Saw Him Die? (1987)

This Way Out (1989)

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (1992)

Fair Game (1994)

Although there is a developing story that runs throughout the novels, particularly regarding Quantrill’s less than ideal relationship with his colleague DI Tait, and Tait’s relationship with Quantrill’s daughter, like many classic detective series, it’s quite easy to pick up and read the Quantrill mysteries in any order.

‘It is a shame that this brilliant series has been out of print and forgotten for so long. However, it is wonderful that it is now available once more *****’ Amazon.co.ukChief Inspector Douglas Quantrill is in his 40s and lives in the fictional town of Breckham Market in Suffolk. He is married to Molly and they have two daughters and a son, but his work always comes first. Although smart, Quantrill failed to gain any qualifications at school so has worked hard to move up through the ranks of the police force. He’s the type of officer who carries wellies in his car ‘just in case’, and regrets not being in the thick of things anymore due to gaining rank.

His counterpart is the young Detective Sergeant Tait, fresh out of college, a graduate on accelerated promotion; ambitious and determined to make his mark. Together, they make an unlikely but effective partnership, in the same tradition as other great partnerships in crime fiction, such as Inspector Morse and Lewis, or George Gently and John Bacchus.

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Crime book of the month

Death and the Maiden – Sheila Radley

Chief Inspector Quantrill was a very sensible policeman. But Shakespeare was not on his beat and he was not sure who Ophelia was. His ignorance embarrassed him when Mary Gedge, the most brilliant young girl in Ashthorpe, was found dead in the river, apparently drowned in shallow water while gathering flowers on May Day morning.

Others were quick to see the resemblance, among them Mrs Bloomfield, head of the school where Mary had been a pupil before gaining admission—one of the first girls to do so—to King’s College, Cambridge. Ophelia was a beautiful innocent who fell in love with the wrong man and positively invited him to humiliate and destroy her. But was this true of Mary? And if so, which of her several admirers had caused the tragedy?

Quantrill knows the people of Ashthorpe and of Breckham Market—the East Anglian district where he works—almost too well. We, too, get to know the locality as his investigation proceeds and Sheila Radley, taking inspiration from Hamlet, brings her characters vividly to life.

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Why The Londoners has a special place for Margaret Pemberton

The Londoners trilogy holds a very special place in my heart, for in it I drew on the experiences of my own part-English, part-German family, and the part-West Indian family I married into. At the time I came to write it I had just finished a saga set mainly in Vietnam. The book before that had been set in Hong Kong. Both had war backgrounds, giving scope for the kind of storylines - high passion and drama - that I not only love reading, but also love writing. With those books under my belt I was in need of an idea for my next book.

“Why not write about your own life in south London,” my long-suffering agent suggested when I confessed that inspiration hadn’t yet struck. My response had been immediate. “There’s no material there,” I’d said. “Happily married, five children, two dogs, stays home and writes books. What kind of mileage is there in that?” She’d agreed that, for a saga writer, it was all a bit thin on the ground.

Human nature being what it is, I became defensive. Scouring around for something – anything – that was a little out of the ordinary in my family history I’d told her about my mother’s family’s experience during the war. German immigrants at a time when anti-German feeling ran so high that poor little dachshunds got kicked in the street, they’d been ostracised by once friendly neighbours. “And that’s not all,” I’d said, warming to my theme.

“My husband’s parents received similar treatment during the war when they fell in love. Alf was a black merchant seaman, Marjorie was white and it was 1940, long before the waves of black immigration in the 1950’s. Racism really was racism then.”

“And where did they live?” she’d asked.

“Off the hill that runs down from Blackheath’s heath towards Lewisham’s street market – and before the war Alf had been a professional boxer,” I’d added for good measure. “He fought regularly at The Ring, Blackfriars, which was the most famous boxing venue in London at the time.”

We’d looked at each other. “A German girl and her father living in London during the bombing raids by the Luftwaffe,” she’d said. “An inter-racial love affair in the days when such a thing was cause for scandalous comment. The clamour of street market life. The sweat and tears and glamour of big fights at The Ring. A tight-knit community of rumbustious and colourful characters surviving the war and looking forward to the peace. Go home and start writing,” she’d said.
And so I did.

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