Tailoring the classics
Crime writing styles go in and out of fashion. Leading crime author Martin Edwards looks at new ways to present classic mysteries.
Fashion plays a big part in writing, as it does in so many walks of life. I mean literary fashion, by the way – if writing success depended on having elegant dress sense, I’d have abandoned hope long ago. The harsh reality is that if the type of story you’re writing isn’t in vogue, it becomes much harder to sell. But all is not lost!
Let me tell you a story about my own experiences which I hope will give encouragement – especially to anyone who shares my love of detective stories in the classic vein. For most of my life, this passion of mine has seemed dismally unfashionable. Not ‘cutting edge’. Not in the least ‘noir’.
Like all authors, I’m also a voracious reader. My ambition to become a crime writer dates back to when I was eight years old and read my first Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage. It took me a long time to fulfil that dream, but eventually my debut novel appeared, launching a series of eight books set in Liverpool and featuring a solicitor, Harry Devlin, as a rumpled amateur detective.
Classic crime, contemporary setting
My concept for the series was to combine a gritty and realistic contemporary setting, Merseyside in the 1990s, with classic whodunnit puzzles in the Christie tradition. Harry Devlin’s world was very different from Poirot’s or Miss Marple’s, but this blend of ingredients excited me and I hoped it would appeal to readers far and wide. Up to a point, it did. The books sold well in Britain and overseas, earned wonderful reviews, and the first was nominated for the Crime Writers’ Association prize for best debut novel.
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June 2020
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