Savour the Crime Classics

You’d think that with all the wonderful new crime books in the market place there’d be no need to revisit the ‘golden oldies’. But you would be missing out. How many of the new books lining shelves in shops today will stand the test of time? Or perhaps you are fortunate enough to be too young to have read these books when they were the bestsellers of their day?  Some publishers, like Vintage or Virago are reissuing crime classics and either way, by not taking this opportunity you would be denying yourself a very enjoyable experience.

Recently I reread Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham, the eleventh novel in the Albert Campion Series. To gain the most enjoyment you must be in the right frame of mind. Relax, clear your head, and let yourself drift back to 1941 when this cracking mystery was first published. What do you read in the middle of a terrible war to relax and take your mind off your troubles? Interestingly, Allingham does not shy away from leading her readers into a frightening situation which could spell the end of society as they knew it. And to make things worse, everyone’s salvation depends on one man, in this case, a man with amnesia who does not even remember what he is supposed to be investigating, or in fact even who he is.

When Allingham wrote this story she was unaware that the Germans had in fact actually concocted a plot called Operation Bernhard, very similar to the one the author describes in Traitor’s Purse, which only became public knowledge after the war.

The plot gradually reveals a life or death race against the clock without the main protagonist knowing what is at stake or what must be accomplished. He is aided by an attractive young lady, who turns out to be his fiancé, but of course he can’t remember her. Lady Amanda Fitton is the sort of woman you want on your side in a scrape. Another entirely useful supporting cast member, albeit one not quite as fetching, is his manservant Lugg, played by Brian Glover in the 1989/90 TV adaptation of several books in the series. Alas Traitor’s Purse was not one of the books televised and it’s high time for a new Campion television series.  

As I said earlier, take your time when reading a classic like this and savour the descriptions and language, the elegance of thought. I quite liked this description: ‘She drove very well, with confidence and with an unusual sympathy for the machine. He appreciated that. So many people approached the petrol engine as if it were something vindictive, to be mastered with daring and a firm hand. He liked her voice too. It was clear and well bred, without being affected…’ you might sigh, and say to yourself, those were the days! Just as well Lady Amanda lived in the 1940s and not now, when such a voice would rule her out of a job as a newsreader or business correspondent. And it is so refreshing to read a book that doesn’t have to tick any P.C. box.

Margery Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse was reissued this summer by Vintage in paperback, £8.99.

Another trip down memory lane was inspired by Patricia Highsmith’s ‘This Sweet Sickness’ (originally published in 1960). It’s not a book I read first time around, but her inimitable style takes you back to ‘Strangers on a Train’ or ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’. And like those, it’s not the kind of thriller that is a rollercoaster page turner, but a slow boiling dark exploration of the psyche of a man gradually tipping into a desperate kind of evil. What is so disturbing about Highsmith’s work is that the protagonist could be you or me.

Reissued in June by Virago along with two other works by Patricia Highsmith, namely, ‘People Who Knock on the Door’, and ‘The Two Faces of January’, it is available in paperback and eBook at £8.99.