Thu 30 Apr 2009
Short Biographical Notes: Mystery Writer DAVID HUME, 1900-1945.
Posted by Steve under Authors[4] Comments
Introduction: David Hume was the primary pen name of J(ohn) V(ictor) Turner, 1900-1945, an English author of several dozen mystery and detective novels not only under his own name and as Hume, but also as Nicholas Brady.
He has come up for discussion several times on this blog, the first being this review I wrote of Requiem for Rogues. This post also contains a complete bibliography for Mr. Turner, taken from Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.
This followup post discusses several of Mr. Turner’s many series characters as well as a little more about his life, accumulated from several sources, including a portrait of him taken from the back cover of one of his books.
One additional post included more on Mr. Turner, with quite a bit of information provided by Bill Pronzini. Also announced was the creation of a webpage to display the covers of many of Mr. Turner’s books, found here.
These posts are all two years old, so by all means go back and (re)read them before continuing. Last Monday, I received an email from Judith Gavin, who said “John Victor Turner, was the middle of the three brothers, in a family of six children. My Grandmother was married to the oldest brother.” She also provided me with several paragraphs of information about Mr. Turner, aka David Hume.
Since some of what she included in her first email was perhaps not sufficiently verified to be placed online, Judith has kindly rewritten it and has agreed to allow me to post the following in its stead:
John Victor Turner was one of six children, and the second of three boys in a family who moved to Stone in Staffordshire, having previously lived in the Wythenshaw area of Manchester. (There seems to be no record of why the family moved from Manchester to Stone.)
The three Turner boys were Alfred, John (but the family usually referred to him as Jack as much as they called him John, the two names were interchangeable most of the time) and the youngest son was Joseph Turner, Joe to all the family.
Alfred, the eldest son went to the War front on his 16th birthday and although he survived he was devastated by shell shock, the shadows of which gripped him throughout his life leaving him unable to hold down regular employment and making drink a constant companion.
The second son, writer John Victor, would have been 16 in 1916 (his service years and regiment have yet to be confirmed). He secured employment on a local paper in Warwick (or it may be Stoke, to be confirmed) then several years later travelled to work in London as crime reporter on The Daily Herald Newspaper in Fleet Street where it is true that he was known for his network of associates, his contacts in the criminal underworld going regularly to live along side them.
It is probable, however, that few of his underworld contacts knew that he had a younger brother, Joseph, who had also travelled to live and work in London – as a police officer, eventually rising to a senior rank in Scotland Yard.
John Victor (Jack) married twice. His first wife, with whom he had a daughter, died when she drowned in the canal in Stone,
(Details of names of first wife etc to follow when clarified further.) It was many years later when he married again, to a woman believed to be originally from Scotland, and they had a son. (Again details of name etc to follow when clarified further.)
The timing of JV Turner’s death in 1945 may have caused some to speculate that he may have sustained injuries in the Second World War. This was not the case. The cause of death has always been rather glossed over as something of a mystery in the family, not because it was thought to be sinister or suspicious, or heroic, but because it may have been linked to TB which was “hushed up” by the family partly because it was notifiable and contagious, but also as it was associated with poor living conditions etc.
The above information was supplied by my mother, Mrs Ann Hume Gregory (Nee Turner), daughter of Flora May Turner, (Nee Tully) who was married to the eldest Turner son, Alfred, before they separated in 1950. Flora May Turner (Nee Tulley) was also a first cousin to the Turner brothers.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Nice to know more about Turner/Hume. I haven’t read any of those under his own name or other pseudonyms, but I’ve read about six of the Mick Cardby books and they are entertaining thrillers, falling about halfway between Edgar Wallace and Peter Cheyney.
In some ways the emphasis on Cardby being fairly young makes him a little different than other British private eye characters. The writing style is straightforward and action oriented.
Aside from the James Mason film This Man is Dangerous aka The Patient Vanishes based on They Called Him Death, there are also two other films, Crime Unlimited (1935, D. Ralph Ince) and Too Dangerous to Live (1939, D. Anthony Hankey and Leslie Norman), both based on Mick Cardby books, though Cardby doesn’t appear in either film.
Crime Unlimited has shown on TCM with Esmond Knight as Pete Borden a young Yard man who infiltrates a posh gang. The senior Cardby does appear as Detective Inspector Cardby (George Merritt). Lili Palmer and Cecil Parker co-star. The film is one of the Warner Brothers productions made at the UK’s Teddington studio.
Overall it’s not a bad film with a few nice touches straight from the Edgar Wallace playbook (mysterious boss of the jewel theft gang). It’s a little slow compared to the same product coming from the US Warner’s studio, but well acted, and Palmer is quite good. I don’t know how faithful (or not) it is to the Hume book since it isn’t one I’ve read, but the young Yard hero isn’t half as tough or competent as Cardby is portrayed, and certainly a great deal more naive. I suspect the main elements of the book that made it into the movie are the youthful hero and the jewel theft gang.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
[…] posted several times on this blog about J. V. Turner, aka David Hume, the most recent being some biographical notes provided by Judith Gavin, whose grandfather was Turner’s brother […]
July 28th, 2009 at 4:12 am
I have been researching my ancestry and i wanted to find out more about my great grandad and because he wrote some quite popular books i thought i would look him up in google and i found this which is very useful because i learnt what happened to my great grandma which i found very sad.
April 21st, 2010 at 11:06 am
He was my great uncle ( second Marriage to Isabel/jean ), his son is still alive today and is my second cousin David Ross turner Hume………….20/04/10