Tue 9 Jun 2009
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: Two by JOHN GREENWOOD.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews[6] Comments
by Marvin Lachman
JOHN GREENWOOD —
● Mosley by Moonlight. Quartet, UK, hardcover, 1984. Walker, US, hc, 1985; Bantam, US, pb, April 1986.
● Mists Over Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1986; Walker, US, 1986; Bantam, US, pb, September 1987.
The best work on mysteries in the British village is the chapter by Mary Jean De Marr in Comic Crime (1987), edited by Earl Bargainnler and published by Bowling Green’s Popular Press.
Although Ms. De Marr covered some recent examples, I suspect that she hadn’t caught up with John Greenwood’s series of six books about Inspector John Mosley, whose territory covers the small towns on the very flexible border between the counties of York and Lancaster.
British-village mysteries, contrasted with the generally unsophisticated examples of rural-American detective stories, are told in a sophisticated style and permit the reader to have fun at the expense of the local characters.
Greenwood, the pseudonym of the late John Buxton Hilton, was excellent on atmosphere, if a bit weak on plotting. Prime examples are the second and fourth books in the series, Mosley by Moonlight, in which a British television crew invades the town of Hadley Dale when extraterrestrial sightings are reported, and Mists over Mosley, about a coven of witches and municipal corruption.
Mosley is an unusually enigmatic sleuth, one who likes to “keep himself to himself” as the British say. He has a knack of disappearing but then turning up under strange circumstances, properly surprising Greenwood readers.
INSP. JACK MOSLEY. Series character created by John Greenwood, pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, 1921-1986. [Data expanded from that found in Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]
Murder, Mr. Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1983. Walker, US, 1983; Bantam, US, pb, Feb 1986.
Mosley by Moonlight. Quartet, UK, 1984. Walker, US, 1985; also Bantam, US, pb, April 1986.
Mosley Went to Mow. Quartet, UK,1985. Walker, US, hc, as The Missing Mr. Mosley, 1985; also Bantam, pb, Dec 1986.
Mists Over Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1986. Walker, US, 1986; Bantam, US, pb, Sept 1987.
The Mind of Mr. Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1987. Walker, US, 1987; Bantam, US, pb, July 1988.
What, Me, Mr. Mosley? Quartet, UK, 1987. Walker, US, 1988; Bantam, US, pb, 1989.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I read and enjoyed two or three of the Mosley’s in that civilised savage style of the British cozy school. Nothing spectacular about Greenwood, just a good literate writer with a nice handle on some of the more gothic aspects of the small town and Cold Comfort Farm country.
The Brits have always seen the sinister side of small town life and the countryside from Sherlock Holmes famous warning about crime in the country to Thomas Hardy’s tragedies and Russell Thorndyke’s Vicar of Dmychurch, Dr. Syn, galloping around in Scarecrow drag while aiding smugglers and avoiding the press gangs.
Though there are plenty of darker works on our side of the pond in general the American cozy school tends to be cozier and more eccentric than macabre. Where Miss Marple always saw a dark undercurrent in her small English villages the American school seems to be a bit less dark and more idealised.
Seems as if the cozy Brit town is more likely to turn out to be Trencher’s Farm where the American version usually turns out to be Mayberry or Jessica Fletcher’s home. The murders still occur, but that undercurrent of evil is missing. It’s more common in the hardboiled, suspense, and horror genres, but for some reason readers of the American cozy seem to want even their murder and crime cozy as well as their sleuths.
Of course that’s a broad generalization, and the Brits are far from above the eccentric small town comedy as witness shows like Last of the Summer Wine and Good Neighbors, but when it comes to murder they seem to have a darker vision of small town eccentricity. Maybe it has to do with everyone living closer together and seeing a bit more of the evil inherent in our fellow men.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Another entry in the subgenre of small English village detective stories are Colin Watson’s Flaxborough mysteries, solved by Detective Inspector Purbright, who’s played by Anton Rodgers in the DVD set I quite coincidentally purchased today.
Or at least I think it’s a valid entry. I’ve read only one of the books, and that was a long time ago, and the DVDs are still in the shrink wrap.
I also bought the second season of M. C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth mysteries on DVD, but even though those take place in Scotland, I think they should count.
I’d have purchased the first season rather than the first (or as well as) but Borders didn’t have the earlier set. (It was a special promotion today, 40% off all boxed sets, with a limit of two.)
— Steve
June 10th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Yes the Macbeth’s clearly fit, and as for the Flaxborough novels they are really of that school but with a twist of near screwball comedy. I haven’t seen the Anton Rogers series (good casting for Purbright), but there was a made for television movie of one of the Purbright Flaxborogh books reset in the States with Rosalind Russell as an aging lonelyhearts con-woman who stumbles on a set of killers.
The Crooked Hearts (1972), directed by Jay Sandrich with Doug Fairbanks Jr., Maureen O’Sullivan, Ross Martin, Michael Murphy, Kent Smith, and Dick Van Patten. It was Russell’s last role. Was the book Miss Lonelyhearts? Something like that. The movie was a bit of a fire and miss despite the cast and credits.
Colin Watson, who wrote the Purbright’s, also did a wonderful book on the British thrillers of the between the war period and their social milieu called Snobbery With Violence. The book reprints a number of cartoons of the era that relate to the subject including one of my favorites of a lower middle class couple and their son sitting with a job councilor in his office: “What profession were you thinking of for the boy?” the councilor asks.
“Well,” the mother demurely answers, “we wanted to make him an international crook.”
Another has an over eager book salesman assualt a customer with “Have you seen the midday Wallace, sir?”
Gives a fair idea just how important the genre was in that period.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I think you’re in for a treat here with the MURDER MOST ENGLISH series, speaking as a fan of the author’s works as well as the 1977 BBC series (subtitled impishly as A Flaxborough Chronicle).
For my thoughts, the casting is superb and the various characters (especially Brenda Bruce’s deliciously devious Miss Teatime) are nothing short of eccentrically English delightful. The exchanges between Rodgers’ watchful Purbright and Moray Watson’s pompous police chief are pleasures in performance and dialogue.
Hope you also enjoy the series’ opening titles, with their peculiar animated signs and symbols (as I remember from a re-viewing some ten years back), if this DVD set retains the originals.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Tise
You’ve certainly whetted my appetite. I’ll pop the first Flaxborough DVD in this evening, and report back in a day or so.
— Steve
June 12th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
While they are doing all these wonderful old Brit series, there are a few I would really love to see — even just a few episodes. First the legendary Rupert Davies Maigrets and then the John Gregson Gideon and Barry Foster Van der Valk series. There was a series of John Buchan’s Hannay aside from the Clive Donner The Three Hostages film, and also a series of Sapper’s short stories (not Bulldog Drummond).
In the seventies a made for television film of Desmond Bagley’s novel set in Iceland — Running Blind — played here on PBS which I remember as being faithful and well done, and I think there as a series of Edgar Wallace’s lethal Mr. J.G. Reeder. And I would love to see some of the Francis Durbridge Paul Temple and Tim Frazer BBC serials (at least a few of the Temple radio serials are available but pricey).
Speaking of radio check out the BBC radio sites sometime. They recently ran a very good series of Maugham’s Ashenden (Richard Grant as Ashenden) and Russell Thorndyke’s Dr. Syn (the Scarecrow), and one of their related sites has original Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Dr. Who stories, and some vampire fiction in prose — even some comics — and by fairly well known writers like Kim Newman (Anno Dracula).
And speaking of comics, if you go to the goldenagecomics.uk site there are tons of free comic books you can download including a good deal of late forties and early fifties crime comics and two issues of the Ziff Davis Ellery Queen comic with nice pulpy painted covers by Norman Saunders. Ellery starred in no less than three books of his own for different publishers, the last in the 1960’s for Gold Key. There are also several issues of Charlie Chan, both original comics and reprints of the Alfred Androlia comic strip. They aren’t much as detective fiction goes, but some nice art and worth a look. They have a pretty good collection of the Ken Shannon series from Quality about the tough private eye often drawn by famed Blackhawk artist Reed Crandall. And more western comics than you can shake a stick at — though why you would want to … Check out the Fiction House comic Movie Comics for a very nice adaptation of the B movie Big Town based on the radio series. But if you don’t have a high speed connection be prepared for some longish downloads. There are links where you can download a free comic book reader (cbr or cbz) that is simple to use.