And so we come to the second and final week of the multi-blog thread (and sort-of competition) for Reprint Of The Year. Last week, I championed The Case Of The Dead Shepherd by Christopher Bush, the highlight for me of the strong series of reprints from Dean Street Press. You can see my fellow bloggers thoughts for the first week indexed over at Cross Examining Crime.
This week, it’s time for me to pick an author that others are also championing – Richard Hull. But before I get into the book that I’m going to talk about, let me explain a little about the other titles and why mine is… well, better.
The Murder Of My Aunt is the best known of the books by Hull and was recently re-released by the British Library. It’s a shaggy dog inverted mystery, with a decent but very guessable punchline. It’s very different from a lot of Golden Age mysteries, and if it was the only book that Hull wrote, then it deserves its reputation. But it wasn’t.
It’s certainly better than Excellent Intentions, the other British Library re-release, a courtroom-based mystery. There are clever touches, but it’s not desperately exciting. But Ispo Books have also re-released some titles from Hull’s back catalogue. Keep It Quiet is an entertaining cross between a murder mystery and a bedroom farce, as the members try to cover up a murder in an exclusive club.
But the book I want to champion is Murder Isn’t Easy, also from Ipso Books. Set in an advertising agency, we follow the thoughts of Nicholas Latimer, the founder of the company, as he plots to rid himself of one of his partners. It’s hard to describe the twists and turns of the narrative as Hull produces the cleverest unreliable narrator tale that I’ve ever read. I’ll just say that after about a third of the tale, someone else takes over. And that won’t be the last time that some else needs to take over…
It’s the sort of verbal trickery that takes place in some of the better modern crime psychological tales – Let Me Lie by Claire Mackintosh springs to mind – but this title was decades ahead of its time. You could argue that this was an influential novel but I’m not sure that many modern authors would have read it. But read it and judge for yourself. The finest of the early Hull titles – my original review is here – and, because I believe it to be a truly ground-breaking novel, it deserves to be Reprint Of The Year.
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This would have been one of my own selections if it had been available, so I am kind of with you in its importance for the genre and just how good it is with its series of twists and turns and that slippery narrative voice. Given your comments on Excellent Intentions, Moira’s choice for today, I think we can indeed say it has become a reprint war!
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Excellent Intentions , closely followed by Keep it Quiet, is my favourite Hull. MIE is my least favourite because of its tone.
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Now see, “unreliable narrator” and comparisons to “modern crime psychological tales” aren’t big draws for me. I’m much more inclined to the “entertaining cross between a murder mystery and a bedroom farce”–especially right now. Entertaining and humorous is going down mighty nicely with all that’s going on in American politics….
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Another useful reminder that I really need to get around to reading this one soon!
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No one for THE GHOST IT WAS? It’s his Carr homage and a very clever and very funny impossible crime mystery. I expected several people to jump on that one. Oh well. If it weren’t for the R. T. Campbell books I just learned about being reprinted I would’ve given Hull my second nomination for THE GHOST IT WAS.
Interesting that Hull is the most represented writer in this competition. I was hoping for multiple Patrick Quentin/Jonathan Stagge/Q Patrick nominations which in my opinion is not only one of the best reprint series of this year, but of the past decade. So long overdue. But only one in this list of fourteen. […sigh…]
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I believe there have been some reader nominations along the lines of PQ so he may well get another place. I’ve not read TGIW yet, hence not choosing it myself.
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Well, if the republishers had sent me a copy like they did the others…
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As for Quentin, which titles got reprinted? That might have only been in the US – I certainly didn’t notice any over here
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It looks like 3 Stagges, all the Duluths, a couple of the Trants, Grindle, and several more. About 20 in total over the trio of names. With more slated for next year.
I liked the Hull, but all the QPQ books I have read I have liked at least as much.
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But these are available only in USA and Canada !
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Wow, America is great again already! 😉
Seriously though I raised this issue with Kate. Available should mean available in the blogger’s jurisdiction.
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I agree about QPQ. A huge amount appeared this year, and so far all have been good.
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Oh, Ghost sounds interesting. I had not seen that. And I get to read it for free on Kindle Unlimited!
BTW, Aunt is technically eligible as a 2018 reprint.
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So you’re not nominating a Rhode? I admit I’m suprised.
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That’s my minor protest about the choices of title…
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I am undecided about what I will nominate. There were the three Donald Henderson reissues of which I prefer Goodbye to Murder which few seem to have noticed.
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If you would like to nominate a title post your suggestion either here or on one of my own reprint blog posts. On the 21st December I will be collecting all reader nominations and selecting three out of the hat. These three will join the blogger nominations in the final poll.
On another note I didn’t know a third Henderson had been reprinted. Which publisher did it?
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Black Heath Editions in their Classic Crime series, in Kindle format only, I think, published in January 2018.
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Thank you also for clarifying the question of reader nominations. That gives me a few days to mull over a good year for reprints. The British Library was disappointing this year, apart from a couple of the Loracs…
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Not sure it’s a free nomination process, unless Kate includes a “Other Title” box on her survey
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There will be a Readers Choce selected from the most frequently named title. Maybe titles. She said so in her comments on her post this week.
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I can’t really argue with your comparative dissing of my choice, Excellent Intentions, as I haven’t read this one. But you certainly make Murder Isn’t Easy sound intriguing. Too.
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Sorry about that, Moira, but I can’t understand why Excellent Intentions was the second BL reprint as it’s the weakest of the Hull books that I’ve read so far, imho of course. But Martin does tend to like courtroom drama, for some reason…
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