Blackstone Fell by Martin Edwards

 

Blackstone Fell by Martin Edwards

published 2022

Martha was wearing a sleeveless beaded chiffon gown, the epitome of chic. Her chestnut hair was done in a finger wave and pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. The style was borrowed from Joan Collyer, one of her favourite actresses.

Martha is Rachel Savernake’s sidekick, but to me this photo has a look of how I imagine Rachel too

Picture of Joan Collyer from NYPL.

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I am a big fan of Martin Edwards (person and writings) – and particularly of his Rachel Savernake books, a series set in the UK between the two world wars, and featuring a most unusual heroine.

I blogged on Gallows Court and Mortmain Hall, but have realised that I failed to post on Blackstone Fell (and there is another one after that, and a new one coming in September – I need to get my act together!)

Martin has a way with a title – you can just imagine what kind of books would have those names, and you would be right. Rachel Savernake is a very rich woman with a beautiful house in London, and a devoted group of friends/staff. She also has friends in Scotland Yard and Fleet St. But this isn’t all as comicbook as it might sound: Rachel has an interesting backstory, there are some deep feelings going around, and the books take some quite unexpected turns. (A death we didn’t bargain for in this one)

Blackstone Fell is set in 1930, and has a very strong dual setting: that atmospheric title is a place in Yorkshire, craggy, small village, sinister sanatorium, a Tower and a Lodge and people dying quite a lot. Back in London, journalist Jacob is investigating dodgy seances and mediums, while fellow-reporter Nell keeps dashing up to Yorkshire and back. All these threads will work out together – the book never slackens off, there is something happening all the time.

I love a séance in a book (see my Guardian article on the subject) and there are two VERY good ones here, one of them the climax of the book.

This is the first one: ‘How about attending a séance conducted by the Pythoness of Primrose Hill?’  Nell asks Jacob. A pythoness being a woman who attempts to see the future.

This Pythoness is from the Library of Congress. Actually she is Potiphar’s Wife in a play about Joseph – it just is the photo I use when Pythoness comes up (recently used for Brian Flynn’s Painted Ladies). But then she plainly is doing divination.

This is the medium (or pythoness):

Ottilie Curle wore an old-fashioned half-mourning cap over her thinning hair. A short veil covered powdered cheeks… a jet brooch was pinned to her black silk gown and gold bracelets glittered from her wrists.

I felt that Ottilie the medium had the looks of one of those pictures, and the black clothes of the other.

Things do not go well at this event, leading to this splendid sentence:

‘After the fiasco of the séance, I’m the last person to break bad news in Kentish Town’

(There is a certain kind of quote that amuses me unreasonably, combining feeling and location – this is one, and I recently remembered this from Patrick Quentin, mentioned by me  in the comments

'Salud.' I said, ‘Why have you come? Things didn’t go too well between us at the bullfight.’'

I am collecting them.)

When the action moves to Yorkshire, there are wonderful, very atmospheric descriptions of the craggy landscape – beautiful but dangerous – and the importance of the weather. Which gives us more clothes opportunities:

Peggy Needham emerged, clad in a thick coat and woollen scarf and carrying her alpenstock.

[Rachel’s] appearance lacked its customary touch of chic. She was wearing a chunky Fair Isle jersey and twill trousers.

[picture from a contemporary firm, Bosie’s, but based on 1930s patterns]

We get to meet the locals – not, it must be said, a tremendously attractive set, and find out about disappearances, locked rooms (or closed towers…), sinister relationships. The book also looks at matters that were very current in 1930, such as eugenics.

When the enjoyably complex explanations come at the end, I had a couple of moments of thinking ‘excellent turn, but how could detective or reader possibly have known that or worked it out?’ But of course Martin was way ahead of me – he has repeated his wonderful but long-lost GA idea of a cluefinder, and at the end of the book there are a couple of pages of references, in which he shows you exactly where he planted the subtle clues. Martin, chapeau!

There is also a nod to various other Golden Age tropes and books, including Dorothy L Sayers’ Unnatural Death (1927).

Altogether a most enjoyable read, combining the best of Golden Age detection and contemporary writing – just what we expect from Martin Edwards.

Woman in black is from the NYPL mourning collection. (See my recent Mourning in Books posts for more pictures like this….)

Woman in white is Queen Elizabeth of Romania, from the Library of Congress

Dressed for Snow. Picture from the Tyne and Wear archives.