Read Yesterday's Papers Online
Authors: Martin Edwards
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Yesterday's Papers (27 page)
Martin Edwards: an Appreciation
by Michael Jecks
Both as a crime writer and as a keen exponent of the genre, Martin Edwards has long been sought out by his peers, and is now becoming recognised as a contemporary crime author at the top of his form.
Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, Martin went to school in Northwich before taking a first class honours degree in law at Balliol College, Oxford. From there he went on to join a law firm and is now a highly respected lawyer specializing in employment law. He is the author of Tottel's
Equal Opportunities Handbook
, 4th edition, 2007.
Early in his career, he began writing professional articles and completed his first book at 27, covering the purchase of business computers. His non-fiction work continues with over 1000 articles in newspapers and magazines, and seven books dedicated to the law (two of which were co-authored).
His life of crime began a little later with the Harry Devlin series, set in Liverpool. The first of his series,
All The Lonely People
(1991), was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the first work of crime fiction by a new writer. With the advent of his second novel, Martin Edwards was becoming recognised as a writer of imagination and flair. This and subsequent books also referenced song titles from his youth.
The Harry Devlin books demonstrate a great sympathy for Liverpool, past and present, with gritty, realistic stories. âLiverpool is a city with a tremendous resilience of spirit and character,' he says in
Scene of the Crime,
(2002). Although his protagonist is a self-effacing Scousers with a dry wit, Edwards is not a writer for the faint-hearted. âHis gifts are of the more classical variety - there are points in his novels when I think I'm reading Graham Greene,' wrote Ed Gorman, while
Crime Time
magazine said âThe novels successfully combine the style of the traditional English detective story with a darker noir sensibility.'
More recently Martin Edwards has moved into the Lake District with mystery stories featuring an historian, Daniel Kind, and DCI Hannah Scarlett. The first of these,
The Coffin Trail
, was short listed for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the year 2006.
In this book Martin Edwards made good use of his legal knowledge. DCI Hannah Scarlett is in charge of a cold case review unit, attempting to solve old crimes, and when Daniel Kind moves into a new house, seeking a fresh start in the idyllic setting of the Lake District, he and she are drawn together by the murder of a young woman. The killer, who died before he could be convicted, used to live in Kind's new cottage.
Not only does Edwards manage to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the law (which he is careful never to force upon the reader), with the Lake District mysteries he has managed to bring the locations to vivid life. He has a skill for acute description which is rare - especially amongst those who are more commonly used to writing about city life.
More recently Edwards has published
Take My Breath Away
, a stand-alone psychological suspense novel, which offers a satiric portrait of an upmarket London law firm eerily reminiscent of Tony Blair's New Labour government.
Utilising his legal experience, he has written articles about actual crimes.
Catching Killers
was an illustrated book describing how police officers work on a homicide case all the way from the crime scene itself to presenting evidence in court.
When the writer Bill Knox died, Edwards was asked by his publisher to help complete his final manuscript, on which Knox had been working until days before his death. Bill Knox's method of writing was to hone each separate section of his books before moving on to the next, so Martin was left with the main thrust of the story, together with some jotted notes and newspaper clippings. From these he managed to complete
The Lazarus Widow
in an unusal departure for him.
More conventionally, Martin Edwards is a prolific writer of short stories. He has published the anthology
Where Do You Find Your Ideas?
which offers a mix of Harry Devlin tales mingled with historical and psychological short stories. His
Test Drive
was short listed for the CWA Short Story Dagger.
Edwards edits the regular CWA anthologies of short stories. These works have included
Green for Danger
, and
I.D. Crimes of Identity
, which included his own unusual and notable story
InDex
. In 2003 he also edited the CWA's
Mysterious Pleasures
anthology, which was a collection of the Golden Dagger winners' short stories to celebrate the CWA's Golden Jubilee.
A founder member of the performance and writing group, Murder Squad, Martin Edwards has found the time to edit their two anthologies.
When not writing and editing, Edwards is an enthusiastic reader and collector of crime fiction. He reviews for magazines, books and websites, and his essays have appeared in many collections.
He is the chairman of the CWA's nominations sub-committee for the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, the world's most prestigious award for crime writing.
Martin Edwards is one of those rare creatures, a crime-writer's crime-writer. His plotting is as subtle as any, his writing deft and fluid, his characterisation precise, and his descriptions of the locations give the reader the impression that they could almost walk along the land blindfolded. He brings them all to life.
(An earlier version of this article appeared in
British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia,
edited by Barry Forshaw)
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