Over the years, I have made a number of forays into the world of Golden Age mystery writers, looking briefly at the work of several well-known exponents of the genre, and in greater depth at my mystery hero Agatha Christie, and her life and her work.
So now I thought I would tell you a little bit about my other favourite detective story writer, Patricia Wentworth, known mainly for her mysteries, but who also wrote romances.
Patricia Wentworth was her pen name. She was born as Dora Amy Elles in 1878 in India, and was educated at Blackheath School for Girls, now Blackheath High School, London.
She married quite young and had her first daughter. Her husband had two sons from a former relationship, one (or possibly both) of whom died in WWI. Her husband died in 1906, when she was still only in her late twenties. Wentworth moved to Camberley, Surrey, England, where she would live until her death in 1961. Wentworth met her second husband and married in 1920, and had another daughter. It was in Camberley Wentworth wrote most of her novels, with her second husband George writing down what she dictated.
Today she is mostly remembered for her 32 murder mysteries featuring private inquiry agent Miss Maud Silver, a former governess, keen observer of human nature and quoter of Tennyson and the Bible. But there are more than 40 other books which don’t feature detective Miss Silver, mostly mysteries, but there are some historical romances, and some poetry and stories for children.
For many years, I found it very difficult to obtain Wentworth’s books. But with the recent rise of small print runs and small presses, and the resurgence in interest in Golden Age and traditional mysteries, her work is enjoying a new popularity and reaching new audiences. Hodder have reissued the majority of the Miss Silver books over the last ten years or so, with Open Road Media and Dean Street Press publishing virtually all of the other books between them. Readers are often frustrated to find that the books have different titles in the UK and the USA, so please check carefully that you’re not buying the same book twice under different titles. If you want to check, there is an excellent bibliography on the Patricia Wentworth page on Wikipedia, along with publication dates.
Her work has often dismissed as being ‘old-fashioned’, ‘middle-class’, ‘tame’ and dated, but nevertheless I would say these books should not be so easily set aside, as there is a real mystery there for all mystery fans to get to grips with.
To begin with, some of these books first appeared more than a hundred years ago, and are still popular. For example, the romance, A Marriage Under The Terror won the Andrew Melrose prize in 1910, which earned her the handsome reward of two hundred and fifty guineas, quite a sum in those days. There was much speculation about her use of a pseudonym, claiming that it was impossible to keep her real identity a secret.
We do need to see them within their own era. I would agree with critics that a few of the novels are not as strong, or as innovative, as others, and also that several plot devices reoccur (notably the indoor, uncovered well), and that from time to time, ‘the butler did it’. But that was a new idea then, it’s only now, a hundred years later, that seems a bit tired to us.
The books are strongly romantic, which for me is a good thing, but it means they don’t fit comfortably into traditional generic categories, but again that is something that current trends are more flexible about. I know some readers find them too sweet, too polite, and complain there is not enough guts and gore—but hey, they’re cosies, get used to it.
these are the same book – but Spotlight is the British edition and Wicked Uncle is the American one. Either way, it’s another of my absolute favourites.
You might come across the odd ‘Damn’ or Good God!’ but that’s as offensive as the language will get, and no bodices are ripped, though there is sometimes a passionate kiss. Miss Silver, quoting from Tennyson or the Bible, knits and looks on fondly as the main characters fall in love and are unable to hide it, then it is her job to rescue them from a dreadful crime. In many of the books, we see her exchanging letters or receiving photos of the children born to a couple from an earlier mystery, and I love that too! There are also some funny moments when spinster Miss Silver says things like ‘In their own way, men can be quite useful.’ That one made me spit coffee all over myself.
The strengths of the books lies in the portrayal of the era, and in the way many of the characters are forced to find their way through unfamiliar and difficult circumstances, especially during the Second World War. The characters are not all wealthy, they are not all high-born, artistic, celebrities or otherwise fortunate. Often they are typists or orphans or military personnel. The mysteries are pleasing, often very clever, and the reader can detect along with the protagonist. The writing is intelligent, clear, and lacking in long flowery descriptions, which I personally detest.
I also recommend them for students of creative writing who want to improve their dialogue and character writing skills, their plotting skills or anyone who wants to write novels set in the recent past. And of course, I recommend them to readers who love a traditional mystery without body parts being lopped off, or strong language, or who prefer romance without sex scenes, or who likes something with a strong sense of morality and a satisfying mystery.
About ten years ago, I was in a secondhand bookshop trying to find some of the Wentworths that were missing from my collection. When I asked the lady who ran the store if they had any Patricia Wentworth books, she said no, sorry, then added, ‘She hasn’t done much lately, has she?’ To which I replied, ‘Well, she died in 1961, so that probably explains it.’ She just nodded and said, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
If you want to give them a go, below are a couple of my favourite titles:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/caronallan/patricia-wentworth-books/
The Chinese Shawl – 1st published in 1943. It’s definitely my favourite Miss Silver!
Silence in Court – my current reread, it was 1st published in 1945. This is the Dean Street Press edition.
Poison in the Pen – I love a poison pen mystery – and have even written one myself. This one was 1st published in 1957.
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When I’m starting out with a new story idea, I have to ask myself these two questions:
Is it due to time pressure? Murderers are notoriously busy people :D. If the victim is not dispatched, will that leave them free to take some action that is detrimental to the happy continuance of the killer’s life?
She found a corner table, one where she had the wall at her back, and the whole cafe there before her eyes, the entrance to the left, the service counter to the right.
Most of us had to get back to work this week, and that includes writers! I’m at the creative stage, ideas flowing, crazy ones or a bit more sensible, I’m making a huge amount of notes, then just as likely, crossing them out the next day, only to come back a day after that and think, ‘Yes, actually, I like that idea, it could work really well.’
I know I’ve written on this topic a couple of times before, but it’s one of those questions that never goes away.
I have based two full-length stories on dreams, three short stories and one novel on songs, a poem on a piece of art, a novel based on a documentary I saw on TV about ancient tapestries, (Opus Anglicanum: Latin for English work), and another about the Reformation. I’ve written a short story about an arrowhead, and another about ancestral bones and the relevance they might have to a Neolithic man, 
Writing.
This one is still in the planning stages – and will not be out for quite some time – I won’t begin writing it until next year! But I’m soooo excited about this story, I’m hoping it will be fun and fairly light-hearted. It’s all about con-artists getting away with it – or will they?
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you will have seen this one before… I do quite often repeat myself. Mainly because I know anyone who has already seen it will either have forgotten it by now, or will be happy to gloss over it once more, but there will be many people who (hopefully) won’t have seen it yet.
Seeing those houses had been a goal of mine since I watched that iconic Simon Schama documentary A History of Britain, and I had to see it for myself. It’s not often something inspires me to that extent, but that really did. And because I a) love people and b) love history, I wanted to see a place where those two things met. And where so gloriously stunning as the neolithic village Skara Brae, unearthed during a violent storm in 1850, it was last inhabited four thousand years before that. This glorious place set my imagination on fire, and I concocted this short story…
Soon the eye becomes accustomed to the dimness and it is possible to see not just vague shapes but the shapes of the bodies of the cattle in their pens, or the shapes of the drawings in the sand of the fireside floor, the simple outlines that accompany the story that is being told. A half-grown child, listening to the stories with wide eyes is given instructions and items of interest, are brought from the dresser to the one who speaks, who holds each thing up for all to see and recounts all that is known, the history of the item, the way it happened to be found or created, all that makes it special is told now to those who are gathered. They’ve heard it before. Even last night but still they all look and a discussion takes place, even the child speaks. He will be a fine man one day soon. They look on him with pride. One day, he will be the teller of stories.
The food is passed round, grain and meat and fish and coarse bread, flat and hot from the stones by the fire. Everyone eats and there is a strange hush over those in the house for a time. There is a ritual about eating. There is a ritual about being in the safety of a warm and solid home with the cattle and the fire. This is what it means to be at home.
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about routine and how I think it’s essential to productive creativity. But what do you do if your routine goes to pot and everything is unsettled and out of sync?
I usually start strong, like most writers. I have a good idea of where the story is going, I know what it’s about. But for me, again like many writers, the problems arise about halfway or so into the story when suddenly I realise a) I’m useless at writing, b) my story sucks, and c) it’s never going to be ready in time.
I recently read somewhere that routine hinders the creative process. To really be creative, we need to let go of organisation, routine and any kind of rigid preconceptions or framework, to allow ourselves freedom to explore in any direction and form that appeals to us.
As I’ve said already, routine planned writing leads to increased output and measurable results, you see the word count piling up and you see that you are moving towards your deadline or goal. This gives you the impetus you need to write through the tough sections of your book, those tricky little scenes and the mid-book blues.
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