The crimes and misdemeanours of the Victorian and Edwardian eras were put under the spotlight earlier this month for an event called 'Gaslit Vices' at Waterstones in Hampstead. (The term 'gaslit', incidentally, was coined by author Lee Jackson to best describe that cosy period of history when hansom cabs and swirling pea soupers were very much de rigueur.)
Chaired by Crime Time supremo Barry Forshaw, the panel of four historical crime writers consisted of Frank Tallis (Fatal Lies), Lee 'L M' Jackson (A Most Dangerous Woman), Andrew Martin (Murder at Deviation Junction) and Roger 'R N' Morris (A Vengeful Longing). To a small but appreciative audience, these practitioners of bygone crime fiction waxed lyrical on the strengths and pitfalls of their genre.
Considering that they all ploughed the same furrow, and the potential readership was finite, they were asked whether 'one sale for me is one less for him'. Jackson thought not. "Writing is such an isolated, lonely business," he said, "it's nice to bind together with fellow toilees." Andrew Martin agreed. "I think we're all in it together," he said.
As to whether crime writers 'cheat' and put modern concepts into past times, Frank Tallis was pragmatic. "It's got to be a compromise. If you have too many colloquialisms, it's jarring. But if it's too authentic, it makes excessive demands on your readership. So you end up using cod English. It's all smoke and mirrors really - an illusion."
"Some people don't like the idea of me using the detective from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment," opined Roger Morris. "But I see that Boris Akunin is now doingthe same, so it's presumably all right now. It's all got very postmodern."
What about that old bugbear - sex? "Well, Vienna in the 1900s was absolutely obsessed with it," enthused Tallis. "Freud had this idea of Eros, sexual love, and its opposite, Thanatos, which is basically a love of death. Arthur Schnitzler, author of Dream Story, counted all his orgasms." Lee Jackson was a little more circumspect: "I steer clear of sex scenes entirely. I stop at the bedroom door - otherwise my wife would kill me!"
If they had access to a Tardis, Roger Morris would have opted to reside, not in St Petersburg where his novels are set, but in pre-war Paris. "By all accounts, it was a fabulous place, full of the most artistic and creative people. Cubism was at its height, and you could meet Cocteau, Picasso...it would have been fascinating to explore that whole Surrealist art world."
Andrew Martin had the last word: "I would have liked to live in Edwardian times, if I was well off. Men digging holes in the road wore suits. It was also very quiet - there were no 'planes flying over. These days, if I see a man in his 50s walking along in a T-shirt and trainers, I think, 'You've been undone by modernity!'"
Frank Tallis and L M Jackson are published by Century, and Andrew Martin and Roger Morris by Faber
