#seasidenoir #books: 5 Seaside Noirs for the Holiday Season, by Paul D. Brazill
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside! Well, after a fashion I do, but I’m from Hartlepool …
From its brilliant opening line, Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock (1938) grabs you by the throat and almost strangles you with its intensity. The lives of fantastically rich characters, such as big hearted Ida Arnold who is investigating Hale’s murder and Pinkie, the psychotic young gangster, intertwine in a gripping novel that is well-deserved of its classic status.
The seaside town of Brighton itself is also one of the book’s strongest characters, as the glitz and grit collide.
GBH by Ted Lewis
Ted Lewis is probably best known for his 1970 novel Jack’s Return Home and/or its subsequent film versions – Get Carter (1971) starring Michael Caine, Hit Man starring Bernie Casey (1972), and the unfortunate Get Carter (2000) starring Sylvester Stallone.
GBH was Lewis’ final novel – published in 1980- and it’s pretty damned fantastic. The book’s title is an abbreviation of ‘grievous bodily harm’, a term used in English criminal law to describe a particularly violent form of physical assault. GBH is the story of the decline of London gangster and pornographer George Fowler, and it is cleverly told in two alternating time periods. The earlier period is set in London and is titled The Smoke. The later period is set in an off-season seaside down and is titled The Sea.
GBH has the lot – great characters, sharp dialogue, richly descriptive prose, a cold clammy atmosphere, a powerful sense of time and place, and a cruel, dark humour. It really is a cracking read and is well-deserved of its classic status.
Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren - Ross.
I must confess, I’d never heard of this book or its author until relatively recently .
Julian Maclaren-Ross seems to have been a bit of a rogue, to be sure, and he certainly seems to have lived a varied and colourful life. Of Love and Hunger is a novel inspired by his time as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman in the 1930s. It is rich with great characters and has a great sense of time and place.
Although it was written in 1943, Of Love and Hunger is really like a breath of fresh air. Maclaren-Ross has a strong authorial voice and the exploits of the novel’s protagonist are both tragic and humorous. Of Love and Hunger is an immensely satisfying read and the foreword by Paul Willits is also well-worth checking out.
Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth
Cathi Unsworth‘s marvellously atmospheric Weirdo (2012) also takes place in an English seaside town, the fictitious Ernemouth. Again two sides of the town are contrasted with bright lights hiding dark and dirty corners. A private detective investigates a 20 year old murder and unearths some nasty secrets. Weirdo cleverly takes place in two time periods (2003 and 1983), is populated with great charters and has a vividly, strong sense of time and place.
And since vanity is its own reward …
Gumshoe Blues (The Peter Ord Yarns Book 1) by Paul D. Brazill
‘After a messy divorce, Peter Ord decides to turn his life around and become a private investigator. But with his constant drinking and questionable decision-making skills, his new career quickly turns into a dark farce filled with tragicomedy.’
Of course there’s a lot more, I’m sure, including John Osbourne’s The Entertainer, Morrissey’s Every Day Is Like A Sunday, and the Public Eye TV series. Oh, and that great BBC TV series Blackpool.
If you can think of any others, feel free to add them in the comments.