JOHN HARVEY JOINS THE CRIME VAULT LIVE: EPISODE FOUR

The fourth episode of The Crime Vault Live is now up online (link to it here) and it may be the best one yet.

Mark Billingham and I greet John Harvey, one of the greatest of British crime writers, creator of Resnick, and as I point out, in many ways one of the last of the old style pulpsmiths. And it's the place John makes a stunning announcement about an unexpected new novel! It's a wide-ranging show highlighted by our INTERROGATION of John. I managed to avoid discussing his Clint Eastwoody western series, Hart the Regulator (of which I have a complete set of the old paperbacks) which has books with titles taken, as this blog's was, from John Stewart. Nor his excellent but now overlooked stand-alone thrillers Frame and Blind, and I spared you further discussion of his poetry magazine Slow Dancer (where I first encountered John when he printed some of my poems) and we should have talked about his own poetry. But listen to his take on the introduction of Paul Christopher in one of Charles McCarry's novels.

We also covered Adam Sisman's biography of John LeCarre, author bios in general, reviews of books by  McCarry (often billed as the 'American LeCarre'), Alison Gaylin, and Graham Hurley; Patricia Highsmith on audio; London Spy, Black Mass, and Unforgotten, and the return of the Crime Vault's Vault in which we discuss George V Higgins and The Friends Of Eddie Coyle. Listen in. The show fits perfectly; we come full circle at the end, which doesn't happen often. And check out the publicity photo above: we look like we're about to star in a 60s British sitcom....