Maxim Jakubowski: London Noir

© 1994

Like so many of the great cities of the world, London is many things to different people.

For those from abroad and tourists, it conveys images of tarnished royal splendours, faded imperial monuments, the tawdry glamour of Soho and Piccadilly Circus. For the more historically-minded amongst them, visions are conjured of Victorian fog and dread and square-shaped East End gangsters, while for others London is just a gentle panorama of terraced houses with tiled roofs and front gardens in suburbia.

For those who live there, London is alternately a quiet, often boring sprawl of a megalopolis with its myriad villages, parks and greenery, or in the grey light of day, a sordid capital where misery and poverty are inescapable.

While for lovers, London can be a graveyard of sweet memories.

For me, London, a city where I was born but did not return to until my mid-twenties, has a thousand varied faces: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, St Paul’s and the City on which I had to do a book during my publishing years, Camden Town and its increasingly bizarre markets, the hills of Hampstead, the genteel bohemia of Notting Hill and Islington, tennis at Wimbledon, the colour of the Thames near Richmond Bridge, football stadia in Tottenham and Highbury and cricket pitches at the Oval and Lord’s, the unending ascent of the Finchley Road where I had my first London flat, the late Scala cinema near King’s Cross, the West Indian accents in Brixton, pretty women in Clapham and Blackheath, Orthodox Jewish kids ambling down the Golders Green Road with their anachronistic locks, cavernous Victoria Station’s gateways to the South, and so much more.

But then, for you the reader of this anthology, London will mean many other things, all different.

And you there, yes, you the wondrous tall lady standing quietly at the back with her mass of tangled hair, London might well be another set of images and memories altogether. Hotel rooms near Heathrow or West End basements maybe?

I suppose that’s the way of fascinating cities, to grip, charm and inspire us.

Somehow, most noir writing automatically brings America and its legendary dark side to mind: the rainy mean streets of night-time California in the pages of Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy’s hell-pit of Los Angeles, mafia hoods in New York’s Little Italy, countless road movies or gangster flicks full of fury and despair. But London also enjoys its share of gloom, doom and heart-break. Here, people live, suffer and love in their own idiosyncratic ways too. Think of such eminent London writers as Gerald Kersh, Patrick Hamilton, a certain Dickens and, today, Michael Moorcock, Peter Ackroyd, Iain Sinclair, Derek Raymond.

Well, Whitechapel did spawn Jack the Ripper Esquire after all!

So I thought I would ask several friends and writers each to pen a new story about the darkness they saw at the heart of our contradictory city. The responses, collected here, are both varied and fascinating, and provide us with a patchwork portrait of a London we never knew, a dark London, a London Noir.

Often a very bleak view, I am aware, but then urban nightmares must always have a silver lining, and lancing a boil can have beneficial effects in the long run.

London, this is your other life.

Maxim Jakubowski

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER is one of the leading British contemporary horror writers. He runs a film promotional company in London’s Soho. Amongst his novels are Roofworld, Red Bride, Darkest Day and Rune (currently being developed for the screen by Basic Instinct’s Paul Verhoeven with a script by Paul Mayersberg of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence).

After a long career in the rock music business, working for The Who and T. Rex, MARK TIMLIN turned to a literary life of crime. He is the creator of South London sleuth Nick Sharman, the protagonist of nine novels and being scripted for television. The latest is Ashes By Now.

LIZA CODY is the foremost British exponent of the female private eye genre, with her Anna Lee adventures and, recently, a new heroine, the doughty wrestler Eva Wylie in Bucket Nut and Monkey Wrench. She has won the John Creasey, the Anthony and the Silver Dagger awards and lives in Somerset.

After a decade overseas, DEREK RAYMOND (better known as Robin Cook to Soho pub regulars) is now back in London where he currently resides in darkest Willesden. His Factory series represents British noir at its best and is soon to make it to the small and large screens. His last novel was Dead Man Upright.

CHAZ BRENCHLEY has written a series of dark novels on the borderlines of crime and horror. They include Mall Time, The Samaritan and The Refuge. In a bid for literary respectability, his publishers will be releasing his next novels as by C.S. Brenchley. He was born in Oxford, lives in Newcastle and is writer in residence in Sunderland.

DENISE DANKS’ novel Frame Grabber featured her heroine Georgina Powers in a case featuring virtual reality, erotic asphyxiation and corporate larceny. A computer journalist by trade, Denise has now written four Georgina Powers novels. She lives in East London with her husband and daughter, and is the winner of the 1994 Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship.

MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI owns London’s Murder One mystery bookshop. Previously a publisher, he was the editor of the Black Box Thrillers and Blue Murder imprints. He has written or edited over thirty-five books and, in 1992, won the Anthony award for One Hundred Great Detectives.

A Scotsman presently living in France with wife and son, IAN RANKIN is the creator of Inspector Rebus, an unconventional Scottish sleuth whose latest appearance was in The Black Book. He was the winner of the 1992 Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in crime and detective fiction.

JESSICA PALMER is an American writer who lives in Harrow, outside London. Her first two novels are in the horror field, Dark Lullaby and Cradle Song. She is currently writing a series of fantasy books for young adults. She was once called Sam, but that was in Texas.

Possibly the only thriller writer ever to have been nominated twice for the Booker Prize, JULIAN RATHBONE is related to that most revered of Sherlock Holmes impersonators, Basil Rathbone. His international thrillers have been translated into several languages; the latest was Sand Blind.

MOLLY BROWN is another American expatriate living outside London. Her short stories have been regularly appearing in some of the leading anthologies and magazines in both the crime and science fiction field, where she won the Best Short Story of the Year BSFA award in 1992. Previously a stand-up comic, she is writing her first crime novel.

After an early career in teaching and western writing, JOHN HARVEY made a much noticed entry into the crime field, with his dour Nottingham policeman Charlie Resnick. The object of a well-received television series, Resnick’s last appearance was in Wasted Years. His appearance in this volume is his first short story.

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN (the Z stands for Zinn) is an American crime writer who lives in Somerset. He is known for his soft-boiled Albert Samson and Leroy Powder mysteries, and his many radio plays. He also co-edits (with Liza Cody) the annual Crime Writers’ Association anthology First Culprit. His new novel is Underdog.