Made my way through the rain-sodden mean streets of Newcastle to the Central Library which is near enough to the centre of the city to justify its name.
I was checkin' out a dame, Fiona Veitch Smith although she sometimes calls herself Poppy Denby and wears retro clothes.
What was this broad doing in a library? Why wasn't she out reporting for the local rag, taking pictures with her Kodak Brownie? Then it clicked, there wasn't a match (football game) on so what else could she do? Fiona and alter ego Poppy, dropped in to talk about a couple of crime scenarios they, well at least Poppy, had been involved in back in the 1920's - the Jazz Age!
Fiona had a captive audience hanging on to her every word. Painting a picture that was much more than a cosy Christie or a hard-boiled Hammett.
There are social issues in her writings that those early crime writers overlooked. Issues that are with us once more. Suffragettes may be long gone but woman's equality isn't. Depressions, like wars, pop up with wave-like regularity and, Fiona tells us, her novels encompass both the fun and frivolity of those that have as well as them 'as don't have.
There are social issues in her writings that those early crime writers overlooked. Issues that are with us once more. Suffragettes may be long gone but woman's equality isn't. Depressions, like wars, pop up with wave-like regularity and, Fiona tells us, her novels encompass both the fun and frivolity of those that have as well as them 'as don't have.
Throughout it all, the Jazz Age prevails - was it Scott Fitzgerald or Evelyn Waugh who personified it? I think Fiona (Poppy) has continued and, maybe even added to the tradition.
Lance
Lance
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