Tightrope

Author: James Grant (aka Bruce Crowther)

Publisher: Muller

Date: 1979

Pages: 168

Cover illustration: Alun Hood 
Not currently available in Paperback or eBook format

 First off, I have to thank Bob Deis at MensPulpMags.com and publisher/editor of Men's Adventure Library and Mens Adventure Quartlery for pointing out to me that mysterious author James Grant from my previous blog entry had a profile on his Amazon.com author page informing everyone (expect me of course!) that it was the pen name of British writer Bruce Crowther. That knowlege set me off on the hunt for as much information as I could find about James Grant/Bruce Crowther. I am very pleased to be able to present below an update and fuller list of Crowther's work and history. Thanks Rob!

After being so impressed with The Ransom Commando, I have spent the last few weeks tracking down as many titles by Crowther as I can. The result is that I was driven to abandon my current read (The Chinese Bandit by Stephen Becker - I'm not too sure I'll ever get back to finishing that one?) in order to start reading Tightrope - a 1979 novel published under the James Grant name by Frederick Muller Limited in the UK in hardback format only it would seem. I don't believe there has ever been a mass market paperback edition, but there may have been a large-print paperback by Lynford Mystery Library put out at some point? 

Bruce Crowther (b.1933) was born and raised in Hull, England. He became an avid reader at a very young age and soon ran out of books to consume from the local library. He found himself turning to crime fiction and American literature; developing a passion for the books of Chandler, Cain and Woolrich. This interest accompanied his love of film noir that had begun in his youth. He began writing crime fiction as a way to escape the boredom he encountered in his working life in industry and accounting, and never looked back. All those years of consuming classic American noir fiction probably meant that it was inevitable he would take up crime fiction writing as an adult.

In his own words from his Amazon.com bio;

What next? A copy of The Writer's Handbook and a pin found an agent: Carolyn Whitaker. Off the typescript went, and a few weeks later Carolyn phoned me, told me that my novel was un-publishable, and then spent a couple of hours telling me why. That two-hour telephone call remains high among the best things that ever happened to me; it was educational, important, invaluable and unforgettable.

Having begun a second book, I now dumped it and started again, incorporating all the advice Carolyn had given me, and when I was done sent it to her. A few weeks later, she sold it to a leading London publisher.

 

When he returned to Hull, after a short spell away, he was encouraged to attend Hull University and read for a degree in American studies. At the same time, his interest in Jazz took off, all of which eventually led to Crowther taking time away from Crime fiction writing and embarking upon a career of successful non-fiction titles covering subjects such as Film Noir, Jazz Music and American Film History and Biographies. Some notable books of his are Film Noir: Reflections in a Dark Mirror, Singing Jazz and Captured on Film: The Prison Movie. Even before this time, his books have an American slant or feature a Jazz-heavy influence (Don't Shoot the Pianist central character is a jazz musician), and Tightrope is an interesting example (see below). 

As well as his books on the Jazz genre, Crowther's enthusiasm and knowledge of this movement has lead him to present radio programmes on local radio, and he is still supplying regular reviews for the UK website, Jazz Journal. He has also returned to Crime fiction in recent years - more of which I will visit in a subsequent blog entry. Below is an updated list of his 1970s and 1980s fiction novels. Some of these are very difficult to track down...and none are available in eBook format at the moment.

• Underkill, 1976 (as Bruce Crowther)
• Dead Man’s Cocktail, 1977 (as Bruce Crowther)
• The Rose Medallion, 1977 (as James Grant)*
• Island of Gold, 1978 (as James Grant)
• The Ransom Commando, 1978 (as James Grant)*
• The Left-Handed Shell, 1978 (as James Grant)
• Tightrope, 1979 (as James Grant)
• Don’t Shoot the Pianist, 1980 (as James Grant)
• Victims, 1980 (as James Grant)
• Unholy Alliance, 1981 (as Bruce Crowther)
• Black Wednesday, 1981 (as Bruce Crowther)
• Frontier, 1981 (as Michael Ansara)
• Mace!, 1984 (as James Grant)*
• Mace’s Luck, 1985 (as James Grant)

*Mass market paperback available

Tightrope is a first person narrative told by Johnny Baxter, an out of work steelframe erector with a penchant for jazz records, an alcoholic nyphomaniacal girlfriend who lives in the flat below and an ex-wife anda young daughter that he hasn't seen for ages. In his desperation to get work, Baxter answers a mysterious phone call and accepts an offer to meet up with a total stranger for a quick and easy job.

Joining the strangely tattooed and flamboyantly dressed American in a local public house in the centre of Hull, Baxter promises to meet him again the following day at the local library to take on a job. The details are sketchy, but despite the impression made with the jazz fraternity after his outrageous behaviour in the pub, Johnny desperately needs the money to survive.

Making his way home, Baxter is surprised to find a package that the American must have dropped in his car. Following a night of passion with Carole Dixon in her flat, Johnny is woken early in the morning by the sound of someone knocking on his door to the flat above. Not wishing to get tangled with any debt-collectors he stays where his is and avoids any contact. Spying from the window he realises that the callers were the Police. With curiosity getting the better part of him, he cannot resist opening the package. The contents turn out to be diamonds, thirty-one diamonds of varying sizes, a treasure trove. It dawns upon the narrator that he is either being used, or his new foound strange friend is very absent-minded when it comes to his possessions. Deciding not to say anything for the moment he leaves to make his appointment but is picked up by the police as he leaves the house.

His is interviewed by Inpsector Gostelow, who seems to think that Baxter knows something - but doesn't let on exactly what. It is only when Gostelow accompanies Baxter to the local morgue and confronts him with the dead body of a heavily-tatooed man that Johnny realises he is mixed uop in something very strange - and that he has a furtunes-worth of diamonds in his coat pocket that could set him up for life. From then on Tightrope becomes a fascinating northern-english noir tale of our narrator's attempts to make as much money out the situation he finds himself in, with the local police and organised crime doggedly trying to catch him out.

This is another fabulous tale by Bruce Crowther. It's refeshingly short and, although firmly grounded in the grim city of Hull in the North of England during the 1970s, doesn't waste time with long descriptive sections that would slow down the pace of the tightly plotted story. 

He allows his unusal characters to dominate the story. There are many of them such as the epnymous toattoed gentleman, Claude Jenks; highly-sexed and mostly drunk Carole Dixon; Big Eric, a four foot ten inch dumb and bald lorry-driver; his wife, Doris, who loves to treat Johnny one of her own sons; B.J Williams, the super-sexy Arts producer at the radio station in town who Baxter would love to bed; and then there is Inpsector Gostelow, an enigmatic detective who hounds our Johnny like a dog with a scent.

It's clear that Crowther was aiming for noir tale in the style of American private eye tales with a twist - the box of diamonds bring all these nefarious characters together in to a tale that mixes mystery and sex and violence and spins it around Circus Travellers and the locations of Hull rather than downtown New York or Hollywood Boulevard. I think he nailed it, and loved every word of this novel.

In some ways Tightrope reminded me of an English 70's drama called The Beiderbecke Trilogy by Alan Plater. Although very different in tone (Beiderbecke was a TV series set in Yorkshire in the mid-eighties and was full of dark humour), both share a similar "atmosphere" whereby characters from a North England town are drawn into unusual/illegal happenings - with a jazz music influence running through them. Tightrope is much grittier (not quite Get Carter territory though) and would have made a great TV play in my opinion.

I would highly recommend Tightrope - Crowther is a writer that really hits my spot in style and content - I can't wait to try another one of his books.