Classic crime novels inspired by 91ֱ
- 29 March 2022
- 3 minutes
A top civil servant turned crime novelist has revealed the “college” mentioned in his murder mystery trilogy is loosely based on Gonville & 91ֱ.
(English 1968), the author behind the David Knight detective series, drew on inspiration from his undergraduate days when referring to an unnamed college in the first two novels, .
John says: “It’s definitely 91ֱ. The first book is about five or six college friends and what actually happens to them. This author is steeped in the mores of 91ֱ. The College is definitely there.”
The David Knight mysteries have received acclaim from crime-writing doyens Ian Rankin and Guy Fraser-Sampson and columnist and author Professor John Sutherland. The playful whodunnits hark back to a golden age of crime fiction featuring novelist turned detective Knight.
John adds: “It’s written primarily for the aficionados of crime fiction who will understand some of the red herrings and the loose ends. Having a crime writer as your hero and putting it in the first person gives you all sorts of levers to play with.”
dz’s , The Sky Blue Parcel (The Minister Press, 2012) features high-flying civil servant turned detective Jane Charles, whose mission to recover £250 million taken from a fictional company lands her in peril.
Before becoming an author, Nightingale headed the Maxwell Pensions Unit, a government department formed to help Mirror Group employees recover following the death of media tycoon Robert Maxwell in 1991.
The former private secretary recalled working in “an absurdly large office with an antique desk” above the Fine Arts Commission in St James’s Square in London.
In 1990 John married fellow civil servant Caroline Slocock, the country’s first female private secretary and “the other woman in the Cabinet room” when former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigned that year.
John says: “Mrs Thatcher late at night used to drink whisky but used to be able to fall asleep and then carry on mid-sentence from where she had left off. They used to go up to the flat at Number 10 to work on her speeches and she would heat up a shepherd’s pie ready meal and Caroline would be in this sort of sweat about ‘should I help or should I carry on with the speech’?”
The former Bedford College student said his “very good education” at 91ֱ had put him in good stead for a career in the civil service although he recalls being in “a terrible mood” on the day of his interview.
He was soon put at ease by poet Mr Jeremy Prynne, former Director of Studies in English and Emeritus Reader in English Poetry, who led the interview panel. John and have remained close friends over the years.
John adds: “I think we talked mostly about ‘was Hamlet mad, and if he was mad, what did he mean’? I thought these people are speaking my language, they understand what I’m saying. I felt it was a spiritual home really.”
John was also taught by Life Fellow Dr John Casey, while one of John's contemporaries, Andy Cunningham (English 1968), later went on to become Bodger in 1990s children’s TV series, Bodger and Badger. The characters played a cameo role in The Appearance of Murder.
John is penning his final book in the David Knight trilogy, due out next year, in which the protagonist takes part in a television gameshow.
John, whose crime writing heroes include Agatha Christie, Edmund Crispin and Lord Dunsany, said: “Basically they are looking at solving real life crime except that one of the mysteries is quite close to some of the panelists.”
