Archive - John Vane: London Stories

November 2024

October 2024

London Fiction - The Bodyguards

Esther Freud's short story draws with skilful economy the relationship between two women having man troubles and their relationships with the city

Oct 27 •

London Fiction – The Smoke

Tom Barling's big, fat 1986 gangland crime novel is vividly written, pretty gruelling and captures a slice of 1960s London that wasn't one bit pretty

Oct 15 •

London Fiction – A Bear Called Paddington

Reading the very first Michael Bond's stories about one of the treasures of children's fiction all the way through brings home the context in which he…

Oct 1 •

September 2024

London Fiction – The Adventure of the Cheap Flat

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot short story from the 1920s reveals, among other things, that flat-hunting in the capital has never been straightforward

Sep 25 •

London Fiction – Crouch End

Legendary US horror writer Stephen King made a lot of weird stuff happen in the north London suburb inside his head

Sep 16 •

London Fiction - The Tiger in the Smoke

Crime queen Margery Allingham brought to life a post-war London of bereavement and peasoupers in her 1952 novel

Sep 11 •

August 2024

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