The classic twenties crime trilogy. Dramatised for the first time ever. Starting this Saturday...
CS Forester's
LONDON NOIR
Dramatised by Paul Mendelson
Directed by David Ian Neville.
with Sophie Thompson, Richard Lumsden, Tessa Peake Jones, Sam Dale, Rebecca Lacey, Brian Dicks... and Greg Wise as CS Forester
Pick of the Day: Sunday Times 'Perfect' ...Mail on Sunday 'Heinous' ... Radio Times 'Gripping'
Saturdays April 5th, 12th and 19th, 2.30pm on BBC Radio 4.
Anything can happen behind closed doors
Most famous for his Hornblower series, C.S. Forester wrote three seminal psychological thrillers at the start of his career that took crime writing in a new direction, portraying ordinary, desperate people committing monstrous acts, and showing events spiralling terribly, chillingly, out of control.
In Payment Deferred set in 1926, William Marble, a bank clerk living in south London with his wife Annie and their two children, is desperately worried about money and is in grave danger of losing his house and job. An unexpected visit by a young relative with an inheritance tempts William to commit a heinous crime.
Plain Murder takes us into a 1930s London advertising agency. Morris, Oldroyd and Reddy, have been caught taking bribes. One of their colleagues threatens to blow the whistle on them. Instant dismissal will inevitably be the result, and at a time of severe unemployment, their future prospects are bleak. Morris, a menacing bully, offers them a road out of their dilemma - a perfect murder, cleverly disguised as a tragic accident. But is there such a thing as the perfect murder?
The Pursued is a dark tale of retribution.
When Marjorie finds Dorothy, her pretty young sister, lying dead with her head in the oven the obvious assumption is suicide. But the girl’s mother, Mrs Clair, a tough-minded woman, is not convinced. She believes that Dorothy was murdered by Marjorie’s cheating husband Ted. Unable to prove her theory, Mrs Clair begins to cook up a secret, terrible revenge.