Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 52
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Popular Culture Review
more limited influence on the crime genre and on the reading public than Agatha
Christie, John Le Carre and others may have had. This article will demonstrate
that Follett’s rapid development in craft across two of his earliest novels worked
against the “endless duplication with only nominal variations” required in a best
selling series; by the end of the third Apples Carstairs novel, Follett had simply
outgrown the form.
The first of the Apples Carstairs’ mysteries, The Big Needle, has been
discussed at length elsewhere, and the circumstances of its publication are fairly
well known. Working as a reporter for the London Evening News and facing finan
cial pressures, Follett learned of publishing opportunities with Everest Books. A
fellow reporter had sold a mystery novel for £200, and Follett 6BF