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Fitzroy
Maclean Angel was born at the age of
about 32, on a commuter train out of London’s
Liverpool Street
in the summer of 1987. His first volume of
autobiography, Just
Another Angel, was accepted by Elizabeth Walter,
the
legendary editor of Collins Crime Club that Autumn and published on 18th August 1988,
the
day a certain Murder One bookshop
opened to the public.
*
Just Another
Angel did NOT win the
1988 John Creasey Award for best first
crime novel from the Crime Writers Association, though many thought it
had. It
was not even short-listed and the actual winner was Death’s
Bright Angel by Janet Neel (later, Baroness Cohen of
Pimlico). Despite
that obvious mistake,
the two authors have remained firm friends.
*
Angel Touch did win the
first CWA Last Laugh Award
for
comedy crime in 1989, beating comic genius Sarah Caudwell. Despite that
obvious
mistake, the two authors remained close friends until Sarah’s
untimely death in
2000.
*
Springsteen the
psychopathic cat was modelled on a
homicidal long-haired Persian called Beryl.
*
Angel Hunt actually did
win the ‘Angel Award’ for fiction,
presented at The Angel Hotel, Bury St Edmunds, but no-one believes this.
*
Lord Ted
Willis, the creator of Dixon of Dock Green,
was so taken with Angel
Hunt after
reviewing it in the Daily Telegraph,
that
he attempted to buy the film rights for his own production company.
*
Angels In Arms won a second Last
Laugh Award in 1991, presented by David Suchet, in
character, as Hercule
Poirot.
*
One of the
methods of smuggling drugs described in Angels
In Arms resulted in a visit to the author by
members of H.M. Customs
and Excise!
*
In June 1994,
the first ever, ‘special launch issue’
of the magazine A Shot in the Dark
featured a limited edition commissioned print of Angel, Werewolf,
Armstrong and
Springsteen on its cover. In 1995, Angel Confidential was voted Shot of the Year (possibly misheard) by
readers.
*
The original
title of Angel
Confidential was to
have been Angel Eyes
(later a short story) but the publishers insisted on
a change as they were also publishing Angel Eyes by Eric van Lustbader.
*
Having been
dropped by HarperCollins after seven
books, the eighth, That
Angel Look, was sold to the Do Not Press for an
advance of
£1. Yes, they were in a pub at the time.
*
The
‘Dungeons and Dragons’ game described in Angel
City actually did take place and one
role-player’s game name really was
“BBW” (the Bishop of Bath and Wells).
*
Both methods of
stealing a light aircraft described in
Family
of Angels actually do work – with
apologies to Bourne Flying Club, Cambridge.
*
Shortly before
his death, the great soldier/writer Sir
Fitzroy Maclean (said to be a model for James Bond) sent his private
secretary
to a Shots Convention in Nottingham to ask the
author if Angel’s name was
inspired by his. (It was).
*
It was book
five in the series before a reviewer (in The
Observer) used the expression “the
Talented Mr Ripley”.
*
The plot of Bootlegged Angel came
from the
author’s previous life in the brewing industry, working with
teams of private
detectives to identify beer smugglers coming across the Channel.
*
Eminent crime
fiction critic Julian Symons hated the
Angel books – and told the author so – because
“they didn’t take the puzzle
element seriously”.
*
The one Angel
scene quoted back at the author more
than any other is the “one mile down club” incident
on the Eurostar going
through the Channel Tunnel in Family
of Angels.
*
Angel’s
visit to a brewery in Bootlegged
Angel was
described by one critic as “comic genius”
and by Ian Rankin as “one of the best hangover scenes in
crime fiction.”
*
The idea to
make Angel’s father a Lord (albeit a Life
Peer) came from Sarah Caudwell who advised that “the only way
to get published
in America is to have a
lord and preferably a couple of butlers
in there”. The Angel books remain unpublished in America…
*
The inspiration
for the character of Angel’s mother
came after a chance meeting with Lynda La Plante at a BBC drinks party
in 1995.
*
The research
for Lights Camera
Angel! was
done during a visit to the set of The World
Is Not Enough as a guest of
Pierce Brosnan, a fan of the early books.
*
A quote from
Angel in Lights
Camera – “Why
wasn’t I in Edinburgh where they
knew how to organise a street
party?” – appeared on the masthead (probably still
does) of the website of the ‘Explore
Lothian’ tourist agency.
*
Angel is only
ever physically described once, by
Veronica Blugden in the short story Angel Eyes published in Fresh
Blood 3 in 1999.
*
The
‘ghost village’ of Tyneham in Dorset, as described
in Angel’s
Share, really does exist,
though the village of Upwalters does not. The
gunfight which takes place
in abandoned Tyneham is a small homage to
the John Sturges western The Law and Jake
Wade.
*
The
author’s favourite review of all time was: “Had me
rolling on the floor with laughter – Taxi
Globe”.
*
The television
rights to “Angel” were first sold in
1989. Alan Plater turned down an approach to script the pilot episode
as he was
busy writing the follow-up to his much-loved series The
Beiderbecke Tapes.
*
After five
years “in development” with Carlton TV, Angel was dropped in favour of the Sharman novels of Mark Timlin. The
author learned of this by overhearing a conversation between television
executives in the Gentlemen’s lavatories in The Groucho Club.
*
Two independent
production companies have attempted to
develop Angel for the BBC, with a
film-length pilot script, written by the author, of Angels in Arms which
remains unmade.
*
During
negotiations with television producers over ten
years, the following were ‘pencilled in’ to play
Angel: Nick (Heartbeat) Berry
[twice], Sam West, Mick
Ford (of the RSC), Kenneth Branagh [not very seriously] and Lenny Henry
[very
seriously!].
*
Richard Thorp
(who plays landlord Alan Turner in Emmerdale)
has demanded to be auditioned
for the part of Duncan the Drunken
since 1995.
*
The film and television
rights are currently
available.
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