My involvement with crime and mystery fiction started when I was four. The first book I remember reading for myself was Hurrah for Little Noddy. As Enid Blyton aficionados will know, this is the second in the series about a self-absorbed wooden doll. It’s a thrilling tale about a massive car heist (those pesky goblins), involving a red herring, a car chase, wrongful arrest (oh poor Noddy), a stupid police officer and the intervention of a gifted amateur (Big Ears’s finest moment). Drop everything and re-read it.
Much of Blyton’s prodigious output is crime fiction writ small. I have a theory that its imprint on tender minds is largely responsible for the flourishing condition of British crime fiction over the past 40-odd years. Blyton led me naturally to other authors. When I was eight, my father gave me his copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the prophetic words: ‘I think you might like this now’.
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