I read London Fields because I heard it was literary crime at its finest. There’s not a lot of white on the page with these folks.Take Martin Amis. They take a squint at the best-seller lists and see them full of books about serial killers, gangsters and good cops, and say to themselves: “Blimey! I can do that.” Or more likely: “Good heavens, I wonder if I put my mind and talent to work on this subject I could have a hit.” Because a literary writer will never use one word when half a dozen will do. He only became McBain with the 87th Precinct novels, and it was years before the truth about his double life was revealed. I’m sure a lot of his fans aren’t aware of it to this day.Hunter/McBain did the almost impossible feat of changing horses in midstream, and since then a number of writers have tried to do the same These writers get great reviews and disappointing sales.

At first he declined to answer, but when I pressed him, he came up with a quip from Elmore Leonard, another genius of crime, who said: “There should be a lot of white on the page.” Perfect, I thought That means the sentences are short, sharp and to the point No fat. No flannel.
Ironically, McBain’s first success was as a literary author (under the name of Evan Hunter) with The Blackboard Jungle in 1955. Does the Passengers’ Charter stretch to refunds for chronic disappointment?’The Night Season’: NT Cottesloe, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), to 17 Nov; ‘The Master and Margarita’: Festival Theatre, Chichester (01243 781312), to 23 Sept; ‘Carnesky’s Ghost Train’: Old Truman Brewery, London E1 (020 7053 2000), to 23 Septk.bassett independent.co.uk. The only time I met Ed McBain, I asked him what he thought made a good crime novel.

Carnesky’s own great-grandmother came to London’s east-end, escaping Latvia’s pogroms. Carnesky herself has worked as a Shoreditch stripper, and this co-devised piece is said to reflect the contemporary experiences of her multinational, female cast of dancers and alternative artistes Alas, it turns out Carnesky has no great train of thought. The ride is almost insultingly reductive.It offers a few technical thrills You lurch in the dark on a twisting track. Eerie trompe l’oeils include ghost-doves fluttering behind bars and dancing girls vanishing into thin air. But most of the side-shows are a dull medley of gothic and soft-porn clich?(shrieks, fishnets and handcuffs).