John Creasey and Dennis Wheatley

As part of its celebration of the life and work of classic crime writers I spent a number of hours on Saturday 20 February 2016 re-acquainting myself with the works of John Creasey and Dennis Wheatley courtesy of Peters Fraser Dunlop’s Crime Classic team at their bloggers event.  The event was held at the Groucho Club, Soho, London in the presence of Richard Creasey (the son of John Creasey) Dominic Wheatley (Dennis Wheatley’s grandson) and Charles Beck who is an authority on Dennis Wheatley.

 

Charles Beck & Richard Creasey

The event started with Charles Beck talking about Dennis Wheatley and his work and him explaining that there was much more about Dennis Wheatley than his horror novels which is best known for.  He shared further interesting insights on Dennis Wheatley one of them being that he enjoyed working with Christopher Lee and that the actor really wished that he had been able to act in more films that had been made of Dennis Wheatley’s books.

Richard Creasey

John Creasey's son Richard told several amusing stories about his father including the fact that he started writing under a pseudonym because he was writing so quickly and his publisher could not publish his prodigious output under the same name. When asked about his father (who founded the CWA) on what he would have thought about the CWA now, he explained that he founded the CWA because there was no where for crime writers to gather and talk together and that he thought that his father would have been incredibly pleased with the way in which it had turned out.  He also went on to say that his father would have been really delighted to learn that the CWA New Blood Dagger was named after him.  

It was a fascinating afternoon with clips from various films made of Dennis Wheatley’s books and those of John Creasey being played in the background.

Thanks to Peters Fraser Dunlop’s Crime Classic team for arranging the event.  It was certainly an enlightening event and thanks to @PFDAgents for organising it.

Ayo Onatade & Richard Creasey