Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 52

48 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