I want you to put yourself in a very specific,
incredibly chaotic environment for a second.
Just imagine it. OK, I'm picturing it. You're
working full time in a traveling theater troupe.
We're talking the 1920s and 30s in England. Your
days, your nights, your weekends, they're entirely
consumed by the absolute unrelenting machine
of live stage production, which is exhausting,
completely exhausting. You're the one managing
the props. You're wrangling, you know, tired
actors. You're calling the lighting cues and
you're dealing with the endless mind numbing
logistics of moving an entire production from
one rural English town to the next. Right. You
live out of suitcases. You sleep on trains. And
then finally, the curtain drops for the night.
The applause fades out. The actors immediately
head out to the local pub to blow off steam.
But you. You don't go to the pug. No, you definitely
don't. You retreat to the quietest corner you
can possibly find in that building. Usually it's
a cramped, dusty, poorly lit dressing room backstage.
You clear a tiny little space among the grease
paint, the discarded costumes, the empty teacups.
You pull out a heavy mechanical typewriter. I
love this visual. And right there, in those stolen,
exhausted moments where any normal person would
just collapse, you invent one of the most prolific
murder mystery authors of your entire era. Welcome
to this deep dive. It's great to be here for
this one. Today we're unpacking the intensely
fascinating, completely dual life of Ernest Carpenter
-Illmore. He was a man who lived as a respected
English theater producer by day and the acclaimed
best -selling crime fiction writer known to the
world as John Budde by night. It's such a vivid
picture, and honestly, it's one that completely
reshapes how we think about the creative process.
Absolutely. To get to the bottom of this, we're
going to be looking at a pretty wide stack of
sources today. We've got his biographical records,
detailed timelines of his movements across England,
and the incredibly extensive bibliographical
archives that list out his published works, both
under his pseudonym and his real name. And there
are a lot of them. So many. And what's fascinating
here is how a single set of archival records,
just looking at a timeline of a man's birth,
his education, his jobs, and a list of book titles,
can completely reveal the architecture of his
mind. If we look closely at the trajectory of
his career and the specific titles he chose to
put out into the world, we can piece together
exactly how this man operated. We're going to
explore how he balanced this double life, unpack
the truly stark contrast between his gritty calculated
vintage crime novels and the bizarre whimsical
fantasy books he wrote under his real name. Which
is quite the pivot. It really is. Yeah. And we'll
try to understand how an author who died in 1957
experienced a massive, completely unexpected
resurgence in the 21st century. And as we dig
into these archives, I want you, the listener,
to keep your own life in the back of your mind.
Think about your own secret talents, your side
hustles, or that project you keep saying you'll
start when you finally have some free time. Right.
The mythical free time. Exactly. If you've ever
tried to balance a demanding, exhausting day
job with a deep creative passion, Ernest Elmore's
story is the ultimate blueprint. He proves that
you don't need a perfectly quiet, sunlit study
overlooking a garden to create a massive body
of work. You just need the drive to use whatever
tiny, compromised space you have. Exactly. So
let's start at the beginning of the timeline.
to see how a multitasking creative like this
is actually built. Because he didn't just emerge
fully formed with a typewriter in a dressing
room. No, he did not. Ernest Carpenter Elmore
was born on November 4th, 1901 in Maidstone,
Kent. And if we look at his early life, it's
a study in very diverse, almost contradictory
experiences. Up until 1919, he attended Mill
Hill School as a boarder. Okay. And after he
leaves boarding school, he doesn't take what
we might consider the traditional university
path for a future literary figure. Instead, he
goes to study at a secretarial college in Cheltenham.
Okay, I have to stop you there because that pivot
right off the bat is strange. I mean, he goes
from a boarding school student straight to secretarial
training. In the context of the early 20th century,
secretarial college means learning absolute,
meticulous, almost mechanical organization. It
means mastering the management of information,
typing speed, filing systems, keeping perfect
records. I guess I'm struggling to see how learning
to file aggressively translates to writing classic
British mysteries. Does knowing shorthand make
you a good novelist? On the surface, it seems
like a purely administrative track, sure. No.
But think about what secretarial training actually
instills in a person. Spreadsheets. Or the 1920s
equivalent. Well, yes. But more broadly, it gives
you the organizational capacity to track immense
amounts of detail. And if you're going to write
golden age detective novels, managing detail
is the absolute bedrock of the entire enterprise.
Oh, because of the clues. Exactly. You aren't
just writing a story. You're constructing a puzzle.
You have to keep track of clues intersecting
timelines, motives, alibis, train schedules,
poison absorption rates. A messy writer cannot
write a good fair play who didn't. That makes
sense. So that secretarial college in Cheltenham
essentially gave him the mental filing cabinet
he would need a decade later. All right, I'll
give you that. The filing cabinet is installed.
But then he pivots again, and this is where the
resume gets even weirder. He becomes a games
master at St. Christopher's School in Letchworth.
Right. For anyone listening who isn't familiar
with early 20th century British school terminology,
he takes a job spending his days out on the pitch,
blowing a whistle, running sports drills, and
refereeing matches as a physical education instructor.
Yes, quite the leap from the filing cabinet.
But while he's there at St. Christopher teaching
sports, he somehow finds himself drifting away
from the athletics field. and getting drawn into
assisting with the school's dramatic activities.
Which is the final ingredient in this very strange
cocktail of skills. Think about the layers here.
The life of a boarder at Mill Hill School instills
a deep, inescapable sense of discipline and daily
routine from a very young age. Right, you're
on a strict schedule. Then, the Secretarial College
layers on the meticulous organizational skills.
Then you add the physical stamina, the loud vocal
projection, and the leadership required to be
a games master. Yeah, you have to project to
a field of kids. And finally... He gets a taste
for storytelling, staging, and performance through
the school's drama department. It's an unconventional
path, but it created the perfect storm of skills
required to not only plot intricate mystery novels,
but to physically endure the grueling process
of writing them while working a demanding job.
I see the pieces coming together, but I'm going
to play devil's advocate for a second here. Go
for it. Plenty of people referee football matches
or teach PE without going on to write 30 intricate
murder mysteries. Are we overstating the games
master connection? Is there really a direct line
between making kids run laps and writing a murder
mystery? It's a fair question, but we shouldn't
overlook the specific psychological nature of
being a games master, especially in relation
to the genre he ended up dominating. What is
a sports feature dealing with every single day
on that pitch? Teenagers. Well, yes. But structurally,
they are dealing with rules, boundaries, and
fair play. They are refereeing a closed system
where actions have clear consequences based on
an agreed upon set of laws. A player steps out
of bounds. There's a penalty. A goal is scored.
It's recorded. OK, I'm tracking. Now, map that
under the golden age of detective fiction. The
entire premise of that genre is that the writer
is playing a strict, rule -bound game with the
reader. Right, the fair play rules. The reader
has to have access to the same clues the detective
does. No supernatural solutions, no hiding evidence
until the last page. Exactly. The clues must
be presented fairly. The boundaries of the mystery
must be established early on. The reader and
the author are essentially playing a match against
one another. Oh, that's interesting. If the author
cheats by withholding a vital clue, the reader
feels cheated. The exact same way a sports team
feels cheated by a bad referee. Being a games
master was essentially the psychological training
ground for Elmore. He spent years internalizing
how to manage a fair game, which directly translated
into becoming a master of the Fair Play Hoot
Unit. Okay, that actually makes a lot of sense.
He's learning how to enforce the rules of a closed
system. So picture this guy. in the 1920s. He's
out on the fields of Letchworth with his whistle,
but slowly but surely, he's getting completely
seduced by the magic of the school play. He's
getting pulled in. Right. He's organizing the
sports matches by day, but his attention is getting
pulled toward the drama department. And that
pull becomes so strong that it smoothly leads
to a total departure from the teaching world
entirely. A huge leap of faith. He leaves the
school environment, leaves the sports pitch behind
and officially joins the theater world. Specifically,
the sources note his interest in dramatics leads
him to join the Lena Ashwell Players as a stage
manager. This is the major turning point in his
life, and we have to be clear about what kind
of theater this was. He didn't just join a local
stationary theater in London where he could go
home to his own bed every night. No, the Lena
Ashwell Players were a touring company. Exactly.
He is physically traveling the country with this
troupe. And the role of a stage manager in a
touring company cannot be overstated. They are
the person holding the entire chaotic production
together. They're the glue. They are the ultimate
multitasker, ensuring everyone hits their marks,
the props are in the right place at the right
time, the lighting is correct, and the timing
of the show is absolutely flawless. It is high
stress, deeply logistical, exhausting work. Which
brings us back to that visual we set up at the
very beginning of the deep dive. One minute,
Elmore is in the wings of some drafty provincial
theater, calling cues for a live stage production,
managing the egos of actors, dealing with missed
entrances or a prop that broke in transit. And
the very next minute, the show ends, and instead
of resting, he's sitting in a dressing room,
pulling out a typewriter, and plotting out cold
-blooded murders. The bibliographical records
confirm that much of his early writing took place
exactly like this. during his spare time while
touring the country. It speaks to an immense,
almost unfathomable level of dedication. Touring
with a theater company is grueling even today,
let alone in the 1920s and 30s. I can't even
imagine. You're constantly on the move, sleeping
in different beds, living out of suitcases, dealing
with the physical exhaustion of setting up and
striking down heavy wooden sets. The fact that
he had the discipline to write complex, clue
-heavy novels during the hurry -up and wait periods
of stage management is astounding. It really
is. Most people would use that downtime to sleep,
read, or just socialize with the cast. He used
it to meticulously construct entirely different
worlds. I think about my own life, and if I have
a busy day at the office, the last thing I want
to do when I get home is sit down and do intense
creative puzzle solving. You just want to turn
your brain off. Exactly. It makes you think about
where you... do your best thinking, doesn't it?
As a listener, maybe you feel like you need the
perfect environment to be creative. You need
the noise -canceling headphones, the perfect
lighting, the really expensive coffee. The ergonomic
chair. Yes. But Ernest Elmore is proof that the
environment doesn't have to be pristine for the
creative process to thrive. In fact, I would
argue that the chaotic sensory overload environment
of a traveling theater might have actually fueled
his need to write. Oh, how so? Well, when your
day job is managing the unpredictable chaos of
live actors and changing venues, there might
be a deep psychological comfort in retreating
to a piece of paper where you have absolute godlike
control over the narrative. In his novels, people
did exactly what he told them to do. The clues
landed exactly where he placed them. It was a
controlled environment. The page is the one stage
where the actors never miss their cues. Perfectly
said. But there's another angle to this touring
life that I want to dig into. He isn't just trapped
in a theater. He's traveling the country. Yes,
and if we connect this to the bigger picture,
the act of touring itself was serving another
massive practical purpose for his writing. It
was research. By traveling the English countryside
with Alina Ashwell players, Elmore was being
handed a rich, constantly shifting geographic
canvas. He wasn't just sitting in a flat in London
imagining what the rest of England looked like.
Right, he was actually out there. He was on the
trains, absorbing the atmosphere, the local dialects,
the architecture, the weather patterns, and the
distinct landscapes of various counties. Turing
exposed him to the very regions that would later
become the iconic settings for his most famous
murders. And this is where his strategy gets
incredibly sharp, because that geographic exposure
directly translates into his branding. It's brilliant.
He doesn't publish these books under Ernest Elmore,
he creates the pseudonym John Boudet, and under
that name he goes on to publish 30 crime novels.
Let's look at his debut. His first two novels,
both published in 1935, are called The Lake District
Murder and The Cornish Coast Murder. Two very
distinct locations. And he follows those up the
very next year in 1936 with The Sussex Downs
Murder and then in 1937 with The Cheltenham Square
Murder. He introduces a recurring detective,
Inspector William Meredith, who appears in most
of these novels. But honestly, looking at these
titles, the real star of the show isn't the detective.
No, it's the locations themselves. Exactly. It's
an absolutely brilliant, highly calculated marketing
strategy. By naming his books after popular,
specific UK destinations, he was essentially
creating a localized sub -genre of regional thrillers.
Right. Think about the reading public of the
1930s. Domestic tourism was growing. If you lived
in Cornwall or the Lake District or Sussex, you
would immediately be drawn to a murder mystery
set in your own backyard. He was tapping into
local pride and local curiosity. And even if
you didn't live there, these were known desirable
holiday destinations for the middle and upper
classes. Exactly. He was taking the idyllic picturesque
English landscape, the places people went to
relax and injecting them with the thrill of a
puzzle box murder. But wait, are we giving him
too much credit here? How do you mean? I mean,
naming a book after a location isn't exactly
reinventing the wheel. Was it really that revolutionary
to just say? Here's a murder in Cornwall. It
wasn't revolutionary in the sense that no one
had ever said a book in Cornwall before, but
it was highly effective branding. He wasn't just
setting the books there. He was using the geography
as the primary selling point right on the cover.
So it sets an expectation. It promises the reader
a specific atmosphere. The Cornish Coast murder
promises rocky cliffs, isolated villages, and
smuggling history. The Lake District murder promises
deep waters. isolated farms, and harsh weather.
He's weaponizing the landscape to do half the
atmospheric heavy lifting before the reader even
opens page one. Precisely. And we absolutely
have to point out the wonderful call back to
his real life with that 1937 title, The Cheltenham
Square Murder. Oh, yes. Remember his early timeline?
After boarding school, where did he go? He studied
at a secretarial college in Cheltenham. He literally
took the advice, write what you know. to the
bank. He really did. He took the geographic knowledge
from his own life, from his secretarial schooling
and his theater tours, and monetized it under
this new brand name, John Beaud. Which brings
up the fascinating psychological element of the
pseudonym itself. Why use a pseudonym at all?
He was clearly a capable writer, and he was getting
published by legitimate presses. Yeah, why hide?
Well, we have to consider the context of his
life and his era. He was a professional in the
theater world, managing productions. Later on,
as we'll see in his timeline, he settles into
family life in sleepy Sussex villages, producing
plays for local amateur dramatic societies. So
he's a pillar of the community. Exactly. Perhaps
the gritty, morbid, highly calculating nature
of crime fiction clashed with his professional
identity as a respectable English theater producer.
You think he was embarrassed by it? Not necessarily
embarrassed, but a pseudonym allows for strict
compartmentalization. Crime fiction, even the
cozy Golden Age variety, is still fundamentally
about murder, deceit, and the darker impulses
of humanity. Right. It's not exactly light dinner
conversation. John Budde can be the dark, methodical
architect of death, while Ernest Elmore can remain
the respectable, upstanding theater man, husband,
and local citizen. It's a very clean division
of the self. Well, that compartmentalization
clearly worked for him because the sheer volume
of his output as John Butte is staggering. We're
talking about 30 crime novels stretching all
the way through the 1940s and 1950s. It's an
incredible pace. And when you look at the catalog
of titles provided in the archives, you can actually
see the evolution of a mystery writer happening
in real time. He starts with these very grounded,
geographically titled books, but as the years
go on, he starts to stretch his legs and play
with the conventions of the genre. The catalog
is a testament to incredible consistency. But
you're right, as we move out of the late 30s
and into the 40s and 50s, the titles show a distinct
shift in tone and thematic focus. Let's just
look at some of these titles because they are
fantastic. In 1938, he publishes a book called
Loss of a Head. Great title. It's punchy, it's
slightly macaw, but it has a dark humor to it.
Then you get to the 1940s and you see titles
like Death in White Pajamas from 1944. And then
possibly my favorite title in his entire bibliography
from 1949, A Glut of Red Herrings. A Glut of
Red Herrings is a brilliant title. It really
is. That title alone shows such a playful, almost
meta -textual awareness of the genre he is working
in. A Red Herring, of course, is a false clue
meant to throw the reader off the Right. For
him to title a book, A Glut of Red Herrings,
means he knows the tropes inside out, he knows
his readers know the tropes, and he is leaning
right into it. He's winking at the audience.
He's having fun with it. He also starts expanding
his geographic footprint. He writes a non -series
thriller in 1949 called Murder in Montparnasse,
which shows him breaking out of the cozy English
countryside and heading to the bohemian streets
of Paris. That changes scenery. He follows that
up a few years later with Death on the Riviera
in 1952. You can literally track his growing
confidence. The tone shifts from the purely structural
regional books like The Sussex Downs Murder to
these highly conceptual, playful, international
thrillers. But what stands out to me even more
than the changing titles is the pacing of his
career through an incredibly turbulent period
of global history. Yeah, the dates on these books
are wild. If you look at the publication dates,
he published his hand on alibi. in 1939. Then,
as the world plunges headfirst into the Second
World War, he doesn't miss a beat. Death on Paper
and Death of the Cad both come out in 1940. Two
books in 1940. He publishes Slow Vengeance in
1941, Death Knows No Calendar in 1942, Death
Deals a Double in 1943, Death in White Pajamas
in 1944, and Death and Ambush in 1945. Unbelievable.
He is writing steadily, producing a book every
single year, sometimes two, right through the
absolute darkest, most chaotic years of World
War II. I really want you, the listener, to pause
and just consider the mental stamina required
for that. How does a writer maintain such a prolific
output, nearly a book a year, while the entire
world is quite literally falling apart? It's
hard to fathom. Cities are being bombed, rationing
is in full effect, the threat of invasion is
looming over England, the future is entirely
uncertain, and yet... Ernest Elmore is sitting
down year after year plotting out the precise
logical movements of Inspector William Meredith.
I can barely write an email when the news is
bad. How is he writing intricate mystery novels
during the Blitz? It speaks deeply to the psychological
function of genre fiction, both for the creator
and the consumer. It was an escape, certainly,
for the readers who bought these books during
the war. People needed a distraction. For sure.
But it was clearly a stabilizing force for the
author himself. When the real world is terrifyingly
unpredictable, when bombs are falling and you
have no control over your own safety, there's
immense comfort in returning to the world of
John Bude. Because in that world, things make
sense. Because in a Golden Age mystery, the rules
still apply. A crime is committed, yes, but the
clues can always be gathered. Human logic can
always be applied, and justice is ultimately
unequivocally served by the final page. That's
a really powerful thought. It is the ultimate
assertion of order over chaos. Writing those
books during WWII was likely his way of maintaining
his own sanity. It's the ultimate closed system.
He couldn't control the war, but he could control
Inspector Meredith. Exactly. And this brings
us to a really interesting literary critique
of his work from the archives that summarizes
his specific style perfectly. The later British
crime author, Martin Edwards, is quoted regarding
Beaud's work, and he says this, Beaud writes
both readably and entertainingly. His work may
not have been stunning enough to belong with
the greats, but there is a smoothness and accomplishment
about even his first mystery, the Cornish Coast
Murder, which you don't find in many debut mysteries.
It's a very perceptive critique, though it stings
a little at first glance. It totally stings.
Not stunning enough to belong with the greats?
That's a pretty rough backhanded compliment.
He's essentially saying, you're no Agatha Christie.
Right. But honestly, looking at his whole career,
it feels like a deeply honest assessment. Beaud
wasn't necessarily Agatha Christie or Arthur
Conan Doyle. He wasn't reinventing the wheel
with every single publication. He wasn't trying
to. He wasn't writing staggering literary masterpieces
that challenged the very nature of human existence,
but he was an absolute master craftsman of the
genre. To have an expert describe your debut
novel as having smoothness and accomplishment
is a massive achievement. It raises a really
important question for you to consider as a consumer
of media. What is actually more valuable to a
reader in the long run? Is it the occasional
flash of unrefined, unpredictable genius, an
author who writes one brilliant book every 10
years? Or is it consistent, reliable, smooth
entertainment? Exactly. If you are a reader buying
a book a year during a world war, you don't necessarily
want to be stunned or challenged. You want that
reliable smoothness. You want exactly what you're
paying for. You want the comfort food. And if
we look back at his background, this makes perfect
sense. Elmore's background in theater stage management
meant he knew exactly how to put on a smooth
show. Oh, that's a brilliant connection. The
stage manager approached to novel writing. Exactly.
A stage manager's entire job is to make sure
the audience doesn't see the seams. The lighting
cues hit on time, the actors know their lines,
the props are exactly where they should be, and
the pacing never drags. Maybe I just keep the
show running. He applied that exact same professional
ESOS to his writing. He hit every mark, he satisfied
the audience's expectations, and he delivered
a complete, polished experience without necessarily
feeling the need to reinvent the stage itself.
He knew what the audience wanted and he delivered
it smoothly, 30 times over. He was stage managing
his novels. I love that. It fits perfectly. But
here's where the story takes a massive left turn.
While John Budde was busy writing these calculating,
smooth, highly structured murder mysteries, Ernest
Elmore, then himself, was writing something entirely
different under his real name. And this is where
the duality of this man reaches its absolute
peak of absurdity. Yes, straddling the publication
of these gritty crime novels were several works
of humorous fantasy written under his own given
name. Ernest Elmore. It's so strange. And it
wasn't just a brief phase. He wrote seven distinct
books under his own name throughout his life.
And the titles of these books are just incredible,
especially when you compare them side by side
with his crime fiction. Notable adult fantasy
titles include The Steel Grubs, published in
1928, which actually predates his John Bude crime
novels. Right, that was his starting point. Then
you have The Siren Song in 1930 and much later,
The Lumpton Goblins in 1954. He also wrote books
like The Baboon and The Fiddle in 1932. Green
in Judgment in 1939 and Christmas at Gillybrook
in 1949. Oh and we absolutely cannot forget he
also wrote a children's book in 1946 called Snuffly
Snorty Dog. Snuffly Snorty Dog. I am trying so
hard to wrap my head around this pivot. The man
sitting in a dressing room writing the grim,
methodical thriller Loss of a Head is simultaneously
the author of Snuffly Snorty Dog and the Lumpton
Gobblings. How does a human brain switch gears
like that? It is a stark duality, but from a
psychological standpoint, it actually synthesizes
his creative needs perfectly. How so? Think about
the constraints of his pseudonym. John Buday
provided a highly contained, rigidly structured
world of logic, deduction, and justice that is
the very definition of golden age detective fiction.
It's a genre that requires strict adherence to
the rules of reality. A poison must act in a
scientifically accurate way. A train schedule
must be mathematically possible. The layout of
a country house must be spatially coherent. It's
exhausting to maintain that level of logic. Ernest
Elmore, on the other hand, was the identity that
allowed the author to completely indulge in the
absurd, the humorous, and the fantastical. Right,
because in a children's book, or a humorous fantasy,
all those rigid rules are thrown completely out
the window. If the dog wants to be snuffly and
snorty, there doesn't need to be a logical motive
or a hidden alibi. Precisely. It was a pressure
valve. Having that outlet under his real name...
probably kept him sane while he was plotting
out 30 different ways to murder people in the
English countryside. He needed both outlets.
He could balance the dark, calculated violence
of death and ambush with a light -hearted whimsy
of Christmas at Gillybrook. It also tells us
a lot about how he viewed his own identity in
relation to his community. In what way? Well,
the whimsical, humorous, fantastical work was
released under his given name. That is who he
proudly presented himself to be to his friends,
his family, and his local community. Oh, that's
interesting. He was Ernest Elmore, the man who
writes charming stories and helps out with the
local plays. The dark, calculating murder mysteries
belonged to the alter -eco, John Boode. He kept
the darkness separated from his actual life.
That's a very clear boundary. And as we look
at his later timeline, we see this community
focused, grounded version of Elmore taking center
stage in his personal affairs. Let's trace that
personal timeline because his geographic footprint
in his real life is just as interesting as the
footprint of his novels. In 1931, the records
show he was living in the village of Luce in
Kent. He then returns to his birthplace, Maidstone.
And remember his theatrical background. He doesn't
leave it behind entirely when he stops touring.
In Maidstone, he puts those stage management
skills to use by producing plays for the local
dramatic society. Right, staying involved in
the local arts. And it's actually there, deeply
embedded in the local theatrical community, that
he meets his future wife, Muriel Betty Sharp.
They get married in Maidstone in 1933 and then
they make a big move to Beckley in Sussex. The
move to Beckley is a highly significant milestone
because it marks the point where he formally
transitions into being a full -time writer. So
no more touring. The grueling touring days with
Alina Ashwell players are officially behind him.
He's no longer writing in drafty dressing rooms.
He has settled down with Betty and together they
have two children, a daughter named Jennifer
and a son named Richard. The classic family life.
He is now writing from a stable, permanent home
base. But even though he is geographically settled
in a quiet village, his influence in the broader
writing community is actually expanding massively.
Yeah, he wasn't just sitting in isolation in
Sussex churning out manuscripts. In 1953, Ernest
Elmore became a founding member of the Norfolk
-based Crime Writers Association. And we really
need to pause on this because it is a monumental
detail in his biography. It really is. By founding
the Crime Writers Association, or the CWA, he
transitioned from being a solitary writer, the
guy typing away in his spare time, to becoming
an actual institutional pillar of British crime
fiction. I'm curious about the motivation there,
though. Why does a guy who deliberately hides
behind a pseudonym to write his crime novels
suddenly decide to step into the light and co
-found a highly visible professional association
for crime writers? Because writing is inherently
lonely. especially when you do it full time from
a village in Sussex. The CWA was created to support,
promote, and connect crime writers. It was a
support network. It was a way to legitimize the
genre, to share industry knowledge about publishers
and contracts, and to socialize with peers who
understood the specific bizarre challenges of
plotting murders for a living. They could trade
poison recipes. Exactly. For him to be a founding
member shows that he wasn't just some fringe
pulp writer. He was highly respected by his peers.
He was considered an anchor in the community,
dedicated to elevating the genre that had given
him his entire career. He wanted to build an
infrastructure for the next generation of writers.
It's an incredible legacy to leave behind, which
makes the end of his timeline all the more poignant.
Ernest Carpenter Elmore died on November 8, 1957
in Hastings, Sussex. He was only 56 years old.
It's tragically young. It really is a tragic
brevity to a life that had accomplished so much.
He died just four days after his 56th birthday.
He left behind his wife, Betty, his two children,
and this massive, completely dual catalog of
work spanning 30 crime novels and seven fantasy
and children's books. That's a huge body of work
for someone who died at 56. When you map out
his life geographically, you see a man deeply
rooted in the English landscape, the very landscape
he memorialized in his early books. born in Maidstone,
traveling the breadth of the country with the
theater troupe, settling down in the quiet of
Sussex to raise a family, and finally passing
away in Hastings. His life, much like his Inspector
Meredith novels, was fundamentally grounded in
the soil and the society of England. And in the
normal course of literary history, that would
be the end of the story. A prolific mid -century
author dies, his books slowly go out of print
as new trends emerge, his name fades from the
public consciousness, and he becomes a footnote
in the quiet archives of 20th century publishing.
But that is not what happened to Ernest Elmore.
No, it isn't, and this is the part of the deep
dive that I find most fascinating. Fast forward
almost 60 years after his death. The world has
entirely changed. It's December 2015 and Elmore's
photograph unexpectedly appears in the Times
of London sitting right alongside a lengthy article
detailing the massive runaway success of reprints
of his books. The 21st century resurrection of
John Budde is a phenomenal case study in cultural
trends and publishing history. It's unheard of.
The British Library launched a series called
Crime Classics and they began reprinting his
early works, specifically those first three.
regional murder mysteries. The Lake District
murder, the Cornish Coast murder, and the Sussex
Downs murder. The big geographic hitters. And
they didn't just quietly sit on library shelves
for academics to study. They found a massive,
eager new audience. They sold incredibly well.
I just marvel at this. Nearly 60 years after
his death, this games master turned stage manager
becomes a best seller all over again for a completely
new generation of readers who were born decades
after he passed away. But we have to ask why.
It's a great question. Why did a 21st century
audience living in the era of smartphones and
high octane streaming thrillers latch on to these
specific books? I believe it comes right back
to what Martin Edwards said about the smoothness
and accomplishment of his writing. Look at the
context of 2015 and the years following. Readers
in the modern, chaotic, deeply complex 21st century
find an incredible psychological comfort in the
structured, logical world of 1930s Golden Age
detective fiction. Because the modern world is
overwhelming. Exactly. The re -release of a book
like The Lake District Murder taps into a deep
cultural nostalgia. Modern readers want to escape
to a world where a crime isn't a symptom of societal
collapse, but rather a contained puzzle to be
solved by intellect. Right. They want a world
where the violence happens largely off page,
where the motives are clear, and where the picturesque,
vintage English countryside serves as a reassuring,
almost therapeutic backdrop. They were craving
exactly what he was stage managing all those
years ago. And the resurrection wasn't just in
physical print. Sounding's audiobooks stepped
in and produced audiobook versions of these classics
narrated by Gordon Griffin. They took the Lake
District Murder, the South Downs Murder, which
was the alternate title for the Sussex Downs
Murder and the Cornish Coast Murder, and brought
them to the ear. Which is fantastic. If you're
searching for vintage crime fiction or British
Library crime classics today, you're likely going
to find Gordon Griffin reading Elmore's words.
And there is something so incredibly poetic about
that shift to audiobooks. Think about his roots.
It breeds literal new life into his words, but
it also brings his career full circle. He started
out calling cues and managing live stage performances.
His entire early life was dedicated to the spoken
word, to actors performing scripts for a live
audience. Oh, I see what you're saying. And now,
decades after his death, narrators like Gordon
Griffin are taking the baton from the author
to perform the stories out loud. His greatest
works are being performed for an audience once
again. It's like audiobooks are the modern equivalent
of the touring theater troupe. That's a beautiful
way to frame it. It is the perfect closing of
a loop for a man whose life was always divided
between the written text on the page and the
spoken performance on the stage. It really is.
We've covered a massive amount of ground today,
so let's do a rapid fire wrap up of this incredible
timeline. Let's do it. We started with Ernest
Elmore, the boarding school boy who learned to
file and type, who became the games master enforcing
the strict rules of play. We followed him out
onto the road with the traveling theater where
he became the stage manager balancing the chaos
of the Lena Ashwell players with the quiet grueling
discipline of writing in a cramped dressing room.
The dual life. We watched him architect 30 smooth,
geographically rich murder mysteries under the
pseudonym John Budde, while simultaneously creating
bizarre humorous fantasies and writing about
a snuffly snorty dog under his real name to keep
his sanity intact. The ultimate pressure valve.
We saw him help found the Crime Writers Association,
anchor himself in the Sussex community, and pass
away far too young at 56, only to become the
posthumous darling of the British Library in
the 21st century. And the core takeaway for you
listening to this is that a deeply creative prolific
life is rarely lived in ideal conditions. You
don't need endless free time, financial independence,
and a perfect studio to build a legacy. No, you
don't. Sometimes the greatest, most enduring
legacy is built in the spare, exhausted moments.
It's built in the cramped dressing rooms of your
life, often under a borrowed name, simply because
you have the raw discipline to sit down and do
the work when everyone else has gone to the pub.
Which leaves me with one final lingering concept
for you to mull over as we end today's deep dive.
Consider the sheer psychological weight of outliving
your own obscurity. That's a heavy thought. If
you were to create a masterpiece today under
a fake name, in the quiet, stolen corners of
your busy life, and it only became world famous
60 years after you passed away. Does that fame
actually belong to you or does it belong to a
ghost you invented? Next time you pick up a book
by a beloved author, especially a classic from
decades past, ask yourself, who are you really
spending time with? The complex, flawed person
who actually lived or the perfectly crafted persona
they created just to survive? Thank you for taking
the plunge into the source material with us today.