Once to
Tiger Bay (1929) - W. Townend
A
salty tale that takes in Cardiff and Buenos Aires. Even in the
Twenties the exoticization of Cardiff docks was evidently well
underway. Sample text: "Cardiff, Bute Street, with its
little queer ugly shops, sailortown, Tiger Bay, pubs, loneliness,
pawnbrokers', harlots, out-of-work seamen, shuffling Asiatics,
half-caste children."
Tiger Bay
(1946) - David Martin
Hungarian
writer Martin tells the gritty story of Hakif, a Somali, and
Nest, a reform school runaway. The author was a stevedore and
would have known Cardiff docks well.
Once in
Tiger Bay (1947) - (J)ames (M)organ Walsh
A
mystery story by an Australian writer, best known for his sci-fi
classic Vandals of the Void.
The author also wrote two sequels Return to
Tiger Bay (1950) and
King of Tiger Bay
(1952). Blurb: "To sailormen the world over Tiger Bay
recalls that grimy but strangely fascinating arch of the docks at
Cardiff where ships from all seven seas tie-up and disgorge their
diverse cargoes and for a brief time, their stranger crews...
Dark faces peer from darker doorways, raucous music blares from
tiny cafes, countless feet patter by... feet that have known the
waterfront of many distant ports."
Tiger Bay
(1959) - Noel Calef
The
famous film was based upon a short story by Noel Calef called Rodolphe
et le Revolver. John Hawkesworth and Shelley
Smith turned it into the screenplay.
Tiger at
Bay (1970) - Bernard Picton
Standard
police procedural from pathologist Bernard Knight. Dogged Chief
Superintendent Meredith tries to nail elusive docks criminal
Tiger Ismail.
At the End
of the Bay (1982) - Dic Edwards
A
play about eviction influenced by Edward Bond. Self-obsessed
characters play pointless games while their world collapses about
them.
The
Tattooed Detective (1998) - David Craig
Craig's
(better known as Bill James) superior crime books have a more
sophisticated morality than previous Tiger Bay procedurals. His
criminals are three dimensional products of their environment
possessing plenty of good as well as bad qualities. Inspector
David Brade on the other hand is anything but saintly, happily
accepting blow jobs as well as information from local
prostitutes. To add to the mix, his sidekick Glyndwr Jenkins
confounds stereotypes by being black and bi-lingual. Other books
in the series are Torch,
Bay City and Middleman.
Cardiff
Dead (2000) - John Williams
Williams'
fiction takes an even more liberal, non-judgemental stance. The
author is concerned with the rapid makeover of the docks into
'Cardiff Bay' and where this leaves its local community.
Underpinning his writing is a sense of injustice and loss and the
author is always careful to humanise rather than demonise his
criminal characters. His other Cardiff books are: Five
Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub (1999)
and The Prince of
Wales (2003).
The Hiding
Place (2000) - Trezza Azzopardi
Azzopardi's
Booker-nominated debut focusses on a previously underwritten
group - Cardiff's Maltese community. A story of domestic abuse The
Hiding Place has many gothic
characteristics, especially in Frankie, the narrator's rather
vampiric father. Her novel is set mainly in the 1960s.
Deadwater
(2002) - Sean Burke
The
most violent and noirish
depiction of Butetown. In many ways the ghost of Lynette White, a
prostitute murdered in James Street, haunts this work. That
notoriously bloody murder was unsolved at the time his book was
written but the sense of paranoia surrounding the case is
palpable in Burke's fiction. John Williams' true crime classic, Bloody
Valentine, a Killing in
Cardiff is an obvious influence.