How often would you think the name ‘Brighton Beach’ appears in book titles, past and present? Surprisingly, it transpires the answer is very few. The least rare of these is a play by Neil Simon, Brighton Beach Memoirs, but this does not trouble us, for it concerns Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, not Brighton Beach, UK.
The most recent work I can find is a modern American novel: Murder at Brighton Beach by Lee Strauss. This is advertised as a ‘cozy historical mystery’ and forms part of the Ginger Gold mystery series, with Ginger Gold ‘a stylish and sharp-witted young widow’.
Also recent, but undated, is Brighton Beach (Short Stories Book 1) by Samuel Cain. This is only available in a Kindle edition (for 79p) and contains but 10 pages - enough, however, to reveal the writer doesn’t know Brighton very well. For example, the narrator is on a train arriving into Brighton: ‘My sister was pressed up against the window. “Mum” she said, pointing toward water far in the distance behind a large town. “Are we going there?” she asked as excitement gripped her body making her move erratically. “That’s Brighton beach,” my mother said and I looked toward the waters sparkling in the distance. “What’s a beach?” my sister asked. “A place with lots of sand,” my mother replied.’ However, the book has a rather splendid cover by Waewdao Sirisook. There may be nothing about jellyfish in the story, but floating IS a theme.
Otherwise, I have found two crime works - both rather lost in time. From 1910 comes Brighton Beach by Alice Dudeney. This is a short story originally published in her collection Poor Dear Esme.
And then there’s The Brighton Beach Mystery by Charles Kingston (1936) by Ward, Lock and Co. This is a second book in the Chief Inspector Wake series and revolves around a murder discovered on Brighton Beach. A review can be read at The Spectator Archive.
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