18 NOVEMBER 1989, Page 27

No relation either

Sir: 'How surprised he would be to know he had given birth to a slasher movie,' writes Hilary Mantel, invoking the shade of Charles Williams, friend of C. S. Lewis and writer of so-called 'metaphysical chil- lers', on whose novel, she surmises, the film Dead Calm is based. He would in- deed. The Charles Williams who occa- sioned the movie was another chap altogether, a writer of hard-boiled Amer- ican crime fiction, a contemporary of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and, now and again, their equal. He would have considered it droll to have been' thought metaphysical.

Philip Oakes

Fairfax Cottage, North Owersby, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire