The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: X is for Xenophobia

“X” marks the spot where the Alphabet in Crime Fiction community meme is stopping today. We’re not far from our final destination, and thanks to our leader Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise, we’re all still just fine. Really . My contribution to this week’s thrills and chills is a theme that we’ve seen quite frequently in crime fiction – xenophobia. Most of us are a lot more comfortable with the familiar than we are with the different. That’s often especially true when it comes to interacting with people who have very different backgrounds and cultures. If you add to that the very natural fear that many people have of others taking jobs and “changing everything,” it’s no wonder that xenophobia is such a common element in crime fiction.

We see xenophobia quite a lot in Agatha Christie’s novels featuring Hercule Poirot. He’s Belgian, and his “foreign-ness” isn’t always welcome. In Taken at the Flood (AKA There is a Tide), for instance, Poirot is staying at an inn near the village of Warmsley Vale. He’s there to look into the death of a stranger calling himself Enoch Arden. Arden’s death is very likely connected to a family feud among the Cloades, who’ve lived in Warmsley Vale for a long time. Gordon Cloade, the wealthy patriarch, had always taken care of his younger brothers and sister and had reassured them that they wouldn’t have any financial worries. When he suddenly married, everything changed. Then, Cloade was tragically killed in a wartime bomb blast. Since he didn’t make a new will before he died, his large fortune passes to his widow Rosaleen. In the midst of this conflict over money, Arden came to town hinting that Rosaleen may have been married to someone else at the time of her marriage to Cloade. That, of course, would invalidate her claim to Cloade’s fortune. Poirot is investigating Arden’s death and his allegations when he has an encounter with Mrs. Leadbetter, a xenophobic guest staying at the same hotel:
 

“‘This Lounge,’ she said, ‘is Reserved for Persons staying in the Hotel.’
‘I am staying in the hotel,’ replied Hercule Poirot.
The old lady meditated for a moment or two before returning to the attack. Then she said accusingly:
‘You’re a foreigner.’
‘Yes,’ replied Hercule Poirot.
‘In my opinion,’ said the old lady, ‘you should all Go Back.’
‘Go back where?’ inquired Poirot.
‘To where you came from,’ said the old lady firmly.
She added as a kind of rider, sotto voce, ‘Foreigners!’ and snorted.”
 

Xenophobia is, of course, alive and well in today’s crime fiction, too. For instance, in Ruth Rendell’s Simisola, Inspector Reg Wexford has to confront his own feelings of prejudice. Melanie Akande is the daughter of Wexford’s doctor, so when she goes missing, Akande asks Wexford for help in finding out what happened to her. Wexford begins to look into the matter and finds out that Melanie was last seen at an appointment with the local employment bureau. Shortly after Melanie’s disappearance, her employment counselor Annette Bystock is found dead. Wexford and the team are piecing the puzzle together when the body of a young woman is found in the woods not far from Kingsmarkham. At first, everyone thinks the dead woman is Melanie Akande. It’s not, though, and Wexford has to get beyond his assumptions to find out whose body was discovered. Part of the reason the body goes unidentified for as long as it does is that the woman who died was not a “nice, white middle-class woman.”

And then there’s Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers, the first of his Kurt Wallander novels. In that story, Wallander and his team are called in to investigate the brutal killings of local farmer Johannes Lövgren and his wife, Maria. By the time the police arrive on the scene, Johannes Lövgren is already dead. Maria is barely alive and the team prepares to rush her to the hospital. Tragically, she dies, too, but not before she utters one word: “Foreign.” That’s enough to set off a firestorm of controversy. There’s been a lot of protest lately over immigration into Sweden, and Wallander, his team and his superiors know that if it gets out in the media that a foreigner is responsible for these murders, no-one can predict what might happen. So the team faces not just the challenge of finding out who killed Johannes and Maria Lövgren, but also the difficulty of going up against local prejudices and a media that’s determined to exploit these murders.

Elizabeth George addresses the tragic consequences of xenophobia taken too far in Deception On His Mind. That novel focuses on the murder of Haytham Querashi, a recently-arrived Pakistani immigrant to Balford-le-Nez, on the Essex coast. He came to Balford-le-Nez to marry Salah Malik, daughter of a local successful businessman. There is already a “simmering pot” of tensions in the area between the English community and the Pakistani community, and the proverbial pot boils over when Querashi is found murdered. A Pakistani activist group claims that this murder is a “hate crime” and blames the English. Meanwhile the English locals use the death to bolster their own feelings about the Pakistanis. Well-known and highly-regarded DCI Emily Barlow is called in to investigate the killing. When Sergeant Barbara Havers finds out that Barlow has been assigned to the case, she wants more than anything else to work the case, too. She considers Barlow a hero and a mentor and is eager to work with her. She’s also interested because one of her neighbours may have a connection to the case. As Havers gets involved in the murder we find out just what xenophobia can do to people’s perspectives. Although the murder isn’t what you’d call a “typical” hate crime (if there is such a thing), the topic is a major theme in the novel.

Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti has to deal with xenophobia quite a lot. Many different groups of immigrants have come to his native Venice and they are by no means always greeted warmly. For instance, in The Girl of His Dreams, Brunetti investigates the death of Ariana Rocich, a twelve-year-old member of the Rom community. It’s assumed that she died from a fall into a canal after robbing an apartment. Brunetti is haunted by her death, though, and looks into it more deeply. In order to find out who killed her and why, Brunetti has to confront his own prejudices and those of the Rom, who are quite understandably not very trusting of other Venetians, considering how they’ve been treated. We also see this theme in Suffer the Little Children. In that novel, the Carabinieri raid the home of Dr. Gustavo Pedrolli and his wife Bianca Marcolini and take their adopted toddler son Alfredo. In the process, Pedrolli is wounded and taken to the hospital. It’s there that Ispettore Vianello finds out what’s happened and alerts his boss Brunetti. The two begin to ask questions and soon find out that Pedrolli’s son was taken because it’s suspected that they adopted Alfredo through an illegal baby-trafficking ring. Brunetti’s investigation of the ring brings up all sorts of issues of immigration, ethnic prejudice and xenophobia.

Walter Mosley’s novels about Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins deal with xenophobia quite a lot. Rawlins begins by “doing favours for friends” and eventually becomes a licensed private investigator in post-World War II Los Angeles. Relations between the races in that city at that time are not good, and in Rawlins’ character we see his dislike and distrust of most Whites, for good reason. We also see in the behaviour of other characters their dislike and distrust of Blacks. This atmosphere of xenophobia forms a backdrop to several of the Rawlins novels.

Those are just a few examples of the way that xenophobia has influenced crime fiction and been portrayed in the genre. What’s your view? Which novels have you enjoyed that feature that element?