Good sleuths and savvy crime fiction fans know that it’s a big mistake to make assumptions based on their first impressions. After all, we all know that criminals can seem the most innocent of people, and that sometimes, the most unlikely characters can turn out to be very good people. And yet, knowing that intellectually doesn’t mean those first impressions have no impact. Even the most seasoned sleuth and the best-read crime fiction fan make assumptions based on clothes, dress, attitude, and so on. When that happens, it can make a character more real; after all, we all get the wrong impression at times. It’s also an interesting way for the author to show readers what a character is like; as the sleuth (or another character) learns the truth about a character, so do readers.
For example, in Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train, we meet Katherine Grey, who’s been a paid companion for the past ten years in the village of St. Mary Mead. When her employer dies, Katherine inherits the bulk of her considerable fortune and decides to do some traveling. She takes the famous Blue Train to Nice and on the way, gets involved in a case of murder and theft when fellow passenger Ruth Kettering is strangled on the second night of the journey. Hercule Poirot is traveling on the same train and works with the police to find out who the murderer is. In the course of the investigation, Katherine Grey meets several of the people in the victim’s life. In fact, two of them find themselves very much attracted to her. What’s interesting about this is that as we learn about these two people and follow the course of their relationships with Katherine, we learn that first impressions can be deceiving.
James Lee Burke’s A Morning For Flamingos features Tony Cardo, a notorious New Orleans crime boss. Former DEA agent Minos Dautrieve has been assigned to the Presidential Task Force on Drugs and it’s his goal to take Cardo down. He asks for help in this task from his friend Dave Robicheaux, who’s with the New Iberia, Louisiana police force. Robicheaux is reluctant to get involved, but Dautrieve offers Robicheaux a “deal sweetener.” Helping to take down Cardo will get Robicheaux closer to taking down Jimmie Lee Boggs, who shot and killed Robicheaux’s partner Lester Benoit. So Robicheaux agrees to go undercover and get as close to Cardo as he can. And that ends up creating a big dilemma for Robicheaux. The first impression he gets of Cardo is that he’s a nasty thug. But the better he gets to know him, the more he realises that Cardo is not a horrible person. He’s a loving father, and he and Robicheaux have more in common than Robicheaux knew at first. And yet, Robicheaux has agreed to this undercover operation. What’s more, Robicheaux wants to get Boggs. This dilemma makes for a very interesting and suspenseful undercurrent in this novel.
Walter Mosley’s A Red Death features a similar kind of first impression that turns out to be wrong. In that novel, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins is faced with a serious tax problem. He earned quite a lot of money for doing “a favour for a friend” and never paid taxes on that money. Rawlins gets a letter from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) threatening him with jail if he doesn’t pay everything he owes, something Rawlins can’t do. Just as he’s resigning himself to going to jail, Rawlins gets a way out. FBI Agent Darryl Craxton is investigating former Polish Resistance fighter Chaim Wenzler as a Communist. In the 1950’s Los Angeles of this novel, that’s a serious allegation. Craxton offers Rawlins tax amnesty in exchange for getting close to Wenzler. Rawlins agrees, mostly because he doesn’t have much choice. And at first, he’s not particularly conflicted about it. But then he begins to get to know Wenzler and realises that Wenzler’s not the enemy, despite his political beliefs. He’s not trying to bring down the government or change the political system. He’s trying to do some charitable work, recover from his World War II experiences, and simply be left alone. In fact, slowly Wenzler and Rawlins become friends as they see that they have quite a lot in common. This makes Rawlins’ job all the harder, especially after someone frames Rawlins for two murders. Now he has to stay alive as well as clear his name and do what he agreed to do. It makes for a fascinating sub-plot in this novel.
In Patricia Stoltey’s The Prairie Grass Murders, Florida judge and former FBI agent Sylvia Thorn gets an upsetting call from her brother Willie Grisseljon. He’s been on a visit to the family’s hometown in Illinois and has made a disturbing discovery. He found the body of a man half-buried near the family home. When he tried to alert an officer, he ended up taken off as a vagrant and committed to a psychiatric ward “for his own safety.” Now he can’t convince anyone of what he saw, and he’s been locked up. Thorn immediately goes to Illinois and uses her authority and influence to get her brother freed. They’re just about to leave town when Willie insists on going back to check whether the body is still there. It isn’t, and the ground around the area has been recently ploughed up. Soon it turns out that the dead man may be a local businessman who went missing. As Sylvia and Willie dig a little deeper, they find a nest of corruption and greed. What creates a very interesting thread of suspense in the story is that that corruption has touched someone Sylvia thought she could trust – but couldn’t. Her impression is very, very wrong in this case.
When Inspector Thomas “Tommy” Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers meet in Elizabeth George’s A Great Deliverance, each of them makes a bad impression on the other. To Lynley, Havers is a prickly, frumpy, difficult person who was demoted to constable status for good reason. And here’s Havers’ impression of Lynley:
“Was there anyone in all of New Scotland Yard whom she hated more than she hated Lynley? He was a miraculous combination of every single thing that she thoroughly despised: educated at Eton, a first in history at Oxford, a public school voice and a bloody family tree that had its roots somewhere just this side of the Battle of Hastings.”
Despite the very negative first impressions each makes, they do learn to work together and gradually they come to appreciate each other’s skills.
And then there’s Måns Wenngren, whom we first meet in Åsa Larsson’s Sun Storm (AKA The Savage Altar). He’s a senior Stockholm attorney who admittedly doesn’t have much of a life outside his work. He’s got the reputation of being somewhat of a “slave-driver” and not a particularly friendly and approachable person. So when one of the junior attorneys, Rebecka Martinsson, needs to request leave to travel to her home in Kiruna, she’s not sure what kind of reception she’ll get. It doesn’t help matters that she doesn’t believe Wenngren thinks much of her. At their first real encounter at a holiday party, neither made a very good impression on the other and she’s aware that Wenngren has always thought her a shade disrespectful and unwilling to abide by company policy. But this is an urgent request; one of Martinsson’s former friends has been accused of murder and has begged her to return to help. Despite their misgivings about each other, Martinsson and Wenngren work out a plan for Martinsson to continue with her work while she’s away. As time goes by, Wenngren and Martinsson get to know each other better and they’re able revise those first impressions they had. In time, they begin a relationship. But what’s especially effective about Larsson’s treatment of this relationship is that it’s done subtly; there’s no “boy-meets-girl-boy-hates-girl-but-they-realise-they-love-each-other-and-hop-into-bed.” Rather, they gradually get to know each other and trust each other.
First impressions can be very powerful. And it takes a wise sleuth and an open-minded crime fiction fan to revise those assumptions. But that process (both on the sleuth’s part and on that of the reader) can also add a lot to a story.
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Get it Right the First Time.
I think the example of Lynley and Havers is a perfect example. They had formed impressions before they even worked together. It’s one of my favourite books. It’s perfect for a crime writer to have the characters form impressions of each other because the reader is sure to follow along and when the truth comes out and we discover the background on the characters, it’s far more powerful a story.
Clarissa – Oh, that’s what I think, too. And that’s one thing I very much like about the Lynley/Havers duo. Each has assumptions and prejudices about the other and that hampers them. It’s only when they learn more about each other that they can do their jobs. And you’re absolutely right that prejudgements are useful tools for the author. They allow the author to reveal character, include “red herrings” for mysteries and so on. That does add power to a story.
First impressions can get people sent to prison in real life, so it makes sense that they be used frequently as red herrings, leading the reader to suspect the wrong person as well as the sleuth. Sylvia’s tendency to look upon old high school classmates (and boyfriends) as “nice guys” just about led to her undoing.
Thanks for using The Prairie Grass Murders as one of your examples today. It’s fun to see my characters pop up unexpectedly in your posts.
Pat – Well, what can I say? You write great characters
. And yes, that’s one thing I kind of like about Sylvia. Like a lot of us, she wants to see the best in people she’s thought of as friends. It’s very human and even when it gets her into trouble, it makes her likeable.
First impressions are constants in mysteries, either the character is presumed to be guilty based on his/her appearance or past, or class or nationality or other superficial reasons, or the character is assumed to be innocent because he/she looks neat, is well-dressed and coiffed, has a good job, money, education, etc. This is quite a plot line.
It is expertly dealt with in Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer where assumptions are not always the reality, with a very rich, slick character who’s presumed innocent and a poor, Latino worker who is in jail. Connelly does quite well with this story line.
Kathy – Yes, indeed he does. Thanks for bringing that novel up. I almost included it in this post but at the last minute there wasn’t space. And you’re quite right that it’s a very effective plot line for a mystery, and when it’s done well, it can really add to the story. As you say, sometimes people are presumed innocent because of their behaviour, looks, education or something else about them. Or one of those factors makes them seem guilty. An object lesson I think in not jumping to conclusions.
Yup! And given what’s going on down at Wall Street these days amidst Armani suits, $300 haircuts, Mercedes Benz autos, Ivy League educations, in leather-furnished offices with million-dollar artwork on the walls, is another example. And hundreds of millions of dollars are missing, among other things.
I wonder if Michael Connelly — or someone equally adept at writing a good mystery, will tackle this topic.
Kathy – Oh, that would be a good topic for Connelly to write about. Maybe Harry Bosch or Mickey Haller will take a “field trip” to New York..
I always try to remind myself there are two types of first impressions – the characters’ first impressions of each other and the reader’s first impressions of the characters. I spent some time going through the first 50 or so pages and circling the first time someone appeared and studying if I had written it how it should be. I love it when characters jump to the wrong conclusion based on either first impressions or second-hand information. Then there’s the whole issue of personal prejudices – fun, fun, fun!
Elspeth – Oh, how right you are! Most definitely readers don’t always see characters the way that they see one another. And that can add to the “spice” in a story as one or the other is proven right/wrong. You have what sounds like a very painstaking and thorough approach, too, to sharing your characters. I admire that.
And then there is the ultimate in erroneous first impressions: the impression people have of Dr. Frankenstein’s “monster.”
Barbara – Oh, absolutely! A real classic, isn’t it?