Today would have been Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday. An interesting factoid, but why bring it up on this crime-fictional blog? There are a few reasons. One is that Dickens arguably could be called a crime writer. Want more on this compelling point? You can check out an interesting post on the topic from Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. The other reason I mention Dickens here is that he was one of the first well-known authors to really explore the lives of people who weren’t rich, titled or “well-born.” Dickens showed readers the lives of those in the working and lower classes – even the slums. In a way, one could argue that it was Dickens’ work that in part made it acceptable for modern crime writers to write about the working class and those who struggle for a living.
We see some exploration of the working and lower classes in some of Agatha Christie’s novels. For instance, in Dead Man’s Folly, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt (akin to a scavenger hunt) for an upcoming fête at Nasse House, the property of Sir George and Lady Hattie Stubbs. Oliver accepts the commission and travels to Nasse House, but when she arrives, she begins to sense that something is wrong; there’s something more going on here than a simple fête. So she asks Hercule Poirot to join her at Nasse House and investigate. He agrees and goes under the pretext of giving out the prizes for the Murder Hunt. Oliver’s suspicions are justified when on the day of the fête, there’s a murder. Fourteen-year-old Marlene Tucker, who played the part of the “victim” in the Murder Hunt, is actually strangled. Poirot works with Inspector Bland to find out who would have wanted to kill a seemingly harmless girl from a working-class family. It turns out that Marlene had found out more than it was safe for her to know about someone at the fête and that’s why she was killed. In the process of investigating, Poirot gets to know the Tucker family and we get a look at a working-class home.
John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels often show us the lives of the “down-and-out” and the working class. McGee calls himself a “salvage consultant.” He earns a living by helping people recover what’s been taken from them. He keeps a percentage of the proceeds as his fee. In that capacity he meets more than one “down and out” character. For example, in The Deep Blue Goodbye he takes the case of Catherine Kerr, who has something very valuable stolen from her and exploited by a lover. In that novel we meet Kerr and her sister, both members of the working class who are just trying to get by. It’s worth noting that in this novel and several other Travis McGee novels, the lower- and working-class characters we meet are quite often drawn with quite a lot of pride and dignity. Poor they may be; groveling they are not.
Margaret Yorke also explores the lives of working-class and sometimes lower-class people. For instance, in Speak for the Dead, we follow the life of Carrie Foster, who’s been raised in a working-class home. She gets a job in a shop, but she has a taste for adventure and like a lot of people, she wants material things, too. So she takes up life as a call girl. Her “clients” tend to be educated members of the “better” classes, and she’s not doing badly. Then one day she meets Gordon Matthews, whom she doesn’t know has recently been released from prison for murdering his wife Anne Randall. The two get along and before too much time, they’ve married. At first, Carrie thinks she’s “made it,” as Gordon seems to be doing well for himself. Within a few years, though, she realises that Gordon isn’t the man she’d thought she married. Bored, restless, and tired of her husband’s inability to keep a job, Carrie returns to her old occupation without telling Gordon. As the novel evolves, we see how Gordon and Carrie have deceived each other and how this ends up leading to tragedy.
Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus, himself a member of the working class, often works with the “down and out” and lower- and working-class people as he solves his cases. In fact some them involve members of those classes. For instance, in Black and Blue, he investigates, among other cases, the murder of Allen Mitchison, an oilman who works for T-Bird Oil out of Aberdeen. Mitchison was left an orphan early in his life and grew up mostly in children’s homes and foster care. He saw a video about North Shore oil rig work and got interested, and that work led to his chance to earn a decent living. It also leads to his murder. As Rebus looks into Mitchison’s life to see why he would have been killed, we meet plenty of other people for whom it’s considered a “step up” to be able to afford a mortgage on a home.
Denise Mina’s Garnethill trilogy focuses on the lives of working- and lower-class people as well. Beginning with Garnethill, the novels follow the life of ticket-taker and later women’s shelter worker Maureen “Mauri” O’Donnell. In Garnethill, she wakes up one morning after a long night of drinking to find that her former lover Douglas Brody has been murdered in her apartment and his body left behind. She’s the most likely suspect, so detective Joe McEwan is convinced she’s guilty. To clear her name, O’Donnell begins to ask questions and investigate in her own way. With help from her brother Liam and some friends, O’Donnell finds out the truth about Brady’s murder. In Exile, she meets Ann Harris, a client at the women’s shelter where she now works. Unexpectedly, though, Harris disappears and turns up dead two weeks later in London. O’Donnell wants to find out what happened to Harris, why she left and of course, why she died. And in Resolution, she looks into the case of Ella McGee, who sells bootlegged music at a market stall. When McGee is beaten up, she asks O’Donnell, whom she knows from the market, to help her fill out a complaint form – against her own son. In all of these novels, the characters are painted in stark and unflinching, but strong and even dignified ways.
There are also many, many fictional sleuths who are members of the working class and lower class. For instance, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum has working-class roots. So does Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and so does Colin Dexter’s Sergeant Lewis.
The lives of lower- and working-class people are arguably portrayed in much more depth and given much more attention than they have been in the past. Murders in those communities are given attention – at least in crime fiction – that they arguably wouldn’t have been given without the groundbreaking work of Charles Dickens. And for that and much more, crime fiction fans and authors owe him a debt.
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Vogues’ Five O’Clock World.
Yes, although the common man appeared in Shakespeare’s plays they were only there to provide comic relief.
Patti – Oh, a good, good point! There were indeed commonfolk, so to speak, in SHakespeare’s work, but not as serious characters.
Margot: In his series of small town Saskatchewan mysteries Nelson Brunanski’s sleuth, Bart Bartkowski, and his wife, Rosie, operate a fly-in fishing camp in northern Saskatchewan. I doubt they would have been the lead characters in past generations.
Bill – Oh, that’s exactly the kind of sleuth and context I had in mind when I wrote this post, so thank you. I think you’re quite right that a “regular folks” family like that wouldn’t have been considered worth of attention in generations gone by.
I definitely think of Dickens as a crime writer (not the only genre he wrote, of course). Loved watching an adaptation of his unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood where the audience voted who the perp was.
Nice examples here of working class characters in mysteries, Margot!
Elizabeth – Why, thank you
. And you’re right, a lot of people wouldn’t have thought of Dickens as a crime writer but he was. And I wish I could have seen that adaptation of Mystery of Edwin Drood; I’ll bet it was terrific.
Very good point about Charles Dickens. There seems to be a flurry of articles and posts about him and a revival of interest in reading his books. I would read some of his books now if they didn’t dwell so much on the oppression of poor children, but then again he, in his way, was a journalist, a muckraker about social conditions and poverty. A good thing.
I am so glad you brought up Denise Mina. She was the first author I thought of on this topic. Also, her Paddy Meehan character was from a working-class home fraught with problems, and the Alex Morrow series also delves somewhat into working-class life today.
Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti often carries out investigations that lead him into workplaces and a revelation about conditions, problems or cover-ups of some crime or other.
Also, Kjell Eriksson delves into the lives of many types of workers in his way, particularly in the Demon of Dakar, dealing with restaurant and immigrant workers, a good book.
More revelations about the human condition, all good.
Kathy – You know, I like your choice of the word “muckraker.” You could most definitely argue that Dickens was just that. He certainly paid a lot of attention to the social conditions of his time. And that includes the way children – especially poor children – were treated. It is a good thing he did that I think.
Denise Mina certainly shows us what life in the working class is like for a lot of people, and many of her characters have that kind of background. I like that about her novels actually. And yes, Leon does the same thing, and manages to do so effectively even though her Guido Brunetti and his wife Paola do not have to just scrape by.
You’ve got a good point; when an author shows us the human condition – how people really live – this can definitely make a book unforgettable when it’s done well.
Dickens is a wonderful writer and ‘Bleak House’ my favourite book of all time. The death of Little Jo and the slum of Tom-All-Alone shows how completely unredeeming that type of poverty is. My problem with Dckens, however, is that he sentimentalises women dreadfully but that is another issue completely……
I think Arnaldur Indriðason shows us that Iceland isn’t all hot springs and northern lights. I gave a copy to my mother-in-law who has visited the country and she was shocked by the descriptions of the housing estates where migrant communities exist uneasily side by side.
Sarah – Well-said! Bleak House is a very, very well-written book and you’re quite right that Dickens shows clearly that that sort of poverty has no redemptive value for anyone. I do see, though, exactly why you believe Dickens sentimentalises women. Of course, he was a product of his era and as you say, we could go on about that…
Good call about Arnaldur Indriðason, I think. Yes, he does show life among those who struggling to get by He certainly doesn’t give a romanticised view of life in Iceland, but then, he’s a realistic sort of writer. That’s one of his appeals, for me at least.
I’ve never thought as Dickens as a mystery writer but in many ways, he did write mysterious fiction. I’ll bet a lot of the writers have gleamed their writing styles and ways of writing from Dickens–who was a master writer. I should really read more of his books.
Clarissa – You’re quite right that Dickens isn’t one of those writers one would normally think of as a crime writer. But he was arguably a crime writer and he certainly had a tremendous influence on the genre. I agree with you that writers do well by reading his work.
Ms. Kinberg, what a fabulous idea for a post. I know Wilkie Collins has written some of the earliest crime-fiction stories but I didn’t think of Charles Dickens writing from that point of view, though he wrote extensively on poverty and despair which often leads people to a life of crime. I recently came across a short story by Dickens titled “CAPTAIN MURDERER”. It’s macabre and quite unlike a Dickens story, so I had to double-check to make sure he really wrote it. And he did. I’ll be visiting Kerrie’s blog too. Thanks for the heads-up (which by the way is a term I picked up on blogs!).
Prashant – Why, thank you
. I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed this post. A lot of people don’t think of Charles Dickens when they think of crime writers but the truth is, he really did delve into crime and murder. And as you say, some of his work does get very dark…
I’m sure you’ll enjoy Kerrie’s post; I know I did. And you’re not the only one who’s learned things from blogs. A lot of my learning has come that way…
I really enjoyed reading both your post and all these comments, Margot. I’d never thought of Dickens as a crime writer, but of course, he was! I really should give him another go, I haven’t read one of his in years. I admit his pages of description made me cross-eyed.
Elspeth – Thanks for the kind words
. True it is that Dickens is not exactly known for his terse prose. But his stories really are worth reading and one really can think of him as a crime writer.
One more author: Tana French, especially in Faithful Place, describes working-class life although with a somewhat jaundiced eye — in Dublin.
I thought her descriptions of the few options for lower-income women were presented quite well. Not many options are available, barely any to escape the near-poverty and no-way-out existences.
Kathy – I hadn’t thought about Tana French when I was writing this post, but you do make a well-taken point about the way she depicts the options there are for people without means. Good call
And when I think about, less affluent folks who have been through lots of challenges are more interesting to read about (and to write about) than characters who’ve led a privileged life with no trauma.
Pat – Now, that’s a very good point. People who haven’t had it all given to them, so to speak, are most definitely more interesting. They have an admirable core of resilience, too.