In real life and in crime fiction, we can make sense of some crimes. That is, we can understand if not condone why some murders take place. For instance, if a killer commits a murder for financial gain or out of fear, we can understand that crime, even if we believe that killing for that reason is wrong. But other crimes are harder to understand. I’m not necessarily talking here of serial-killer kinds of crimes, where there’s a question of what you might call twisted psychology. Rather, I’m talking of murders that are committed for reasons that just simply don’t make sense to anyone but the murderer. It happens in real life, and sometimes, we can deal with those crimes best if we don’t try to make sense of it. Of course, that’s hard, since you could argue that it’s human nature to want to make sense of things. Such murders also take place in crime fiction, and when they’re done well and don’t leave the reader in too much confusion, they can add a level of interest and some “meat” to a story.
For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Three Act Tragedy (AKA Murder in Three Acts), Hercule Poirot is attending a cocktail party at the home of famous actor Sir Charles Cartwright. One of the other invited guests is beloved vicar Stephen Babbington. Soon after his arrival, Babbington suddenly dies of what looks at first like a heart attack. Soon enough, though it becomes clear that Babbington has died of nicotine poisoning. Poirot works with Cartwright and two other guests, Mr. Satterthwaite and Hermione “Egg” Lytton Gore, to find out who the killer is and what the motive is. They’re just beginning their work when there’s another tragically similar poisoning. Well-known doctor Sir Bartholomew Strange is poisoned at a house party at his home in Yorkshire. Then there’s another death. When Poirot figures out the cause of the murders and discovers the murderer, he finds a motive that simply doesn’t make sense – except to the murderer. And once he finds that motive, he’s able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
In Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone, there is also a tragic set of murders that simply make no sense except to the killer. In that novel, Eunice Parchman is hired as housekeeper by George and Jacqueline Coverdale At first, from the Coverdales’ perspective, all goes well. Parchman is an excellent housekeeper. What the Coverdales don’t know, though, is that Parchman is hiding a secret that from her perspective cannot be revealed under any circumstances. When one of the Coverdales innocently finds out what Parchman hasn’t told anyone, that pushes Parchman over the proverbial edge, and the story ends up in the tragic deaths of George and Jacqueline Coverdale, George’s daughter Melinda and Jacqueline’s son Giles. What makes this story especially gripping and adds a layer of tragedy is that Eunice Parchman’s secret is not what most of us would think of as that terrible a secret although we can understand it’s embarrassing. There’s a straightforward solution that is even proposed to Parchman, but in her mind, it’s a very different matter. To Parchman, the deaths make sense.
In Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow, we meet Smilla Jaspersen, who lives in a Copenhagen apartment building. One day, Isaiah, a boy who lives in a neighbouring apartment dies from what looks like a tragic fall from the roof of the building. Jasperson doesn’t believe that Isaiah’s death was an accident, though. Jasperson is a half-Inuit Greenlander who has grown up with snow and ice and what she has seen in the snow on the roof tells her that Isaiah’s death was not an accident. She begins to ask questions and the more that she learns about the death, the more questions she has. The more she learns, too, the more danger she finds, since there are some very powerful people who do not want it known why and how Isaiah died. But Jasperson persists and in the end, she discovers the cause of Isaiah’s death and connects it with other murders. When we know what happened, we see that to the murderer, the deaths make sense. But in an objective sense, if there is such a thing, the murders are senseless. Even the intelligent and intuitive Jasperson has difficult making sense of the deaths. She doesn’t have intellectual difficulty understanding what’s happened. But in the larger sense of the word “understand,” she has trouble getting her mind round what’s happened, if I may put it that way.
And then there’s Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool, in which DCI Hannah Scarlett and her team work with DCI Fern Larter and her team to find out what and who are behind the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. The death looked at the time like a suicide, but Scarlett has never really thought so. And now there’s evidence that Friend’s death may be linked to the more recent murders of book collector George Saffell and attorney Stuart Wagg. With help from Oxford historian Daniel Kind, Scarlett finds out what links the three deaths. When we learn what the motive for the murders is, it makes sense in that we can understand intellectually why the victims died. Edwards doesn’t leave the reader in doubt as to who the killer is and what the motive is. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense in that most of us couldn’t imagine committing murder for the reason that these murders are committed.
That’s also the case on Shona MacLean’s A Game of Sorrows. In that novel, Aberdeen teacher Alexander Seaton receives an unexpected late-night visit. His cousin Sean O’Neill FitzGarrett has come from Ireland with an urgent request from their grandmother Maeve O’Neill. At a recent family feast, the poet she hired for the occasion cursed the family. That’s bad enough in the 17th Century world in which this story takes place. But what’s worse is that parts of the curse have begun to come true. And there’s been an attempt on Sean FitzGarrett himself. So FitzGarrett has been sent to Scotland to ask Seaton to return with him to find the poet and lift the family curse. Seaton doesn’t believe the curse is real; instead, he believes that there’s a very real threat to the family. So he’s finally persuaded to travel to Ireland to find out what’s behind the terrifying events. When he gets to Ireland, Seaton gets drawn into the dangerous political, religious and economic conflicts of the time. In the end, Seaton finds out the truth behind the events in the novel. And when we learn what is behind the deaths, we find that in one sense, the motive for the events make sense. That is, MacLean explains the motive so that intellectually, readers can work it out, and given the context, it makes sense. On the other hand, it’s hard to understand the motive in a larger way. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s hard to accept the motive because it wouldn’t be a motive for most of us.
And that’s the thing about those inexplicable murders. They may make sense to the murderer, and in the hands of a talented writer, we can accept that motive intellectually. But that doesn’t mean we deeply understand it. Perhaps Smilla Jasperson offers the best way to think of it. At the end of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, Jasperson says:
“It’s only what you do not understand that you can come to a conclusion about.”
Maybe she has a point….
In Memoriam
This post is dedicated to the memory of P.C. David Rathband, whose death was announced today, 1 March. You may remember that he was one of those shot by Raoul Moat on 3 and 4 July 2010 in a set of tragic murders. At the time, Rathband was left blinded, but had begun to put his life back together. Rathband’s death and those of Moat’s other victims make no sense to most of us. That makes the announcement of his death even harder to accept. I wish peace and healing to his family as they struggle to cope with what’s happened.
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Galt MacDermot and Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s Easy to be Hard.
I know I’ve mentioned this before but I find Tom Ripley heartless – depressingly so and really can’t read the books.
The flip side of this is though is a wonderful short story by an American writer, Texas Heat by William Harrison, where the killing is so heartless that I’ve never forgotten it, but in a good way.
Sarah – I know exactly what you mean about Tom Ripley. I find that very hard to cope with as well. And thank you for suggesting the Harrison story. That’s one I confess I haven’t read yet. But a story like that that stays with one is worth me seeking it out.
Having no clear motive must make a killer very hard to track in real life, even with today’s improved methods of detection.
Pat – I hadn’t thought of that but you’ve a very good point. If the killer’s motive isn’t an obvious one, it really must be hard to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
I know there are all sorts of debates about where a killer is born with the gene or if their upbringing leads them to kill. But to me, a killer who strikes for no apparent reason seems to have no conscious at all. Sad news about PC David Rathband.
Mason
Thoughts in Progress
Mason – I don’t know exactly what makes a killer strike either, especially for those reasons that don’t make sense. And yet, to the killer, things do make sense. As you say, it does seem that some killers have no conscience at all and that can be the hardest thing to get your mind around.
I think this is why I enjoy the TV show Criminal Minds so much. The murders always have a methodology that make sense to the killer; the investigators have to discover what motivates the killer to discover who he/she is. The stories are always fascinating because they just show a murderer, they show an entire life story.
Yeah, I still want him/her caught and arrested and maybe have the key thrown away forever and ever; but that it does make sense is fascinating.
…….dhole
Donna – You’re right that to a killer, there’s often a reason. To the killer, the murder or murders make sense. And once the sleuths find out what the killer’s way of thinking it, they can track the killer down. Understanding the way the killer thinks really can be fascinating even if it is eerie, too.
I have no interest in reading about Tom Ripley or another other sociopaths, in true crime or fiction. At a certain point, I don’t want to know any more.
The exception to that was the film Dead Man Walking, based on a book by Sister Jean PreJean, who is an opponent of the death penalty. She was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie and Sean Penn played the doomed man, who had murdered some people in cold blood.
That film was done so well that it made viewers think. It showed the history of Penn’s character and how he became so sadistic and callous about human life.
I think it is important for the roots of this behavior to be understood, especially by those experts who professionally deal with these individuals, so that society can figure out how to try to prevent this behavior.
A friend of mine who is an anti-death penalty advocate tells stories of such incredible childhood trauma and brutality wrought upon many of these people, who were not taught how to relate to people nor respect them nor treat them — and they’re full of anger.
However, society needs to be protected from these elements, no matter what the reasons are, although it would be the best thing if it could be figured out along the way in childhood and preventive efforts made, where they can be.
Anyway, there is so much awful news that I don’t want to have this in my entertainment. One can’t look for escapism in a book focussing on this topic.
Kathy – You’ve got a good point that the more we understand about human psychology and how different factors affect us, the better. We may not be able to prevent all murders, but as we get to know the human mind, this can be helpful. I’m glad you brought up Dead Man Walking, too. It raises the very interesting question about what the effect is both nature and nurture, so to speak, on us. When you read about cases like that, you may still want, as Donna said, to lock the door and throw away the key, but you can also feel some understanding of how the murderer got where he or she is.
Margot: I think of Jeffery Deaver in his Lincoln Rhymes series as the master of plots where the motives are subtle and difficult to determine. In particular, I think of the Bone Collector’s macabre bone trophies and the clocks of the Watchmaster in Cold Moon.
Bill – Thanks for mentioning the Lincoln Rhyme series. Yes, those novels certainly include motives that don’t make sense to most of us, but do to the murderer. And funny enough, as soon as I began to read your comment, I thought of Cold Moon. Great minds…
perhaps one thing you highlight in your post, Margot, is a difference between crime fiction and real crime. I don’t read true crime or much about crimes in the newspapers, but one does get the impression that many crimes are “heartless” in the sense you mean – little “rationality” or “lack of impulse control”….and these crimes would not make good reading, as others have pointed out.
I have never liked Ripley much either, though I did read the books. I think the first two were OK but she revived the character some time later, if memory serves, and that put me right off him altogether.
I suppose one reason I don’t like most thrillers/action novels is that they tend to degenerate into shootouts and other killings – usually some false justification is given for the “hero” to seek revenge on someone who has attacked his family or blown up innocent people in a terrorist attack or something. I’d just as soon not read that kind of stuff.
Maxine – You put that quite well. In real life, there are so many crimes that are just like that – heartless. And I’m so glad you understood what I meant by that term. They simply don’t make sense and quite frankly, they make me very sad for humanity. So I have to say I don’t eagerly scan the newspaper for the latest murders either. I’ve read a little true crime, but except for the unusual book, I prefer fictional crime. I suppose it’s because I want things to make sense, like a lot of people do and in well-written fictional crime, we can see how a murder occurs, even if there’s no sense to it other than in the murderer’s mind.
And I couldn’t agree with you more about a lot of today’s thrillers. I don’t mind “thriller” elements in a well-written novel. The pace can add to a novel. But too many of them don’t have anything like a reasonably developed set of characters, a plot that makes sense and so on. There are exceptions of course, but I’m not quick to pick up a thriller unless I already like the author’s work or someone whose recommendations I trust suggests I should.
And as for Ripley? Yeah, not the hugest fan myself…
There are so many crimes that just don’t make sense. In the paper, there seem to be quite a few that are just either random or for the enjoyment of killing. Senseless and hard to make work in a mystery plot (especially for us cozy writers!)
Elizabeth – That’s the thing. So many things you read about in the paper really do seem random. Or, as you say, they’re so cold-hearted (i.e. because killing someone doesn’t matter). It is hard to write about those kinds of killings and also create characters that people can believe. And yes, I think that’s especially an issue for cosy mystery authors, where character development is so important. I think that’s probably why most cosies don’t focus on those kinds of crimes. Just as well…
And another magnificent post! How do you manage it, Margot? You post daily, you teach, you write…I’m in utter awe.
Elspeth – *deep, beet-red blush* Why, thank you
! That’s so kind, and it means a lot to me. I shall now feel on top of the world the rest of the day.
I agree totally with you about thrillers. I’m not a big fan unless they come highly recommended and have character development, some type of puzzle or plot element to draw in readers, and not just non-stop action. That bores me.
And further about real crime, which I don’t read much about, certainly not the worst brutality and the lack of reason and human feelings on the part of the murderers. Many are very ill individuals who have no connections based on affection with other people. A lack of development of empathy in childhood is supposed to be one reason. I wonder how children are raised without this. It boggles the mind. But it happens.
I wonder how people are raised without being taught to respect and care about other people and that human life is to be protected. However, there is so much brutality, abuse of children and women; violent movies, even war, all of which influence people’s attitudes towards each other.
I would wish for a humane society and early intervention for all those prone to violence, but that’s a tall order.
So I’ll read fiction.
Kathy – Right you are there are so many sad reasons for which people commit crimes that we don’t understand. Some of it, as you say, has to do with mental illness. Other crimes have to do with childhood trauma. There are other reasons, too. Whatever the reason, that kind of crime is just about incomprehensible, at least to me. And like you, I simply can’t understand how anyone would not raise children with love and with limits, but that happens, too. No wonder you prefer to read fiction!