One of the most common reasons that there’s a murder in crime fiction is that there’s something about either the victim or the murderer that drives the killing. And one of the more interesting of those “somethings” is that either the victim or the killer is leading a double life. I don’t mean a stolen identity. Rather, I mean a person who is hiding a secret life. That’s sometimes challenging to do well in crime fiction. After all, in real life it would be difficult (‘though certainly not impossible) to hide a secret life from one’s loved ones. But it happens, and when it’s done well, that plot point can add to a novel.
For example, in Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons, Hercule Poirot is asked to help investigate a series of terrible events at Meadowbank, an exclusive girls’ school. One night, games mistress Grace Springer is shot in the school’s new Sports Pavilion. The police begin their investigation but it’s no sooner underway when there’s a kidnapping. And then another death. Julia Upjohn is a pupil at the school who slowly puts together a big part of the puzzle. When she does, she visits Hercule Poirot, who happens to know a friend of her mother’s. Julia tells Poirot about what’s going on at Meadowbank and he travels to the school to solve the mystery. Poirot finds out that someone at the school has been leading a secret life and that Grace Springer found out about part of that life. In the end, Poirot ties in her murder with the other events at the school and with a revolution in a Middle Eastern country and a stolen cache of jewels.
In Michael Crichton’s A Case of Need, which he wrote as Jeffery Hudson, we meet pathologist John Berry, who works at Boston’s Memorial Hospital. One day he gets a call from his friend obstetrician/gynecologist Arthur Lee. Lee has been arrested on charges that he conducted an illegal botched abortion (the book was written in 1968 when abortion was illegal in the U.S.). It’s also alleged that this abortion caused the death of Karen Randall. Lee claims that he is innocent and that he’s being framed in part because he is an Asian-American. Berry agrees to ask questions and looks into the matter. He finds that Karen Randall had a private life that was very different to the public life she led as the daughter of one of Boston Memorial’s most powerful surgeons. The Randall family wants more than anything to avoid a scandal, but Berry persists. He discovers that it was Karen Randell’s secret life that in large part led to her death.
There’s also a case of living secret lives in Nicolas Freeling’s Double Barrel. In that novel, Amsterdam’s Inspector Van der Valk is sent to the small Dutch town of Zwinderen. Someone’s been sending a series of threatening anonymous blackmailing letters to several of Zwinderen’s townsfolk. The letters have resulted in two suicides and one complete mental breakdown. So Van der Valk is asked to get to the bottom of the matter and find out who is responsible for the letters. Since the locals do not trust outsiders, Van der Valk gues under the guise of conducting a Ministry of the Interior study. He and his wife Arlette settle into the town and begin asking questions. As he gets to know the town’s residents better, Van der Valk finds that they’re really not guilty of the terrible conduct of which the letters accuse them, but they are so afraid of being ostracised by the town that they don’t even want any hints about them to come out. Van der Valk also finds that there is one person in town who does have what you could call a secret life. And he discovers that there is a dark secret in town – more important and more deadly than any of the “immoral conduct” alleged in the letters.
We also see double lives in Margaret Truman’s Murder at the FBI. FBI agent Chris Saksis and her partner and lover Ross Lizenby are assigned to the murder of fellow agent George Pritchard. Pritchard’s body was found by the rifle range at FBI headquarters in Washington, and at first, it’s believed that he was the victim of a terrorist group whose membership he was about to reveal. But there are other possibilities, too. One, for instance, is that his bitter ex-wife murdered him. There are also people at the top of the FBI administration who had a reason to want Pritchard dead. The closer Saksis gets to the truth, the more questions are raised about Pritchard and what he might have known. In the end, Saksis learns that someone was leading a double life and it’s that secret life that cost Pritchard his life.
Helene Tursten’s The Glass Devil also features secret lives. Göteborg detective Irene Huss and her team are assigned a bizarre case. Schoolteacher Jacob Schyttelius has not been seen in a few days and it’s not like him to simply not come to work. The school principal asks his cousin Sven Andersson, who is Huss’ boss, to look into the matter. When Andersson and Huss arrive at the summer cottage where Schyttelius has been staying, they find that he’s been shot to death. Then later that evening Schyttelius’ parents are murdered, too. Huss and the team begin to look into the lives of the Schyttelius family to see why anyone would want to murder them. The more they get to know the family and the better they get to know the people in the family’s life, the more secrets they learn. And in the end, it turns out that the family was killed because of secret lives people were leading.
And then there’s Niki Rowe, whose murder is at the heart of Donna Malane’s Surrender. A year before the events in the story, Niki was stabbed, and although the police are sure they know who killed her, they could never bring charges. Now, James Patrick “Snow” Wilson, the man the police think is guilty, has been stabbed in the same way. Niki’s sister Diane Rowe is a missing person’s expert who’s often worked with the police. In fact, she used to be married to police officer Sean Callum. Callum tells Rowe that before his death Wilson confessed to the murder and said that he was paid to kill Niki Rowe. When Diane finds that Wilson has been murdered she decides to find out who killed him, as it may lead her to the person who ordered her sister’s murder. Her search for answers leads her to find out more about Niki’s life. She’d always known that Niki was an exotic dancer, but the truth is that Niki had a secret life that included all sorts of “customer service” for clients. The more Diane learns about her sister’s secret life, the more she learns that Niki was more complicated than anyone had known. As it turns out, that complexity is the reason that she was killed.
Secret and double lives aren’t easy to write as it’s hard to make it believable that a person would have a double life without some loved one knowing about it. But when they’re done well, secret lives can add an interesting layer to a novel. Which novels featuring secret lives have you enjoyed?
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Half a Mile Away.
Oh boy, there are so many novels based on this idea of a secret life, where does one start? How can one pick?
I like the ones where the husband or wife has hidden parts of there family from others and the truth comes out. Or when someone marries someone to protect that person and the truth comes out. Or when the secret is that the killer is actually hidden a life of crime from another and the victim has discovered that life. To some extent, most characters in a book should have some of their lives kept secret. We all keep secrets.
Clarissa – You’re quite right that we all have secrets. Mostly they’re simply benign or maybe embarrassing things about ourselves. For most of us it isn’t leading a life of crime or committing murder. But it can add complexity and interest to a novel if someone has a secret life that is completely hidden except to perhaps one or two people and the sleuth has to peel away those layers of secrecy. It can add a layer of suspense, too.
At one point I read a spate of books where the husband died and the grieving widow found out he had a whole other life, Half the time he wasn’t even dead! Thankfully, ‘double life’ plots seem to have become a little more original since then.
Sarah – I’ve read plenty of books like that, too, Sarah. You’re quite right that the plots seem to be better done now than they were and definitely more original. They’re more believable, too. I’ve always found just a little hard to believe that there would be no clue to “the other life.” I know it happens, etc., but I like it best when it’s written well enough to be credible.
Margot: Anthony Bidulka in the second book of the Russell Quant series, Flight of Aquavit, deals with a secret life theme that has existed throughout history. His client is a “closeted” accountant being blackmailed. Russell works to prevent him being “outed” to his wife and the rest of Saskatoon.
Bill – What an interesting plot! And it’s reminiscent of another “secret life” plot that I almost mentioned in this post but would have found it a little harder to do without spoilers. I’ve just gotten acquainted with Russell Quant, so I’m looking forward to reading this one.
Thanks Margot – double lives are so prominent in Agatha Christie books you could spend all day listing them. Again back to ‘The Third Girl’ I’ve just finished and the double life of Andrew Restarick.
The detective sometimes leads a double life too. Remember Lord Peter Wimsey in ‘Murder Must Advertise.’ There’s a great scene where some of the office girls recognise him in his ‘other’ life and he pretends to think they are ‘ladies of easy virtue’.
Sarah – Third Girl certainly does focus on Andrew Restarick’s double life. To be honest, when I was preparing this post I was debating whether to refer to that Christie novel or another. As you say, this plot theme – the double/secret – life features an awful lot in Christie’s work. In the end I went with Cat Among the Pigeons, but as you say, it would have been just as easy to go with Third Girl. I’m glad you brought it up.
And you are quite right that sleuths sometimes lead a double life, too. I just love that scene you describe in Murder Must Advertise. Such a nice touch of humour and it certainly shows the “secret life” theme.
Yes, agreed, so many mysteries have characters with secret lives or secrets in their pasts. How many Nordic mysteries these days feature characters with hidden pasts tied to some wrongdoing with Nazis during WWII? This seems to be more and more commonplace.
But secrets are everywhere, even innocent ones.
I think though that anyone who has had a teenager daughter or son or anyone who has ever been a teenager knows all about secret lives. The universal conversation that goes like this: “How was school?” “Fine.” “How are your friends?” “Fine.” “What are you doing”? “Nothing.” And so on is repeated in many households every day. It’s universal. And underneath it could be “nothing” or lots of problems. That should be food for thought for many crime fiction writers, what’s going on. It is a feature of Linwood Barclay’s thrillers, which are chock full of secrets, whether of teenagers, spouses, friends, co-workers, as in The Accident.
Denise MIna’s The End of the Wasp Season was rife with secrets — the murder victim’s, the suspect’s, the police detective herself, her brother, a working-class mother — and her teenagers, etc. No one in that book was without secrets. Reading it was like unpeeling an union layer by layer.
That is common in mysteries and that is a delectable aspect of so many.
Kathy – You know, you make such an interesting point about the number of Scandinavian mysteries that have some sort of ties with World War II wrongdoing. It’s not just Scandi lit. but it’s really a powerful theme there.
And how right you are about young people and the way they keep secrets, even benign secrets. That’s a theme in a lot of crime fiction, too; I can think of several examples but don’t want to give away spoilers. Thanks, too, for mentioning Linwood Barclay’s novels. He does a great job with the whole “secret life” theme doesn’t he? And adds humour, too.
And thanks too for mentioning Denise Mina’s work. The End of the Wasp Season is a solid example of what I mean, and she does that in other novels, too.
Great post, and examples, Margot. I agree secret lives can be a very gripping aspect of a crime plot, eg Harlan Coben uses this theme very effectively in many books, perhaps best in Tell No One. Kathy’s point about teens is very much a main element in William Landay’s “Defending Jacob” – does the teenage taciturnity hide a secret life? Peter Temple’s books also deal with these themes, along with many other authors (eg Ruth Rendell as herself and perhaps more so, as Barbara Vine, eg A Fatal Inversion). I usually like it a lot when a novel turns out to have this element as a theme.
Maxine – Thank you
. You’ve mentioned a few authors who’ve really done this plot element well (Coban, Temple, Rendell/Vine). All of them have found ways – and I think this is key – to integrate a character with a secret life without making the story melodramatic. That, to me, is one important key: weaving that “other life” element in so that it doesn’t seem contrived and “over the top.”
And thanks for mentioning Defending Jacob. I really do want to read that…
Another point which I mulled over after reading the comments here is the secrets with which one is entrusted by another person. Most of us are probably privy to friends/ and/or relatives’ secrets.
I thought of a close friend whom I knew years ago who talked to me about her private life, about which her coworkers and family did not know. How far would I go to protect her privacy? How far would anyone go to protect close friends’ and family members’ secrets?
That is also the stuff of mysteries.
Kathy – Now that is a very well-taken point! Very often if it’s a case of a friend or loved one, we certainly would go awfully far to keep a secret for that person. How far? What kind of secret? Definitely fodder for a good mystery.
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I think in some ways keeping a close friend or relative’s secrets might be more important than holding our own private doings close to our vests.
Now Ruth Rendell writing about Inspector Wexford is one thing. I’ve read a few of those. Her stand-alones are a bit frightening, those written in her name. I read one.
But, the books written as Barbara Vine; now those are bone-chilling.
I would like to read A Fatal Inversion. It (and a few others) have been in my mind for quite awhile, but there is something so creepy about these books that I’d have to keep all the lights on, not take out the garbage for several nights and keep on the TV. This book interests me as I think it’s somewhat like Tana French’s The Likeness, yet much eerier. I don’t know. Maybe I can find a friend to read this as I do and we can discuss it.
Kathy – As Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell really does write some truly eerie, suspenseful novels. And she does it without indulging in a gore-fest. And yes, even the novels she writes under her own name can be haunting. There are some novels I think where one just has to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy them. Or have a friend read the novel as well. Even novels that aren’t as creepy can be like that.