What’s Inside Your Mind?*

As we’ve come to understand the human mind a little more over the last hundred years, we’ve learned how much of a role psychology plays in the way we interact with others, behave, and react to life. And an interesting comment exchange with Sergio at Tipping My Fedora has got me to thinking about what an important role psychologists and psychology play in crime fiction. There are sleuths who are psychologists or psychiatrists and there are many novels now where characters who’ve been through trauma get mental/emotional help and support as well as whatever other medical help they may need. And that all makes a lot of sense; as psychology and the study of the mind have matured and become an important part of medicine, it’s logical they’d work their way into crime fiction too.

We see an example of psychology in action so to speak in Agatha Christie’s Appointment With Death. In that novel, Hercule Poirot is touring the Middle East. There, he encounters the Boynton family, a group of Americans who are on holiday. Family matriarch Mrs. Boynton is a mental sadist who’s had her family cowed for years, so when she dies of what seems to be heart failure, no-one feels any great sorrow. Colonel Carbury is in charge of investigating sudden deaths in that area and at first glance, it seems an easy case. The weather was hot and Mrs. Boynton was elderly and not in good health, so it all seems clear enough. But then Dr. Theodore Gerard, who was on the same tour as the Boynton family, suggests that something more might be going on. Gerard is a well-known psychologist who has noticed the severe dysfunction in the family. He suspects that Mrs. Boynton may have been murdered, and that psychology may be the key to the mystery. Colonel Carbury decides to pay attention to what Gerard has suggested and asks Poirot to look into the matter. As he investigates, we get an interesting look at the way our understanding of psychology was progressing at that time (the novel was published in 1938). It was quite Freudian in nature and it’s interesting to see how those views affect the way Gerard sees the case.

One of the areas in which psychology has developed in the last four or five decades has been in our understanding of the way children think. Child psychology is now a respected sub-discipline of psychology, and we see how professionals in that field work in the novels of Jonathan Kellerman. One of his two main protagonists is Alex Delaware, a former child psychologist and expert at working with young people who’ve suffered trauma. In Blood Work for instance, Delaware has testified in the case of the divorce of Richard and Darlene Moody. Richard Moody has some severe emotional problems which make him unable at the moment to look after his children. So the judge orders him to get psychiatric help and medication before he is allowed even supervised visits with his children. At first Delaware thinks that will be the end of the case. But then Moody decides to take his own approach to seeing his children and starts to stalk his ex-wife and children as well as Delaware. In the meantime, a former colleague Raoul Melendez-Lynch asks Delaware’s help on another case. He has diagnosed five-year-old Heywood ‘Woody’ Swopes with a form of lymphoma, but the parents have refused the chemotherapy regimen and other recommendations he’s made. They insist that holistic medicine will cure Woody and they won’t consent to treatment. Melendez-Lynch wants Delaware to work with the family, but instead, the parents suddenly pull their son from the hospital and disappear with him. Now, Delaware sets out to track the boy down before his condition worsens. He talks to his friend LAPD cop Milo Sturgis about it but Sturgis can’t do much. No real crime has been committed. So Delaware slowly puts together the pieces himself. In this novel, we see several sides of Delaware’s practice as a psychologist. He consults, testifies, works with children and their families and interacts with his colleagues.

Sometimes even the hardiest police sleuths can be pushed ‘over the edge’ and find themselves in need of professional mental help. Today that’s not seen as a cause for shame, and it shows up in a lot of crime fiction. For instance in Michael Connelly’s The Last Coyote, Harry Bosch has hit his limit you might say for a number of good reasons, and ends up pushing his supervisor through a window. For this he’s ordered off duty for an indefinite amount of time until he gets a psychiatric evaluation and some professional help. He is assigned to work with Dr. Carmen Hinojos to get to the root of his psychological ‘baggage’ and unwillingly goes to see her. While he’s off-duty, Bosch is eager for something to occupy him so he decides to look into an old case – the murder of Marjorie Lowe, a prostitute who was killed thirty years earlier and who happens to have been Bosch’s mother. As he works through this case, he also faces some of his own childhood sadness and we see through his meetings with Hinojos how psychology professionals can help their clients face things they don’t even admit exist.

Michael Robotham’s Joe O’Loughlin is a psychiatrist who is accustomed to working with people who have all sorts of mental illnesses and difficulties. In Lost (AKA The Drowning Man), for instance, he is faced with a particularly challenging case. O’Loughlin’s friend DI Vincent Ruiz has wakened in a hospital bed, his leg badly injured form a bullet wound. He has no memory of what happened to him or how he came to be rescued. The only facts that seem to be clear are that he was pulled out of the Thames after nearly drowning, and that he had been working a ‘cold case’ when he was injured. O’Loughlin works with Ruiz to help him put the pieces of his memory together. Little by little Ruiz begins to recall what happened. Seven-year-old Mickey Carlyle disappeared three years earlier and was assumed to have been killed by known paedophile Howard Wavell. In fact, Wavell’s in prison for the crime. But Ruiz thinks Wavell might be innocent and that Mickey may still be alive. He was pursuing leads on this case when he was injured and as soon as he recovers, he takes up the investigation again. In the end, after help from O’Loughlin, Ruiz finds out the truth about Mickey Carlyle.

Psychologist Sara Struel proves to be very helpful in Karin Fossum’s He Who Fears the Wolf. Oslo police inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre are called in to investigate the murder of Halldis Horn, who’d lived by herself since her husband’s death. One very likely suspect is Errki Johrma, a young man with mental illness who is one of Struel’s patients. The police want to interview him, since he was seen in the area on the day of the murder. But he’s disappeared. As the police look for Johrma, Sejer gets help from Struel about the kind of person the young man is, what is causing his mental illness and whether he might be the killer. One of the interesting things about her role in this novel is that it allows us to see how mental health professionals have to balance their obligation to confidentiality with their obligation to protect society from potentially dangerous people (and to assist the police). It’s a delicate balance and Fossum addresses it here.  

In Camillla Grebe and Åsa Träff’s Some Kind of Peace, we meet Stockholm psychologist Siri Bergman. She shares a practice with a few colleagues and professionally at least, things are going well. However, she is struggling personally with grief over the death of her beloved husband Stefan and is emotionally fragile. One day she receives a strange letter that makes it clear she is being stalked. Then other eerie things happen and it seems that someone is trying to discredit her. What’s worse, whoever is stalking her has access to her private patient records. Then the body of one of her patients Sara Matteus is near Bergman’s home. There’s also a suicide note that suggests Bergman is responsible for the victim’s decision to kill herself. But it’s not long before the supposed suicide is shown to be murder. Bergman is briefly suspected, but soon enough it’s clear that she has an enemy who is getting more and more dangerous. Throughout this novel, along with the mystery and the investigation, we also see the day-to-day realities of psychologists’ professional lives.

Our knowledge of human psychology has improved dramatically in the last decades so it makes sense that we’d also see psychology playing an important role in crime fiction. I’ve only had space to touch on it briefly here. Which crime-fictional psychologists have made an impression on you?

Thanks, Sergio, for the inspiration. Now, may I suggest that you include Sergio’s fantastic Tipping My Fedora as one of your next blog stops? It’s a terrific resource for classic crime film and book reviews. While you’re there, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s well worth adding to your blog roll.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Handheld’s What’s Inside.

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Garroting

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme is moving right along, and we’re all quite enjoying the sights and frights. I am, as always, grateful to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for showing us all such a great time so far. And we’ve not lost anybody, either – yet…

Today, we’re stopping at historic G Castle, and we’re all looking forward to the castle tour and traditional meal we’ll be having later. While everyone’s busy unpacking and changing clothes, I’ll offer my contribution for this stop – garroting. Garroting is a very efficient way of committing murder and it doesn’t take a lot of physical strength or special background really. So it’s one of those ‘everyman’ kinds of murder methods that crime fiction authors like because it allows a lot of flexibility. Lots of different characters can be the murderer or the victim. Let me show you what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Hercule Poirot, Scotland Yard and several local police are up against what looks very like a serial killer. The first murder – of an old woman who keeps a newsagent shop – doesn’t get much press. But then, pretty, twenty-three-year-old Betty Barnard is found garroted with her own belt. The only things that these murders have in common are that both victims are women and an ABC railway guide is found near each body. That and the fact that Poirot is sent a cryptic note before each murder. The police are just getting busy linking those two murders when there’s a third one. Franklin Clarke, a respected retired throat specialist, is found bludgeoned to death. Again there’s a cryptic note beforehand and an ABC near the body. Bit by but, Poirot gets the clues that he needs to solve this case, but not before there’s yet another murder…

Caroline Graham’s A Place of Safety introduces us to Charlie Leathers. He’s a local resident of Ferne Bassett who’s got a reputation as a blackmailer and generally not nice person. One night, he happens to be walking his dog near a bridge over the Misbourne when he sees a drama played out. Carlotta Ryan, a troubled teen who’s been staying with the local curate and his wife, runs out onto the bridge. Ann Lawrence, the curate’s wife, runs after her. They quarrel and then Carlotta goes over the bridge. She doesn’t turn up and is soon believed dead. Only Charlie saw the incident and he pays a heavy price for his knowledge when he is later found garroted. DCI Tom Barnaby and Sergeant Gavin Troy investigate both incidents and they find that things are not as they may seem on the surface…

Inspector Reg Wexford and his team have to deal with a case of garroting in Ruth Rendell’s Simisola. It all starts when Wexford’s physician Dr. Raymond Akande asks his help. Akande’s twenty-two-year-old daughter Melanie hasn’t been home for a few days, and hasn’t called or sent a note. At first Wexford doesn’t believe it’s a serious matter, but when more time goes by, he looks into it. The last person to talk to Melanie was Annette Bystock, a jobs counselor at the local Employment Bureau. So Wexford and his team look to interview her. But by the time they do so, she’s already dead – garroted in her bed. Now it looks as though something is going on at the Employment Bureau, so the team pays special attention to it. As it turns out, those events, and another death that occurs, are all tied in, each in a different way, to the bureau.

Val McDermid’s Report For Murder is the story of the murder of famous cellist Lorna Smith-Couper. Journalist Lindsay Gordon is hired to do a piece on an upcoming fundraising weekend to be held at Derbyshire House Girls’ School. The weekend’s festivities will culminate in a gala dinner and concert and Smith-Couper, a very well-known alumna, is to be the feature attraction. When she is found garroted with a cello string, the media are prepared to make as much as possible of what’s happened. Of course the school authorities want exactly the opposite: a minimum of attention on the murder. So Gordon and Cordelia Brown, a TV personality and author who’s also there by invitation, agree to try to keep the media at bay. The only way this can be accomplished though is to find out who the killer is as soon as possible…

And then there’s Jonathan Kellerman’s A Cold Heart. In that novel, painter Juliet ‘Julie’ Kipper is poised to make big news with the opening of a new show at a gallery called Light and Space. One night, she’s attacked in the ladies’ room and garroted. Her body is later found carefully posed. LAPD cop Milo Sturgis thinks that this isn’t a ‘regular’ murder (if there is such a thing). The odd posing of the body, for instance, suggests something different. That’s what leads him to consult his good friend psychologist Alex Delaware. In the meantime, the LAPD are also investigating the stabbing death of talented blues guitarist Baby Boy Lee, who was killed outside a club called The Snake Pit after one of his sets. The two murders have in common that both victims are on the brink of real fame. But Delaware and Sturgis soon learn that there’s more to the case than that…

In Rennie Airth’s The Dead of Winter, which takes place in 1944, we meet Polish Land Girl Rosa Nowak. Late one night she is garroted outside the British Museum. At first, the police consider this a terrible but random act of violence and they’re frankly ready to let it go. It’s wartime and they’ve a lot of other things more pressing. But retired inspector John Madden isn’t so eager to let things go. It turns out that Rosa was employed at his family’s home and he feels a personal obligation to find out what happened to her. On his urging, the police look more closely into the matter and find out that Rosa’s death is connected to other, earlier murders and valuable stolen gems.

It’s not really surprising that garroting would show up in crime fiction the way it does. After all, it can be quick and efficient, and doesn’t need a lot of equipment or know-how. Now, how about I straighten that collar for you? Here, let me just step behind you…

I’m Sorry, But I’m Just Thinking of the Right Words to Say*

Believable sleuths can’t solve crimes by themselves. Besides the help they may need from experts such as forensics professionals and other scientists, they also need to get answers from witnesses and suspects. Oh and there’s the not-so-trivial matter of having to work with supervisors. All of this means that sleuths have to develop a certain amount of skill and diplomacy. I think a lot of readers enjoy it when sleuths speak their minds, especially when what they say is witty. But in real life, we can’t always get away with saying what we’re really thinking; life just doesn’t work that way. There are a lot of examples in crime fiction where sleuths have to use tact when they might much rather not. I’ll just have space here for a few, but I think you get the point.

In Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (AKA The Mirror Crack’d), Miss Marple has been weakened by a bout with bronchitis, and her nephew Raymond West has been kind enough to arrange for Miss Knight to help out in the house and look after his aunt. But Miss Marple is not best pleased with Miss Knight; she’s well-meaning, but she’s condescending, meddlesome and annoyingly perky. Miss Marple knows that confronting Miss Knight directly won’t get her anywhere and besides, she was not raised to be rude. So she cleverly and tactfully finds a way to get Miss Knight out of the house one afternoon so she can take a walk by herself. That’s how she meets Heather Badcock, who ends up getting poisoned at a charity fête. There’s a really humourous look in this novel at the strategies Miss Marple uses to get what she wants without being caustic about it.

Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee needs a great deal of tact in Tony Hillerman’s The Dark Wind. Among other cases, he’s investigating the disappearance of Joseph Musket. Musket may very well have been mixed up with drugs trafficking, and even if he isn’t, he could have valuable information about a plane crash that Chee witnessed since he was in the area. Chee thinks that Musket’s mother Fannie Musket may know something about her son’s whereabouts; she may even know something about the plane crash. Chee very much wants to talk to her but he also knows that barging in and insisting on answers isn’t going to get him anywhere. So he handles the situation more tactfully:

 

‘Chee and Mrs. Musket had introduced themselves, by family, by kinship, and by clan…He had told her that he hoped she would talk to him about her son.

 ‘You are hunting for him,’ she said. Navajo is a language which loads its meanings into its verbs. She used the word which means ‘to stalk,’ as a hunted animal and not the form which means, ‘to search for,’ as for someone lost. The tone was as accusing as the word.

 Chee changed the verb. ‘I search for him,’ Chee said. ‘But I know I will not find him here. I am told he is a smart man. He would not come here while we search for him, and even if he had, I would not ask his mother to tell me where to find him. I just want to learn what kind of a man he is.’’

 

Chee’s tact puts Fannie Musket somewhat more at ease, and she ends up by giving him some useful information.

We also see the real value of tact in Arnaldur Indriðason’s Jar City. In that novel, Reykjavík police inspector Erlendur and his team are called to the scene when the body of a seemingly inoffensive old man named Holberg is found in his flat. At first it looks like a burglary gone wrong, but there are cryptic signs that this was a deliberate murder. Holberg wasn’t rich though, and he didn’t have any obvious enemies. So Erlendur and the team have to dig deeper to find out who the killer is. They discover that Holberg has a dark secret hidden in his past. Many years earlier, he was accused of (‘though not arrested for) rape. What’s more, if the rumours about him are true, there were several victims. As a part of the investigation, Erlendur interviews Elín, the sister of Kolbrún, who made the first accusation of rape against Holberg. Kolbrún committed suicide, so Erlendur knows that Elín is dealing with a lot of loss and grief. What he soon learns too is that Elín is deeply distrustful of police. At the time Kolbrún made the accusation of rape, no-one believed her and in fact, she was humiliated. Elín is convinced that was part of what led to her suicide. So Erlendur knows that he will have to be extremely diplomatic and tactful if he’s going to get Elín to talk to him about her sister. Eventually she does thaw sufficiently to tell him what she knows, and despite a few more ‘bumps in the road,’ she proves to be very helpful.

There’s also Jonathan Kellerrman’s When the Bough Breaks, which introduces us to child psychologist Alex Delaware. For a few reasons Delaware has retired from his practice, but he’s called back as an expert when his friend LAPD cop Milo Sturgis is faced with an unusual case. Dr. Morton Handler and his lover Elena Gutierrez have been brutally murdered in Handler’s home. The only real witness is seven-year-old Melody Quinn, who lives in the same building. Sturgis wants Delaware to talk to the child and see whether he can get her to open up about what she may have seen or heard. Delaware agrees, but he’s soon blocked by the child’s pediatrician Dr. Lionel Towle, who argues that Delaware poses a threat to the child. It’s soon clear that some very important people do not want the murderer caught but Sturgis still has his homicides to solve and Delware has gotten curious (and concerned about Melody’s welfare). So each in his own way, the two men pursue the case. At one point, Delaware visits the home of Elena Gutierrez’ parents and asks her mother Cruz for whatever help she can give. Cruz Gutierrez is in mourning. Besides, she doesn’t really trust the police and she’s from a different culture. But Delaware is tactful and besides, he’s accompanied by Elena’s best friend Raquel Ochoa, who is close to the family. So little by little he and Raquel put Cruz at her ease. Her input turns out to be helpful.

In Angela Savage’s The Half Child, Jim Delbeck learns that his daughter Maryanne has died from a fall off the roof of the Pattaya, Thailand hotel where she was living. The official police report is that she committed suicide, but Delbeck doesn’t believe it. So he hires Bangkok PI Jayne Keeney to look into the matter. One of his reasons for hiring her is that she knows the country and the language. Keeney agrees to take the case and prepares to travel to Pattaya. She knows though that she can’t just go there and start asking people questions. In any case that approach would probably ensure that people wouldn’t talk to her. That’s particularly true in this culture, which values certain kinds of tactful ways of dong and saying things. So Keeney uses the more diplomatic strategy of contacting an acquaintance Police Major General Wichit, who heads the Tourist Police. He is powerful enough that offending him would be foolish and gaining his support could be helpful. Besides, he owes Keeney a favour. Wichit agrees to help, and it turns out that his support is useful. Throughout this novel, we see an interesting difference between the tact that Keeney needs to use on the surface, so to speak, and her real private thoughts. And in the end, that tact proves quite helpful as she slowly gets closer to the truth about Maryanne Delbeck’s death.

Lots of readers enjoy outspoken sleuths. I know I do. They say things we wish we could say and they can be witty. But in real life, there are times when it’s much more productive to be tactful. The wise sleuth knows this and the realistic crime novel makes use of it.

 

 
 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from When in Rome’s The Promise.

Tell Me That You Want the Kind of Things That Money Just Can’t Buy*

If you’ve ever thought, ‘If I only had some money, everything would be so much better,’ you’re not alone.  It’s easy to see why people think that way. Money represents security, especially if you don’t have much of it. To other people it represents status and prestige. But does having a lot of money really make everything good? Well, yes in the sense that you don’t have to worry about whether the electric bill is paid and the car is in good working order. We need money for survival in today’s world. But having a lot of money brings with it its own stresses and trouble. Just a quick look at crime fiction should show you what I mean.

Several of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories touch on this theme of money, what it can do to people and the fact that having a lot of it isn’t necessarily a cure-all. In The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, for instance, Holmes gets a visit from Violet Hunter. She’s a governess who’s just had an extremely lucrative offer from Jephro Rucastle, who wants to hire her to teach and look after his six-year-old son. Violet isn’t sure she wants the job and Holmes has serious doubts too. The offer seems too good to be true and what’s more, Rucastle has made some seemingly inconsequential but odd requests of Violet.  In fact, Holmes urges Violet not to take the position. But then, Rucastle increases his offer to the point where Violet can’t really resist it. So she takes the job and moves into the Rucastle home.  Holmes has told Violet that if she needs him, she should contact him, and it’s not long before she does. Some strange and dark things are going on in the home and Violet soon sees that she’s in real danger. She writes to Holmes and he goes to the Rucastle home – just in time to save Violet’s life. This case turns out to be all about money.

In Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile we meet Linnet Ridgeway, who’s not only beautiful, but has had money – a lot of it – all her life. And yet, her wealth can’t protect Linnet from everything. When she marries Simon Doyle and plans a honeymoon cruise of the Nile with him, she’s hoping all will go well. But she and Simon soon find that there’s a very unwelcome fellow passenger on the cruise: Simon’s ex-fiancée and Linnet’s former friend Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ de Bellefort. Jackie’s managed to follow the couple everywhere they go and Linnet is, quite simply, frightened and vulnerable despite the security you would think her money would provide. When she is shot on the second night of the cruise, Jackie becomes the first suspect. But it’s soon proven that she couldn’t have committed the crime. So Hercule Poirot, who’s on the same cruise, works with Colonel Race to find out who the killer is. It turns out that Linnet’s wealth made her a very attractive target for a number of people.

Ross Macdonald addresses the whole issue of money and its effects on people in The Far Side of the Dollar. Ralph and Elaine Hillman are rich and successful. They have a life that most people would like. But all is not exactly well. They’ve been having difficulties with their seventeen-year-old son Tom, to the point where they’ve placed him in Laguna Perdida, an exclusive school for ‘troubled’ young people. Dr. Sponti, head of the school, is well aware of the Hillmans’ power and wealth, so he’s distraught when Tom disappears from the school. It’s not that he’s coldhearted about Tom, but he’s particularly concerned about the consequences for him if the Hillmans find out that Tom is gone. So he hires PI Lew Archer to find Tom and bring him back to the school. Before Archer even leaves Sponti’s office though, Ralph Hillman bursts in saying that Tom’s been kidnapped. Archer goes back to the Hillman’s home with Ralph, and agrees to work to find out who has Tom. It’s not long though before Archer realises that something isn’t what it seems in this case. For one thing, it soon appears that Tom may not be a kidnap victim at all, but may have voluntarily gone with his abductors. What’s more, neither Ralph nor Elaine is very helpful in finding their son. Then, one of the people Tom is with is killed. Then there’s another death. Little by little, Archer learns about the Hillman family dynamics, and the role that money has played in them. He also learns about the events in the family’s past that have led to Tom’s disappearance.

Vicki Delany’s Winter of Secrets introduces us to the Wyatt-Yarmouth family. Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, his sister Wendy and a group of their wealthy university friends have planned a skiing holiday in the British Columbia town of Trafalger over the Christmas break. Tragedy strikes when the SUV that the group has rented plunges into the Upper Kootenay River. Inside the police find Jason’s body and that of his friend Ewan Williams. Forensic evidence shows that Jason died as a result of the accident, but Ewan had been dead for several hours at the time the SUV went into the river. In fact, he died of blunt force trauma. So Constable Moonlight ‘Molly’ Smith and Sergeant John Winters look more closely into the matter. They find that despite (maybe in part because of) the Wyatt-Yarmouth family’s wealth, they aren’t particularly happy. There’s a great deal of dysfunction in the family. When Drs. Jack and Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth arrive in town to claim their son’s body, it’s even more apparent that their wealth has helped to skew their perceptions. I can say without spoiling the story that money is not the reason Ewan Williams has been killed. But it plays an important role in many of the characters’ views, assumptions and treatment of others.

We also see how being really wealthy has its own stresses in Perri O’Shaughnessy’s Breach of Promise. Mike and Lindy Markov have been together for over twenty years, and have built up a very lucrative business together. In fact, they’re one of Tahoe, California’s most powerful couples, with lots of prestige and influence. But that money soon becomes a weapon and a real source of strife when Mike falls in love with his vice president for financial services Rachel Pembroke. In short order, Lindy gets a court order to leave their home and loses her position in the company. Desperate to get Mike back, and candidly, afraid of losing the money she’s gotten accustomed to, Lindy hires Nina Reilly to sue Mike. The case is complicated by the fact that Lindy and Mike were never legally married. So Mike has a very good legal argument that he owes nothing to Lindy. But Lindy was responsible for a lot of the business’ success. What’s more, she stayed faithfully with Mike for twenty years, living and being introduced as his wife. There are other arguments too that support Lindy’s claim, so Nina thinks she may have a case. The trial goes on and both sides of the case are heard. The jurors deliberate and a verdict is planned. That’s when there’s a shocking event that changes everything and ends up putting Nina in real danger. Throughout this novel, we see how money, rather than make everything all right, turns into a tool/weapon and an object of greed, and skews everyone’s perceptions.

I know there are a lot of other examples in crime fiction that show that money isn’t really the panacea people often believe it is. I think that if you asked most people whether they’d like a lot of money, quite a few would say, ‘Of course!’ But sometimes it’s good to remember that it can be a lot less stressful not to have extreme wealth, as fun as the prospect seems. Of course, that’s not going to stop people from wanting a lot of money. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the US Powerball Lottery jackpot is up to US$475 million. I’m off to buy a ticket for Saturday’s drawing; you never know…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love. Dare ya to try to get that song out of your head now. You’re welcome.

There Ain’t Nobody That Spies Like Us*

Not long ago I got a request to take a look at spy/espionage crime fiction and I can see why there’s such an interest in it.  Well-written spy thrillers have lots of suspense and tension, and there’s plenty of room for the author to add in plot twists. Some spy novels sacrifice rich and well-developed characters for the sake of a fast-moving plot and plenty of action. But the best espionage fiction shows us the human side of the characters involved. And it’s interesting how even novels that aren’t generally thought of as ‘spy fiction’ actually could be labelled that way, and several authors who aren’t usually thought of as ‘spy novel’ authors have written novels like that.

Spy fiction has been around for quite a long time. Arthur Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes story His Last Bow features an espionage plot. In that story, which takes place just before World War I, Holmes and Watson investigate a German émigré named Van Bork. Van Bork has quietly been gathering information on the British government for a few years and plans to turn over what he has gotten to his own government. Holmes and Watson come up with a brilliant plan to stop Van Bork before he can do any damage and the end of this story is really (in my opinion) quite effective.

Agatha Christie mentions spies and spying quite frequently in her stories, even those that don’t focus on espionage. And fans of her Tommy and Tuppence Beresford novels will know that they’ve dabbled in espionage more than once. In N or M? for instance, the Beresfords are middle-aged and considered too old for regular active espionage duty. But then, Tommy gets a new mission. A British agent has discovered that a pair of German spies has landed in England and that one of them is likely staying at the Sans Souci, a hotel/guest residence in Leahampton. Tommy is asked to go to the Sans Souci and find out whether one of the other guests is the spy. This mission doesn’t include Tuppence, but of course, that doesn’t stop her. When Tommy arrives at the Sans Souci, she’s already there under the name of Mrs. Blenkensop. The Beresfords work to find out who the spy is and soon find that they’re in quite a bit of danger themselves. In the end, a chance discovery in an unexpected (and therefore, quite effective) hiding place puts the Beresfords on the right trail.

The Cold War between the US, the UK and their allies, and the USSR and its allies lasted for decades and gave rise to some of the best-known spy/espionage thrillers. Authors such as Robert Ludlum have created memorable spy novels that have the Cold War as their backdrop. Perhaps the best-known (and in my opinion, one of the most talented) of these authors is John le Carré. He’s written (among others) several novels featuring British agent George Smiley. Two that stand out (at least for me; your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary) are Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Tinker, Tailor… is the first of the Smiley novels. In it, George Smiley has been forced into early retirement and a new crop of agents has gotten into power. Everything changes though when it’s learned that a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest levels of British Intelligence. It’s soon clear to Smiley that his old nemesis Karla, a mysterious Soviet spy leader, is behind this breach of British security and he goes back on the job to catch the mole and stop Karla. Smiley plays a smaller role in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. In that story British agent Alec Leamas is recalled from East Germany when several of his team members are killed on his watch. Then, when his best agent is killed, he’s asked to take on one last assignment: the murder of Hans Dieter Mundt, who’s responsible for the killings. Want to know more about le Carré? Sure you do. Check out a superb post on his work at Mrs. Peabody Investigates, an excellent crime fiction review-and-news blog that richly deserves a place on any crime fiction fan’s blog roll.

The Cold War isn’t the only backdrop for spy thrillers. After the end of World War II, there was a great deal of speculation about Nazi plots to re-establish themselves as a world power, and plenty of spy fiction deals with that prospect. For instance, there’s Ira Levin’s The Boys From Brazil, in which Yakov Liebermann, a Nazi-hunter, discovers a frightening plan to re-create the Third Reich. And there’s Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File in which journalist Peter Miller happens to be covering the suicide of Holocaust survivor Solomon Tauber. A diary he finds eventually leads to a top-secret worldwide organisation dedicated to re-establishing a Nazi regime.

There are also plenty of spy/secret agent stories in which the ‘targets’ aren’t just Cold War or Nazi enemies but different sorts of international criminals and crime rings. For instance, Victor Banis’ The Man From C.A.M.P. introduces us to LA secret agent Jackie Holmes. In the first of those stories, Holmes works with an agent from the US Department of the Treasury to catch a gang of counterfeiters. And there’s Len Deighton’s ‘Harry Palmer,’ whom we meet in The Ipcress File. In that novel, ‘Palmer’ and his colleagues in a special department known as WOOC(P) investigate the case of several scientists who’ve disappeared. There’s also Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, who works for a special Israeli Intelligence department called The Office. He’s gone after international arms traffickers, terrorists, and other groups as well.

Spies and spy novels come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as the saying goes. For instance, there’s Dorothy Gilman’s Emily Pollifax, who in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax decides to give up her middle-class suburban widhowhood and become a CIA agent. As an elderly ‘grandmotherly’ type, she hardly looks like a spy, but she’s quite resourceful and gets quite good at her job.

And of course, no discussion of spy thrillers or espionage stories would be complete without a mention of Ian Fleming’s Bond. James Bond. Dashing and ever-resourceful, Bond epitomises the fantasy intelligence agent. The Bond novels and films were many people’s first introduction to spy fiction.

Feel free to differ with me if you do, but in my opinion, the best espionage thrillers are those that develop the characters of the people involved. They do have action and suspense. There might even be a gun battle or explosion or two. And there’s that little matter of the escapism they offer. But they are also stories about believable people. What do you think? Do you read spy fiction? What about it appeals to you? If you dislike it, what about it puts you off? I promise; I won’t blow your cover…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul McCartney’s Spies Like Us.