One Thing Leads to Another*

An interesting comment exchange with Moira at Clothes in Books has got me thinking about what happens when the police begin to investigate a murder too closely. Most murderers don’t want to be caught, so when they sense that the police might find out the truth about a killing, they try to cover up what they’ve done. Sometimes that results in even more murders. After all, if you kill a witness or a co-conspirator, that person can’t be helpful in an investigation. That’s part of the reason for which there are so many examples of crime fiction with more than one murder. One post doesn’t give me the space to mention all of the examples there are of an investigation leading to even more murder, but here are a few to show you what I mean. I hope you’ll fill in the gaps I’ve left…

Much of the action in Christianna Brand’s Green For Danger takes place in Heron’s Park Hospital, which has been designated as, among other things, a World War II military treatment facility. One day postman Joseph Higgins is rushed in with a broken femur. The injury itself isn’t life-threatening but it’s agreed that he should be treated as soon as possible. Tragically, Higgins dies during the operation and Inspector Cockrill is sent to handle the necessary paperwork. At first, the death seems like a terrible operating room accidental death. But Cockrill wants to make sure, and begins to ask questions. Then one night, one of the nurses Sister Marion Bates has too much to drink and says that she knows Higgins was murdered and she knows how it was done. Late that night she’s found murdered in the same operating room. Now Cockrill launches a full-scale investigation and narrows his search to the six people at the hospital who had the most to do with the two victims. Then there’s another death. The more Cockrill investigates, the more anxious the killer is to ‘cover up’ what happened. Cockrill gets to the truth in the end, but it’s an interesting question whether there would have been more than one death if there had never been any questions asked…

That’s also true in Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death). Some thefts and other odd occurrences have been going on at a student hostel managed by Mrs. Hubbard, sister of Hercule Poirot’s ever-efficient secretary Miss Lemon. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and visits the hostel one evening. While he’s there, Celia Austin admits to many of the thefts and the matter seems to have been cleared up. But then, two nights later, Celia dies, apparently a successful suicide. One important clue though shows that Celia was murdered, and Inspector Sharpe begins to investigate. He and Poirot carefully examine the lives of the people who live at the hostel and they find that several people have been hiding things. Then there’s another murder and later, another. Poirot and Sharpe find out who is behind the killings and they discover that in some way or other, all of the victims were killed because of what they might reveal once the questions started. This is a case where it’s easy to wonder what would have happened if the original incidents of missing things had simply been put down to one resident’s thievery and left at that.

In M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Cad, Colonel Haliburton-Smythe and his wife Mary are planning a house party in honour of promising playwright Henry Withering. Withering has just become engaged to the Halburton-Smythes’ daughter Priscilla, so the party is a chance to celebrate the engagement. One of the guests is Captain Peter Bartlett of the Highland Dragoons. He’s boorish, drinks far more than he should, and won’t let the female guests alone. What’s worse, he treats his female ‘friends’ horribly. One night, Bartlett makes a bet with fellow guest Jeremy Pomfret that he can shoot a brace of grouse before Pomfret does. When Pomfret wakes up the next morning to get started, he finds that Bartlett has already broken their arrangement by going hunting before their agreed-upon starting time. It’s not long before Bartlett is found dead, apparently the victim of a terrible shooting accident. DCI Blair arrives to begin the investigation and he is content to put the whole thing down to accident. But Constable Hamish Macbeth isn’t satisfied and begins to look at the crime scene more carefully. What he finds proves that Bartlett was murdered. The evidence points to Freddy Forbes-Grant, whose wife Vera was having an affair with Bartlett, and Forbes-Grant is arrested. But Macbeth thinks he’s innocent and keeps asking questions. Then, Vera Forbes-Grant is poisoned. Since her husband can’t be guilty of that murder, the case changes completely. In the end, Macbeth finds out who the murderer is, and it’s interesting to speculate what would have happened if Bartlett’s death had been left alone.

In Andrea Camilleri’s The Snack Thief, Inspector Salvo Montalbano and his team investigate two cases. One of them is the shooting of a Tunisian sailor who is killed when a Tunisian fishing boat opens fire on an Italian boat. That death touches off a delicate situation between Tunisia and Italy, but it’s believed to have been a ‘line of fire’ kind of death. Still, Montalbano isn’t so sure. At the same time he is investigating the stabbing death of retired executive Aurelio Lapècora, who is killed in the elevator of his apartment building. That murder has all of the hallmarks of a private murder, but Montalbano thinks it may be connected with the killing of the Tunisian sailor. It turns out that he is right; sadly though, as the investigation continues, two people who are key to the mystery are killed. Montalbano figures out who is responsible for what’s happened but it’s interesting to speculate about whether some of the victims would have been killed if he hadn’t pursued the larger investigation…

Nelson Brunanski’s Crooked Lake is the story of the murder of Harvey Kristoff, who is on the Board of Directors of the Crooked Lake Regional Park and Golf Course. The most likely suspect in this case is Nick Taylor, who’s just been fired as head greens keeper of the golf course. Kristoff has never liked Taylor and was instrumental in getting him fired. What’s more, it comes out that Nick’s wife Wilma was having an affair with Kristoff. So the RCMP investigators are sure they’ve got the right man. But Nick Taylor’s friend John ‘Bart’ Bartowski isn’t so sure. At Taylor’s request he starts to ask questions and it’s not long before he learns that there is more than one possibility for this murder. Then, assistant greens keeper Andy Meyer is also killed. It turns out that he was killed so that he wouldn’t reveal what he knew about the murder. One the one hand, he might have been killed anyway. On the other, it’s an interesting question whether he would have been murdered if the investigation into Kristoff’s death had gone as it was ‘supposed to’ go.

And that’s the thing about police investigations. Cops are supposed to catch murderers and I, for one, wouldn’t want to think about what the world would be like if they didn’t. On the other hand, sometimes an investigation brings with it even more murder. Thanks, Moira, for the inspiration!!

Now, please do yourself a favour and stop by Clothes in Books; it’s an excellent resource for and has really interesting discussion about what clothes and fashion show us about people’s personalities and about the societies in which they live.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by The Fixx.

I Need Attendance From My Nurse Around the Clock*

Within the last fifty years, the nursing profession has become a highly skilled and demanding field. Today’s nursing is far more than just checking blood pressure and giving medicines that the doctor orders. And yet, most people pay a lot more attention to the doctor than they do to the nursing staff. In part that’s because of the way society has traditionally viewed physicians. But the fact is, nurses are vital members of the health care team. Among other things, they get to know their patients very well and have a better idea of their health and their responses to treatment than a doctor might. And a wise detective, whether real or fictional, knows that nurses often have valuable insights that can help solve a case. Just a quick look at crime fiction should show you what I mean. Oh, and you’ll notice that I’m not going to mention novels that are considered ‘medical thrillers’ (e.g. the work of Michael Palmer). That would be too easy…

In Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, Hercule Poirot gets quite a lot of information from Amy Leatheran, a nurse who is engaged to help look after Louise Leidner. Louise is the wife of noted archaeologist Eric Leidner, and goes with him to an excavation a few hours from Baghdad. One afternoon, Louise is murdered in her bedroom. At first, everyone thinks that a stranger must have committed the crime, but it’s soon shown that no strangers were at the house where the dig team is staying. So Poirot has to look among the members of the team to find the killer. One of the first people Poirot interviews is Amy Leatheran, who tells him that Louise had been fearful and had seen faces at her window, heard hands tapping and so on. It turns out that Louise was afraid because she’d gotten threatening letters from her first husband, whom she thought long dead. She was convinced her former husband had returned to kill her. This angle to the case gives Poirot some important information and he’s able to use it to find out who really killed the victim. What’s very interesting about this story too is that Poirot pays close attention to what Amy Leatheran tells him, but not in the way she (or first-time readers) may think.

Nurses also feature in Christie’s Sad Cypress. When Elinor Carlisle receives an anonymous letter about her wealthy Laura Welman, she and her fiancé Roderick ‘Roddy’ Welman travel to the family home Hunterbury. When they get there they discover that Aunt Laura has had a stroke. District nurse Jessie Hopkins and private nurse Eileen O’Brien take charge of the patient under the supervision of Dr. Peter Lord. While Elinor and Roddy are at Hunterbury, they renew their acquaintance with a childhood friend Mary Gerrard, the lodgekeeper’s daughter. Roddy soon finds himself besotted by her and almost before Elinor knows what’s happened, he’s in love with Mary. Then Aunt Laura dies without having made a will and as her next of kin, Elinor stands to inherit a fortune. One afternoon, Mary Gerrard is poisoned while having lunch at Hunterbury. Elinor becomes the prime suspect. She’s arrested for the crime and is about to go on trial. But Peter Lord wants her name cleared, so he visits Hercule Poirot and asks him to look into the case. Poirot discovers that there were several things about Mary Gerrard that weren’t generally known, and that her past is the reason she was killed. The two nurses turn out to have valuable information about the case, and we can see from their interactions with each other and with Poirot how being closely involved with a patient gives them a lot of ‘inside information.’

That’s also true in Barbara Vine (AKA Ruth Rendell’s) The Minotaur. Swedish nurse Kerstin Kvist is hired by the Cosway family to look after thirty-nine-year-old John Cosway, who is said to be schizophrenic. She’s eager to take the position because it will allow her to be closer to her lover Mark Douglas. Soon after arriving at the family home Lydstep Old Hall, Kerstin gets the feeling that something is very, very wrong. For one thing, the family seems to live and behave as though it were still the Victorian Era, which is strange enough. Kerstin also finds that her patient is kept under heavy sedation by order of his mother, the family matriarch. Kerstin is convinced that he doesn’t need such heavy medication so, concerned for his health she begins to withhold the dugs without telling his mother. Her decision leads to real tragedy and we learn about that tragedy and about the inner workings of this family through a diary that she keeps.

In P.D. James’ The Private Patient, we meet investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn, who makes arrangements with noted cosmetic surgeon George Chandler-Powell to have a facial scar removed. For that, she’ll be treated at his private Dorset Clinic Cheverell Manor. Soon after her arrival though, Rhoda is brutally murdered. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are named to investigate the murder and they begin to look into both the victim’s life and what goes on at the clinic. Then there’s another murder. Now the team has to try to find out what might connect the two victims. It turns out that part of the truth can be found in the past, and that one person who knows more than she is saying is a nurse. Giving her name would give away part of the plot, but it’s an interesting example of the way nurses can know things that other people might not get to know.

Nurses play pivotal roles in Helene Tursten’s Night Rounds. One night there’s a blackout at Löwander Hospital, a private facility. During the blackout, a nurse Marianne Svärd is murdered. Göteborg detective Irene Huss and her team are just beginning their investigation when another nurse Linda Svensson disappears. Her body is later found in an unused hospital attic, hung in the same place where fifty years earlier, another nurse Tekla Olsson committed suicide. It’s soon clear that something is going on at the hospital, so the investigation team looks into the history of the facility and the people who work there. In doing that they get some valuable information from another nurse Siv Persson, who’s been at the hospital for a long time and who knows its history.

Wendy James’ The Mistake shows exactly how observant and alert nurses can be. In that novel, Jodie Evans Garrow goes to a Sydney hospital in a panic when she gets word that her daughter Hannah has been admitted there. Hannah’s been in an accident and although it’s not life-threatening, she needs medical care. While Jodie’s there, she has a reunion of sorts. Debbie West, a nurse-midwife at the hospital, remembers Jodie from a visit she made there years ago. At that time, Jodie gave birth to a girl Ella Mary whom she’s never told anyone about – not even her husband Angus. Debbie asks Jodie about the baby, and Jodie says she gave the child up for adoption. But then Debbie takes it on herself to do some searching and finds that there are no records of such an adoption. Now questions are raised, first privately and then very publicly, about what happened to Jodie’s first baby. There is even a strong possibility that she might have killed the baby. As the questions continue Jodie becomes a social pariah. Little by little, we learn what really happened when Ella Mary was born and we learn that things are not as simple as they seem.

And then there’s Andrea Camilleri’s Dance of the Seagull. That novel begins with the disappearance of Vigatà police sergeant Giuseppe Fazio. His boss Salvo Montalbano is eager to find out what’s happened to one of his best team members, so he begins to look into what happened just before Fazio went missing. It turns out that Fazio was working on a major case involving illegal trafficking, a vicious murder and some highly-placed Mafia people. Montalbano and his team know they’ll have to go up against some dangerous enemies, so when they find a wounded Fazio, they arrange for him to be transported to Fiacca Hospital where it’s hoped he’ll be kept safe. That’s where Montalbano meets Angela, a hospital nurse who ends up proving to be very important to this case.

Nurses are smart, educated and observant professionals; they are integral to good medical care. Little wonder they have so much knowledge about what goes on around them. Little wonder too that they are so often central to a crime fiction case. Now it’s your turn. What gaps have I left?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Gregory Isaacs’ Night Nurse.

These Are the Things I’ll Remember*

The main point of a well-written crime novel is usually to tell the story of a crime or crimes and the investigation that follows. There are of course myriad ways to go about telling that story, but when you get down to it, that’s at the core of most crime novels. But sometimes, other things about the novel – little incidents, minor characters, even a particular description – make a real impact on the reader too. An interesting comment exchange with Moira at Clothes in Books got me to thinking about those smaller flourishes that can add ‘flesh’ to a novel. It can be tricky to put them in because of course there’s the risk of taking away the focus from the plot and main characters. There’s also the risk of making the novel unwieldy. But when they’re done well, those flourishes and extra touches can stay in our minds and make a novel even more memorable. Of course, everyone’s different, but here are a few of those extra touches that have made an impact on me, to give you an idea of what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (AKA The Mirror Crack’d), Miss Marple takes a walk one day to explore St. Mary Mead’s new council housing. That’s where she meets Heather Badcock, who lives in one of the new houses with her husband Arthur. Heather is very much an admirer of famous actress Marina Gregg, so she is especially excited that Marina and her husband Jason Rudd have bought Gossington Hall and will be hosting a charity fête there. On the day of the fête, Heather gets to meet her idol, who is kind enough to spend a few moments with her. Shortly afterwards, Heather sickens and dies of what turns out to be a poisoned cocktail. At first, the theory is that Marina Gregg was the intended victim and Heather took the poisoned cocktail by mistake. If that’s true, there are certainly suspects. But soon enough, it turns out that Heather was the target all along, Now Miss Marple works with her friend Dolly Bantry to find out who would have wanted to murder Heather Badcock and why. At the beginning of the novel, Miss Marple is recovering from a bout with illness and her nephew Raymond West has arranged for Miss Knight to stay with her. Miss Knight is well-intentioned, but she’s condescending and overprotective, and Miss Marple feels more than a little smothered. Her successful ruse to get rid of Miss Knight for a morning so she can go out exploring is a minor, but memorable scene in this novel. It’s funny and readers can sympathise with Miss Marple’s wish to be treated as a competent, capable adult.

In her comment, Moira mentioned Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone. In that novel we meet wealthy and well-educated George and Jaqueline Coverdale, who share their home with George’s daughter Melinda and Jacqueline’s son Giles. The Coverdales hire a new housekeeper Eunice Parchman. At first, all goes well enough, although the family does think that Parchman is a little eccentric. The truth is though that Eunice Parchman is hiding a secret. She is determined not to let anyone find out that secret and practically pathological in her fear that someone will. When one of the family members accidentally finds out what the housekeeper has been hiding, the family is doomed, ‘though everyone is tragically unaware of it at the time. One of the minor characters in the novel is Jonathan Dexter, who is in a relationship with Melinda Coverdale. Dexter doesn’t play a critical role in the novel, but his reaction when he finds out what happens to the Coverdale family is memorable. It’s not dramatic, but it stays with the reader.

Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water begins in a notorious area of the Sicilian town of Vigatà called The Pasture. The Pasture is a meeting place for prostitutes and very small-time drug dealers and their clients. One morning, two workers who are paid to clean up The Pasture make a ghastly discovery. The body of powerful businessman and politician Silvio Luparello is in a car left abandoned the night before. Inspector Salvo Montalbano and his team are called in to investigate the death. On the surface of it, it looks as though Luparello died of heart failure. But Montalbano is not completely convinced, and requests two extra days to investigate. He soon finds that among Luparello’s family members, political allies and enemies, and business contacts there are several suspects. In the process of this investigation, Montalbano has an interview with Baldassare ‘Saro’ Montaperto, one of the clean-up workers who discovered the body. Saro has a secret to hide, and although it is relevant to the story, it’s not a major point. He’s more or less a minor character, but he is memorable. Saro and his wife earn very little money, but they have a sick son who needs special treatment. Saro’s desperation, a decisions he takes because of it, and Montalbano’s response stay with the reader (well, this one anyway).

In Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road, Aboriginal Community Police Office (ACPO) Emily Tempest is called with the rest of her team to the scene of the murder of Albert ‘Doc Ozolins. The case looks on the surface like a drunken quarrel gone horribly wrong, and that’s where Tempest’s boss Bruce Cockburn wants to leave matters. In fact, John ‘Wireless’ Petherbridge, who’d had the quarrel with Ozolins, is arrested for the murder and there’s evidence against him. But Tempest is fairly sure that Wireless isn’t guilty. So she starts asking questions. It turns out that she was right. Ozolins had uncovered something that threatens some powerful people who want the case left alone. In the course of her investigation, Tempest talks to Ozolins’ brother Wishy, who gives her some interesting and important background information. While she’s there, she meets Wishy’s daughter Simone ‘Simmie.’ Simmie isn’t a major character in the novel, nor is she instrumental in solving the case. But she and Tempest discover they have in common a love for Emily Dickinson’s poetry and they forge a sort of bond. Simmie and Tempest’s interactions with her may be minor parts of the novel, but they are memorable.

And then there’s James Craig’s Never Apologise, Never Explain. Inspector John Carlyle from Charing Cross Station is called to the scene when Henry Mills reports the murder of his wife Agatha. Mills claims he was asleep at the time of the murder, and doesn’t know who killed his wife. He does say though that she had political enemies who wanted her dead. At first, neither Carlyle nor his assistant Joe Szyskowski believes Mills. In fact he’s arrested for the crime. But then Carlyle gets a clue that suggests very strongly that Henry Mills was right. So he begins searching into Agatha Mills’ past to find out how she would have made dangerous political enemies. In the meantime, Carlyle is working on another case as well, this one informally. One of Carlye’s acquaintances is Amelia Jacobs, a former prostitute who now keeps house and cleans for Sam Laidlaw, who’s still ‘in the business.’  Amelia is concerned because of Michael Hagger, a local gangster who’s the father of Sam’s son Jake. She believes Hagger may take Jake and she wants Carlyle to warn Hagger to stay away from Sam and their son. By the time he tries to contact Hagger though, it’s too late; Hagger has snatched Jake and disappeared. Now Carlyle will have to track them both through London’s underworld and try to find Jake before it’s too late. There’s a small scene during which Carlyle has a conversation with Amelia and Sam at their home, and it stays with the reader. It’s not essential to solving the mystery but it is memorable in its quiet way. It also shows the friendship between the two women – again, not key to the plot, but it adds to the story.

And that’s the thing about those well-done extra flourishes. They may not be important plot points or provide key clues to a mystery. But they add to a story and they are often the things we remember. Which of those little extra touches do you remember from your reading?

Now, let me suggest that your next blog-round stop should be Moira’s wonderful Clothes in Books. Talk about extra touches that can make a story memorable…  Moira has an expert eye for the way what we wear defines a character, an era, and a novel. Thanks, Moira, for the inspiration for this post!

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Nik Kershaw’s The Bell.

Wonderful Food, Marvellous Food, Glorious Food*

An interesting comment exchange with Jan Morrison has got me thinking about food. Now, while I heat up something to eat, go check out Jan’s excellent writing blog. I always get a better perspective on my writing when I visit.

OK, so, back to the table… Eating is such an essential part of life that it resonates with us even if we don’t think much about food, or care much what we eat. One of the interesting things about food is how culturally contextual it can be. Of course you don’t have to be from Thailand to enjoy Thai food and you don’t have to be Pennsylvania German to enjoy shoo-fly pie. But our attitudes towards food, the kind of food we eat and the way we eat do say a lot about us. Just a peek at crime fiction should be enough to show you want I mean.

Agatha Christie’s Chief Inspector Japp comes from a working-class English background. Not for him the gourmet food his friend Hercule Poirot prefers. That’s too ‘Frenchified’ for Japp’s taste. He’s a steak, potatoes and beer kind of person. And that taste in food fits his character as well. He’s practical, down-to-earth and gets to the point. He doesn’t use flowery language or dress in expensive clothes either. His taste in food not only suits his personality, but actually shows us what he’s like without wasting words. It’s an interesting contrast too to Poirot’s preferences. Poirot is from a different culture and background entirely. So it makes complete sense that he’d have different tastes in food.

There’s an interesting look at food, culture and eating in Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) Memphis Barbecue series. This series features Lulu Taylor, who owns and runs Aunt Pat’s Barbecue, a popular Memphis restaurant. Aunt Pat’s specialises in traditional Southern U.S. food and drink such as spicy corn muffins, pulled pork, sweet tea and red beans and rice. And of course, fine barbecue. Oh, and there are recipes at the end of the novels; in what I consider an excellent choice of title, the section is called ‘Put Some South in Your Mouth.’ The food at the restaurant is an important part of placing the reader in the American South. This series works in part because the food, people’s eating preferences and so on all reflect the setting and culture.

Anthony Bidulka’s series featuring his Saskatoon PI Russell Quant also shows clearly the way that food, culture and people’s eating choices are related. Quant’s mother Kay is Ukrainian, and cooks in the traditional Ukrainian way. Quant grew up with this kind of food so for him, it’s ‘comfort food’ (a separate topic in itself). Kay also has traditional ideas about how much to cook and the role that food should play in life. So it makes for a very interesting situation when she temporarily moves in with her son over the Christmas holidays in Flight of Aquavit. Quant has become accustomed to a very different kind of diet and his lifestyle doesn’t give him a lot of time for eating. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate well-cooked food, but it’s not the focal point of his life. So when his mother joins him there’s an interesting difference about food and eating that they have to resolve.

Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano lives and works in a seaside town in Sicily. So what could be more natural than his love of properly-cooked seafood? Of course he enjoys other food too, but if you read this series, you’ll notice quite a lot of seafood mentioned in the series. It’s no surprise when you think about his culture. Another thing that’s interesting about Montalbano when it comes to food and eating is that he doesn’t eat fast food. Part of this of course is Montalbano’s own personal taste. But the ‘fast food culture’ that’s so popular in parts of the U.S. and other places is not a big part of life everywhere. For many people, food is more than just what you put in your mouth. It’s the experience of stopping the rest of one’s life to enjoy a meal. It’s the ritual that goes with choosing food, eating it and taking the time to savour what you eat. And we see that clearly in this series.

We also see that culture of taking time for food in Teresa Solana’s series featuring Barcelona PI brothers Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez. In those novels, meals might be eaten at home or they might be eaten at a restaurant. But they’re not generally bought through a drive-through window and eaten in the car. That’s not the way the people tend to feel about food in that culture. In fact, Solana refers to a funny ritual about eating lunch with a friend in A Not So Perfect Crime. The Martínez brothers are following the wife of a client because he thinks she’s being unfaithful. At one point, she has lunch with a female friend but before that, she makes sure to go shopping. Why? So that she can show up at the lunch with the right kind of designer-label shopping bags. In this particular case, the food matters, but the cultural ritual of showing one’s social status during a meal matters more.

What about all of those fictional cops and PI sleuths – and they are legion – whose food and eating habits consist mainly of going to fast food places or heating up frozen meals? And what’s interesting about that phenomenon is that it seems to cross borders. You see that kind of eating whether a sleuth is American, English, Norwegian, Australian, or from somewhere else. The type of food may vary but the habit of eating on the go, with little attention paid to the food’s quality, doesn’t seem to vary much. My guess (and mind, I’m not a sociologist) is that there is arguably a ‘cop culture.’ That culture places emphasis on long hours and the kind of work that simply doesn’t usually allow a person to stop for a few hours to eat. It does happen in some cases but not in many of them. That kind of schedule, together with emphasis on the job, is tailor made for a lot of fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes. Even Helene Tursten’s Irene Huss, who is married to a chef, takes part in her team’s pizza-fueled evening meetings.

It’s easy to see the connections between food, culture and people’s lifestyles. And it makes sense too. What, when and how we eat reflect our backgrounds, attitudes and a lot more. So it makes sense that it would do the same for crime fictional characters.

 

ps   The ‘photo is of a Seder plate used during the Passover ritual meal. The plate has a place for each of the special foods that are eaten and it’s an important part of Jewish culture and eating customs.

 

On Another Note…

 

If you’ve been celebrating Passover this week, I hope you’re having a special time with family, friends, good food, the old stories and that special feeling of connectedness.

If you’re celebrating Easter, have a joyous Easter holiday. May it give you a sense of renewal and purpose.

Even if you’re not celebrating anything in particular, I wish you good food and good people at your table.

 

Thanks, Jan, for the inspiration!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from  Lionel Bart’s Food, Glorious Food.

Every Day When I Get Home From Work, I Feel so Frustrated*

No matter how much you enjoy doing what you do for a living, there’s probably something about it that you don’t like. I honestly can’t think of any profession – even the ones most people dream of – that has no unpleasant sides to it. But most of the time, we put up with what we don’t like about our work because what we do like matters more. That’s just as true of fictional sleuths as it is of anyone else, and when we get to see how those sleuths deal with the parts of their jobs that they don’t like, this makes them all the more human.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is generally not one for afternoon tea. However, as we learn in Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death),

 

‘Though personally deprecating ‘le five o’clock’ as inhibiting the proper appreciation of the supreme meal of the day, dinner, Poirot was now getting quite accustomed to serving it.’ 

 

In fact, in this novel, Poirot learns the details of an interesting case over tea. His indefatigable secretary Miss Lemon is concerned about her sister Mrs. Hubbard, who manages a student hostel. So Poirot invites Miss Lemon to have her sister come to tea so she can discuss her problem. She is glad to come and tells Poirot of some odd thefts and other occurrences at the hostel. Poirot agrees to look into the case and visits the hostel. When one of the residents is murdered a few days later, Poirot and Inspector Sharpe investigate. They discover that the victim found out more than it was safe for her to know about one of the other residents and that all of the occurrences are tied together.

One of the things that police detectives have to do is deal with dead bodies, whether they like it or not. And that requires a strong stomach, something Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse does not exactly have. He’s a brilliant detective and he finds the puzzle of solving murders to be irresistible. But he has no interest at all in being around corpses. For instance, in Death is Now My Neighbour, physiotherapist Rachel James is shot in her home. Morse and Sergeant Lewis begin their investigation with the people in the victim’s life. They haven’t gotten very far when there’s another murder. Journalist Geoffrey Owens, who lives not far from where Rachel James lived, is also shot. Here’s just a tiny bit of the description of that murder scene:

 

‘Owens’ body, which Morse had already viewed, howsoever briefly, sitting back, as it had been, against the cushions of the living room settee….’

 

It’s not at all that Morse doesn’t have the time to make a thorough examination. He prefers to leave that to, in this case, Dr. Laura Hobson.The case takes on a new dimension as Morse and Lewis try to figure out whether someone is trying to kill everyone in that neighbourhood or whether there’s another link between the two victims. As it turns out, there is a connection other than neighbourhood between the two victims and when Morse finds out what it is, he’s able to get on the right path to find the killer.

Ian Rankin’s John Rebus came of age as a cop before computers and the Internet became an integral part of police work. And he never does become entirely enthralled with doing computer work. He’s neither afraid of computers nor stupid though, so he does use the computer when he needs to do so. Here, for example, is one of my favourite Rebus scenes, from The Naming of the Dead. Rebus and Sergeant Siobhan Clarke have been working on a few cases. One of them is the murder of MP Ben Webster. Another is the murder of convicted rapist Cyril Colliar, who’s recently been released from prison. Rebus puts together some background information that may link these deaths to a particular website. Then, he works with freelance journalist Mairie Henderson to get some background information on the website and the people behind it:

 

‘‘Typed by my own fair hand, so the spelling might not be up to your own high journalistic standard.’
‘What is it?’ She was unfolding the single sheet of paper.
‘Something we were keeping the lid on. Two more victims…’
‘What’s a serial kilter? Is that someone who can’t stop making kilts?’
‘Give it back.’’

 

Rebus may be aware of how important computer skills are, but that doesn’t mean he has to like that part of his job.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman is a Melbourne baker who loves the act of creating breads and cakes. To her, bread is real and a lot more meaningful than her former work as an accountant. But that doesn’t mean she likes every aspect of it. In order to get her bakery open and ready for the morning trade, Chapman has to get up early. Very early. And she’s not fond of it. Here’s her observation on that (from Trick or Treat):

 

‘Four am contains, in my experience, many things. Darkness, cold, solitude, gloom, despair, madness.’
 

And yet, Chapman does what she hates to do – get up early – and starts preparing the day’s breads, cakes and rolls. To her, providing that bread is more important than is her dislike of getting up early. We see that especially in this novel, when a young man jumps from the roof of a building after ingesting some sort of hallucinogenic drug. The police suspect the drug was in bread that the victim ate, and for a while, there are questions about whether Chapman may have been responsible, however unwittingly. Although she and her bakery are later proven innocent, it’s very hard on her when the bakery’s temporarily closed.

Having one’s home life interrupted with a work call comes with the job for most police detectives. Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano knows that, but that doesn’t mean he likes it when his sleep, his private time with his lover Livia Burlando, or especially his food, is interrupted. That’s particularly true when the caller is Sergeant Catarella, who has a lot of difficulty getting simple messages across to his boss. Here, for instance, is a snippet of a conversation they have near the beginning of The Voice of the Violin:

 

‘The previous evening, finding some fresh anchovies cooked by Adelina, his housekeeper, in the fridge, he’d dressed them in a great deal of lemon juice, olive oil and freshly ground black pepper and wolfed them down. And he’d relished them, until it was all spoiled by a telephone call.
‘H’lo, Chief? Izzatchoo onna line?’
‘It’s really me, Cat. You can go ahead and talk.’
At the station they’d given Catarella the job of answering the phone, mistakenly thinking he could do less damage there than anywhere else. After getting mightily p***ed off a few times, Montalbano had come to realize that the only way to talk to him within tolerable limits of nonsense was to use the same language as he.
‘Beckin’ pardon, Chief, for the ‘sturbance.’
Uh-oh. He was begging pardon for the disturbance. Montalbano pricked up his ears. Whenever Catarella’s speech became ceremonious, it meant there was no small matter at hand.’

 

And in this case, Montalbano’s instincts are correct. The wife of a friend has died, and on the way to the funeral, the colleague driving Montalbano hits a parked car. When no-one reports the damage to the car Montalbano gets interested and goes to the house where the car was parked. That’s when he finds the body of a young woman. Now he has to find a way to officially investigate this murder without letting anyone know he didn’t enter the house exactly legally…

I don’t know of any profession or job that’s entirely pleasurable. That includes sleuthing, and it makes a sleuth more human and a more complete character when she or he has to put up with job annoyances. I’ve only mentioned a few examples here because there’s only a little room in any post. Now it’s your turn…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Todd Rundgren’s Bang  the Drum All Day