Can’t You See I’m Smart?*

Research during the past few decades has shown us some fascinating things about the way we think and know. It used to be believed that intelligence could be measured on a single dimension. The assumption was that everyone had a certain amount of this one ‘thing’ called intelligence. But work by Howard Gardner and other researchers has changed all that. Gardner conceived of several different intelligences. According to this theory, there are several different ways of thinking and knowing; Gardner called them multiple intelligences. We each have some of each of the intelligences, but in each of us, at least one (and usually more than one) is particularly strong. Hold on – I’ll get to crime fiction in just a second.

Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences make a lot of intuitive sense if you think about it. Some people are naturally good at, say, art, music, athletics or languages. And research has supported his theory fairly consistently. We can even see these multiple intelligences woven all through crime fiction. If you look at the way various sleuths go about solving cases, you can see how different ways of thinking and knowing come through in the genre.

For instance, one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences is what he called logical-mathematical intelligence. People with a high degree of this kind of intelligence find it easy to recognise patterns and algorithms. They find numbers and codes and puzzles interesting and their skill is in deduction. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is like that. As Holmes fans know, he looks for patterns and focuses on deduction and logic.

There’s also what Gardner called visual-spatial intelligence. People with visual-spatial intelligence tend to be talented at art. They notice colour and design and respond to what they see. In a very obvious way we see that kind of intelligence in Ngaio Marsh’s Agatha Troy. She’s an artist who responds to what she sees and can create in several different media. For instance in both Final Curtain and Tied Up in Tinsel (and other novels too), Troy is commissioned to paint portraits. So she’s on the scene when murder happens at the homes where she’s staying. Although it’s technically her husband Roderick Alleyn who officially solves the cases, Troy’s skilled eyes are very helpful in finding clues. We see that especially in A Clutch of Constables in which she goes up against an international art forger known only as Jampot. Hercule Poirot also has this kind of intelligence. He’s quite observant about his visual surroundings and of course, fans know how important the appearance of his clothes and moustaches are to him.

Some people have a great deal of linguistic intelligence. Novelists, poets, journalists and other writers often fall into this category. If you love words, play a lot of word games and notice the way people use language, you’ve got a solid dose of this kind of intelligence. For instance, John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell is a lexicographer. Words and languages are his specialty. That’s how he finds out the truth in, for instance, Hag’s Nook, where a cryptic poem turns out to be key to a murder. Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse has a dose of this kind of intelligence too. He does after all solve crossword puzzles with a pen and is a stickler for certain kinds of language use.

People with a lot of kinesthetic intelligence have a solid sense of where their bodies are in space. Actors, athletes, dancers, and people who can parallel park on the first try show this kind of intelligence. People with kinesthetic intelligence like to learn by doing and using their hands and bodies. For example, Helene Tursten’s DI Irene Huss has a share of kinesthetic intelligence. She is a former judo champion who uses the principles of judo to keep herself in shape as well as to clear her mind and cope with the stresses of her life as a cop. And interestingly, we several instances in this series where Huss gets bored and tired of paperwork and the other ‘desk routines’ that are part of a cop’s life. Although she’s hardly rash, Huss prefers to be out doing things to sitting at her desk. She also enjoys going for runs and exercising the family dog. All of those are hallmarks of kinesthetic intelligence and it serves Huss well.

Gardner also proposed interpersonal intelligence. People with interpersonal intelligence are skilled at interacting with others. I don’t mean that they are necessarily manipulators; rather, they work well with all kinds of people. And that is a critical skill for a sleuth. So, most fictional sleuths have at least some degree of it. G.K. Chesterton’s Father Paul Brown for instance is highly skilled at communicating with others, at forming bonds with them and understanding their perspectives. That’s how he learns as much as he does from suspects and witnesses. Karin Fossum’s Oslo police inspector Konrad Sejer is like that too. When he’s investigating a crime, one of his talents is the ability to see things from a variety of other perspectives and ‘get in people’s heads’ to understand why and how they do what they do. People tend to become comfortable talking with him and he often finds himself better able to get information through his interactions than he would through simply reading police reports.

There are also people with a lot of what Gardner called intrapersonal intelligence. Reflective people, people who keep journals and those who are really aware of themselves show this kind of intelligence. And being aware of one’s own reactions  – one’s sense of self – can be very useful for a sleuth. For example, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux has a keen self-awareness. That self-knowledge and reflection have helped him cope with some of the traumas he’s had to face, especially his Vietnam-era experiences. For instance in A Morning For Flamingoes, Robicheaux agrees to go undercover as a ‘dirty’ cop to try to trap New Orleans crime boss Tony Cardo. Part of his assignment is to get close to Cardo but that proves increasingly difficult for Robicheaux as he becomes aware that he has sympathy for his target. Throughout this novel, Robicheaux keeps himself as grounded as he can by ‘checking in with himself.’

Another of the multiple intelligences people have is musical intelligence. Obviously singers, composers and musical artists have a healthy dose of this kind of intelligence. But it’s more than just being able to sing or play music on key. It’s also a sense of rhythm and a keen awareness of sound. If you like a soundtrack when you work, or if you find yourself singing or whistling when you weren’t aware of it, or if you can’t help walking in time to the music when you walk past a car with its radio on, you know what I mean. And if you don’t, just ask Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson, who used to be a rock singer and still does occasional gigs. Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus has musical intelligence as well although he’s hardly a famous rocker. His music collection matters a lot to him and there are lots of scenes in the Rebus novels (including a really well-done scene in Exit Music) in which he gets or listens to music.

Naturalist intelligence is actually pretty self-explanatory. People who are attuned to nature and its rhythms and who just ‘fit in’ in natural environments have a lot of naturalist intelligence. Garden enthusiasts, park rangers, those who are comfortable with animals and those who simply like to be outdoors are examples of those with naturalist intelligence. There’s a lot of it in crime fiction too. Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee, Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest, and Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon are all examples of people who learn from and use nature as they solve crimes. So does Arthur Upfield’s Napoleon ‘Bony’ Bonaparte. These sleuths can tell much from weather patterns, animal activity, ground marks and other natural phenomena. In fact, they often find clues where others can’t.

Finally there’s what Gardner called existential intelligence, the most recent of his proposals. The big questions – the ‘why’ questions – appeal to people with a lot of existential intelligence. Philosophers and members of the clergy often wrestle with these larger questions. And sometimes getting philosophical can be helpful to a sleuth. It is to Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie, who is the editor of Review of Applied Ethics. She doesn’t go out looking for physical clues, and she doesn’t search for patterns. Rather, she looks at the larger motivations people have, and considers the larger issues of morality.

You may be thinking, ‘But don’t all these sleuths also have other intelligences?’ They do indeed. That’s the thing about multiple intelligences. We’ve all got all of the intelligences to some degree. And what’s most interesting is that we can develop the ones we choose to develop.

Interested in taking a look at your own intelligences? Try this Multiple Intelligences Survey. It’s got 40 questions and took me about 10 minutes or so to complete.  By no means is it definite – it’s just one look at the way we learn and know. If you’re a writer, what intelligences does your protagonist have?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Undertones’ Smarter Than You.

Latch on to the Affirmative*

Here’s the thing about character traits: they’re really neither good nor bad for the most part. Most of the time, it’s all about perception. For example, what some people might call stubbornness in some situations can be seen as perseverance in others. A sense of daring and willingness to take real risks may be seen as an important positive character trait during a war, but it might be perceived as recklessness in other situations. A look at just of few of the well-drawn characters in crime fiction shows a little more clearly what I mean.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is an emotionally detached person. He certainly treats his clients with courtesy and sees them as human beings. He’s even compassionate. For instance, in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, Holmes takes the case of a client who’s being harassed by a notorious blackmailer. His contempt for the blackmailer and his compassion for his client are such that he’s even willing to – er – bend the law a bit to stop the blackmailer. But in the main, Holmes doesn’t really form any attachments to his clients. His interest in his cases is intellectual. Holmes’ detachment might be seen in a negative light; after all, he knows a lot of people but he doesn’t have what you’d call friends (other than Watson) and he doesn’t have a special person in his life. On the other hand it’s just that detachment that allows him to focus on the evidence and make sense of a case. He doesn’t get sidetracked by the lies people tell him or by appearances. In The Adventure of the Priory School for instance, Holmes finds that detachment useful when he is hired to find ten-year-old Lord Saltire, son of the Earl of Holdnesse, who has disappeared from his exclusive school. Holmes gets past the lies certain people tell him and some manufactured evidence and is able to find out what happened to the boy.

Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple is a keen observer, as she puts it, of human nature. And in The Murder at the Vicarage, in which she makes her first appearance, that tendency towards – oh, let’s be honest, nosiness – is shown in a fairly negative light. In that novel, local magistrate Colonel Protheroe is murdered in the vicarage of St. Mary Mead. Inspector Slack is assigned to the case and at first he has no patience at all with, as he sees it, the local village gossips, including Miss Marple. But it’s that very trait of being interested in people that has given Miss Marple a wealth of knowledge and a real intuition for the way people behave. And that intuition puts her on the right track in this novel and in the other novels that feature her as well.

Arthur Upfield’s Napolean ‘Bony’ Bonaparte is a half-Aborigianl/half-White Queensland police inspector. One of his character traits is a keen affinity for nature, especially the land in which he lives and works. Psychology experts might call this trait strong naturalist intelligence. And in the time in which these novels were written, Bony’s naturalist intelligence might be regarded as a negative trait, especially by Whites of the time who are already prejudiced against and suspicious of the Aborigines. But it’s precisely that trait that allows him to solve cases. One example is in The Bone is Pointed, in which he investigates the disappearance of Jeff Anderson. Anderson went out to work the Karwir ranch one morning, but only his horse returned. Now, five months later, Bony is assigned to find out what happened. Bony’s knowledge of the bush, the land and the people are crucial as he looks for the truth about Anderson. Bony also uses that knowledge in The Bushman Who Came Back when a young girl disappears after the murder of her mother. Everyone assumes that a bushman named Yorkie committed the murder and took the child because she was a witness. But Bony soon suspects the case is more complicated than that. It’s his tracking ability and his knowledge of the land that lead him to the answers.

Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest is not particularly good at following rules and policies. Even she will admit she’s not one for ‘toeing the line.’ And since she’s an Aboriginal Community Police Officer (ACPO), that can be a problem. Any cop in a supervisory position will tell you that there are reasons for policies. They protect both cops and citizens and they ensure that crimes are investigated appropriately. So it’s no light matter that Tempest has a tendency to go her own way, and she pays the price. But it’s that very independence of spirit that leads her to answers. In Gunshot Road, for instance, her decision to investigate the murder of Albert ‘Doc’ Ozolins gets her into a lot of trouble. When his body is discovered in his shack, it looks very like the tragic result of a drunken quarrel. And that’s the way her boss Bruce Cockburn wants the case to be written up. The police have their man, all the evidence seems to point in that direction and there’s no need to put scarce resources or personnel into continuing to investigate the matter. And most cops – even good cops – might agree. But Tempest sees evidence that suggests that Ozolins’ murder was more than it seems on the surface. Her willingness to break policy, disregard what her boss says and investigate alone gets her into real danger. It also solves the case, which turns out to be more complex than anyone suspected.

Michael Connelly’s LAPD cop Harry Bosch is one of the most dogged fictional sleuths there is. No matter what the case or the odds, Bosch does not give up until he gets the answers. And that quality certainly has its negative aspects. His dedication to getting the job done has cost him a marriage, among other things. He’s been suspended and demoted too, especially when he turns over proverbial rocks that the LAPD brass or other highly-connected people would rather keep in place. Because he puts solving his cases above just about anything else, he can be difficult to live with and not particularly easy to supervise. But that very same doggedness is what gets him answers. In Angels Flight for instance, Bosch gets interested in the murder of prominent lawyer Howard Elias. Elias has a track record of going up against the LAPD; in fact, just before his death, Elias was about to take his most recent case to trial. His client Michael Harris is in prison for the rape and murder of a twelve-year-old girl. Harris, though, claims that he is innocent and that his confession was coerced by police brutality. When Bosch discovers this, he sees that this case will pit him against the LAPD top brass as well as the cops where directly involved with Harris’ arrest. What’s more, this will mean that the original rape and murder will need to be re-investigated. But Bosch’s refusal to give up and his way of making his cases his top priority give him the motivation to go against the odds. And in the end, he finds out the truth about both murders.

There’s also Elizabeth Spann Craig’s retired schoolteacher Myrtle Clover. Being elderly means that she doesn’t have the energy she once did. She can’t chase suspects or physically intimidate people and her age does make her vulnerable. In fact, in both Pretty is as Pretty Dies and Progressive Dinner Deadly, she ends up being in real danger because of her age. But it’s that very quality that also helps her to get answers. In the culture of the small Southern town in which she lives, the elderly are to be treated with courtesy (if at times indulgence). So suspects and witnesses can hardly refuse to speak to her. And the fact that she’s elderly means that people are less likely to feel threatened by her. So suspects and witnesses tend to let their guards down when they speak to her. Her age also allows her to use the ‘Oh, I’m just a gossipy old lady’ cover when she’s looking for clues.

So the next time people call me stubborn, I’m going to remind them that I’m simply dogged. The next time people say I should ‘go by the book’ more, I’m going to respond that I’m a creative thinker … 

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.

 

I’d Rather be Anything but Ordinary Please*

One of the things that can make a fictional sleuth or protagonist interesting and memorable is an unusual way of thinking. I’m not talking here about simple creativity of thinking although of course that can be an appealing trait. I’m really talking about a mindset that sees the world in a different way. Like anything else in a crime fiction novel, an unusual way of thinking can be overdone and so pull the reader out of the story. When that happens the sleuth is less believable. But when it’s done well, having a sleuth or other protagonist who looks at the world in a very unusual way can add richness to a story and can make for a very memorable character.

For instance, Arthur Upfield’s Queensland police inspector Napoleon ‘Bony’ Bonaparte is half Aborigine/half White. His way of looking at the world and his cases is unusual in part because of his cultural background. On the one hand, Bony is well aware of the European way of looking at life. He is a police detective, so he knows police procedure and he understands that way of thinking. At the same time, he is well versed in ‘the book of the bush.’ He thinks in terms of what the signs of the bush and nature tell him, and often gets very useful information from what he sees in nature when he investigates.  For instance, in The Bone is Pointed, Bony investigates the five-month old disappearance of Jeff Anderson, who was working Karwir Station, a ranch near Green Swamp Well, when he disappeared. One morning, Anderson went out to ride the fences on the ranch; only his horse returned. At first, everyone thought the horse (who was known for being difficult) threw him, but there is no sign of his body. No-one misses Anderson very much as he’s both sadistic and mean-tempered. But Sergeant Blake, who investigated the disappearance, now believes that Anderson either was murdered or deliberately went into hiding. Bony is assigned to investigate the man’s disappearance and begins to look into the case. He uses a very unusual but effective combination of his knowledge of the bush and the people who live there and his knowledge of police procedure and working with European-Australians to find out what really happened to Jeff Anderson.

Peter Høeg’s Smilla Jaspersen also has a very unusual way of thinking about the world. She is half-Inuit/half-White and was brought up on Greenland. So by the standards of most people in Copenhagen where she now lives, she doesn’t look at the world in the usual way. She is also a scientist who has learned to think about the world like a scientist does. And in Smilla’s Sense of Snow (AKA Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow), she uses her unusual way of thinking to solve the mystery of the death of Isaiah Christiansen. Isaiah is a young boy, also a Greenlander by birth, who lives in the same building where Jaspersen does. When he dies after a fall from the snow-covered roof of the building, everyone puts it down to a tragic accident. But Jaspersen thinks otherwise. First, Isaiah was extremely at home in the snow and wouldn’t have made the kinds of mistakes that can end up in a tragic fall. What’s more, certain aspects of the snow and the marks in it suggest to Jespersen that the boy’s death was more than just a fall. So she begins to investigate. The answers lead Jaspersen back to Greenland and an excavation there where Isaiah’s father died. Throughout this novel, we see Jaspersen’s unusual way of thinking, at the same time both scientific and informed by her cultural background. She understands snow, ice and glaciers in a very traditional, culturally-contextual and deep way; she has a real feeling for them. At the same time she understands them from a scientific point of view and those two ways of thinking give her a very unusual perspective. They also point her in the right direction in solving this mystery.

We see a very unusual way of thinking in Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Christopher Boone is a fifteen-year-old boy with autism. He’s high-enough functioning to communicate and to do quite a lot for himself. But he doesn’t think like ‘the rest of us’ do. When he discovers that his neighbour’s dog has been killed, he decides to be a detective like Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles and find out who was responsible. The novel is written from Christopher’s point of view and that gives us a glimpse into how a person with his form and level of autism might see the world. It’s an interesting perspective and although Christopher is not skilled socially, we see that he is highly accurate at remembering details. His unique skills are part of what leads him to the answers he’s looking for – and to a truth about himself that he never knew.

There’s also the unique perspective of Dr. Jennifer White, whom we meet in Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind. White is a skilled Chicago orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in hand reconstruction. She has also been diagnosed with dementia. As the novel begins, White is still able to function fairly well although she has had to retire from active work. Her daughter Fiona and son Mark have arranged for her to have a live-in caregiver Magdalena. One night, White’s neighbour Amanda O’Toole is murdered and Detective Luton is assigned to the case. Forensic tests show that O’Toole was mutilated in a way that points to a murderer with highly developed medical skill, so Luton begins to wonder whether White might be guilty. But the evidence isn’t completely convincing, so Luton isn’t sure White is the murderer. White’s advancing dementia means she has progressively fewer lucid times and even if she did think the way ‘the rest of us do,’ Luton knows she wouldn’t be likely to admit to the murder if she is guilty. So Luton has to use all of her abilities to get to the truth about Amanda O’Toole’s murder. It turns out that the O’Toole and White families have a long history together and that this murder has everything to do with their pasts. Since this novel is told from Jennifer White’s perspective, we get to see the case unfold through the eyes of someone who thinks in a very unusual way.

Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost introduces us to ten-year-old Kate Meaney, who has a unique way of looking at the world. As the novel begins, Kate dreams of being a detective, and has already started her own detective agency Falcon Investigations. Her partner is Mickey the Monkey, a stuffed monkey who travels everywhere in Kate’s backpack. Kate’s favourite occupation is looking for suspicious characters and activity and there are few better places to do that than the newly-opened Green Oaks Shopping Center. Kate doesn’t have a lot of friends, and she doesn’t think the way other people do, but that doesn’t bother her. She’s perfectly content to live the way she’s living. But her grandmother Ivy, who is her caregiver, thinks Kate would be better served by going away to school. So she arranges for Kate to sit the entrance exams at the exclusive Redspoon School. Kate is finally persuaded to go when her friend twenty-two-year-old Adrian Palmer agrees to go with her to the school. The two board the bus together but Kate never returns. No trace of her is found, and everyone blames Palmer for her disappearance. In fact, his life is made so difficult that he leaves town. Twenty years later his sister Lisa is the assistant manager at Your Music, a store in Green Oaks. Her job is to put it mildly uninspiring and she’s in a dead-end relationship. But life changes for her when she meets Kurt, a security guard at the mall. Kurt’s been seeing strange things on his security cameras: a vision of a young girl with backpack that has a monkey sticking out of it. Lisa is reminded of Kate, whom she met a few times, and each in a different way, Lisa and Kurt explore the past as we learn what really happened to Kate. Throughout this novel we see that Kate thinks in a way that’s unlike just about anyone else. That aspect of her personality makes her perhaps the most alive person in the novel, even twenty years after she’s disappeared.

More recently, Belinda Bauer’s Rubbernecker introduces us to Patrick Fort, a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome. Fort’s father was struck by a car and killed when Fort was young and it’s partly for that reason that Fort is fascinated by what makes people die. He enrols at university in Cardiff to study anatomy mostly because of his fascination with the causes of death. Part of this novel is told from Fort’s perspective as he and his peers study a cadaver. Patrick notices some things about the cadaver that don’t tally with the official reports and that makes him curious about this death. Bit by bit we learn through Patrick’s very unusual way of looking at the world what happened to the dead man. Another thread of this story which is later tied in with Patrick’s experience is told from the perspective of Sam Galen, who’s in a coma in a neurological unit but hasn’t lost his ability to think. As he slowly re-unites with the world, we learn what happened to him and what life is like in that unit.  We get another perspective on the same unit from Tracy Evans, who is a nurse there. I confess I haven’t yet read this novel, but it was such a good example of a protagonist (in this case Patrick Fort) with a unique way of looking at the world that I couldn’t resist mentioning it.

Sarah Ward at Crimepieces has done a terrific review of Rubbernecker. Her review is what got me thinking about protagonists who don’t think like ‘the rest of the world’ so thanks, Sarah, for the inspiration. Folks, Sarah’s excellent blog is well worth a spot on your blog roll if you’re not already following it.

Characters with unique ways of thinking have to be drawn deftly or the story risks contrivance and melodrama, to say nothing of the risks to believability. But when such a character is done well, having an unusual way of looking at the world can add depth to a novel and set it apart from others.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Avril Lavigne’s Anything but Ordinary.

Where We Have Lived Since the World Began*

One of the really interesting developments we’ve seen in crime fiction in recent decades is the look the genre has given us at indigenous characters and communities. That’s not easy to do, either. It’s a challenge to create an indigenous character or explore an indigenous community honestly – without either glorifying its members and culture or condescending to them. When it works well, though, we get a fascinating perspective on unique world views and ways of life. We also get some very interesting and innovative characters.

As early as the 1930’s, Arthur Upfield showed readers the lives of some of the Aboriginal communities of Australia. His creation, Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is a member of the Queensland Police Force, so his cases frequently take him into Australia’s Outback and quite often involve the indigenous people who live there. Bony himself is half-Aborgine and thoroughly familiar with many of the indigenous cultures of the area. That knowledge and Bony’s own background are helpful to him as he investigates cases. In The Bushman Who Came Back for instance, Bony solves the shooting murder of Mrs. Bell, housekeeper at the homestead owned by Mr. Wootton. As if Mrs. Bell’s death isn’t enough to upset Wootton, his ranch hands and his staff, Mrs. Bell’s seven-year-old daughter Linda has been abducted. All evidence is that a local bushman nicknamed Yorky is the murderer and has taken Linda because she was a witness. Bony is called in to find Yorky and Linda before anything happens to the girl. In the process of tracking them and of finding out what happened on the morning of the murder, Bony discovers that Yorky is not the only suspect. He knows though that to get the answers he needs, he will need to find the bushman. So he relies not just on what Wootton and the ranch hands tell him but also on what the local Aborginal groups can tell him. In the end, it’s that knowledge as well as the knowledge he has of the land and its rhythms that lead Bony to the truth about Mrs. Bell’s murder and about what happened to Yorky and Linda.

More recently, Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest novels depict the lives of the Aboriginal communities of Australia’s Northern Territory. Tempest is a half-Aborigine/half-White member of the Aboriginal Community Police. In Diamond Dove (AKA Moonlight Downs) she returns to her home at the Moonlight Downs encampment after several years away. She’s no sooner home than she gets embroiled in a murder investigation. The leader of the Moonlight Downs encampment Lincoln Flinders is killed and his alleged murderer Blakie Japananga disappears. It all seems clear-cut at first, but Tempest isn’t sure that the obvious solution is also the correct one. So she looks into the case more deeply and finds that there was a lot more to Flinders’ death than it seemed. The same is true in Gunshot Road, in which Tempest solves the murder of prospector Albert “Doc” Ozolins, who was supposedly murdered as the result of a drunken quarrel. In both of these novels, we see the way members of the Aboriginal communities in the area live. Hyland presents them – and Tempest – honestly and respectfully. I sincerely hope there’ll be a new Emily Tempest mystery soon.

Tony Hillerman depicted the lives of Native Americans – especially the Navajo Nation – in interesting, respectful and truthful detail. His Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are both members of the Navajo Tribal Police, and the murders they investigate often require knowledge of the Navajo Way in order to solve them. For example, in Skinwalkers, a series of three murders seems to be connected to the Bad Water Clinic run by Dr. Bahe Yellowhorse. That clinic combines Western medicine with Navajo healing traditions and although it’s done some good, there are people who are suspicious of what happens there. When Chee himself becomes the target of a would-be killer, Leaphorn knows he’ll have to rely on Chee’s knowledge of the Navajo Way as Chee is more traditional than Leaphorn is. Together the two discover what’s behind the murders and in the process we see the lives of those who live in the Navajo Nation. In fact, Hillerman received the distinction of being named a Special Friend of the Navajo Nation in 1987 for his treatment of that community in his work.

Margaret Coel presents the lives of members of the Arapaho Nation in her series featuring attorney Vicky Holden, who is Arapaho, and Father John O’Malley. The focus in that series is the Arapaho community of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Neither Holden nor O’Malley is blind to the challenges faced by the indigenous people of that area. Coel is frank about issues such as alcoholism and domestic abuse on the Reservation as well as about relations between members of the Arapaho Nation and Whites. That said though, Coel treats the Arapaho people with respect and presents their lifestyles both honestly and in fascinating detail.

Peter Høeg introduced readers to half-Inuit Smilla Jasperson in Miss Smilla’s  Feeling For Snow (AKA Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow). In that novel, Jasperson meets a young boy named Isaiah Christensen – a fellow transplanted Greenlander. When the boy dies, allegedly after a fall from the roof of the building where both live, Jasperson comes to believe that he did not die accidentally. So she investigates the death despite all sorts of pressure to leave it alone. In the end, Isaiah Christensen’s death turns out to be related to two Danish expeditions to Greenland. Jasperson’s Inuit identity and her familiarity with her people’s culture prove to be very helpful as she looks into the case, and Høeg treats the Inuit people both respectfully and candidly.

Stan Jones does the same thing in his series featuring Nathan Active. Active is an Alaska State Trooper. He is also an Inupiat Eskimo, although he was given up for adoption as a baby and raised as White in Anchorage. Now he’s returned by assignment to the isolated area around Chukchi, north of the Arctic Circle. What’s interesting about this series is that Active arguably has to discover his Inupiat identity since he wasn’t raised among those people. So in a sense we see that community, at least at the start, “from the outside.”  It’s an interesting process of discovery for Active and for the reader. And Jones treats the indigenous community to which Active belongs with dignity and respect, while still being candid about the people who live in it.

And then there’s Michael Sears’ and Stanley Trollip’s (writing as Michael Stanley) Detective David “Kubu” Bengu, a member of Botswana’s CID, whom we first meet in A Carrion Death. In this novel, a body is discovered in the Botswana desert. At first it seems that the victim died by accident; it’s been almost completely eaten by hyenas and there seems no reason to believe the death is from foul play. But Kubu isn’t convinced, and begins to investigate not just the identity of the victim but also how the victim actually died. Kubu finds that this death is related to family politics as well as the politics and financial dealings of the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company. In this series, Sears and Trollip treat Kubu and the local culture candidly, but at the same time, they are depicted respectfully.

When authors present indigenous characters (of whom I’ve only had space to mention a few) with that balance of respect and candor, the result adds much to crime fiction. Which are your favourite indigenous sleuths?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Nightwish’s Creek Mary’s Blood.

It’s the One Thing That We Should Have Known*

One major challenge that crime fiction authors face has to do with clues. Crime fiction fans are fairly savvy readers, so if the clues are too obvious, they get bored or see a story as implausible (e.g. “How could the sleuth not figure out what that clue means!?”). On the other hand, as I’ve mentioned before here on Confessions of a Mystery Novelist…, if clues aren’t provided, or if the clues that are given are too hard to work out, the reader may feel cheated (i.e. “Well of course if I’d known that I’d’ve guessed why ____ was killed!”). So placing clues has to be done thoughtfully and crime writers work very hard at doing that. Trust me. When it’s done well, though, a clue can be placed elegantly so that it’s all “above board” but the reader still gets misled, at least for a while.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s After the Funeral (AKA Funerals are Fatal), we meet the members of the Abernethie family, who have gathered for the funeral of patriarch Richard Abernethie. At the reading of the will, Abernethie’s youngest sister Cora Lansquenet says that he was murdered. At first, everyone hushes her up and even she retracts her remark. But everyone also privately wonders whether she was right. Then Cora herself is murdered the next day. Mr. Entwhistle, the family attorney, asks Hercule Poirot to investigate and he agrees. The family gathers again, this time to choose things that they want from the house before it’s sold. Poirot attends this get-together in the guise of a representative for the organisation that’s purchased the house. In the course of that week-end, Poirot hears a clue – one simple clue – that tells him a large part of what he needs to know to find out who the murderer is. It’s neatly and elegantly placed though, so it’s easy to miss. Still, Christie “plays fair” with the reader.

So does Arthur Upfield in The Bushman Who Came Back. In that novel, the peaceful life at the Wootton homestead is disrupted when Wootton’s housekeeper Mrs. Bell is shot one morning after Wootton and his ranch hands have left for the day. When the hands come back a little later that morning they also find that Mrs. Bell’s daughter Linda has disappeared. Everyone’s very fond of Linda so there’s an all-out search for her. It’s suspected that she was abducted by a bushman nicknamed Yorkie and that Yorkie also killed Mrs. Bell. Upfield’s sleuth, Queensland police detective Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is sent to the ranch to try to track Yorkie and get Linda back safely if he can. Bony interviews everyone involved and looks for relevant evidence. Two clues in particular lead him to believe that Yorkie is probably innocent. There’s another clue too, not made much of at first sight, that is also an important pointer to the killer. Once Bony puts those clues together, he finds out who killed Mrs. Bell and why. The clues are there for the reader but it takes an astute reader to figure out what they mean right away.

There’s an interesting clue fairly early in Colin Dexter’s Death is Now My Neighbour. One morning, physiotherapist Rachel James is shot through her kitchen window. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are called in to investigate. At first, they can’t find much of a motive. Then Geoffrey Owens, a journalist who lives in the same neighbourhood as Rachel James, is shot too. Now it seems that someone is targeting the people who live in that neighbourhood. Morse and Lewis find though that James’ murder isn’t connected to that of Owens in that way. In the end, it’s a simple clue – something the reader knows fairly early on – that leads Morse and Lewis to the reason for James’ death. In the end, they also find out why Owens was murdered and who committed both crimes.

In Peter Temple’s Bad Debts, former attorney Jack Irish, who’s now a private investigator, gets a frantic call from a former client Danny McKillop. Irish represented McKillop in a drink driving killing; McKillop was convicted and has just been released from prison.  McKillop wants Irish to meet him to discuss something urgent but by the time Irish gets back to his former client it’s too late; McKillop’s been murdered. Irish feels guilty for not following up more quickly and what’s more he feels responsible for the fact that McKillop lost the court case in which Irish represented him. So he decides to find out who killed Danny McKillop and why. He interviews McKillop’s wife, other members of the family and some friends and business associates. Bit by bit he learns that McKillop’s murder may be connected to the drink driving case for which McKillop went to prison – a case in which activist Anne Jeppeson was killed. Now Irish begins to look into who would want to kill Jeppeson and why. At one point, someone tells Irish something that doesn’t seem important at the time but turns out to be vital. Astute readers will pick up the clue; I didn’t at first. It’s that clue though that points Irish to the evidence he needs to catch the killer.

And then there’s Karin Fossum’s Don’t Look Back, in which Oslo police detective Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre investigate the drowning murder of fifteen-year-old Annie Holland. Her body was found by a tarn near the village of Granittveien. There are no signs of sexual assault or other real violence, so the murder wasn’t rape and it’s clear that she knew her attacker. While Sejer and Skarre interview witnesses and suspects, Annie’s boyfriend Halvor Muntz doesn’t want to sit by and do nothing. He wants to know who killed Annie and why. It turns out that a casual thing she had said to him is a vital clue as to where he can find the motive for her murder. For his part, Sejer finds out some information too from a casual conversation. That leads him, from a different direction you might say, to the same truth. Those clues are given clearly fairly early in the story, but it’s still hard at first to see them for what they are at first.

That’s also the case with very important clues we get in Shona MacLean’s The Redemption of Alexander Seaton. Seaton is the undermaster of the grammar school in 17^th Century Banff, Scotland. He is shocked one morning when the body of apothecary’s assistant Patrick Davidson, who’s been poisoned, is found in his schoolroom.  The most immediate suspect is local music master and Seaton’s good friend Charles Thom, who was Davidson’s rival for Marion Arbuthnott, the apothecary’s daughter. Thom claims to be innocent but he’s arrested and imprisoned. When Seaton visits his friend, Thom begs Seaton to clear his name. Seaton agrees and begins to talk to the people who knew Davidson. It turns out that there is more than one possible motive for the murder and Seaton explores all of them. But two clues, both given clearly and relatively early in the novel, point to the real truth. Once Seaton understands what those clues are and what they mean, he’s able to find the killer. In this case, we find the clues when Seaton does but it takes a very astute reader (more so than I am) to put the pieces together before Seaton does.

And that’s the thing about a really well-placed clue. When it’s done elegantly, we see it right there but don’t always recognise it for what it is. Are you good at spotting those well-placed clues? If you’re a writer, how do you decide where to place clues?

 

 

 

NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s A Room of our Own.