Let’s Shake Hands*

Every culture is just a little different and those differences come through in ways that go far beyond language. Different cultures have different assumptions about nearly everything and those assumptions are reflected in dozens of different ways. We may not even be aware of the ways in which we reflect our own cultures but we do it all the time. Just as an example, think for a moment about how close you stand to someone you’ve never met. There are of course individual preferences and differences that come into play, but culture has a real impact on how close we stand to others, how much and what kind of eye contact we make and our social rituals. Writers can use those cultural details to make characters and settings distinctive and to show not tell what they’re like. And readers really like those details. Most readers I know want to feel a sense of place when they read; those little cultural details can help to convey that. Besides, they’re interesting.

Agatha Christie was quite skilled at holding up a mirror to her own culture and its assumptions. One way she did this was by creating Hercule Poirot, who’s not a member of that culture – most decidedly not. Just as an example, Poirot is from a culture in which hugging is quite common, even between men. He’s learned, though, that in his adopted English culture, that’s not done. In The Murder on the Links for example, he and Captain Hastings travel to France to investigate the stabbing death of Canadian émigré Paul Renauld. At one point, Poirot makes a trip from the Renauld home in Merlinville-sur-Mer to Paris to track down an important lead in the case. Here’s a bit of the scene in which he takes his leave of Hastings:

 

‘You permit that I embrace you? Ah, no, I forget that it is not the English custom. Une poignee de main, alors.’

 

The handshake for leave-taking and greeting is one of those little social rituals that some cultures have – and some don’t.

Tony Hillerman’s novels featuring Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn include quite a lot about Navajo social customs and rituals. Just to offer one example, both Chee and Leaphorn visit the homes of people who may have information about a case or who may have been witnesses to a crime. Sometimes they just want background information. When they do visit the homes of other Navajo people (especially those who are more traditional in their outlook), both detectives know that politeness requires waiting outside until one’s welcomed inside. In more than one novel, Chee or Leaphorn travels to a home and simply waits in or by the car. The owner then sees that there’s a visitor and comes out to greet that person. Why not just knock on the door? The reason is that it’s more polite to give the homeowner time to straighten things up and prepare a bit to have a guest. And a handshake, which is exactly appropriate in some cultures, is not appropriate in the Navajo culture. It’s a reflection of traditional Navajo spiritualism. So neither Chee nor Leaphorn shakes hands with other Navajos they encounter. And yet, they’re not at all ignorant of other cultures’ customs and adjust when they need to do that. Those little details about the characters and the stories give the reader a very strong sense of setting and context without too much verbiage.

In Alexander McCall Smith’s series featuring Botswana private investigator Mma. Precious Ramotswe, we learn yet another approach to greeting. In Tears of the Giraffe, Mma. Ramotswe gets a visit from Andrea Curtin, an ex-pat American who’s decided to move to Botswana. She and her family lived there for a few years, during which time her son decided to remain and join an eco-commune. When he disappeared, the official explanation was that he must have been caught by a wild animal. But Curtin wants closure so she visits Mma. Ramotswe to ask her to investigate. Here’s Mma. Ramotswe’s first impression of Andrea Curtin:

 

‘The woman took her hand, correctly, Mma. Ramotswe noticed, in the proper Botswana way, placing her left hand on her right forearm as a mark of respect. Most white people shook hands very rudely, snatching just one hand and leaving the other hand free to perform all sorts of mischief. This woman had at least learned something about how to behave.’

 

It’s a fascinating perspective on what a handshake means. And again, McCall Smith explains that bit of culture and how it is reflected in people’s greetings without a lot of un-necessary description.

In Betty Webb’s Desert Wives, Arizona PI Lena Jones is hired by Esther Corbett to rescue her thirteen-year-old daughter Rebecca from a polygamous group called Purity. Rebecca is returned safely but then her mother finds herself accused of murder when group leader Solomon Lord is found killed. Jones joins the group in the guise of the newest wife of disaffected member Saul Berkhauser. Her plan is to ‘go undercover’ to find out who Royal’s real killer is and clear Esther’s name. But as she soon discovers, Purity has a culture all its own. One essential aspect of that culture is the low status of women. And all sorts of little social rituals at Purity reflect this. Jones has to learn to look down when she’s speaking, to walk a few paces behind her ‘husband’ and to not initiate conversations, especially with men, un-necessarily. All of this is very difficult for the outspoken Jones, and she runs into more than one obstacle. But in the end she does find out the truth about what happened to Royal. She also finds out several other very ugly truths about Purity.

One of the most fascinating depictions of having to learn different social rituals and customs is in Angela Savage’s series featuring PI Jayne Keeney. Keeney is an ex-pat Australian who lives and works in Bangkok. You could argue that there are several cultures in Australia (and you’d be right). But Keeney’s particular culture of origin is not much like the Thai culture in which she has to function. So she’s had to learn to do much more than just speak Thai (which she does). She’s had to learn how to ‘properly’ speak to authority figures, how to walk and move without attracting attention to herself, and how to conduct business. In Behind the Night Bazaar and The Half Child, Keeney uses what she’s learned about the Thai culture to find out the truth about the cases she investigates. And what’s interesting is that Savage uses those social rituals and other cultural reflections to show readers what the Thai culture Keeney encounters is like. They help to create a strong sense of context.

And that’s what’s so valuable about paying attention to the small cultural realities such as social distance, greetings and so on. They ‘flesh out’ characters and as long as they’re not done self-consciously, they add to the atmosphere. But what do you think? Do you notice those things? If you’re a writer, do you think consciously about those cultural realities?

 
 
 

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

You Just Recover When Another Belief is Betrayed*

One of the ways crime fiction authors build suspense in their novels is by raising the issue of trust. In any investigation, real or fictional, the detective has to decide who’s trustworthy and who is trying to mislead. When that question is woven into a novel, it can draw the reader in (e.g. ‘Is he really on ____’s side? What if he’s trying to kill ___?’  Or ‘No!! Don’t trust her! She’s really working for ___!’).  We see a lot of this plot device in thrillers, but it can also be very effective other kinds of crime fiction too. Authors need to be careful with this plot tool though. First, a plot that’s too complicated, with too many hidden loyalties and motives, can be confusing for the reader. Second, if the characters aren’t well-drawn, then the question of, who can be trusted can make them almost cartoonish and can make the sleuth seem too gullible. But when it’s done well, the trust issue can ratchet up a story’s suspense and keep the reader turning or clicking pages.

Agatha Christie wrote several novels in which there’s a question of who’s trustworthy. I’ll just mention one of them. In The Man in the Brown Suit, we meet Anne Beddingfield, whose father has recently died, leaving her with little money. For a short time after his death, Anne lives with her father’s solicitor Mr. Flemming and his family. They’re well-meaning but Anne finds them dull and has no wish to live like that. Then one day she happens to witness a tube accident in which a man falls or is pushed onto the tracks. As his body is being recovered, Ann spots a piece of paper which she picks up. The note written on the paper makes reference to an upcoming sailing of the Kilmorden Castle for Cape Town and on impulse, Anne books a cabin. That decision draws her into a case of jewel theft, murder, faked identities and more. As the novel moves along, Anne has to decide whom she should trust. As she sorts this out, she gets closer and closer to the truth about a stolen fortune and a secret past that one of the characters is hiding. Since the story is written from Anne’s perspective, the reader follows along with her as she slowly finds out who is and who isn’t trustworthy.

Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch often has to decide whom he can and can’t trust. One of the themes in this series is corruption in the top echelons of the LAPD and hidden loyalties and agendas. We see that for instance in The Black Ice. In that novel, Bosch goes to the scene of what looks like a suicide. Fellow cop Calexico ‘Cal’ Moore has apparently taken his own life because, or so the official report says, he’d ‘gone dirty.’ But Bosch isn’t sure that’s what really happened. So he begins to ask questions about Moore’s life and death. He finds out that Moore was investigating the importation from Mexico of a new and very dangerous drug called Black Ice. That plus what he learns about Moore’s past lead Bosch to a small Mexican border town where a vicious drugs gang has a heavily fortressed operation. Bosch gets a lot of pressure from the top brass to leave the Moore case alone, but anyone who’s familiar with Harry Bosch will know that doesn’t stop him. As the story moves on and Bosch gets closer to the truth about Moore, he has to make some sometimes very quick decisions about who’s trustworthy and who isn’t and that adds to the tension.

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa knows he has to be careful about trusting too easily. He’s a cop in Rio de Janeiro, where bribery is a way of life and police corruption is all too common. What’s more, as in many places, the rich and powerful often manipulate events and people to get what they want. In A Window in Copacabana for instance, Espinosa investigates the murders of three cops. At first, it looks as though someone has a vendetta against the police. But then, the mistress of one of the murdered officers is killed. Then another one dies. And the third disappears. The more that Espinosa learns about this case, the clearer it is that this is no vengeful cop-killer. This is a case of a web of corruption involving the victims and some very ruthless people. As Espinosa gets closer to the truth, he also knows that he can’t tell just anyone what he’s found. So he gathers a very small team of people he trusts to work with him. They keep things so secret that they don’t even discuss the case while they’re at the station. Even so, Espinosa learns that you sometimes don’t know whether someone can or cannot be trusted.

That’s also what Philip Margolin’s PI sleuth Dana Cutler needs to remember in Executive Privilege. Cutler is hired to follow nineteen-year-old Charlotte Walsh and report where she goes, what she does and whom she meets. Cutler isn’t told the name of her client; the arrangement is made through a third party, highly placed attorney Dale Perry. At first, the assignment isn’t all that interesting. Walsh’s patterns are more or less predictable and nothing much comes of watching her. But then one night she leaves her car at a local mall and is driven to a secluded safe house where, to Cutler’s shock, she meets with U.S. President Christopher Farrington. Cutler is sure now that she’s out of her league as the saying goes, and calls her anonymous client, saying that she’s dropping the case. But when Walsh is murdered Cutler herself becomes the target of some highly placed people who want all of the information she’s got about the victim. Cutler quickly goes into hiding and as she slowly gets closer to the truth about the murder, she finds that she has to be extremely careful about whom to trust. So does fledgling attorney Brad Miller, who is approaching the same case from a different angle. He’s been hired by a powerful Portland, Oregon law firm and hopes his career will get a boost when he takes on the case of serial killer Clarence Little. Little’s been convicted of several grisly murders, one of which is the killing of Laurie Erickson. Little claims that he was busy committing another murder when Erickson was killed, so he is not guilty of that crime. As Miller follows up on that case to see who might have killed Laurie Erickson, he finds himself getting closer to an extremely dangerous truth. He also finds that he can no longer be sure who is trustworthy.

Betty Webb makes use of that ‘who can be trusted’ plot point in Desert Wives, which features her sleuth PI Lena Jones. Jones rescues thirteen-year-old Rebecca Corbett from a polygamous group called Purity, and returns the girl to her mother Esther. During the rescue, Jones sees that group leader Solomon Royal has been shot and badly wounded. So as soon as Rebecca is safe, Jones calls the police to report the shooting. The next day she learns that Royal has been murdered. What’s worse, Esther Corbett is suspected. If she’s arrested, it’s very likely that Rebecca will be taken from her and returned to Purity, where her father Abel is a member. So Esther is desperate to clear her name. Jones agrees to help and ends up infiltrating Purity in the guise of the newest wife of disaffected group member Saul Berkhauser. As Jones begins to take up her ‘new life’ at Purity, she slowly meets the different members of the community. Very soon Jones learns just how much danger there is for her. She discovers to her shock that the group is not the peaceful, happy community it seems on the surface. There are many instances of domestic abuse of both wives and children. There’s also child molestation and the forced marriage of girls as young as thirteen. To make matters worse, there’s so much intermarriage that there are many cases of severe birth defects. And the powerful group leaders (and even some locals who have their own power) are not eager to have those truths made public. Jones needs to keep her ‘cover’ to protect herself from those people. She also needs to keep in mind that someone in the group is a murderer who doesn’t want to be discovered. And it’s not at all clear at first which group members can be trusted and which ones cannot. Even Jones’ ‘husband’ Saul comes in for his share of suspicion since he had a motive for murdering Royal. That question of who is trustworthy adds a taut layer of suspense to this novel.

And then there’s T.J. Cooke’s Kiss and Tell, which is the story of London lawyer Jill Shadow. Shadow’s managed to get past a poor and very dysfunctional childhood to go to law school and get her legal credentials. Along the way, she had a relationship with Jimmy Briscoe, father of her daughter Hannah. Jimmy’s been in prison for several years on drugs charges and Shadow’s had to make a life for herself and Hannah. Everything’s going well enough though until Shadow takes on the pro bono case of Bella Kiss. Originally from Hungary, Bella’s lived in London for a couple of years. She’s just been arrested though for drugs smuggling on her return from a trip. She admits she had the drugs in question with her when she came into the country, but she refuses to say anything about where she got the drugs or who paid or convinced her to bring the drugs in. It soon becomes obvious that she’s trying to protect someone. Shadow knows that she can do little to help her client without knowing everything about the case, but Bella remains stubbornly uncooperative. Then Jimmy Briscoe comes back into her life. He’s finished his sentence and claims that he’s made a fresh start. But at the same time, he seems to know too much about Bella Kiss’ situation. What’s more, he has a very poor ‘track record’ with Shadow. As if that weren’t enough, Shadow begins to uncover other truths about this case. Bella seems to be a pawn in a very high-stakes and high-level game of drugs and politics, and the more she finds out about this case, the less sure Shadow is of exactly what or whom to believe. Then one of the key people involved in the case is murdered. In the meantime, there’s been another murder. Then, Shadow herself becomes a possible target. Throughout this novel, the question of whom Shadow should trust adds a strong dose of tension and interest. And since the story is told from her point of view, the reader doesn’t always know who is trustworthy either.

It’s certainly possible to overdo the theme of ‘Who can be trusted?’ But when that plot point is used carefully and the characters are well-developed, it can add much to a story and give readers an added reason to invest themselves in what happens in the novel.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s A Matter of Trust.

It’s an Illusion, It’s a Game*

Have you ever been to a magic show? I mean a really well-done show. We all know going into a show that the magician really cannot, for instance, turn water into coins. But a talented magician can make the audience believe even if it’s just for a moment that a handkerchief turned into flowers. Magicians use misdirection and other strategies to create illusions. And when they do it well, it takes all of one’s effort to remember that it isn’t real.

We see that same use of strategy to create illusion in crime fiction. I’m not referring here to things like faking an alibi. Rather, I mean strategies that make people believe that something they think they see is true, while the reality is something entirely different. And when you get people to think that something is true, they are often convinced – even to the point of testifying in court – that they are right. And that fact of human life can be useful to criminals.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies (AKA Thirteen at Dinner), Hercule Poirot investigates the stabbing death of the 4^th Baron Edgware. Edgware’s wife Jane Wilkinson is the most likely suspect. It’s well-known that she wanted a divorce from her husband so that she could marry again. She’s even approached Poirot to try to convince Edgware to withdraw his objection to the divorce. What’s more, she was heard to threaten her husband. And she was admitted to the house on the night of the murder. So at first, Chief Inspector James ‘Jimmy’ Japp believes that he’s got his culprit. But on the night of the murder Jane Wilkinson went to a dinner party in another part of London. Twelve people, including the host, are willing to swear in court that she was at the party. So Poirot, Hastings and Japp have to look elsewhere for the killer. And they find plenty of suspects too, as Edgware was an extremely unpleasant person. In the end Poirot finds out who the killer is and we get a first-class lesson in the power of illusion.

Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives introduces us to attorney Walter Eberhart, his wife Joanna and their two children Pete and Kim. The Eberharts decide to move from New York to the beautiful and quiet town of Stepford, Connecticut and at first all goes well. They are warmly welcomed and the children soon settle into school and start to make friends. But soon, Joanna begins to think that something odd is going on in Stepfored. She and her new friend Bobbie Markowe ask a few questions, but they don’t get clear answers. Besides, there is no obvious danger to them or their families. Then, disturbing things begin to happen and Joanna becomes more and more convinced that Stepford’s beauty, peace and quiet are illusions. She begins to believe that something truly sinister is going on in town. It turns out that she’s right.

We also see the use of illusion strategies in Linwood Barclay’s Bad Move Science fiction writer Zack Walker, his journalist wife Sarah and their children Angie and Paul move to a beautiful new housing development called Valley Forest Estates. Zack is hoping that the lower cost of living in the suburbs will mean that he can write full-time, and he’s utterly convinced that life in the suburbs will be safer than it is in the city where they lived before the move. But little by little, his illusion of the ‘perfect suburban life’ is shattered. First, the house itself has all sorts of structural and other problems and Zack can’t seem to get anyone in authority to respond to his requests for maintenance. Then he discovers the body of Samuel Spender, a local environmental activist, in a creek. Then there’s another murder. Little by little Zack discovers that the development has mostly been a carefully orchestrated illusion designed to cover up some nasty goings-on. It’s not until Zack puts aside his belief that life is safer in the suburbs that he’s really able to see what’s happening.

Caroline Graham’s A Ghost in the Machine also includes the use of illusion to cover up a crime. Mallory Lawson and his wife Kate move to the village of Forbes Abbot when Mallory’s wealthy Aunt Carey dies. Aunt Carey has left her home and much of her fortune to Mallory and his family on the condition that her former companion Benny Frayle will always have a home. Mallory and Kate are happy to agree to that and everyone settles into the new arrangement. Then, the Lawsons’ financial advisor Dennis Brinkley is killed in what looks like a very tragic accident. But Benny thinks it was murder and tries to get the police to investigate. No-one takes very much notice of her allegation until there’s another death. Self-styled medium Ava Garret is leading a séance one day; during the event she says some things about the murder that she couldn’t possibly know. Not long afterwards she’s poisoned. Now Inspector Tom Barnaby and his team re-open the Dennis Brinkley case and slowly link it to Ava Garret’s murder. In a sad irony, Ava’s determination to maintain the illusion that she is psychic costs her her life as the murderer uses what you could call an illusion against her.

There’s an effective use of illusion in Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen’s Toffee’s Christmas too. In that short story, an author of romance novels who calls herself Toffee Brown moves to the small Yorkshire village of Knavesborough. As she tells the local vicar’s daughter Rhapsody Gershwin, Toffee came to the village to get some rest. Although she’s very eccentric and rather put out at not being identified as the world-famous writer she is, Toffee becomes a part of village life and settles in. Then one day, Rhapsody and her sister Psalmonella discover Toffee’s body in the cottage she’s taken. Rhapsody’s fiancé local constable Archibald ‘Archie’ Primrose begins to investigate and in the process they learn what Toffee’s real identity was. That doesn’t bring them much closer to finding the murderer though. It’s not until Rhapsody discovers that another character has created an illusion that she and her fiancé catch the killer.

Betty Webb’s Desert Wives is mostly set in the compound of a polygamous sect called Purity. The sect has been run by Brother Solomon Royal until he is murdered. Private investigator Lena Jones goes undercover to join Purity and find out who killed Royal when her client Esther Corbett is accused of the crime. Esther had a good motive for the murder too, as Royal had been planning to marry Esther’s thirteen-year-old daughter Rebecca. Jones settles into Purity and begins to ask questions about Royal’s murder. What she finds is that Purity is hiding some truly ugly secrets. There’s been a very carefully-designed illusion of Purity as being a peaceful, happy group of people who help each other, meet the group’s needs in a self-sufficient way and raise the group’s children together. But the reality is far, far different. Jones discovers domestic abuse, child molestation, and intermarriage leading to some serious birth defects. She also discovers financial wrongdoing. In fact, the reality underneath the illusion of Purity is so awful that Jones finds it hard to focus on her main reason for being there. But she does discover who killed Solomon Royal and why.

The thing about well-crafted illusions is that they can be very convincing. And in crime fiction that ability to create a reality that isn’t there can be very useful to criminals. Of course, sleuths can create illusions too; maybe I’ll address that in another post…

 

ps.  The photos are of Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller, who make up the hugely popular and successful magician duo Penn and Teller. Not only are they dedicated to debunking fraudulent psychics and other fakes, but they are truly gifted illusionists themselves. Oh, and they’re as pleasant in person as you could wish for, despite their great success.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Genesis’ Abacab.

In The Spotlight: Betty Webb’s Desert Wives

Hello All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Many crime novels do more than just tell the story of a crime, its investigation and its solution. They also address social topics or call attention to social problems. To show you what I mean, let’s take a closer look today at Betty Webb’s Desert Wives, the second in her Lena Jones series.

Jones is a private investigator who, together with her business partner Jimmy Sisiwan, owns Desert Investigations. As Desert Wives begins, Jones and Sisiwan have gone to rescue thirteen-year-old Rebecca Corbett from a polygamist sect. Her father Abel, who has returned to the sect after some time away, has agreed that she will marry the group’s leader Solomon Royal. Her mother Esther, who has since divorced Abel, wants Rebecca to be safe with her.  The group lives in an isolated compound called Purity that straddles the border between Arizona and Utah. The going isn’t easy but Jones and Sisiwan find Rebecca and bring her back to the Arizona side of the border where her mother is waiting. The plan is for Esther to take Rebecca and start a new life away from Abel and Purity.

As she and Rebecca are leaving the compound, Jones sees that Royal has been shot and badly wounded, but there’s no time to do anything about it then. So when Rebecca is safe, Jones calls the police to announce the emergency. Once Rebecca is reunited with her mother, Jones thinks the case is over. Then she gets a call from Esther, who tells her that Royal has died and that she is now under investigation for murder. It’s very likely that Esther will be extradited to Utah to stand trial for a crime she says she didn’t commit. And she is well aware that Solomon Royal had a great deal of power, so that she doesn’t stand much of a chance for a fair hearing. If she loses, Rebecca will be sent back to Purity. So she begs Jones to go to Purity and investigate the murder. Jones agrees and works out a plan to go undercover as the wife of Saul Berkhauser, a disaffected group member whose financial situation has forced him to stay at Purity.

Under that guise, Jones goes to Purity and slowly learns that this group is hiding several dark and very, very ugly secrets. For example, the women of Purity are routinely abused, as are their children, and forced to marry against their will. There’s also the practice of marrying young girls off when they’re as young as thirteen, sometimes even younger, and child molestation is not infrequent. What’s more, there is so much intermarriage that there are a great many children with birth defects and other physical and mental problems. All of this makes Jones so furious and indignant that she can’t at first understand why the women of Purity don’t simply leave. She learns though that it’s not that simple. First, the women have access to very little money. Besides, most of them have several children, so that escaping with them would not be feasible. And few of Purity’s women would be willing to be permanently separated from their children. Finally, several of the women have been raised in Purity, or moved there when they were very young, so they are convinced that they are living ‘the way God wants them to live.’ Jones also discovers that the men are, in their way, just as trapped as the women. They’ve been required to sign over all of their wealth to the group, and few have outside sources of income. What’s worst (at least from my point of view, so feel free to differ with me if you do), local authorities are well aware of what goes on at Purity. But they do nothing about it and in fact, some even quietly support what the group believes. The more Jones looks into what’s really happening at Purity, the more dirty secrets she uncovers, and there aren’t many people to whom she can turn for help.

In fact Jones gets so distracted by what she learns at Purity that at times she finds it hard to focus on the murder she’s trying to solve. But in the end, she discovers who killed Solomon Royal and why.

This novel is as much an exposé of life in a polygamous sect as it is a crime novel. That element is one of the most powerful points about the book. On that score, it is not an easy book to read, particularly when one knows that Webb has ‘done her homework,’ so that this novel strikes one as authentic. The ugly truths about Purity are made all the more haunting because Webb does not fall into the trap of explicitness. Everything is starkly revealed, but it’s not done gratuitously. It’s also worth noting that Webb doesn’t preach (at least I didn’t feel preached at). Rather, the story simply shows what life is like in polygamous groups like Purity. And that makes the story all the more powerful.

Another very important element in the novel is the setting. Purity is located in the high desert ‘wild country’ between Arizona and Utah. It’s stark, beautiful in a wild way, and potentially quite treacherous, and Webb places the reader there clearly:

 

‘Sheer cliffs towered more than three thousand feet above the forested plateau below, where the Virgin River wound its way through red and white sandstone. Lush Ponderosa pine, sycamore, piñon and cottonwood covered the valley, complemented by scarlet plumes of Indian paintbrush and blue columbine.’

 

Although this is gorgeous country, it’s also rugged and adds a sense of real isolation to life at Purity.

The character of Lena Jones is also an interesting element in this novel. She faces several personal demons, including life as a foster child during which she was raped more than once. She also has to deal with nightmares stemming from her early childhood with her mother. So she’s become cynical and unhappy. But you really couldn’t say that she wallows in her past. She’s not an alcoholic nor does she fall into the trap of a self-destructive lifestyle. But she has been badly scarred. She is a strong female protagonist, so readers who do not like the scenario of the ‘helpless female’ will be pleased. She is outspoken, independent and sometimes speaks without thinking, but she’s not what you would call a ‘loose cannon.’ Her past has given her real sympathy for those in need and that makes the work of uncovering what’s going on at Purity all the more difficult for her. It’s not hard to be on her side as she tries to get past her own personal feelings and find out the truth.

The mystery itself is solved, and not by magic, but it’s not the central element of the novel. Still, the search for the truth adds to the already strong sense of tension and suspense that’s caused by the facts of life at Purity.

Desert Wives is a very difficult book to read given its subject matter. But the pace is brisk and the story is told from the viewpoint of a sympathetic protagonist. And it takes place against a starkly beautiful physical backdrop. But what’s your view? Have you read Desert Wives? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

Want to read some other thoughts about the novel? Please check out this excellent review from Bernadette at Reactions to Reading and this excellent review from Maxine at Petrona. Both are blogs that richly deserve to be on any crime fiction lover’s blog roll.

 

 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 3 December/Tuesday 4 December – March Violets – Philip Kerr

Monday 10 December/Tuesday 11 December – Maisie Dobbs – Jacqueline Winspear

Monday 17 December/Tuesday 18 December – Project Nirvana – Stefan Tegenfalk

So Often Times it Happens That We Live Our Lives in Chains*

One of the many patterns we see in crime fiction is the character who’s in a bad situation and doesn’t simply leave it. It’s very tempting to yell, ‘Well, then, just don’t go back to him!’ or ‘Well, then, just leave your job if you hate it so much!’ But as we know, it’s not that simple. And it can add to the richness of a crime novel if the author acknowledges how difficult it can be. It can also invite the reader to engage more with a character if the author shows the complexities of that character’s situation.

In Mickey Spillane’s The Big Kill, for instance, Spillane’s sleuth Mike Hammer is in a seedy bar one day when William Decker and his toddler son come in. Decker quickly buys and downs two drinks. Then he says goodbye to his son and leaves the bar. Just as he’s leaving, he’s struck by a hit-and-run driver whose passenger then fires several gunshots just to be sure, or so it seems, that the job is done. Hammer runs outside but not quickly enough to catch those responsible for Decker’s murder. He takes in Decker’s son and resolves to find out who killed Decker. He discovers that Decker was a safecracker who’d been working with a local gang. He’d ‘gone straight’ for the sake of his son but then, at his wits’ end for money, returned to his old profession. At first it looks as though Decker was killed because he bungled a job he was doing for the gang. But as Hammer finds out, it’s not that simple. You might wonder why Decker would return to such a dangerous and illegal lifestyle, but in this case, having a son to take care of means that leaving that life is not the straightforward decision it seems to be.

M.C. Beaton’s Love, Lies and Liquor takes her sleuth PI Agatha Raisin to the run-down Paradise Hotel at the seedy seaside town of Snoth-on-Sea. Raisin’s ex-husband James Lacey has convinced her to take a holiday there and against her better judgement, she goes. Once there Raisin meets the very unpleasant Geraldine Jankers, her new husband, her son Wayne and his wife Chelsea, and a friend Cyril Hammond and his wife Dawn. One night Raisin gets into a quarrel with Geraldine Jankers. When Jankers is later found murdered, Raisin becomes a very plausible suspect. Partly in order to clear her name and partly because she’s intrigued, Raisin investigates the murder. One interesting suspect is Cyril Hammond. Through a course of events that occurs in the novel, he stands to inherit Jankers’ considerable wealth. As she looks into Hammond’s life, Raisin discovers a very ugly truth about him: he has been abusing his wife. Raisin confronts Dawn with what she knows and Dawn admits the truth. In fact, Raisin even convinces Dawn to leave her husband. But then, inexplicably to Raisin, Dawn goes back. On the surface of it, you could yell at Dawn for going back when she knows what awaits her (at least I wanted to). But Hammond is wealthy and ‘connected’ and Dawn has neither real marketable skills nor any real professional experience. She’s very much afraid of what will happen to her if she tries to make it alone so for her, the decision to leave and stay away is not as simple as it seems.

We see a kind of related situation in Martin Clark’s The Legal Limit. In that novel we meet Sadie Grace Hunt. She and her husband Curt live in rural Patrick County, Virginia, where they raise their sons Mason and Gates. Curt Hunt hasn’t had it easy financially, and he tends to drink too much. What’s worse, he abuses his sons physically and his wife more emotionally and verbally. Both Mason and Gates are deeply affected by the abuse they suffer and it later leads to tragedy when Gates Hunt murders a romantic rival during a heated quarrel. Mason is persuaded to help cover up what his brother has done. That decision comes back to haunt him when Gates is imprisoned on a drugs charge and begs his brother, now a prosecuting attorney, to help him get out of prison. Their conflict tears the family apart and raises several questions about family loyalty, among other things. Sadie Grace Hunt is fully aware of what her husband is like and she is appalled at her husband’s treatment of his family. But she doesn’t leave. Part of the reason for that is financial; where would she go and how would she feed two sons? Part of the reason is her commitment to what she sees as her family obligations. While it’s easy to blame someone like Sadie Grace for not leaving, it’s a very complex situation, and Clark doesn’t reduce it to ‘black and white.’

Andrea Camilleri doesn’t reduce complex situations to ‘black and white’ either. For instance, in The Wings of the Sphinx, Inspector Salvo Montalbano investigates the murder of an unknown girl with a distinctive tattoo. Her body is discovered near a local landfill and at first, no-one claims to know her. But later she is identified as a foreigner who came to Italy with a group of other young woman under the premise that the group sponsoring them would find jobs and security for them. Things haven’t turned out that way though and without giving spoilers, I can say that the women have gotten themselves into a very difficult and dangerous situation. So why didn’t any of them leave the area?  Why did they stay? They’re not portrayed as stupid; in fact, quite the contrary. But leaving that kind of situation is complicated. Without plenty of money, they can’t return home or even go to another part of the country. Without connections it’s hard to get legal work. So although you might argue that the women should just leave, it’s more complex than that and it’s to Camilleri’s credit that the story acknowledges that fact.

That’s also true in Betty Webb’s Desert Wives. Esther Corbett has left a Utah polygamous group called Purity. She hires private investigator Lena Jones to go to Purity and rescue her daughter Rebecca from the group and Jones and her partner Jimmy Sisiwan successfully find Rebecca and return her to her mother. But in the meantime, Purity’s leader Solomon Royal has been shot and there’s some very strong circumstantial evidence against Esther. When Esther is arrested for the murder, she begs Jones to find out who Royal’s killer is so that Rebecca won’t be forcibly returned to her father Abel, who is still a loyal member of Purity. Jones agrees and goes undercover at Purity to find out who murdered its leader. While she’s there Jones discovers some appalling truths about Purity including domestic violence, forced marriage and child abuse. Jones finds it very hard to believe at first that the women of Purity would simply stay there and tolerate what’s been happening. But the more she learns about their situation, the better she understands why they can’t just leave. First, Purity is an isolated compound, so leaving is physically very difficult. Then too, Purity’s women have very little money and no independent means of transportation. Most have little if any education. Further, local and regional authorities do little or nothing about the abuses at Purity although they are aware of them. And finally, many of Purity’s members have been raised to believe that that’s ‘the way things should be.’ One very clear message in this book is that changing the situation at Purity is not as easy as one would wish.

That’s the message in Angela Savage’s Behind the Night Bazaar too. Australian ex-pat Jayne Keeney lives and works in Bangkok, but occasionally goes north to Chiang Mai to visit her friend Didier ‘Didi’ de Montpasse. One night during one of Keeney’s visits, de Montpasse’s partner Nou is murdered. The police begin to investigate and almost before Keeney knows it, de Montpasse has been shot. The official explanation for that killing is that de Montpasse murdered his partner and threatened the police when they came to arrest him. But Keeney is certain that’s not true. So in order to clear her friend’s name, she begins to investigate. What she finds is that those two deaths are connected to corruption, child abuse and sex trafficking. One of the debates raised in this novel has to do with how we stop the practice of child trafficking, and one question is, why do parents from rural villages continue to allow their children to be sold into the sex trade? Why don’t they simply stop doing it? But as Savage points out, the question is much more complicated than that and entails more far-reaching issues than it seems on the surface.

And that’s the thing about people who seem locked in bad situations. Very often (‘though certainly not all the time), simply leaving those situations is not as easy as it seems on the surface. And exploring those complex issues can make for a realistic and rich crime novel.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Eagles’ Already Gone.