It’s a Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World*

Author and fellow blogger Rob Kitchin’s new standalone Stiffed has just been released and I couldn’t be happier about that. Kitchin’s very talented. I’ll get back to Stiffed in a moment, but for now, let me if I may start with the kind of novel it is. Kitchin describes it as ‘screwball noir,’ and that got me to thinking about that sort of novel. Some novels do combine screwball, sometimes even downright implausible plot points with wit to take a very different approach to a crime story. That sort of story may not be everyone’s first choice, but for people who enjoy black humour and screwball situations in their crime novels, a screwball crime novel, whether or not it’s noir, can be a refreshing treat.

Rather than launch into a description of what ‘screwball crime fiction’ is and isn’t, let me offer you a few examples of what I think of when I think of that sub-genre. I’ll start with Kitchin’s new release Stiffed. Tadhg Maguire has just started sleeping off a night of too much beer when he’s jolted awake by a shriek from his girlfriend Kate. He wakes up only to find that there’s a dead man in his bed. What’s worse, Maguire knows who the man is; he is Tony Marino, ‘right hand man’ to powerful gangster Aldo Pirelli. Maguire knows that if he calls the police, Pirelli will assume he killed Marino and that will considerably shorten Maguire’s lifespan. That’s to say nothing of his chances of being arrested for murder. So instead, he calls his friend Jason Choi and asks him to help get rid of Marino’s body. But getting rid of Marino’s body is just the beginning of their troubles. First, two unwanted ‘visitors’ charge into Maguire’s home, obviously looking for someone or something. When one kills the other, Maguire and Choi are left with not one, but two bodies to hide. That’s when they bring in some other friends to help. Along with the bodies and the fact that a couple of Maguire’s friends get kidnapped, there’s the matter of the million dollars that some very nasty people think Maguire has. And there’s the matter of evading Pirelli – if it’s possible. And all of this without Maguire knowing (at least at first) why this has all happened in his home. The story is noir in the sense that there are some ugly situations – murder, kidnapping, and more – and there is some ugly violence (although given the context, it’s not gratuitous). And there are certainly people in the novel who seem trustworthy…and aren’t. But there is a great deal of dark wit, too. For instance, here’s Maguire’s reaction to the scene in his bedroom after it’s been gone through by the late-night ‘visitors’:

 

‘Whoever went through the place enjoyed throwing things around and ripping stuff up. The outline of a dead body made with shaving foam, sketched in the middle of my bedroom floor with my bed used to be, is a particularly fetching touch.’

 

The humour in this novel comes partly from that wit and partly from the way that ordinarily-impossible situations keep piling up.

Tom Sharpe has also written some very well-regarded screwball crime novels. For example, Wilt is the story of Henry Wilt, an Assistant Lecturer at the Fenland College of Arts and Technology. Overworked, underpaid and unappreciated, he is married to the overbearing, overenthusiastic and insecure Eva. His marriage has gotten to the point where Wilt’s favourite mental occupation is imagining ways in which he could kill her. Then one day, Eva runs off with Gaskell and Sally Pringsheim, Americans who are taking a sabbatical leave in the UK. In a drunken burst of ‘creativity’ Wilt decides this is the perfect opportunity to rehearse murdering her. So he makes use of a blow-up doll and a wig, and puts the doll down a 30-foot hole at a nearby building site.  The only problem is, he is witnessed by someone who thinks the victim is real. That’s when Inspector Flint takes charge of an investigation into Henry Wilt. The more Wilt tries to get out of the increasingly bizarre trouble he’s in, the worse things get for him. And the more Inspector Flint tries to get at the truth, the stranger and more frustrating things get for him, too. This is as much a comedy of errors as it is anything else, and the wit from it comes from that and from the sparring dialogue.

Some of Linwood Barclay’s novels might well be considered screwball. Bad Move for instance tells the story of science fiction author Zack Walker and his journalist wife Sarah, who move with their children from their home in the city to the ‘safe’ suburb of Valley Forest Estates. Walker thinks that life in the suburbs will be perfect: time for him to write, a safe school for his children and a nice place to live. Things start going wrong when he happens to witness an argument between a sales executive from the Valley Forest real estate office and Samuel Spender, a local environmental activist. When Walker later finds Spender’s body in a creek, he knows there’s going to be trouble, especially when he becomes a sort-of suspect. Then, he finds a handbag left behind at a supermarket. Thinking it’s his wife’s, Walker takes the handbag only to find that it’s not Sarah’s. It belongs to the sales office secretary and it’s very full of money. Walker tries to return it without letting Sarah know, only to discover another body. Before he knows it, Walker is up against a crime ring, a murderer who’s hiding out in the suburb, and a snake.

Carl Hiaasen’s novels have also been called screwball and I can’t disagree. For instance, in Lucky You, JoLayne Lucks buys a lottery ticket that turns out to be worth US$14 million. Her plan is to use the money to buy some Florida land and turn it into a preserve. Her plans are scuttled when her ticket is stolen by a group of neo-Nazis who want to use the money to field a militia. In the meantime, features writer Tom Krone of The Register has been assigned to do a story on JoLayne’s ticket and her plans for her winnings. All he wants is his story, but he’s soon drawn into a plot to get the ticket back from the thieves. As if that’s not enough, there’s a group of ruthless land developers who are determined to make sure that land stays available. Before he knows it Krone has gotten himself into one impossible situation after another..

In Donna Moore’s Go to Helena Handbasket, we meet PI Helena Handbasket. She is hired by Owen Banks to find out his brother Robin. Owen believes Robin might have been killed by his former boss, crime boss Evan Stubezzi. It seems that Stubezzi and his gang had pulled off a jewel robbery only to discover that the jewels had disappeared, and so had Robin. Helena isn’t exactly eager to take on the ‘untouchable’ Stubezzi, but it’s a starting place and she needs the fee. Shortly after she begins her search, a handless dead body is discovered in a nearby wood. Might it be Robin’s? Helena doesn’t think it is, so she keeps on pursuing different leads and getting herself deeper into trouble as she goes. The wit in this novel comes partly from the situations Helena gets herself into, and partly from her crazy attempts to straighten up her personal life as she works on the case.

And then there’s also of course Declan Burke, whose screwball novels have gained him quite a lot of fans. In The Big O for instance we are introduced to Karen King, a receptionist who is also an armed robber. She’s been doing fairly well living those two lives but a person can’t go on forever in the stickup business. Then she learns that her ex Rossi Callaghan has been released from prison. Callaghan is after Karen because she still has some of his prized possessions, and he is not going to be kind once he finds her. So she’ll need to pull off a major job to get the money to escape him. She enlists the help of the new man in her life Ray, who happens to be pretty good at kidnapping. In fact, Karen’s boss Frank decides to hire Ray to kidnap his almost-ex Madge, who is also Karen’s best friend. As Ray, Frank, and Frank’s lawyer (whose idea the kidnapping was in the first place) put the final touches on their plan, Rossi gets closer and closer to ruining everything. Needless to say, what starts out to be a simple (if there is such a thing) kidnap plan turns out to be anything but…

Screwball novels do tend to make use of the absurd – even the impossible. So there has to be a willingness to suspend disbelief. And to be honest, they’re not always for everyone. But they can be hilarious and they allow the author the chance to play around with crime fiction plot points. They can allow the reader some real fun, too.

Do you agree? Do you enjoy the screwball novel? Which have you liked in particular?

 

Congratulations, Rob!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Kinks’ Lola.

If We Weren’t All Crazy We Would go Insane*

Sometimes life gets cold and sad. We see a lot of that in crime fiction because of course it so often deals with murder and loss and the sadness that goes with them. So every once in a while it’s good to lighten things up and refresh ourselves. One way authors of crime fiction do that is by including zany characters in their novels. Of course that’s a little risky. Too much zaniness and the character won’t be believable. But a little craziness now and again adds a refreshing dose of humour to a story and can add individuality to a character if it’s done well.

In Agatha Christie’s The Clocks for instance, special agent Colin Lamb goes to the town of Crowdean in search of a clue that may lead him to a major espionage ring. He’s passing by one of the houses in the development where he thinks the clue may lie when a young woman rushes out the front door screaming that there’s a dead man inside. Lamb does his best to help the young woman calm down. Then he goes into the house. He finds that she’s absolutely right; there’s an unidentified dead man in the living room. The owner of the house Millicent Pebmarsh claims not to know the man and the only identification he has with him is a fake business card. So Lamb and DI Richard Hardcastle begin door-to-door interviews with the families in the development. One of the first people they visit is Mrs. Hemming, who lives next door to Miss Pebmarsh and so could have seen what happened. Mrs. Hemming though was far too preoccupied with her seventeen cats to notice anything. She’s extremely eccentric, absent-minded and oblivious to just about anything not related to her cats. She does give Lamb and Hardcastle a clue though, and Poirot helps them use that clue.

Ngaio Marsh’s A Surfeit of Lampreys (AKA Death of a Peer) introduces us to a number of zany characters. In that novel, the Lamprey family makes a visit to New Zealand, where they meet Roberta Grey, who can’t help but be charmed by them. And the fact that they’re eccentric only adds to that appeal. Then, Roberta’s own parents die and she moves to London to live with an aunt. That’s when she meets the Lampreys again. Delighted to see her, the family virtually adopts her. Then tragedy strikes. The Lampreys are not good financial planners and are constantly on the brink of financial ruin. When Lord Charles Lamprey asks his wealthy brother Gabriel ‘Uncle G’ for financial help, the unpleasant Uncle G refuses. Shortly afterwards he’s murdered. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn investigates the murder and all of the Lampreys come under suspicion. Roberta doesn’t want any of them to be arrested and she does her best to see that that doesn’t happen. And that’s the thing about the way Marsh paints these characters. We don’t want them to be guilty either. They’re goofy and eccentric and that’s part of what makes them so sympathetic.

Carl Hiaasen has created a number of zany characters, and that’s part of what makes his work so appealing (well, at least to me). In Skinny Dip for instance, we are introduced to Charles ‘Chaz’ Perrone, a marine biologist in name only who’s always looking for a new angle as the saying goes. He gets a job working for agribusiness executive Samual Johnson ‘Red’ Hammernut, who needs Perrone to prove that his business is not a threat to the local Everglades environment. Perrone has developed a way to do just that by falsifying water samples, so the two enter into a business arrangement. Then Perrone’s wife Joey begins to suspect what her husband’s doing and threatens to reveal it. So on the pretense of taking her on a cruise to celebrate their anniversary, he pushes her overboard. The only problem is, Joey is a champion-level swimmer and survives. Then she decides to find out why her husband tried to kill her and take revenge in her own way. In the course of this novel we meet Medea, Chaz’ Perrone’s sometimes girlfriend. She’s a ‘new age’ reflexologist with some unusual beliefs and an eccentric way of dressing. And then there’s Broward County, Florida detective Karl Rolvaag, who investigates Joey’s disappearance and suspects her husband almost from the first. Rolvaag keeps pet pythons, much to the dismay of those who share his apartment building. There are other goofy characters too but what makes them most effective is that they have enough depth and personality to be realistic.

And then there’s Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig’s) Cherry Hayes.  She works as a volunteer docent at Elvis Presley’s Memphis home Graceland, and is of course a Presley fanatic. In fact, she has a crash helmet with a picture of Presley on it. And part of what makes her zany is that she firmly believes that danger can come from anywhere and that it’s best to be prepared, so she wears her helmet everywhere. She wears somewhat flamboyant clothes and she’s outspoken. Her quirks and zaniness make her very appealing. But they don’t take away from her depth as a character. In Hickory Smoked Homicide for instance, Cherry’s good friend Lulu Taylor gets involved in a case of murder when Lulu’s daughter-in-law Sara is suspected of murdering local beauty pageant coach Tristan Pembroke. Lulu is sure that Sara is innocent and begins to investigate the murder. Cherry, for all of her goofiness, is smart and observant as well as a loyal friend. So she helps in the investigation and in the end, she shows up just at the right moment to help Lulu at a critical moment.

Andrea Camilleri’s Sergeant Catarella is also goofy. He’s sometimes hilariously incompetent, especially when it comes to pronouncing people’s names. And he is so determined to do his job well, and so anxious to ‘get it right’ that he gets a lot of things wrong. Because of his eccentricities he drives his boss Inspector Salvo Montalbano to distraction. Montalbano especially hates it when Catarella disturbs him early in the morning – which always seems to happen. And yet, he’s not completely a mindlessly comical character. Catarella does his job, passes along messages, and so on. And one can’t help liking him for trying so very hard. As an aside, in my opinion (so please feel free to differ with me if you do), Angelo Russo is brilliantly cast as Catarella in the Montalbano television series. I recommend the series, folks.

Of course, sometimes the main sleuth is a little zany too. Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole is. He has a Mickey Mouse clock on the wall of his office and likes to wear Hawai’ian shirts. Even to formal meetings with clients. He is a sort of geeky character too. But that’s a big part of his appeal. He’s so goofy it’s cool. And Crais lets readers see beneath the surface of Cole’s character, so that we know he’s more than just a goofball who wears Disney-themed sweatshirts. He’s smart, resourceful and interesting. And zany.

So go ahead. Wear a silly paper hat. Burst into song in public. Why not? A little zaniness can do a lot to clear away some of life’s sadness.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jimmy Buffett’s Changes in Latitudes.

We Could Win the Lottery*

Today, Mason Canyon at Thoughts in Progress discusses what it would be like to win the lottery. And that post has got me thinking about lotteries, sweepstakes and what happens when people’s lives are changed by sudden wins. A quick look at crime fiction shows that winning the lottery doesn’t always turn out to be the dream a lot of people think it is.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air), London hairdresser’s assistant Jane Grey takes a chance on the Irish Sweepstakes and comes out a winner. She decides to spend a week at Le Pinet like her wealthy clients do. On her way back to London, Jane gets drawn into a case of murder when one of her fellow airline passengers Marie Morisot is killed by what turns out to be a poisoned dart. Hercule Poirot is on board the same flight and in fact, the coroner’s jury suspects that he is guilty because the supposed murder weapon is found behind his seat. Poirot and Chief Inspector James “Jimmy” Japp investigate the murder and discover that more than one passenger on the plane could have had a good motive for killing the victim. Marie Morisot was a well-known moneylender who used damaging information about her clients as collateral for loans. In the end, and with help from Jane, Poirot discovers who the killer is. Certainly winning the lottery doesn’t turn out to be the fun adventure that Jane Grey thought it would be.

Becoming a lottery winner isn’t exactly ‘Easy Street’ for JoLayne Lucks either, as we learn in Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You.  JoLayne buys a lottery ticket that turns out to be one of two winners, each worth US$14 million. When she learns that she’s won, she decides to use her money to buy a piece of Florida land and turn it into a preserve. Her goal is to keep that land out of the hands of some ruthless developers who have their eyes on it. But then her ticket is stolen by a group of neo-Nazis who want to use the money to finance a militia. Features writer Tom Krone of The Register has been assigned to do an in-depth story on JoLayne Lucks, so when her ticket is stolen, he gets drawn into her plot to get the ticket back from the thieves. Krone just wants to write a prize-winning story but instead he and his subject get caught up in a religious scam, a battle with land developers and their thugs and of course, the people who stole the ticket in the first place.

In Ruth Rendell’s The Lake of Darkness we meet Martin Urban, a quiet, conventional and conservative bachelor. He takes a chance in a football pool and surprisingly, ends up being a winner. He decides to give half his money away to worthy causes and that’s when things start turning disastrous. For one thing, he gets involved with Francesca Brown, who seems on the surface to be a shy, quiet, unhappily-married woman with a young daughter. Urban finds her irresistible but what he doesn’t know at first is that she isn’t at all what she seems. It turns out that Francesca is keeping some very ugly secrets. Then, when Urban decides to give some of his winnings to his mother’s cleaning lady Mrs. Finn, he has no idea of what the consequences will be. But then, he doesn’t know what Mrs. Finn’s son is really like…  In the end, it’s not really cliché to say that the football pool win draws Urban into a nightmare.

And then there’s Mary Higgins Clark’s Alvirah Meehan, a former cleaning lady who’s just struck it rich in a forty million dollar lottery win in Weep No More, My Lady. She decides to spoil herself with a trip to Carmel, California’s Cypress Point Spa. But what she doesn’t know at first is that her lottery win will mix her up into the case of a celebrity murder. A year earlier, famous actress Leila LaSalle was killed, allegedly by her lover Ted Winters. Leila’s sister Elizabeth Lange is trying to recover from the tragedy and has come to the spa at the invitation of the owner Minna ‘Min’ Von Schreiber, who was a friend of Leila’s. Also at the glamourous spa is Ted Winters. Elizabeth isn’t convinced that Ted is guilty and begins to ask questions. The more she investigates, the more danger there is for her. In the meantime, Alvirah Meehan has arranged with Charley Evans from the New York Globe to write a feature article (with his guidance) about being a lottery winner. Meehan falls easily into the role of a writer, but her interest in writing and in the celebrities at the spa get her into danger too when she begins to get close to the truth about what happened to Leila LaSalle.

Håkan Nesser’s The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case) tells the story of a group of lottery winners who aren’t exactly as lucky as you’d think. Waldemar Leverhuhn and a few of his friends go in together on a lottery ticket that turns out to be a winner. The group decides to go out and celebrate the win, and that night, a rather drunk Leverkuhn makes his way home. When his wife Marie-Louise arrives home from a trip to visit a friend, she finds her husband brutally murdered and calls in the police. Intendant Münster and his team investigate, beginning with the members of Leverkuhn’s family. They soon run into a proverbial brick wall because Leverkuhn’s wife was away that night and his grown children don’t live in the area. Besides, there seems no real motive for killing him. Then the team learns about the winning ticket and begins to investigate the group of friends with whom Leverkuhn bought the ticket. That’s when they discover that one of those friends has gone missing. As the investigating team sifts through the evidence and learns about Leverkuhn, they find that his life was more complicated than it seemed on the surface. You could say that in this case, past deeds are directly related to Leverkuhn’s murder.

Perhaps the most chilling story of a lottery (at least the most chilling I’ve ever read) is Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story The Lottery. That’s the story of a small village and an unusual annual lottery. Every year, the residents of the village gather together, and each family draws a ticket from the same box – a box that’s been used for this purpose since anyone can remember. As the story goes on, we find out the real truth behind the lottery and we follow what happens when one particular family draws this year’s winning ticket…  Want to read it or re-read it yourself? Here it is.

So go ahead. Be my guest. Buy a lottery ticket. You may end up being the lucky winner who takes it all. Just don’t blame me for what happens afterwards…

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Harry Nilsson’s The Lottery Song.

 

When I Was Down, You Just Stood There Grinning*

For some reason (not being a psychologist I don’t have an educated answer as to why), some people get satisfaction from others’ discomfort. This phenomenon – often called Schadenfreude – is part of why practical jokes are popular. It’s also part of why certain kinds of films and television series are popular too. Schadenfreude seems to be especially common when the person feeling the discomfort is someone we don’t like or someone we feel needs to come down a notch, as the saying goes. But even if that’s not the case it’s interesting to see how many people get a laugh out of others’ literally or figuratively slipping on a banana peel. And of course, since good crime fiction reflects life, we see Schadenfreude there too.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings investigate the stabbing murder of Paul Renauld, a Canadian who’d emigrated to France. Also involved in the investigation is Monsieur Giraud of the Sûreté. He’s rude, arrogant and condescending and won’t listen to any of Poirot’s ideas about the case. Because of his unwillingness to consider any point of view but his own Giraud ends up arresting the wrong person. Poirot of course is not one to take such treatment kindly so in a moment of anger he bets Giraud 500 francs that he can solve the case before Giraud does. Even though Poirot doesn’t normally take any satisfaction in others’ misfortune he is very happy at Giraud’s discomfort at losing the bet.

In M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Cad, wealthy landowner Colonel Halburton-Smythe and his wife Mary invite several house guests for a gathering in honour of up-and-coming playwright Henry Withering. Withering has been seeing the Halburton-Smythes’ daughter Priscilla and there’s talk of an engagement, so this is also a “meet the family” gathering. One morning houseguest Captain Peter Bartlett is found dead in what looks like a terrible shooting accident. Local constable Hamish Macbeth wants to look into the matter but Halburton-Smythe dislikes Macbeth intensely because of Macbeth’s friendship with Priscilla. He thinks Priscilla is far too good for the likes of the village bobby. So when DCI Blair and his team arrive, Halburton-Smythe is eager to defer to Blair’s judgement. Blair dislikes Macbeth too and he isn’t eager to annoy powerful landowners like Halburton-Smythe. So he quickly calls Bartlett’s death an accident. Blair is both pompous and rude, especially to Macbeth, so when Macbeth finds irrefutable evidence that Bartlett was murdered he takes great pleasure in Blair’s discomfort at being proven wrong publicly.

In Donna Leon’s Through a Glass, Darkly, Commissario Guido Brunetti and Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello investigate the death of Giorgio Tassini, night watchman at a glass-blowing factory. Tassini had been vocal in his concerns about toxic dumping by the glass blowing industry, so it’s not long before Brunetti suspects that Tassini’s death was not an accident. Brunetti’s supervisor Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta has the well-deserved reputation of being a toady to the wealthy and powerful so when Brunetti starts asking too many questions about the factory owners Patta tries to stall the investigation mostly by claiming that Brunetti doesn’t have the clear evidence he needs to catch the guilty person. Brunetti finds the concrete proof he needs and is only too happy to make Patta uncomfortable about it. Here’s what Brunetti says about telling Patta about the evidence:
 

“‘…as a matter of fact,’ Brunetti said with the beginnings of a smile, ‘I think I’m going to ruin the Vice-Questore’s lunch.’”
 

Fans of this series will appreciate Brunetti’s pleasure in making his boss squirm.

In Camilla Läckberg’s The Ice Princess, writer Erica Falck has returned to her family home in Fjällbacka after her parents’ death. She’s not there long when she is drawn into the murder of a former friend Alexandra “Alex” Wijkner. In the meantime Falck has other worries. Her sister Anna’s abusive and controlling husband Lucas Maxwell wants to sell the family home. Falck doesn’t want to do so and she knows Anna will go along with Lucas because of his domineering nature and his willingness to abuse Anna. Falck despises Maxwell and wants nothing more than for Anna to leave him. Since Lucas won’t give up his demand that the house be sold, Falck thinks of her own way to take Maxwell down a notch. One day Maxwell comes to the house with a house agent. Here is what Falck says to the house agent:
 

“Yes, unfortunately the windows are not properly sealed, so when the least wind blows you have to make sure you’re wearing your warmest woolen socks. But it’s nothing that replacing all the windows couldn’t fix.”
 

Needless to say, Maxwell is humiliated and angered and the house sale doesn’t go through.

I have to say that one of my favourite examples of Schadenfreude is in Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip. In that novel, marine biologist Chaz Perrone discovers a way to alter water samples so that it appears they’re “clean” even if the water is polluted. That suits Perrone’s employer Samuel Johnson “Red” Hammernut’s book quite well. Hammernut’s commercial farm is a flagrant polluter and he wants to keep doing “business as usual.” Then Perrone’s wife Joey begins to suspect that something’s not right about what Perrone is doing. Afraid she might tell the wrong people, Perrone throws his wife overboard during a cruise of the Everglades. The only problem with Perrone’s plan is that Joey doesn’t drown. She’s rescued by former cop Mick Stranahan. Together they hatch a plot to make Perrone think someone saw him throw his wife overboard and is blackmailing him. You can well imagine Joey’s satisfaction as Perrone gets more and more nervous and unstable and therefore of greater concern both to Hammernut and to the police.

And then there’s Lindy Cameron’s Redback, in which Dr. Jana Rossi and several other delegates are attending a conference on the Pacific island of Laui. When they are taken hostage by a group of local rebels, Rossi is trapped with journalist Alan Wagner, a condescending, sexist and self-important thorn in Rossi’s side. In fact, one of the few things that keep her from succumbing to fear when the group is taken hostage is the hope that one of them will hurt Wagner – or worse. The delegates are rescued by Redback, a secret team of crack Australian retrieval specialists led by Bryn Gideon. When the team discovers that the hostage-taking is part of a larger terrorist plan, the members of the team prepare to go up against this new enemy. Later in the novel, Rossi spots Wagner following up on the story and tries to warn Gideon that he may reveal the team’s existence. Gideon’s already aware of what’s going on and she and her team deal with the “associates” Wagner is cultivating. It’s no small satisfaction to have Alan Wagner unceremoniously stripped of his big story and whisked away with his tail between his legs, so to speak.

Schadenfreude may not be the most appealing of human traits but it’s certainly a real one. Little wonder we see it in crime fiction…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Dylan’s Positively 4th Street.

I’d Do Anything For You, Dear*

Everyone needs a certain amount of ability to get on with others. In fact research suggests that not being able to function as part of a group is the most important reason for which people are fired, not hired or not promoted. And I’m sure that any crime fiction fan can tell you that the genre is full of characters (quite often sleuths) who run into trouble because they don’t get on well with other people. At the same time though there’s something to be said for thinking for oneself and not going along with what others say and do in the hope it’ll be the politically savvy choice. If you’ve ever had a sycophantic colleague at work> you know exactly what I mean. Sycophants can be very dangerous because they’ll say and do anything if it’ll get them some kind of advantage. And even those who aren’t per se dangerous can be awfully annoying. Of course that can also make these characters interesting sources of tension in a novel or series…

For instance in Louise Penny’s series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec we meet Agent Yvette Nichol. In Still Life she is new to the agency and wants more than anything else to establish herself and “belong.” She is excited to be assigned to work with Gamache because of his outstanding reputation and at first she toadies to Gamache. But Nichol is arrogant and unwilling to really learn. So she has more than one run-in with her boss. Nichol’s tendency to do whatever it takes to get ahead becomes a problem for Gamache in more ways than one as the series continues.

Carl Hiassen’s Skinny Dip features sycophant Chaz Perrone. He’s got a degree that he hasn’t really earned in marine biology and is soon hired by Florida agribusiness magnate Samuel Johnson “Red” Hammernut. Perrone’s role is to give credibility to Hammernut’s claims that his commercial farm does not cause pollution in the protected Everglades. Perrone discovers a way to alter water samples so they look innocent and he’s content to flout the law that way because it helps him stay in Hammernut’s good graces. And it earns him a generous income. Then Perrone’s wife Joey deduces that something is going on and confronts him. He tells her what she wants to hear (as I “said,” he’s a sycophant) but now he’s afraid she’ll ruin his comfortable setup. So he takes her on a cruise, ostensibly to celebrate their anniversary, and pushes her overboard. Perrone thinks he’s solved his problem but Joey doesn’t drown. Instead she is rescued by former cop Mick Stranahan and together the two of them hatch a scheme to get back at Perrone and find out why he tried to kill her.

In H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote’s First Case we get a look at how Ganesh Ghote began his career with the Bombay police. Ghote has just been promoted to the rank of Inspector when he’s sent by his superior to the mountain town of Mahableshwar where Englishman Robert Dawkins’ wife Iris recently committed suicide. Dawkins wants to know what would have driven his wife to such a drastic act and Ghote is assigned the task of finding out. One of his first stops is the Mahableshwar police station where he discovers to his dismay that the local cop in charge is Pathan Barrani, his old nemesis from the Nasik Police Training School. Barrani is a sycophant and a bully and he has absolutely no desire to have Ghote on his patch. But he tells Ghote that he already investigated the case and it was a definite suicide. Ghote soon finds though that this explanation doesn’t quite fit. There are too many little details that aren’t consistent with a verdict of suicide. So Ghote keeps digging and asking questions. In the end, and in spite of Barrani’s sycophantic insistence that the “official” explanation is correct, he finds out the truth about Iris Dawkins’ death.

Martin Edwards’ sleuth DCI Hannah Scarlett knows all too well what it’s like to have to deal with a sycophant. Her boss ACC Lauren Self is politically savvy enough to know whom to kiss up to as the saying goes and she does so shamelessly. Her rationalisation is that she wants financial and other support for the Cumbria Constabulary, so she has to “make nice” with the “higher-ups” and with wealthy supporters. But from Scarlett’s perspective (and she’s not the only one with this opinion) Lauren Self has a very appropriate surname…

And then there’s local reporter Meredith Morgenstern, whom we meet in Vicki Delany’s In the Shadow of the Glacier. Morgenstern lives and works in the small British Columbia town of Trafalgar but she’s eager for the big break that will give her national attention. She gets what she thinks is her chance when wealthy local developer Reginald Montgomery is murdered. Montgomery co-owned Grizzly Resort, which is planned as an upmarket tourist attraction. Some locals support the plan because it will bring in needed revenue. Others violently oppose it on environmental grounds. So Montgomery’s death is big news for several reasons. In fact it’s so big that L.A. television journalist Rich Ashcroft is sent to Trafalgar to cover the story. He has nothing but contempt for the locals, including Morgenstern, but she is so eager to impress Ashcroft and “make” her career that she essentially does whatever he wants. Her behaviour ends up putting the investigation in jeopardy and she betrays her former friend Constable Moonlight “Molly” Smith in the process.

And of course no discussion of crime-fictional sycophants would be complete without mentioning Donna Leon’s Vice Questore Giuseppe Patta. He is exclusively self-motivated and will say and do anything to further his career. He toadies not just to his superiors but to anyone who’s wealthy and powerful. He frequently opposes the kind of thorough investigation that Leon’s sleuth Commissario Guido Brunetti wants to conduct, particularly if the object of Brunetti’s investigation is anyone with enough clout to cause trouble. Patta is not completely inept or stupid but he is so self-serving that Brunetti knows that the only way to get Patta to approve anything is to show him how it will benefit him. Of course fans of Leon’s series know that that’s exactly how Brunetti and Patta’s assistant Elettra Zorzi manipulate Patta.

Sycophants can be annoying and even dangerous so the wise person knows who they are and knows them for what they are. But they do make for interesting characters and conflict in crime fiction.
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Lional Bart’s I’d Do Anything.