We Know Where We’re Going, We Know Where We’re From*

Among other things, crime fiction allows us to experience other cultures, or to look at our own through different eyes. And one way authors do that is through creating expatriate (ex-pat) characters. When someone from one culture lives and works in another, there’s a fascinating ‘meeting of minds’ if you want to call it that, and that can add a very interesting perspective to a novel. Well-drawn ex-pat characters don’t necessarily give up their own culture or language, but they do learn the ways of the new culture and that adds to their perspective and to the reader’s.

For instance, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is an ex-pat Belgian. One could argue that because he left Belgium as a refugee he is, strictly speaking, not an ex-pat as he didn’t leave his country voluntarily. But I include him here because he provides an interesting look at what it’s like to be from one country but live and work in another. In many ways he is quite distinct from the English people among whom he lives. Besides the language difference (he’s had to learn English and sometimes needs to learn a new idiom or two), there are also cultural differences. Just as an example, although Poriot is familiar with the custom of tea, he’s never really made it his own habit. There are other English customs too, such as shaking hands rather than embracing, that he’s had to get used to and he’s never really lost his own Belgian way of life. In a way, you could argue that Poirot allowed Christie to hold up a mirror to her own culture.

In Walter Mosley’s A Red Death, we meet ex-pat Chaim Wenzler, a former member of the Polish Resistance who’s since moved to the United States. Wenzler has become the object of FBI interest because he is believed to be a communist. At the time this novel takes place (the early 1950’s), being a communist in the United States is a very serious matter so if the allegations about Wenzler are true, then FBI Agent Darryl Craxton wants to bring him down. Craxton gets the opportunity to get close to Wenzler through then-amateur private investigator Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins. Rawlins is in deep tax trouble, so Craxton offers him a deal: if he agrees to get close to Wenzler, Craxton will make his tax problems go away. Rawlins agrees and starts volunteering at the First African Baptist Church, where Wenzler too has been volunteering. The two men get to know each other and before long Rawlins finds himself liking Wenzler and increasingly reluctant to give him up to the FBI. Then there’s a series of murders for which Rawlins is framed and it looks as though someone has begun to target him. Now he has to clear his name by solving the murders and walk a very thin line between giving enough information about Wenzler to the FBI without giving too much away.

Alexander McCall Smith introduces us to American ex-pat Andrea Curtin in Tears of the Giraffe. Curtin and her husband lived in Botswana for a few years as a part of her husband’s job. Their son Michael fell in love with Botswana while the family was there and decided to remain when his parents returned to the United States. He joined an eco-commune and all seemed well enough until he disappeared. The official explanation for his disappearance is an attack by wild animals. But his mother Andrea has never quite believed that and wants closure. She’s moved back to Botswana where she’s decided to remain. She hires Mma. Precious Ramotswe to help her find out the truth about her son’s disappearance so she can move on with her life. Mma. Ramotswe takes the case and goes to the eco-commune where the young man lived. Bit by bit she finds out what
happened to him and is able to give his mother the answers she needs.

Dicey Deere created a four-novel series featuring American ex-pat Torrey Tunet, who now lives in Ballynagh Ireland when she’s not ‘on the road’ as part of her job. Tunet is a language specialist and interpreter who often travels, but she always returns to her ‘base’ in Ballynagh. Through her
eyes we get to see the interesting, sometimes quirky local characters and the unique customs and culture of the area. Tunet has respect for the local ways, too; it’s obvious that Deere doesn’t fall into the trap of the ‘fish-out-of-water who annoys everyone’ kind of character.

P.D. Martin’s Sophie Anderson is an ex-pat Australian who now lives and works in the U.S. as an FBI agent. She started her career with the Victoria police force but fell in love with the idea of being an FBI profiler after she took a course offered by the agency. She makes an excellent profiler too; not only does she have the training and skills, but she also has an added ‘plus.’ Anderson has psychic dreams – visions, if you want to call them that – that allow her to ‘get into the heads’ of the killers she pursues. Although she isn’t always comfortable with that ability, she does learn to channel it and make use of it as she investigates.

Vicki Delany’s Constable Moonlight ‘Molly” Smith is purely Canadian. But her parents aren’t. Lucy ‘Lucky’ and Andy Smith are former hippies and ex-pat Americans who moved to Canada when Andy was drafted for service in the Vietnam War. Andy had real doubts about leaving the U.S. at the time they moved but Lucky strongly believed that the war was wrong, so they made the move. Since then they’ve settled there comfortably and now run an adventure tour company and store. Although neither is ashamed of having come from the U.S., they’ve more or less embraced the local way of doing things.

And then there’s Angela Savage’s Jayne Keeney. She’s an ex-pat Australian PI who now lives and works in Bangkok. Although in many ways she’s purely Aussie (if there is one way to be purely Aussie), but she has also learned quite a lot about the different culture, language and way of life in her new home. She speaks fluent Thai, understands and follows the local customs and has begun to appreciate the complexity of life there. In Behind the Night Bazaar and The Half-Child, Keeney’s ability to move between her own culture and her adopted culture proves to be very useful as she solves cases.

And that’s the interesting thing about ex-pat characters. We get to see, through their eyes, what a different culture is like. There’s also a terrific opportunity for a complex, ‘fleshed out’ character if she or he is from one culture but has had to get accustomed to living and working in a different one. I’ve only had space here to mention a few examples; which ones do you like?

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Marley’s Exodus.

Like a Worn-Out Recording of a Favorite Song*

All series – even truly great series – end. Sometimes they end with the author’s passing. Sometimes they end because the author has moved on to other projects. They can also end when there’s no longer enough interest (or sales of the series) to continue it.  When it comes to ending a series, there’s always a dilemma. If the series is well-regarded, continues to stay well-written and generates lots of sales, it’s quite hard to walk away. That’s especially true if the author’s got a lot of fans and has created a niche for her or himself. On the other hand, we all know of series that have gone on for too long. Such series become tired, pale imitations of their former selves. That’s not good for an author’s reputation, and it’s certainly not fair to readers, who at the very least deserve well-written, interesting novels. One effective way to resolve this dilemma is to plan the number of novels in a series from the beginning.

There are some real benefits to a planned series. One is that the author can develop characters, plots, stories-across-stories and so on so that the series remains interesting throughout. At the end, the author can move on to another series. This can make the prospect of writing a series much less daunting to an author. Readers know the series is limited, and this may make the series that much more appealing, especially for those who start the series later and don’t want to have to “play catch up” with twenty or more books.  And if readers become fans of the author through that series, they’re likely to at least give the author’s next series a try. There’s a sense of closure, too, to a series that’s purposefully limited. Quandaries are resolved, truths are discovered, and so on.

That said, though, planned series have their drawbacks. Suppose the series really becomes very popular, and readers want more, even knowing there will only be, say, four or five books in that series? This means that publishers risk losing the sales they’d have made if the series had continued. Authors risk losing fans and royalties. Limited series can restrict the author’s creativity, too. Even if it’s the author’s idea to write, say, only five or six books, if her or his ideas change, it’s hard to act on that creativity if one’s committed to a limited number of novels.

Even with those shortcomings, limited series can be an effective way to make and keep a series fresh and interesting, so readers will truly enjoy them. They can also free the author for other projects and free readers to enjoy other books by the same author (or other authors). One of the best-known limited series is Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s ten-novel Martin Beck series. Beck is a Stocholm homicide detective whom we first meet in Roseanna and whose last case is The Terrorists. Throughout the series, we see the evolution of the characters, the changes in their personal lives and other stories-across-stories. We also see the sociopolitical themes that Sjöwall and Wahlöö explored throughout the novels. There are also, of course, the individual cases that are the focus of each novel. All of these (and this is just my opinion, so feel free to differ if you do) come into sharper focus because the series is limited.

Åsa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinsson series is also a limited series (of six books). In these novels, we follow the lives of Stockholm tax attorney Rebecka Martinsson and police investigator Anna-Maria Mella. They’re first drawn together in Sun Storm (AKA The Savage Altar) when Martinsson returns to her hometown of Kiruna to help a friend who’s accused of murder. Mella is the head investigator on this murder and each in her own way the two sleuths get to the truth of the matter. As the novels go on, we learn Martinsson’s backstory and we see her character evolve and develop. We also follow Mella’s personal and professional life. Several of the secondary characters develop throughout the series, too, and Larsson ties events in the stories together. Each novel in the series is focused on one particular case or set of related cases, but the series has stories-across-stories as well. Four of the novels (Sun Storm (AKA The Savage Altar), The Blood Spilt, The Black Path and Until Thy Wrath be Passed) have been translated into English. I’m eagerly awaiting the translation of the fifth, Till offer åt Molok, and the publication of the sixth.

George Pelecanos has written more than one limited series. One is his three-novel Nick Stefanos series. When we first meet Stefanos in A Firing Offense, he’s the advertising director for Nutty Nathan’s, a Baltimore chain of electrical-goods stores. One day, Stefanos gets a strange call from James Pence, a Nutty Nathan’s customer. Pence’s grand-son Jimmy Broda works at Nutty Nathan’s warehouse, but he’s disappeared. Pence has asked around and been told by a salesman at his local Nutty Nathan’s that Stefanos is good at finding people. So Pence wants Stefanos to find his grand-son.  Stefanos is reluctant to get involved, but agrees to at least meet with Pence. That meeting leads Stefanos into a major East Coast drug operation – and ultimately to a career switch into the world of private detection. The other two novels that focus on Stefanos are Nick’s Trip and Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go. However, he also makes appearances in other Pelecanos novels.

There’s also Dicey Deere’s four-book series featuring American ex-pat Torrey Tunet. Tunet is originally from Boston, but has relocated to the Irish village of Ballynagh. She travels extensively for her work as a translator and uses Ballynagh as a “home base.” Throughout the series, we get to know Tunet and bit by bit, we also get to know the other villagers. We see how their lives intersect, and we see the ongoing friction between Tunet and Inspector O’Hare, who resents what he sees as Tunet’s “meddling” in investigations. This series, which includes The Irish Cottage Murder, The Irish Manor House Murder, The Irish Cairn Murder and The Irish Village Murder works very well as a limited series. We see how some stories-across-stories evolve, but the series isn’t overly long. That’s effective because the setting is a small village, where it wouldn’t be realistic to have a long run of murders.

There are other examples, too, of authors who’ve planned a limited series of books. Ann Cleeves has done this with her Shetland Quartet, for instance. Other authors such as Agatha Christie may not have specifically planned the length of their series, but instead, plan their end. Christie wrote the last novels in her Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series during World War II and stored them safely so that no-one else would be able to continue the series if she were killed in the war. Limited series do have their advantages and despite the drawbacks to that kind of finite planning, they can work well. But what’s your view? As a reader, do you enjoy limited series or do you prefer not to have your series end after a set number of books? If you’re a writer, have you planned the length of your series? What are your thoughts on this?

 

 

Now…we all have read series that should have been more limited than they are. Wondering if you’re reading a series that has gone on too long? Check out these…

 

Signs That A Series Has Gone On For Too Long

 

You know exactly on which pages the first, second and third bodies will be discovered… before you’ve even started reading the newest release.

 

The series, which started out as a “village cosy” series, now features aliens, vampires and evil “Dr. No” – type characters because the author has used every other possible plotline.

 

The sleuth has now gone through four marriages, innumerable lovers, half a dozen hospital stays and a series of stints at rehabilitation clinics… and you couldn’t care less any more.

 

You’re on page 32 of the newest release when you suddenly realise this is exactly the same story the author told in the fifth novel of the series… and the tenth.

 

Every one of the sleuth’s friends, colleagues and relations has at one point or another been trapped, abducted, caught in a gunfight or otherwise put at grave risk.

 

Ordering the series back catalogue, even if you wanted to, would cost you half a year’s salary.

 

While I remove my tongue from my cheek, do you have any signs you’d like to add?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Rupert Holmes’ Escape (The Piña Colada Song).

“Unofficial Partnerships”

No detective knows everything and can fit in everywhere. Not in real life and not in crime fiction. It would be very unrealistic if a detective could do everything for him or herself. So sometimes, when sleuths are on a case, they work with unofficial partners. I don’t mean partnerships such as Colin Dexter’s Morse and Lewis or Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe, or even “amateur partnerships” such as Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. Some partnerships are much more informal than that, but nonetheless valuable to the sleuth. Those kinds of partnerships can also be interesting to the reader, as they let the reader get to know different characters. Those sorts of partnerships also make a book or series much more realistic.

For instance, there’s an extremely unusual and interesting partnership in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Hercule Poirot has decided to retire to the village of King’s Abbott to grow vegetable marrows – or so he thinks. Shortly after Poirot’s arrival in the village, retired manufacturing tycoon Roger Ackroyd is stabbed to death in his study. There are several suspects, since Ackroyd had a large fortune. But the most likely one is his stepson Captain Ralph Paton. Paton was in serious financial difficulties and had even quarreled with his stepfather about money. What’s worse, he’s discovered to have been at Ackroyd’s home on the night of the murder, and has since disappeared. Paton’s fiancée Flora Ackroyd doesn’t believe he’s guilty, and asks Poirot to investigate. Poirot knows that as a newcomer and a foreigner, he may not easily be trusted and he doesn’t really know the people involved in the case. But he finds an unofficial partner who can help. Dr. James Sheppard, who lives next door to Poirot, is a villager who’s known the Ackroyd family for a long time, and who was, in fact, a friend of Roger Ackroyd’s. Poirot works with Sheppard to find out who killed Ackroyd.

Officially, Ellery Queen works with his father Inspector Richard Queen. But not always. In The Four of Hearts, Queen’s working at a Magna Studios in Hollywood on what’s turned out to be a very unproductive six-week contract. He’s about to leave Hollywood when he’s persuaded to help work on a new bio-picture. This film is to focus on the lives of Hollywood legends Blythe Stuart and John Royle. This couple had had a stormy romance which ended in a bitter and very public parting of ways. Each married someone else and each now has an adult child. Their feud has continued through the years, so everyone’s shocked when they consent to do the film. What’s even more surprising for everyone is that the two fall in love again and make plans to marry. The brass at Magna Studios use this to their advantage and plan a gala wedding full of Hollywood hype. Stuart and Royle are married on an airstrip and they and their children then board the plane and head off for their honeymoon. Tragically they never make it. By the time the plane lands, both are dead of poison, and their children blame each other. Queen gets involved in the investigation and discovers that neither of the young people is the murderer. As he looks into the lives of the victims, he partners unofficially with Hollywood gossip columnist Paula Paris. Paris knows everyone in Hollywood, and knows everything – however minor – that’s going on. What’s unusual about her is that she never leaves her home due to agoraphobia; everyone always comes to her because of “the power of the press.”  Queen and Paris work together to find out who would have wanted to kill Stuart and Royle and why.

Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti works officially with Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello. But more than once he works unofficially with his wife Paola Falier, who is not only a countess by birth, but also a professor. So she has literary, academic and social connections that her husband doesn’t have, and sometimes Brunetti makes use of them and works with her unofficially. For instance, in Blood From a Stone, Brunetti and Vianello are investigating the execution-style murder of an unidentified Senegalese man who was killed while he was working at an open-air market. There’s not much to go on in terms of who the man was or why he was killed but eventually, Brunetti and Vianello find out where he lived. They also find a cache of jewels that turn out to be “conflict diamonds” – diamonds that originate in an area where factions oppose the legitimate government and that are used to support armed uprisings against the government. But they still don’t know where the man was from or anything about him. Brunetti works unofficially with his wife, who uses her academic connections to find an expert in African cultures. She helps Brunetti track down the source of the diamonds and trace them to an arms-smuggling ring.

Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Myrtle Clover is a retired teacher who lives in the small town of Bradley, North Carolina. In Pretty Is As Pretty Dies, she decides to investigate the death of Parke Stockard, a beautiful but malicious and dangerous real-estate developer. When Stockard’s body is found in a local church, Myrtle Clover’s son, Chief of Police Red Clover, is determined that his mother stay out of the case and stay safe. She’s got other plans, though, and decides to show that she’s not ready yet to be “put out to pasture.” So she begins to look into the case. There are plenty of suspects, too; Parke Stockard was vindictive, mean, selfish and greedy and had alienated just about everyone in town. Myrtle Clover soon finds out, though, that sleuthing isn’t always safe. One night, she has a narrow escape with help from her new neighbour Miles Bradford. Bradford hadn’t planned on it, but his neighbour’s determination is too much for him and he’s soon drawn into working unofficially with her. After another death (and a calamitous dinner!) the two find out who killed Parke Stockard and why.

Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma. Precious Ramotswe works officially with her assistant (later associate) Grace Makutsi. But she sometimes partners unofficially with her fiancé (later husband) Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He owns Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and knows just about all there is to know about cars. He also is very familiar with the area and the people who live there, as he’s lived there himself all his life. So his knowledge is sometimes very useful. In The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, for instance, Mma. Ramotswe gets a heartbreaking letter from Ernest Pakotati, a schoolteacher whose eleven-year-old son has gone missing. Mma. Ramotswe is determined to find the boy, and sets to work. It soon becomes clear that the boy’s disappearance may be connected to a witchcraft group, but Mma. Ramotswe doesn’t know how she’ll track down the witch doctor as such things are simply not discussed. But then, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni helps her think of a way. He’s called out when a car belonging to a local powerful figure named Charlie Gotso is pulled out of a ditch. As he’s working on the car, Matekoni finds a frightening piece of evidence that Gotso may be involved with witchcraft practitioners. So he works unofficially with Mma. Ramotswe to induce Gotso to let Mma. Ramotswe know who the local witchcraft practitioners are so she can trace the missing boy.

American ex-pat Torrey Tunet is Dicey Deere’s sleuth in her four-novel (so quite manageable ) series. Tunet is a translator who’s fluent in a wide variety of different languages. The Irish village of Ballynagh serves as her home base when she’s not away on business, and as the series develops, she’s accepted as “one of us” by the villagers. In this series, Tunet usually investigates on her own, much to the chagrin of Inspector O’Hare, whose patch Ballynagh is. But sometimes, she works unofficially with her lover Jasper Shaw. Shaw is a journalist who travels all over the world as he works on his stories. He’s got all sorts of contacts and resources that Tunet finds helpful. He’s also a gourmand and an expert cook – skills that Tunet also finds helpful.

“Unofficial partnerships” can be very helpful to the sleuth. They’re realistic, too, since sleuths can’t know everything. They can also add to the interest of a story, and provide readers with solid characters to “meet.” Which “unofficial partners” are your favourites? If you’re a writer, do you include these characters?

>Thinking On Our Feet

>

We don’t always get a warning ahead of time when we’re going to be faced with a challenge. So one of those really helpful skills is the ability to think creatively and act quickly in a difficult situation. Sometimes it’s called “thinking on one’s feet.” In real life, people who can do that often get out of trouble faster, and in crime fiction, the ability to think quickly and act creatively can be a real asset as well. Lots of crime fiction characters do that, too, and sometimes, they come up with very innovative ways to solve problems.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s 4:50 From Paddington (AKA What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!), Elspeth McGillicuddy is paying a visit to her friend Miss Marple. While she’s en route, the train she’s in is passed up by another train going in the same direction on a different track. Mrs. McGillicuddy happens to glance through the window of the other train and sees a murder. At first, no-one believes her except Miss Marple. There’s been no body discovered, nor has anyone reported a missing person. Miss Marple guesses that the body must have been thrown from the train. So she looks at some maps and figures out where the body must be – at Rutherford Hall, the property of Luther Crackenthorpe. Miss Marple persuades her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow, who’s a much-in-demand professional housekeeper, to do some sleuthing, and Lucy takes a position at Rutherford Hall. She knows that she can’t just be seen wandering around the grounds, so in a solid example of “thinking on one’s feet,” she claims to be out practicing golf while she looks for the body. In the end, she discovers the victim’s body and this allows the local police and Scotland Yard to begin an investigation. Miss Marple herself thinks quickly as she formulates a plan to catch the killer.

There’s another example of “thinking on one’s feet” in Dicey Deere’s The Irish Village Murder. In that novel, professional interpreter Torrey Tunet has just returned to the Irish village of Ballynagh, her European “home base” when she discovers that her friend Megan O’Faolain may be involved in the shooting death of Megan’s employer and lover, historian John Gwathney. O’Faolain is a logical suspect, too; she’s set to inherit Gwathney’s fortune and she’s rumoured to have taken up recently with a new love, local potter Liam Caffey. Tunet doesn’t believe her friend is guilty, and she begins to investigate. The stakes get higher when it looks as though O’Faolain may go to prison for the crime. Tunet discovers who the real murderer is, but she knows that a simple accusation isn’t enough. Besides, the murderer has done a fairly good job of “hiding” the motive and the evidence. So, with very little time to spare, Tunet comes up with a plan to get the evidence she needs to catch the killer. With the help of a local teen she’s befriended, she finds the hiding place where the evidence is, gets what she needs and clears her friend’s name.

In Val McDermid’s The Grave Tattoo, we meet more than one person with that ability to think quickly and act creatively. Jane Gresham is a post-doctoral teaching fellow and Wordsworth scholar who suspects that Wordsworth may have left behind an as-yet undiscovered manuscript. When an unidentified body is found in a bog near Gresham’s home in the Lake District, she can’t resist the opportunity to see whether the body might be that of Fletcher Christian, who was a great friend of Wordsworth and whose story might be told in that undiscovered manuscript. Gresham travels to the Lake District and begins to try to track down the manuscript. What she doesn’t know at first is that Tenille Cole, a young teen whom Gresham befriended in London, has also traveled to the Lake District. Tenille is trying to escape the police, who think she may be mixed up in a murder. We see Tenille’s quick-wittedness and ability to “think on her feet” as she disguises herself, makes her way north, finds Jane Gresham and later, tries to help Gresham on her quest for the manuscript. Gresham’s search gets complicated when there’s first one, then another, and then another death. Now, the police in more than one place begin to wonder whether she’s got something to do with the deaths. Each in a different way, Jane Gresham and Tenille Cole work to find out who’s responsible for the deaths and to find the manuscript, if there is one. When Gresham discovers who the killer is, she, too, has to be quick-witted and think fast to save her own life.

And then there’s Myrtle Clover, whom we meet in Elizabeth Spann Criag’s Pretty is as Pretty Dies. She’s a retired schoolteacher who is not ready to be “put out to pasture,” despite the best efforts of her son, the local police chief, to get her to “settle down and retire.” So when the body of real estate developer Parke Stockard is discovered in a local church, Myrtle Clover decides to investigate. Her son tries to keep her out of trouble and away from the case, but she is not dissuaded. Throughout the novel, Myrtle uses her wits more than once to find out information and put the pieces of the puzzle together. In the end, she finds out who the killer is, and when she confronts the killer, she gets in real danger. But even though Myrtle’s in her eighties and her body isn’t what it was, she can think quickly. She uses her cane to temporarily disable the killer and buys herself just enough time to avoid becoming the next victim.

Lindy Cameron’s Redback features Bryn Gideon, commander of a crack retrieval team known as Redback. Redback gets involved in stopping an international terrorist plot when the team rescues a group of hostages who’d been attending a conference on Laui Island in the Pacific. As the team is helping the hostages escape, one of them, Dr. Jana Rossi, is overtaken by a member of the rebel group who took the hostages. Rossi is in mortal danger, but Gideon, who’s been looking out for her, thinks and acts quickly. She kills Rossi’s attacker just in the nick of time. That’s not the only time, either, when both Gideon and Rossi have to “think on their feet.” That ability to sum up a situation, make a quick decision and act in response is of inestimable help to both women throughout the novel.

Of course, these are by no means the only examples of crime fiction stories where a character has to think fast and act creatively. The ability to “think on one’s feet” is also very important to PIs such as Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and other sleuths, such as Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum. But what do you think? How good are your favourite sleuths at “thinking on their feet?”

P.S. Did you notice something about today’s post? No worries; I’ll give you a minute to glance at it again………

Yup, each character and author I’ve mentioned has something in common. Today is International Women’s Day – let’s hear it for the ladies!

>I Will Say the Only Words I Know That You’ll Understand*

>Many people in the world speak more than one language. In fact, millions of people speak several different languages. Multilingualism has been an important social reality for thousands of years and with the relative ease of modern travel and technology, it’s arguably even more important now. So it’s not surprising that we’d find a lot of multilingualism in crime fiction, too. It can be very helpful to a sleuth to be multilingual; not only is it useful when it comes to talking to witnesses and suspects, but also, it’s helpful in terms of understanding how members of other cultures think and communicate. It also adds a real layer of interest to a sleuth’s character if she or he is multilingual.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, for instance, speaks several languages, including his native Belgian French and English. He finds that multilingualism useful in more than one way. In some cases, for instance, he’s best able to communicate with witnesses and suspects in French. For example, in Death in The Clouds (AKA Death in the Air), Poirot works with Inspector James “Jimmy” Japp and the French authorities to solve the poisoning murder of well-known Parisian moneylender Marie Marisot, also known as Madame Giselle. One of the characters who provides Poirot with useful information is Madame Giselle’s maid Elise Grandier. She doesn’t speak English, so Poirot conducts his conversations with her in French, as he does with several other Parisian characters involved in that novel. There are several other novels, too, in which Poirot conducts conversations and interviews in French.

Many of Poirot’s cases, though, take place in England and in those cases Poirot uses English. In fact, as he himself says, he can speak

“…the exact, the idiomatic English.”

But sometimes, Poirot finds that it serves his purposes better to give the impression that his English is very limited. In After the Funeral (AKA Funerals Are Fatal), for instance, Poirot investigates the death of wealthy patriarch Richard Abernethie and the murder of Abernethie’s youngest sister Cora Lansquenet. The two deaths seem to be connected, since Cora is murdered the day after she claims that her brother’s death was not natural. So Poirot visits the Abernethie family home Enderby Hall during a week-end when all of the relatives (i.e. suspects) are there to choose family possessions they would like to keep before the property is sold. Poirot pretends to be a representative for a fictitious United Nations organisation looking for a property to convert to a home for aged war refugees. Since he apparently speaks very little English, everyone promptly forgets about him and assumes he can’t understand anything they’re saying. This is exactly what Poirot wants, since it gives him an opportunity to observe the family without drawing attention to himself. His strategy’s successful, too; he hears more than one bit of useful information, including a very important clue that the murderer lets drop.

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Stockholm detective Martin Beck is also blilingual. Besides his native Swedish, he also speaks some English. This proves to be useful in Roseanna, where Beck and his team solve the murder of Roseanna McGraw, an American who was taking a cruise tour of Sweden when she was raped and killed. When the team finally establishes Roseanna’s identity, they communicate with Lincoln, Nebraska detective Elmer Kafka, who’s been searching for the victim since she was reported missing. The international telephone connection isn’t clear, and Beck and Kafka have some miscommunication which at first hampers the investigation. Soon enough, though, they are able to work together and in the end, Beck’s bilingualism proves useful as he gathers information about Roseanna McGraw’s background.

Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee speaks his native Navajo as well as English, and he finds his multilingualism very useful as he investigates. For instance, in Skinwalkers, Chee works with Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn to solve a mysterious group of murders that seem to be connected with the Yellow Horse Clinic. Since the investigation crosses state lines, the FBI gets involved in the person of Agent Jay Kennedy. So Chee and Kennedy work together to interview witnesses. At one point, they interview a witness whose father may have seen one of the murders. She doesn’t want to get mixed up in the investigation and in any case, she doesn’t trust Whites, especially not those in law enforcement. So she pretends she only speaks Navajo. Chee’s able to use his own Navajo to put her slightly at ease so that he can ask her for the information he needs. There are several other novels, too, where Chee’s ability to speak Navajo and his knowledge of the Navajo culture are useful as he puts clues together.

Dicey Deere’s sleuth Torrey Tunet is an interpreter, so her strength is languages. She uses this skill as she investigates cases like the shooting death of historian John Gwathney in The Irish Village Murder. Gwathney’s housekeeper and lover Megan O’Faolain is the most likely suspect, since she stands to inherit quite a bit of money by the terms of Gwathney’s will. There’s also the fact that Megan’s taken up lately with local potter Liam Caffey, and could have shot Gwathney to get his money and be with the man she wants. Tunet doesn’t believe Megan O’Faolain’s guilty, though, and begins to look for other suspects, of whom there are several. Gwathney left a journal that Tunet thinks may hold clues to what happened to him. So she manages to “borrow” it to see what she can find out. Gwathney wrote in Greek, though, so Tunet has to use her language abilities to read it. When she does, she finds out that Gwathney had discovered an old and shocking secret and had planned to include it in a manuscript he was preparing. This discovery adds a fascinating and suspenseful layer to this novel as Tunet tries to find Gwathney’s killer before Megan O’Faolain is jailed for a crime she didn’t commit.

Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti usually speaks his own beloved Veneziano, although he also speaks standard Italian. He also speaks English, and finds that useful in Blood From a Stone, when he and Ispettore Vianello investigate the execution-style shooting of an illegal immigrant from Senegal. The victim was selling handbags in an open-air market when he was shot, but no-one seems to have seen exactly what happened nor who the killer was. Brunetti eventually discovers that two American tourists, Fred and Martha Crowley, might have witnessed what happens, so he arranges to meet them at a café, and uses English for the interview. It turns out that although neither can identify the shooter, they do give Brunetti useful information that eventually helps him find the killer. What’s also interesting about this novel is that the victim, who’s considered a lower-class vu cumprá, is also multilingual. He’s learned that to sell his wares he has to speak more than one language; so besides his own language, he speaks Italian and English.

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s sleuth, Reykjavík attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, is also multilingual. In fact, that’s what gets her involved in the murder of Harald Guntlieb in Last Rituals. Guntlieb was a German student studying at the university in Reykjavík when he was murdered, and at first, the police arrest his former friend and room-mate Hugi Thórisson for the crime. Guntlieb’s family doesn’t think that Thórisson is guilty, though, and they hire Thóra to look into the murder. The main reason for which Thóra’s hired is that she speaks German, so she’ll be able to work with the Guntliebs’ banker Matthew Reich. Reich travels to Reykjavík, and he and Thóra investigate the murder. Throughout the novel, Thóra often serves as interpreter for Matthew, who doesn’t speak Icelandic.

There are, of course, lots of other sleuths I could mention who benefit greatly from being able to speak more than one language. Which ones do you enjoy? Does it bother you when words and phrases from other languages (especially ones that you don’t speak) are used in novels you read?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Beatles’ Michelle.