The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Execution-Style Murders

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme is now one fifth of the way through our worrisome wanderings through the letters of the alphabet. I am, as always, grateful to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for the exciting journey thus far. Today’s stop is the E Resort and Spa and quite frankly, I’m ready for a nice rest. While everyone else is checking email and ‘phoning home, I’ll share my contribution for this stop: execution-style murders. Crime fiction is full of examples of what happens when one falls afoul of the wrong people. Actually it’s probably better to stay away from certain kinds of people to begin with but it’s even better to avoid getting them angry enough to kill. Because they do.

Just ask Tony Aliso, a mediocre filmmaker of mediocre movies whose death is the subject of Michael Connelly’s Trunk Music. When Aliso’s body is discovered in the trunk of his Rolls Royce, it’s assumed that this was a Mafia ‘hit.’ The murder has all the hallmarks of a Mob kill and Aliso was living far beyond his legal means. But somehow, the LAPD doesn’t seem to be too eager to find out who the killer is even though it could mean bringing down a criminal organisation. The police department’s reluctance doesn’t stop Harry Bosch though. Bosch investigates Aliso’s personal and professional lives and soon finds a ‘money trail’ that leads to a shady Las Vegas casino – and to a reunion with his old flame Eleanor Wish, who is now a professional gambler. In the end, Bosch finds out who killed Aliso and why, and how the criminal organisation he’s after fits in with the rest of the case.

In Henry Chang’s Year of the Dog, NYPD detective Jack Yu is temporarily assigned to Manhattan’s Ninth Precinct to fill in for some colleagues who are taking time off at the end of the year. He returns to his usual Fifth Precinct though, when a gang war threatens to erupt. Yu’s old friend Tat ‘Lucky’ Louie has become a local Mob leader; his gang is called Ghost Legion. Tat and his gang are upset because lately, there’ve been several surprise raids on the local gangs. Tat suspects that incoming gangs from Hong Kong are tipping off police so that they can take over the local gangs’ territories. Tat wants Yu’s help to find out whether the Hong Kong gangs are behind the raids. Yu refuses and the conflict between the local mobs and the Hong Kong incomers forms an important element in this novel.

Tonino Benacquista’s Badfellas takes another kind of look at ‘execution-style’ murders. The Blake family, a supposedly normal American family, moves into a home in Cholong-sur-Avre, Normandy. They’ve moved to Normandy so that Frederick Blake can write a history of the Normandy invastion and it seems that the family soon settles in. Frederick’s wife Maggie devotes herself to charity work and their children devote themselves to television, the Internet, new friends and other adolescent obsessions. But the Blake family is not a normal family. They are really the Manzoni family and the father, Giovanni Manzoni, was a member of the New Jersey Mafia. He testified against the rest of the Mob so he and his family were placed in the US Federal Witness Protection Program. They’ve been relocated to Normandy and given new identities. The only problem is that before long, word gets back to the head of the New Jersey Mob that Giovanni Manzoni is alive and well. Now the ‘Blakes’ have to deal with the very real possibility that the Mob will find them, and will not exactly greet them kindly.

Of course, execution-style killings aren’t just Mob-related. For instance, Donna Leon’s Blood From a Stone begins with the execution-style shooting of an unknown Senegalese immigrant. He’s laying out his wares at an open-air market one morning when he is murdered. Commissario Guido Brunetti and Ispettore Lorenzo Villanello lead the investigation into the murder. Because the man was killed by professionals, no-one has seen anything really significant, so at first, there’s not much evidence. What’s more, the man wasn’t anyone of importance – just another illegal immigrant. So there’s not much public interest. But eventually Brunetti and Vianello trace the man to the room he rented, where they find a cache of diamonds. It turns out that this man’s execution had to do with ‘conflict diamonds’ and illegal arms trafficking.

Gene Kerrigan’s The Rage features several cases that Dublin DS Bob Tidey and Detective Garda Rose Cheney investigate. One of them is the execution-style murder of banker Emmet Sweetman, who’s been shot in the entryway of his own home. As the detectives examine the victim’s life, they discover that he had been caught up in the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom and had taken advantage of the sudden wealth that was available during those years. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of money fed Sweetman’s greed and his confidence so that he took increasingly risky decisions. When the financial situation in Ireland began to fall apart, so did many of the shady deals Sweetman had made. When he didn’t pay the money he owed, Sweetman made some very dangerous people very angry, and they sought their own sort of justice. It turns out that this case has a link to another case that Tidey and Cheney work on, a heist that goes terribly, tragically wrong.

And then there’s Andrew Nette’s Ghost Money. In that novel, Australian ex-cop Max Quinlan is hired by Madeleine Avery to find her brother Charles. His last-known whereabouts was Bangkok, so Quinlan travels there. When he gets to Avery’s apartment though, he discovers the body of Avery’s business partner Robert Lee. He also finds clues that suggest that Avery has gone to Cambodia. Quinlan continues his search in Phnom Penh, where he meets journalist’s assistant Heng Sarin. With Sarin’s help, Quinlan starts asking questions about Avery. Although most people aren’t willing to talk, the two sleuths do learn a few things. One is that Avery had been involved in some shady deals with the wrong people. That in itself put him in danger. What’s more, he claimed to know where there was a hidden cache of gold. That too made him the target of some people who are not afraid to kill for that much wealth. Quinlan and Sarin trace Avery to northern Cambodia, where the gold is supposedly hidden, if it even exists. The closer they get to the truth of that rumour, as well as the truth about Avery, the more in danger Quinlan and Sarin are. There are some very powerful people who are not at all concerned about having these two killed to keep the truth about the gold and about Avery secret. This novel also weaves in another ‘execution’ theme – the execution-style murders of millions of people that the Khmer Rouge saw as ‘enemies’ or ‘threats.’

So, you see? It’s important to be careful about the company you keep. The old saying is, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ Especially if they have weapons. So…Shall we talk some business? I know a guy who knows a guy… 

 

The Time Has Come to Say Fair’s Fair*

One of the important purposes that members of the clergy are supposed to serve is helping others. And for many of those in the religious life, that means pursuing social justice. We’ve all heard terrible accounts of corrupt (or worse) ministers, priests, nuns, rabbis and the like. Those stories are all the more upsetting because those are people we’ve been taught to trust. But there are a great number of people in the religious life who work for social justice and sometimes take great risks pursuing it. They advocate for the poor and disenfranchised, they speak up for human rights and a lot more, too. The real world is better for them and we see them in crime fiction as well.

For example, in Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, we meet Rector Theodore Venables. On New Year’s Eve, he comes upon Lord Peter Wimsey and Wimsey’s valet/assistant Mervyn Bunter. Their car has been in an accident near Fenchurch St. Paul and they’re stranded, so Venables takes them in. Wimsey and Bunter are settling in at the rectory when word comes that Will Thoday, one of the bell-ringers, is ill and can’t participate in the New Year’s change-ringing. Wimsey agrees to take his place and the change-ringing is a big success. The next day Venables is called to the death-bed of local squire’s wife Lady Thorpe, who dies of the same influenza that struck Will Thoday. Wimsey and Bunter stay for the funeral and then, when their car is ready, they go on their way. A few months later Wimsey gets a letter from Venables. Sir Henry Thorpe has died and preparations are being made to bury him next to his wife. But to everyone’s shock, another corpse is discovered in the gravesite. Venables wants Wimsey to return to Fenchurch and investigate. Wimsey agrees and he and Bunter go back to the village and begin asking questions. The unidentified body turns out to be connected to a decades-old robbery and some missing emeralds and Wimsey finds out the truth about the case. Towards the end of the novel, a dangerous flood strikes the Fenchurch area and many of the people are at grave risk. Theodore Venables shows both his courage and his dedication to caring for others as he does his best to help the people of Fenchurch.

Donna Leon’s Blood From a Stone features Don Alvise Perale, who was a parish priest in Oderzo, north of Venice. He saw his vocation as more than just meeting the spiritual needs of his parishioners. To him, it is important to help all of those who are desperate, poor and disenfranchised. When his parishioners objected to his opening his home to a non-Christian family from Sierra Leone, Perale got a letter from the bishop telling him to make the family leave. That’s when Perale left the priesthood. He is still a social activist though and that’s how he comes to work with Commissario Guido Brunetti in this novel. Brunetti is trying to find out the identity of a Senegalese man who was shot, execution-style, when he was laying out his wares in an open-air market. Brunetti suspects that Perale may have connections to the Senegalese immigrant community and wants his help identifying the victim. Perale’s first instinct is to protect the vulnerable members of this community from harassment, so he doesn’t want to tell Brunetti anything. But Brunetti is able to persuade him that there will be no repercussions, so Perales finally agrees to help point Brunetti in the right direction. With Perales’ help, Brunetti finds out where the dead man lived. That’s how he finds out that the man had with him a valuable cache of diamonds. Those diamonds are connected to an illegal arms-trafficking ring and to the murder.

One of Margaret Coel’s sleuths is Father John O’Malley, who works on the Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Originally from Boston, Father John is a Jesuit priest who is slowly making his way back from what he refers to as The Great Fall – alcoholism. He no longer drinks and is trying to find a new place for himself within the Catholic Church. Father John sees himself as much more than just a person who presides over religious services. He takes personal responsibility for the people he serves, and often for those on the Reservation whom he doesn’t exactly serve. In The Eagle Catcher, for instance, Arapaho tribal chair Harvey Castle is murdered shortly after asking to meet privately with Father John. Then, Castle’s nephew Anthony is arrested for the crime. Father John is certain that Anthony is not guilty, so he asks Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden to help him look into the case. Soon enough, it comes out that Castle’s death may involve some very highly-placed people – people whom the mission depends on for contributions and other support. Father John is fully aware that he could face serious consequences for continuing to investigate. He and Holden persevere though and in the end, they find out who killed Castle and why.

One of the ‘regulars’ in Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series is Sister Mary. She’s a Melbourne nun who works tirelessly to make things better for street people and others whom society has forgotten. Sister Mary is compassionate and caring, but make no mistake: she is a force to be reckoned with. Everyone respects her for the work she does and she has a way of getting people to do what she wants. Among many other things, Sister Mary is the organiser of the Soup Run, a mobile kitchen that travels to Melbourne’s worst areas to distribute food, non-alcoholic drinks and medicine to those who need it most. Chapman, who is Greenwood’s main sleuth, contributes bread from her bakery to the Soup Run and takes her turn riding along to help serve. Like everyone else, Chapman listens to Sister Mary. What makes Sister Mary so effective, both as a character in this series and as a social justice activist, is that she doesn’t back down from a difficult challenge. She bullies people for funds, permission, equipment, whatever is needed without actually making people feel that they’re being bullied. And she does an immense amount of good without preaching her own spiritual beliefs.

And then there’s Mildred Nilsson, a priest of the Swedish Church to whom we’re introduced in Åsa Larsson’s The Blood Spilt. Nilsson takes personal responsibility for the members of her congregation and in particular, she works to raise awareness of domestic violence with the goal of stopping it. When she is found murdered, attorney Rebecka Martinnsson has the thankless task of working on behalf of the Swedish Church to arrange for Nilsson’s widower to move and resume possession of the house he and Nilsson had been using. In that context, Martinsson works with Inspectors Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke, who are investigating the murder itself. They find that more than one person resented both Nilsson’s outspokenness and what they saw as meddling in their lives.

It’s sometimes very risky to live out the tenet of social justice, but there are members of the religious community who do it all the time. It’s a refreshing change to see them in crime fiction (and I know I haven’t mentioned them all. I’m thinking, for instance, of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown). That’s especially true when you consider how many awful things have been done by those who were supposed to protect the weakest among us. It’s good to know they’re not all like that.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning.

Advice is Cheap, You Can Take it From Me*

In Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death), one of the residents of the hostel where most of the action takes place asks another for a piece of advice. Here’s the response:
 

‘Of course I could give you advice…, though I don’t know why anyone ever wants advice. They never take it.’
 

That’s a good point, really. People are often free with advice, although it’s frequently not heeded. For that reason alone (because it’s human and natural), it’s easy to identify with advice-giving in a crime novel, especially when the sleuth is about to do something ill-advised. On the other hand, a sleuth who always gets advice and never listens to it stops being interesting. Quickly. And characters who mind other people’s business too much are annoying. That’s to say nothing of the way investigations work in real life (e.g. would a cop really take advice from an amateur? That would take some believing.). But when it’s done credibly, getting and sometimes even heeding advice can a sleuth more human.

For instance, Christie’s Ariadne Oliver is not one to do as she’s told as a rule. And her independence is part of what makes her appealing as a character. But we see a very believable example of her taking advice in Hallowe’en Party. Poirot travels to Woodleigh Common at Mrs. Oliver’s request to find out who murdered thirteen-year-old Joyce Reynolds. The girl is found drowned at a party not many hours after boasting that she once saw a murder. So it’s fairly clear that she was probably killed by someone who feels threatened. Poirot finds out the history of the area and discovers which incident Joyce could have seen. As he does so, he realises an important fact that shows him that one of the villagers is in real danger. So he tells Mrs. Oliver to take that person to her home in London for safety. Here’s a bit of the conversation Mrs. Oliver has about it with the friend she’s been visiting in the village:
 

‘Anyway, you needn’t run away today, need you?’
‘Yes, I need to, I’ve been told to,’ said Mrs. Oliver.
‘Who’s told you – your housekeeper?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘Somebody else. One of the few people I obey.’
 

It’s actually a very tense scene and it’s a good thing that Mrs. Oliver listens to Poirot’s advice. It makes sense that she would too given he’s the experienced private investigator and they’re friends.

It’s also believable that a cop would listen to another cop’s advice, especially if the two officers trust each other. And that’s what we see in the relationship between Håkan Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren and Intendant Münster. As the series featuring these sleuths begins, Van Veeteren is Münster’s boss, but as fans will know, he leaves the police force to take part ownership in a bookshop. And yet Münster is still grateful for his advice. In The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case), Münster and his team investigate the stabbing murder of Waldemar Leverkuhn. An obvious motive doesn’t come to light quickly but then the police find out that Leverkuhn and some of his friends went in together on a lottery ticket – and won. They’d gone out to celebrate just before Leverkuhn was killed, so the police now have a new angle on this case. But that’s not entirely satisfactory either. Münster is by no means incompetent, but he’s glad for the advice and input he gets when he tells Van Veeteren about the case. And when Van Veeteren lets Münster know he’s on the wrong track, Münster heeds his advice and looks elsewhere for the killer.

We see another example of a cop giving another cop advice in Louise Penny’s Still Life. That’s the story of former schoolteacher Jane Neal, who’s killed in what looks like a tragic hunting accident. Sûreté Inspector Armand Gamache and his team travel to the small town of Three Pines to do what they think will be perfunctory work on the case. But when Gamache begins to suspect that the victim was murdered, the team’s investigation stops being routine. Assigned to Gamache’s team for the first time is Agent Yvette Nichol. She turns out to be a poor choice for the team as she is arrogant, smug and unwilling to learn. Gamache’s second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir advises Gamache to get rid of Nichol as quickly as he can. Gamache likes and trusts Beauvoir so although he’s the boss, he listens to what Beauvoir has to say. At first Gamache tries to coach and counsel Nichol, but when that’s unsuccessful, he follows Beauvoir’s advice and cuts Nichol from the team.

Readers can also believe that sleuths might heed their spouses’ advice and there are a lot of examples of that. Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti, for instance, is married to Paola Falier, who is not only an educated professor of English, but also a genuine ‘blueblood.’ Brunetti values her input and benefits from it. For instance, in Blood From a Stone, he and Ispettore Vianello investigate the execution-style shooting of an unknown Senegalese immigrant. It takes some doing, but the detectives find out where the man lived and search his room. To their surprise, they discover a cache of diamonds that turn out to be ‘blood diamonds’ used to fund a military conflict Brunetti and Vianello also find that the diamonds are connected to an illegal arms trafficking ring. But in order to get all of the answers, Brunetti wants to know the diamonds’ origin. That’s where Paola’s advice is very helpful. She advises Brunetti of an expert he might contact about a small wooden head he finds among the dead man’s possessions.  Her view is that that information may help him locate the source of the diamonds. He takes her advice, although somewhat reluctantly, and is able to trace the diamonds.

It’s also quite believable that sleuths might listen to advice from friends. That’s what we see in Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool. DCi Hannah Scarlett and DCI Fern Larter are not just colleagues but also good friends. They find themselves working both ends of the same case when Scarlett re-opens the investigation into the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. That death was always put down to suicide, but Scarlett isn’t convinced. Larter and her team are working two recent murder cases that turn out to be related to the Bethany Friend case. So on a professional level, the two women give each other information and advice. But because they are also friends, Larter knows about Scarlett’s rocky relationship with her partner Marc Amos. She also knows – well, suspects – that Scarlett is attracted to Oxford historian Daniel Kind, who helps in this investigation. At the end of the novel, she gives Scarlett advice about that matter and it’s interesting to see that while Scarlett doesn’t immediately agree with her friend, what Larter says makes an impression.

Too often, crime fiction novels have scenes where someone tells the sleuth not to pursue a case or a particular suspect. And too often, sleuths take un-necessary risks because they don’t listen to advice. Sometimes it’s nice when a novel includes a believable use of advice. Well, I think authors ought to do that, anyway.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s The Great Wall of China.

This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius*

…or at least, the Year of the Snake. The Chinese New Year has arrived and that’s got me thinking about astrology and horoscopes. The other day I was asked whether I think there’s any truth to astrology and horoscopes. My answer was that I think humans are far too complicated for just one factor to account for everything we are and do. But a lot of people believe very strongly in astrology. So it shouldn’t be surprising at all that we see astrology mentioned in crime fiction.

In Colin Dexter’s The Daughters of Cain for instance, we meet Kevin Costyn, a secondary school student who’s got lower than average academic intelligence but is shrewd, tough and a magnet for many of his female schoolmates. He’s been in trouble with the police, served two juvenile sentences and in general is not the kind of person nice parents want their nice daughters to bring home, so to speak. But he’s not entirely without redemptive traits. He’s fallen in love with his teacher Mrs. Julia Stevens because in his mind, she’s the only one who’s ever been good to him. It’s his attachment to her that gets him inextricably mixed up in her life (No, I promise – not in the way you might be thinking). That relationship turns out to be important when Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis investigate the disappearance and later murder of Ted Brooks, husband of Julia Stevens’ house cleaner Brenda Brooks. That murder turns out to be related to the murder of former Oxford don Felix McClure, for whom Brooks was scout. It turns out that Kevin Costyn has an important piece of the puzzle and it’s interesting to see that he gets involved in the first place because of his horoscope (Gemini) which promises that

 

‘Maximum mental energy helps you through to a hard-to-reach person who is always close to your heart.’

 

We may not think much of Kevin Costyn’s character but his interest in what his horoscope says is fairly common.

In Henry Chang’s Year of the Dog, NYPD detective Jack Yu is assigned to Manhattan’s Ninth Precinct to help fill in during the end-of-the-year holidays. He’s called to the scene when a Chinese-American family of four is found dead in their home, apparently a case of murder/suicide.  In the meantime, Yu’s old friend Tat ‘Lucky’ Louie is now a local mob leader. He is in charge of a gang called Ghost Legion. Lately, though, there’ve been a lot of raids on local gangs and Lucky suspects it’s because some of the incoming gangs from Hong Kong are feeding information to the police so they can take over when the current gang leaders are arrested. When a gang war threatens, Yu returns to the Fifth Precinct, his usual assignment. Lucky wants help from Yu, who decides not to co-operate. To Yu, Lucky has wasted his life and besides, Yu likes his work as a cop and doesn’t want to ‘go dirty.’ Two other Chinatown cases also crop up and all of them present a fascinating look at the Chinatown culture and the need to ‘save face’ – to make and protect a reputation. The book is called The Year of the Dog because it begins on the Chinese New Year that in this case brings in the Year of the Dog:

 

‘The Dog is the eleventh sign, next to the last in the lunar cycle, the most likeable of all the animals. The Dog is fearless, charismatic and believes in justice, loyalty and fidelity. The year is characterized in the masculine Yang by struggle, perseverance and faith.’

 

The novel ends a year later with the coming of the Year of the Pig:

 

‘The Pig was the twelfth sign, the last sign in the lunar cycle, the purest in heart and most generous of all the animals. The Pig was loyal, chivalrous, and believed in miracles. The year was characterized by honesty, fortitude and courage.’

 

While Yu himself isn’t a traditionalist with respect to Chinese astrology he respects it and we can see that culture woven through the novel.

We also see how astrology plays an important role in people’s lives in Tarquin Hall’s series featuring Delhi private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri. The ‘bread and butter’ of his business comes in part from families who hire Puri to ‘vet’ prospective spouses for their children and grandchildren. Time and technology have changed many parts of India, especially in the city. People don’t know each other in cities as they do in smaller villages. However, the arranged marriage is still a critical part of the culture. It’s believed that young people are not in a position to choose their own spouses and that the ones who most have their interests at heart – their children – should do so. And that’s where astrology comes in. Many parents now make use of personal ads online or in newspapers; those ads include their children’s appearance, age, educational background and astrological information. It’s strongly believed among many that astrological harmony between the two potential spouses is important not just for the marriage but for the wedding date itself. And in The Case of the Missing Servant, the Singla family has done just that to find a husband for their daughter Vimi. They hire Puri to find out as much as he can about Ramesh Goel, who seems to be the top candidate for Vimi. His horoscope is compatible with Vimi’s, he’s made a good impression, and the wedding date has been planned. Puri agrees to investigate and looks into Goel’s background. What he and his team find is so unacceptable that the Singla family has to call off the wedding – after having paid for everything. This isn’t the main case in the novel but it does reflect how very important horoscopes can be to people’s way of thinking.

And then there’s Donna Leon’s A Question of Belief. Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello is concerned about his aunt Zia Anita. While normally what he regards as a sensible person, she’s been reading horoscope magazines lately and watching horoscope shows on television. At first, Vianello hopes that it’s just a private interest of hers. Then he finds out that she’s been taking money from the family business account. It’s money to which she’s entitled so there’s nothing illegal about it. But Vianello is worried that someone may be taking advantage of his aunt’s interest in astrology. So he asks Brunetti to look into the matter and Brunetti agrees. One of the things Brunetti does is (unusually for him) an Internet search where he discovers just how many people are convinced of astrology and how many astrologists and horoscope readers there are to advise those people, or fleece them if that’s how you see these things. As it turns out Zia Anita is indeed giving her money to a man who turns out to be a charlatan and when Vianello finds out the truth, he decides to risk his aunt’s anger rather than let her continue to be ‘taken.’

There’s also Sunny Frazier’s series which features Office Assistant Christy Bristol who works for the Sheriff’s Department in Central County, California. Bristol is also an astrologist whose skills prove critical in Fools Rush In. In that novel, informant Jimmy Blue is brutally murdered. Jack Wolfe, the undercover narcotics cop who was Blue’s contact, wants to catch his killer. Wolfe believes that Lloyd Parr, a local meth manufacturer, is behind Blue’s killing. He’s subpoenaed Parr’s telephone records and found that his quarry is an avid believer in horoscopes; he calls a dial-a-horoscope number every day. So Wolfe asks Bristol to help him lay a trap to catch Parr by casting his horoscope. It doesn’t help matters that Bristol is Wolfe’s ex-girlfriend and that he’s always made fun of her skill with horoscopes. But he convinces a very reluctant Bristol to agree. And it turns out the two have chosen an innovative way to catch Blue’s killer.

Even some sleuths read their horoscopes. Jill Edmondson’s Sasha Jackson does. She’s not what you’d call a slave to it but reading her horoscope is a part of her daily routine.

Whether or not you believe in horoscopes a little, a lot or not at all, it’s hard to deny that a lot of people do. So it’s not really surprising that astrology is woven into crime fiction. Which examples have I forgotten?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s Aquarius.

What to Leave In, What to Leave Out*

In most well-written crime fiction novels, we find out who the culprit is even if we don’t actually get to see her or him (or them) brought to justice. Readers want that sense of closure and readers who like to match wits with the author like to know whether they’ve won if I may put it that way. But the truth is, there are some things about criminal investigations that real-life detectives never learn. So a novel that tells every fact about a crime wouldn’t be realistic. Besides, a novel like that would probably get to a tedious length. So many crime fiction authors choose, for good reasons, not to tell every single detail about a crime. Not only does this give the story a focus and keep it realistic but also, the strategy can keep the reader wondering and make a book stay with a reader longer.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Superintendent Albert ‘Bert’ Spence asks Poirot to re-open the investigation into the murder of a charwoman. Everyone thinks she was killed by her lodger James Bentley; in fact, he’s been convicted of the crime and is awaiting execution. But Spence has begun to think that Bentley is innocent. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and travels to the village of Broadhinny. There he discovers that several of the villagers are keeping secrets, some relatively benign and some not. Mrs. McGinty found out more than it was safe for her to know and she made the tragic mistake of letting the killer know that she knew something. Poirot finds out who the killer is and what that person’s secret was. But we never do know what passed between the killer and Mrs. McGinty. Did she hint? Did she threaten to go to the media? Did she ask for a ‘present?’ Poirot speculates a little but we never do know. That detail isn’t necessary for the reader’s sense of closure and it can get one wondering.

In Colin Dexter’s The Daughters of Cain, Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis investigate the murder of former Oxford don Felix McClure, who is found stabbed in his home. The most likely suspect is McClure’s former scout Ted Brooks. McClure had found out that Brooks was supplying drugs to some of the students and was going to reveal what he knew. But then Brooks disappears and later turns up dead. Now Morse and Lewis have to re-think the case. One of the people involved in this case is a prostitute named Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Smith, who counted McClure among her clients. Morse and Smith find themselves attracted to each other despite the fact that Smith is mixed up in a murder that Morse is investigating. We do learn who the killer is and we learn what the motive for both murders is. But there is one important thing we don’t learn. Towards the end of the novel Ellie Smith disappears. We don’t really know where she’s gone or what becomes of her. Here’s how Dexter puts it:

 

‘And above all in Morse’s life there remains the searching out of Ellie Smith, since as a police officer that is his professional duty and, as a man, his necessary purpose.’ 

 

The question of whatever happened to Ellie Smith isn’t answered here but the reader still gets the sense of completion that makes a crime novel fulfilling.

In Donna Leon’s Blood From a Stone, Venice Commissario Guido Brunetti and Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello investigate the murder of a Senegalese immigrant. The victim was shot execution-style while laying out his wares in an open-air market and at first there are very few leads in the case. But eventually Brunetti and Vianello tie the murder to arms trafficking and ‘conflict diamonds’ – gems sold to raise money to support armed rebellions. We learn the truth about the murder but we are not even told the victim’s name. We’re also not given every bit of information about how, specifically, he got involved in the arms/jewel trafficking business. Leon doesn’t give a lot of detail about the shooting victim. And what’s interesting is that we don’t witness any conversations that he has, really. And yet the reader isn’t left in frustrating doubt as to what happened and why. It’s an interesting case of what is included in the novel and what isn’t.

In Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man, Inspector Alan Banks and his team investigate the murder of retired archaeologist Harry Steadman, who moves with his wife Emma to the Yorkshire Dales to pursue his dream of excavating Roman ruins in the area. When Steadman’s body is discovered, Banks and his team look among Steadman’s friends, colleagues and relations to see who would have had a motive for murder. Then there’s a disappearance and another death. It’s clear now that Banks’ original theory isn’t going to easily explain these events so he has to look at the case in another way. In the end he and his team learn who the killer is and what was behind the murders. But that doesn’t mean everything is detailed. For instance we don’t get to witness exactly what led up to the second murder. We know why it happened and who committed it, but we don’t really get to hear what passes between killer and victim. Still, the novel gives a sense of closure because the main questions are answered.

The same thing is true in Teresa Solana’s A Shortcut to Paradise. In that novel, famous novelist Marina Dolç is murdered on the night of a glittering banquet at which she received a major literary prize. The most likely suspect is her rival for the prize Amadeu Cabestany. However, he claims he was in another part of Barcelona, where the novel takes place, getting robbed. Cabestany’s literary agent hires Barcelona brothers Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez to clear her client’s name and they agree to take the case. There isn’t much movement on the case for a time because very little evidence implicates anyone other than Cabestany. But finally the PI brothers find out who the killer is and why the murder was committed. So in that sense we do get answers. But the novel doesn’t answer every question. We don’t for instance know exactly what passed between the killer and the victim on the night of the murder. We know what the end result was but we don’t witness in detail the scene leading up to it. Still, the novel does give readers a look at what happens to the major characters after the murder is solved.

One of the more haunting examples of questions that don’t get answered – ‘blank spots’ that aren’t filled in – is in G.K. Chesterton’s short story The Invisible Man. In that story, Father Brown investigates what seems to be an impossible crime. Successful businessman Isadore Smythe tells an acquaintance John Angus that he is being harassed by a former romantic rival and that somehow, threatening letters have been left for him. Angus recommends that Smythe speak to a professional about the matter and makes a recommendation. Smythe agrees and they plan to meet up at Smythe’s home. Father Brown is a friend of the detective Angus recommends and he comes along when everyone goes to Smythe’s home to discuss the situation. But when they get there all they find is an empty home and evidence that Smythe was murdered. No-one was seen going into or leaving the building; certainly no-one was seen carrying a body out of the building. Father Brown deduces who the killer must be and how the crime was accomplished and is able to catch the killer. Here’s how the story ends:

 

‘But Father Brown walked those snow-covered hills under the stars for many hours with a murderer, and what they said to each other will never be known.’

 

We find out in this story who the killer is and how the crime was accomplished. But we don’t know what passed between the murderer and Father Brown. We also don’t know the murderer’s point of view – we don’t really hear from that person.

Deciding what to detail and what not to detail isn’t easy. Crime fiction readers want the major answers to their questions (e.g. Whodunnit; Whydunnit, Howdunnit), but most of us would agree that there’s such a thing as too much detail. What do you think? Do you like all of your questions to be answered? Do you like all of the pieces put together? If you’re a writer, how do you decide what to include and what to skim over or omit?

 

ps The ‘photos are of my (finally) completed home office. But not everything is there. For instance, see that empty space above the daybed? Something is going to be there. I haven’t put that detail in yet. See what I mean?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Seger’s Against the Wind.