The Name Game*

Authors, editors and publishers spend quite a bit of time choosing the right titles for books. And that makes sense. A good title can attract a reader’s interest and help make (and keep) a series distinctive. A ‘clunky’ title or a title that has little to do with the story can put readers off or make readers feel cheated.

So what does make for a good title? Everyone has different views about this, and the same sort of title that attracts some readers puts others off. I’m hardly an expert on title choice, but here are a few of my ideas about crime fiction titles and types of titles that work.

Traditional wisdom is that titles should be relatively short, and I can see why. Titles that are too long are cumbersome and annoying, and it’s much harder for people to remember them. There are even some very effective titles of only one word. For example, Deon Meyer’s Trackers is a highly effective title. The novel tells three stories, really. One is the story of professional bodyguard Martin Lemmer, who’s persuaded to help smuggle some rare rhinos across the border from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Another is the story of Millla Strachan, who fled an abusive husband and untenable home life and takes a new job as a journalist. The third is the story of Mat Joubert, recently retired from the police service, who’s now doing private investigation. He takes the case of Tanya Flint, whose husband Danie has disappeared. The three stories are tied together (no spoilers!), and all of them involve leaving traces, tracking those traces, and the ‘footprints’ we leave behind. The novel treats this theme on several levels and the title shows that in only one word.

Gene Kerrigan’s The Rage tells the story of Dublin DS Bob Tidey’s investigation into the murder of Emmet Sweetman. Sweetman was a successful but shady banker who’s shot in his home by two thugs. It’s also the story of Vincent Naylor, who’s recently been released from prison. Naylor, his brother Noel, and some of their friends plan a major heist – the robbery of a security company that transports money among banks and businesses. Figuring in both cases is Maura Cody, a former nun who is trying to live with her own past. As we learn what’s behind Sweetman’s murder, how the planned armed robbery plays out, and what Maura Cody is trying to live with, we see the common theme of rage. There’s rage against those who profited illegally from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years in Ireland. There’s rage against certain events that happen in the story. And there’s the rage that has come from the revelations about certain priests and nuns in the Catholic Church. The novel’s plot threads are tied together in a few ways, that theme being one of them, and it’s neatly captured in the title.

Titles can also be used effectively to tie a series together. For example, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels all include a colour in the title. There’s The Deep Blue Goodbye, The Lonely Silver Rain and those are just the first and last in the series. And Sue Grafton’s series featuring PI Kinsey Millhone are famously titled by letters of the alphabet. What’s more, each title also includes a crime-related word. I’m not sure what the title of W is For… will be, but according to her Facebook page, Grafton said (as of 22 February) that

 

‘W is for Whew!’

 

and that she has completed the ‘W’ novel. No word on publication date or actual title yet.

Many cosy series titles are linked too, so as to tie the novels together. For instance, Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) is the author of the Memphis Barbecue series, each novel of which has something related to barbecue in the title. There’s Delicious and Suspicious, Finger Lickin’ Dead, Hickory Smoked Homicide, and (coming soon), Rubbed Out. Not only do those titles link the novels, but they also are short, clever and easy to remember too.

One of the more inventive ways to title novels in a series has come from Martha Grimes, whose Richard Jury/Melrose Plant novels are each titled with the name of a pub. What’s even more effective is that the titles also have something to do with the story itself. For instance, The Anodyne Necklace concerns the murder of temporary secretary Cora Binns, the theft of several valuables, including a particular emerald necklace, and a vicious attack on sixteen-year-old Katie O’Brien. All of these incidents take place or are related to the same village, so it’s a little much for Jury and Plant to think they are unrelated. And they do turn out to be interwoven events. The title in this case gives readers an important clue to the plot and is consistent with Grimes’ other titles.

Titles can also be very effective if there’s something unusual about them – something that makes the reader curious. For example, Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing has a title that makes the reader wonder. And it’s got everything to do with the plot too. This novel concerns the case of Dr. Suresh Jha. One morning, Jha attends a meeting of the Rajpath Laughing Club, instructed by Professor Pandey. The principle behind the club is that laughing therapy provides exercise, healthy breathing and an opportunity to heal both body and soul. The members are involved in their regular laughing exercises when it seems that the goddess Kali appears and murders Jha. The event becomes a media circus and a rallying cry for those who believe that the gods and goddesses have been neglected. It comes out that Jha was the leader of the Delhi Institute for Rationalism and Education (DIRE), which is dedicated to the unmasking of fake gurus and spiritualists – ‘the godmen’ as Jha called them. Many people believe that Kali has attacked Jha in revenge for his diatribe against her worship. Delhi private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri gets interested in this case since Jha was a client at one point. He starts to ask questions and follow up leads on what really happened. And as it turns out, this case is, in many ways, not what it seems. But as you can see, the title is not just an attention-getting title. It’s also a solid reflection of what happens in the story.

So, what got me thinking about titles? Another really fascinating title: Nigerians in Space, written by Deji Olukotun. It’s certainly an unusual title and reflects the theme of the novel. This one’s about a Nigerian government official named Bello, who contacts Nigerian scientists around the world. His proposal is that they return to Nigeria and pursue their science in their own country, so as to make Nigeria a technology/science powerhouse. He seems to be bona fide, and a few of his contacts take him up on his offer. But of course, this is a crime thriller, so things don’t go as planned…The plot lines in the novel follow the stories of three people who are affected by Bello’s offer and all are related both to that offer and in a larger way, to the concept of the moon. And no, it’s not science fiction. I’ll confess I’ve not (yet) read this novel. But the title did inspire me to think about this whole question of how we choose titles and what they mean.

What about you? Do you choose a book based on its title? Do you pay close attention to titles? Which titles have you thought were the best/cleverest? If you’re a writer, I’d be really interested in how you choose your titles.

 

ps. Many thanks to Mack at AfricaScreams for the review that led to the inspiration for this post. Folks, do check out this excellent blog. It’s a rich resource for crime fiction from Africa.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Shirley Ellis and Lincoln Chase.

I Can Read the Writing on the Wall*

Of the things that distinguish people from each other is their handwriting. Perhaps it’s not as unique as a fingerprint or DNA sample, but handwriting is sometimes quite distinctive. That’s why handwriting analysis plays the role it does both in real life investigation and crime fiction. And that’s why, for instance, people may print in block letters or take other measures to disguise their handwriting if they feel they need to. Of course, handwriting experts don’t always agree on whether, say, two samples of writing come from the same person, but handwriting can matter in a criminal investigation. There are an awful lot of examples of the importance of handwriting in crime fiction and only room in this post for a few, but hopefully they’ll suffice to give you a sense of what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesoptamia, famous archaeologist Eric Leidner hires a nurse Amy Leatheran to help look after his wife Louise. Louise Leidner has been having anxiety attacks, seeing faces at windows and hearing hands tapping. A short time after Leatheran arrives, her patient confides to her that she is afraid of her former husband. She’d always believed he was killed after World War I, but she’s been getting threatening notes from him. Leatheran reads the notes and at first she can’t tell much about the handwriting. But then she sees an envelope written in Louise’s handwriting and notices the striking similarities between that writing and what she saw in the letters. Is it because Louise wrote the letters? Did someone else write them and forge the handwriting? This becomes an important question when Louise is murdered. Hercule Poirot, who happens to be in the area, is persuaded to extend his stay and investigate. He finds that the letters, and their writer, play an important part in the murder.

In Elly Griffiths’ The Crossing Places, DCI Harry Nelson is investigating two abductions. One is the ten-year-old disappearance of Lucy Downey. The other is the very recent abduction of four-year-old Scarlet Henderson. Among other things, the two cases are related by the fact that Nelson receives notes, most likely from the girls’ abductor. The notes make references to ancient mythology, the Bible and certain works of literature and on the surface of it they don’t give straightforward clues. So Nelson decides to ask archaeology professor Ruth Galloway what she makes of the references, especially the references to ancient mythology. He’s hoping that she’ll be able to interpret what the notes mean. Most of the notes are word-processed, but a few are not. Galloway is helpful in terms of what the references may mean but she can’t tell much from the handwriting at first. But  those handwritten notes prove to be critical when Galloway later makes a connection between the handwriting on the notes and other handwriting she’s seen.

In Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff’s Some Kind of Peace, Stockholm psychiatrist Siri Bergman has done her best to put her life back together after the sudden death of her beloved husband Stefan. She’s more or less functioning until she gets a letter that makes it clear she’s being stalked. That letter in and of itself doesn’t give her much information about the stalker but soon, several frightening things happen that convince her she’s been targeted. Whoever is stalking her seems determined to discredit her and ruin her reputation. Then matters worsen. The body of Sara Matteus, one of Bergman’s clients, is found in the water near Bergman’s home. A suicide note has been left behind that claims Bergman is responsible for Sara’s decision to take her own life. At first, Bergman is naturally devastated. But then it’s discovered that the handwriting isn’t Sara’s. That’s how the police determine that Sara was murdered. The murderer faked the suicide note to further discredit Bergman and to psychologically manipulate her. Now Bergman and the police have to try to track down the stalker/murderer before Bergman becomes the next victim.

There’s an interesting use of questions about handwriting in T.J. Cooke’s Kiss and Tell. London lawyer Jill Shadow agrees to take the case of Bella Kiss, who’s been arrested at Heathrow Airport for drugs smuggling. Shadow does her best to help her client but Bella refuses to reveal who has paid or coerced her to bring drugs into the country. At first, Shadow decides she’ll have to drop the case because her client seems to be obstructing her efforts. But she changes her mind and ends up involved in a complicated case involving a drugs ring overseen by some very dangerous people who have powerful connections. Shadow and her daughter Hannah are targeted too; in fact, Shadow gets a text message that threatens Hannah. That’s when it’s decided that she and Hannah should go to a safe house. But before Hannah can be safely picked up from school and brought to the safe house, she disappears. The special team that’s been investigating the drugs ring and trying to protect Shadow does all it can to find Hannah but at first there’s little success. Then Shadow gets a letter from Hannah saying among other things that she’s safe. But there are several questions about the letter. Is it really from Hannah? Is it her normal handwriting? If so, is she really safe or could she have been abducted and then coerced into writing the letter? The question of who really wrote the letter and what has happened to Hannah adds a real undercurrent of tension to this novel.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, most people know that handwriting can be quite distinctive. That’s why forgers (a topic worthy of a separate post!) work very hard to copy handwriting, and that’s why many people who write threatening letters, ransom notes or blackmail letters often use block letters or word processors. For instance, in Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Quilt or Innocence, we meet Beatrice Coleman, who has recently retired from her position in an Atlanta art gallery and moved to Dappled Hills, North Carolina. She wants to be closer to her daughter Piper and she is looking forward to the peace and quiet (or so she thinks) of retirement. In order to fit in with the local culture, Beatrice joins a quilting guild Village Quilters and begins to get to know its members. Then, one of the guild members is murdered. Beatrice begins to ask questions and very soon afterwards she starts receiving threatening notes. The notes are written in a very careful print style of writing in order to disguise the writer’s identity so at first Beatrice doesn’t know who’s threatening her. But as she keeps asking questions and finding out more about the other guild members and their backgrounds, Beatrice figures out who the note-writer is and how that person is tied in with the murder.

I know I’ve only just touched on this topic of handwriting; there’s a lot to it and when you add in things such as forgery, psychological profiling and other related topics, the issue gets even more involved. I’m going to have to write notes to myself to keep all of this in some order – that is, if I could only read my own handwriting.

OK, your turn…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul Simon’s Kodachrome.

Wonderful Food, Marvellous Food, Glorious Food*

An interesting comment exchange with Jan Morrison has got me thinking about food. Now, while I heat up something to eat, go check out Jan’s excellent writing blog. I always get a better perspective on my writing when I visit.

OK, so, back to the table… Eating is such an essential part of life that it resonates with us even if we don’t think much about food, or care much what we eat. One of the interesting things about food is how culturally contextual it can be. Of course you don’t have to be from Thailand to enjoy Thai food and you don’t have to be Pennsylvania German to enjoy shoo-fly pie. But our attitudes towards food, the kind of food we eat and the way we eat do say a lot about us. Just a peek at crime fiction should be enough to show you want I mean.

Agatha Christie’s Chief Inspector Japp comes from a working-class English background. Not for him the gourmet food his friend Hercule Poirot prefers. That’s too ‘Frenchified’ for Japp’s taste. He’s a steak, potatoes and beer kind of person. And that taste in food fits his character as well. He’s practical, down-to-earth and gets to the point. He doesn’t use flowery language or dress in expensive clothes either. His taste in food not only suits his personality, but actually shows us what he’s like without wasting words. It’s an interesting contrast too to Poirot’s preferences. Poirot is from a different culture and background entirely. So it makes complete sense that he’d have different tastes in food.

There’s an interesting look at food, culture and eating in Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) Memphis Barbecue series. This series features Lulu Taylor, who owns and runs Aunt Pat’s Barbecue, a popular Memphis restaurant. Aunt Pat’s specialises in traditional Southern U.S. food and drink such as spicy corn muffins, pulled pork, sweet tea and red beans and rice. And of course, fine barbecue. Oh, and there are recipes at the end of the novels; in what I consider an excellent choice of title, the section is called ‘Put Some South in Your Mouth.’ The food at the restaurant is an important part of placing the reader in the American South. This series works in part because the food, people’s eating preferences and so on all reflect the setting and culture.

Anthony Bidulka’s series featuring his Saskatoon PI Russell Quant also shows clearly the way that food, culture and people’s eating choices are related. Quant’s mother Kay is Ukrainian, and cooks in the traditional Ukrainian way. Quant grew up with this kind of food so for him, it’s ‘comfort food’ (a separate topic in itself). Kay also has traditional ideas about how much to cook and the role that food should play in life. So it makes for a very interesting situation when she temporarily moves in with her son over the Christmas holidays in Flight of Aquavit. Quant has become accustomed to a very different kind of diet and his lifestyle doesn’t give him a lot of time for eating. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate well-cooked food, but it’s not the focal point of his life. So when his mother joins him there’s an interesting difference about food and eating that they have to resolve.

Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano lives and works in a seaside town in Sicily. So what could be more natural than his love of properly-cooked seafood? Of course he enjoys other food too, but if you read this series, you’ll notice quite a lot of seafood mentioned in the series. It’s no surprise when you think about his culture. Another thing that’s interesting about Montalbano when it comes to food and eating is that he doesn’t eat fast food. Part of this of course is Montalbano’s own personal taste. But the ‘fast food culture’ that’s so popular in parts of the U.S. and other places is not a big part of life everywhere. For many people, food is more than just what you put in your mouth. It’s the experience of stopping the rest of one’s life to enjoy a meal. It’s the ritual that goes with choosing food, eating it and taking the time to savour what you eat. And we see that clearly in this series.

We also see that culture of taking time for food in Teresa Solana’s series featuring Barcelona PI brothers Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez. In those novels, meals might be eaten at home or they might be eaten at a restaurant. But they’re not generally bought through a drive-through window and eaten in the car. That’s not the way the people tend to feel about food in that culture. In fact, Solana refers to a funny ritual about eating lunch with a friend in A Not So Perfect Crime. The Martínez brothers are following the wife of a client because he thinks she’s being unfaithful. At one point, she has lunch with a female friend but before that, she makes sure to go shopping. Why? So that she can show up at the lunch with the right kind of designer-label shopping bags. In this particular case, the food matters, but the cultural ritual of showing one’s social status during a meal matters more.

What about all of those fictional cops and PI sleuths – and they are legion – whose food and eating habits consist mainly of going to fast food places or heating up frozen meals? And what’s interesting about that phenomenon is that it seems to cross borders. You see that kind of eating whether a sleuth is American, English, Norwegian, Australian, or from somewhere else. The type of food may vary but the habit of eating on the go, with little attention paid to the food’s quality, doesn’t seem to vary much. My guess (and mind, I’m not a sociologist) is that there is arguably a ‘cop culture.’ That culture places emphasis on long hours and the kind of work that simply doesn’t usually allow a person to stop for a few hours to eat. It does happen in some cases but not in many of them. That kind of schedule, together with emphasis on the job, is tailor made for a lot of fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes. Even Helene Tursten’s Irene Huss, who is married to a chef, takes part in her team’s pizza-fueled evening meetings.

It’s easy to see the connections between food, culture and people’s lifestyles. And it makes sense too. What, when and how we eat reflect our backgrounds, attitudes and a lot more. So it makes sense that it would do the same for crime fictional characters.

 

ps   The ‘photo is of a Seder plate used during the Passover ritual meal. The plate has a place for each of the special foods that are eaten and it’s an important part of Jewish culture and eating customs.

 

On Another Note…

 

If you’ve been celebrating Passover this week, I hope you’re having a special time with family, friends, good food, the old stories and that special feeling of connectedness.

If you’re celebrating Easter, have a joyous Easter holiday. May it give you a sense of renewal and purpose.

Even if you’re not celebrating anything in particular, I wish you good food and good people at your table.

 

Thanks, Jan, for the inspiration!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from  Lionel Bart’s Food, Glorious Food.

The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades*

Crime fiction is an awfully diverse genre and in a lot of ways that’s a good thing. In fact in most ways it is. There’s something in the genre for just about anyone to enjoy, no matter how dark, light, thriller-ish, character-driven, plot-driven or any other way they like their novels. And for the crime writer, writing in a diverse genre means there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of the kind of novel to write. But here’s the thing. A diverse genre with a lot of authors means that the crime fiction fan’s TBR list/library can get out of control. But that doesn’t stop crime fiction fans from getting excited when a new release by a favourite author is coming out.

Of course, everyone has a different set of favourites. But here are just a few of the new books coming out this year that I am very much looking forward to reading.

Coming out in April will be Martin Edwards’ The Frozen Shroud, the sixth in his Lake District series featuring DCI Hannah Scarlett and Oxford historian Daniel Kind. Edwards has a real gift for depicting the beautiful Lake District, and this series weaves together strong characters, past mysteries and present mysteries. Little wonder I’m so eager for this new novel. In it, Scarlett and her Cold Case Review team investigate the connections between the World War I-era murder of Gertrude Smith, the five-year-old murder of Shenagh Moss, and another murder closer to home for Scarlett.

Another book I’m very much looking forward to reading is William Ryan’s The Twelfth Department. This is the third in his historical crime fiction series featuring Moscow CID Captain Alexei Korolev. These novels take place mostly in Moscow during the Stalinist years leading up to World War II. Korolev lives and works during a very dangerous time in the then-Soviet Union. He’s assigned to investigate murder cases and he is committed to his job. At the same time, he is fully aware of the political tinder box in which he lives and he knows that he has to move carefully and trust no-one completely. In The Twelfth Department which is scheduled to be released in July, and which has already been getting excellent advance reviews, Korolev is excited at the prospect of a visit from his son Yuri. But he’s soon caught up in something quite different when he is assigned to investigate the murder of a noted scientist who’s been shot. It turns out that the victim was working on a sensitive, and very dark, project, and when another scientist is murdered, Korolev knows that this case is going to be extremely dangerous for him and also for his family.

Also being released in July will be Angela Savage’s The Dead Beach. This is the third in her series featuring Australian ex-pat Jayne Keeney, who lives and works in Bangkok. Savage creates a very real picture of life in Thailand and what it’s like to be a farang – a foreigner – who lives there. In this novel, Keeney is hired to find out who murdered a young tour guide who worked in the southern part of Thailand. From what Savage says about the novel, this case

 

‘…brings her [Keeney} face-to-face with unscrupulous businessmen, embittered thugs, environmental zealots and deadly cobras.’

 

Sounds like just another day’s work for Keeney, who’s already had to go up against child traffickers, corrupt cops and unscrupulous charity workers.

July will be a good month for me reading-wise because I’m also looking forward to Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Rubbed Out, the fourth in her Memphis Barbecue series which she writes as Riley Adams. This series features Lulu Taylor, who owns and runs Aunt Pat’s Barbecue, a popular Memphis restaurant. One of the things I like about this series is its authentic portrait of Southern life and culture. There’s humour and strong characterisation in this series, too. In this particular novel, Taylor gets mixed up in the murder of barbecue pitmaster Ruben Shaw. Taylor’s good friend Cherry Hayes gets into a violent quarrel with Shaw at a barbecue competition, so when Shaw is found murdered only a few hours later, Hayes is a very likely suspect. Taylor wants to clear her friend’s name, so she investigates the murder and finds that Hayes is not at all the only person who had a good reason to kill Ruben Shaw.

I’m also looking forward to a couple of October releases. For one, Jørn Lier Horst’s Vinterstengt is coming out in English as Closed For Winter. This is the seventh in Horst’s series featuring Chief Inspector William Wisting, who lives and works in Stavern, Norway. Horst creates (in my opinion at any rate) a strong sense of place and local culture and some well-drawn characters in this police procedural series. Closed For Winter continues Wisting’s story. In this novel, Ove Bakkerud is preparing for a last few quiet weeks in his summer home before closing it for the winter. Then his home is burgled. As if that’s not enough, Bakkerud discovers the body of a neighbour in the house next door. Wisting and his team investigate, only to be faced with the discovery of other bodies on the same archipelago. And what does all of that have to do with an unusual number of dead birds in the area?

October will also see the release of The Case of the Love Commandos, Tarquin Hall’s fourth novel featuring Punjabii private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri. Puri lives and works in Delhi, which Hall depicts in all of its beauty, squalor, vivid colour, life, and variety. Puri’s team consists of his secretary Elizabeth Rani, his office boy Door Stop (so called because he does as little as he can get away with doing), his driver Handbrake, and his fellow investigators Tubelight (who always takes his time sputtering to life in the mornings), Flush (whose family was the first in his village to get an indoor toilet) and Facecream (so called because she blends in perfectly in any surroundings). In this particular novel, Puri and his team investigate the abduction of a student named Ram, a member of India’s untouchable caste. He was set to marry a girl from a high caste, who’d been rescued from her family by the Love Commandos. But when Ram doesn’t appear at his own wedding, Puri takes the case. The trail leads to rural India so Puri travels to an area outside his usual element, so to speak. He also has to look over his shoulder because his rival Hari Kumar is also on this case. Word is too that Puri’s mother Mummy-ji, of whom I am very fond, features in this novel as well.

And then there’s December, when Michael Connelly’s The Gods of Guilt is set for release. This novel features attorney Mickey Haller, whom Connelly fans will know made his first ‘starring’ appearance in The Lincoln Lawyer. In The Gods of Guilt, Haller discovers that a former client – someone he thought he had saved and helped start a new life – has been murdered. Connelly is a master of creating flawed but basically sympathetic characters such as Haller, and forcing them to face their own pasts. He did it (in my opinion) brilliantly with his other famous creation Harry Bosch in novels such as Echo Park and The Last Coyote. And in The Gods of Guilt, it seems it’ll be Haller’s turn to deal with his past. I’m a fan of Connelly’s work, so this is one of those novels I’ll probably pre-order…

I’m also looking forward to lots of other releases as well. For instance, Domingo Villar’s Cruces de Piedra (Stone Crosses) will be released in Spain in May. I’m not sure how long it’ll take for this third Leo Caldas novel to be released elsewhere, but as soon as it is, I will definitely be reading it. Oh, and I’m currently reading T.J. Cooke’s Defending Elton which is due to be released very soon, but I’m not commenting on it much at the moment as I’ve not finished it; you’ll hear more about it, I can say that much.

What about you? Which novels are you really, really, really looking forward to reading this year?

If you’re a writer, here’s your opportunity: Got anything crime fictional being published this year?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Timbuk3

Latch on to the Affirmative*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 
 

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