Do You Know What I’m Saying?*

One of the ways in which an author makes a novel feel authentic is through the use of vocabulary. I’m not talking here about common dialect words (e.g. lorry/truck or petrol/gasoline); most readers are familiar with those sorts of vocabulary differences and even if there is a word one hasn’t seen before it’s usually easy to work out. There are some kinds of vocabulary though that aren’t so familiar. In those cases the writer is faced with a challenge. Does one stop in the middle of a story and explain a term? That clears the matter up but can interrupt the reader’s engagement. Does one provide a glossary? That’s awfully helpful but it does mean the reader has to look up the word. There are other approaches too that authors use, and any of them can work well, depending on the kind of story it is and the author’s way of writing.

Some authors do provide glossaries and that makes sense if one’s writing a story that includes a lot of words that the average reader might not understand. For instance, Tarquin Hall’s series featuring Delhi private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri includes a lot of vocabulary that English-speaking readers might not know. There are expressions, words for different kinds of foods and so on. Those words add to the sense of place in the novels but not all of them are easy to work out from the context. Not having them there would detract from the story; it just wouldn’t seem as real. So Hall includes a glossary with his books so readers who don’t know particular words can find their meanings. It’s really helpful actually.

Rhys Bowen has written several crime fiction series. One of them, her Constable Evan Evans series, takes place in Llanfair, Wales. The setting and context of these novels are distinctly Welsh and so are many of the characters. This means that some of the vocabulary Bowen uses in the novels is Welsh too. For instance, in Evans to Betsy, Llanfair local Betsy Edwards gets drawn into a mystery when an American graduate student Emmy Court convinces her that she may have ‘second sight.’ She encourages Betsy to attend Sacred Grove, a New Age centre led by renowned psychic Randy Wunderlich. Betsy gets involved in Sacred Grove’s activities, which is how she comes to the attention of Constable Evans, who suspects that Sacred Grove is a scam operation. Then, a young girl Rebecca Riesen goes missing and her trail seems to lead to Sacred Grove. Evans is trying to trace Rebecca when Betsy has a dream in which she sees Randy Wunderlich dead in a cave. When her dream turns out to be all too real, Evans knows that this centre is more than just a scam operation. One evening Betsy comes over to visit Evans while he happens to be cooking dinner. Here’s a bit of their conversation:

 

‘‘You’re welcome to join me. I can’t eat a whole leg [of lamb] on my own.’
Evan stood back to let her in.
‘Lovely! Diolch yn fawr, Evan bach.’ She gave him a beaming smile as she came in. ‘Do you want me to lay the table?’’

 

At the end of this novel there’s a glossary that explains that Diolich yn fawr is Welsh for ‘thank you very much.’

Some authors prefer to explain vocabulary in the context of the story. For instance, Angela Savage’s series featuring PI Jayne Keeney takes place in Thailand. The series has a strong sense of place and context, which wouldn’t be the case if there were no use of Thai. So when it adds to the story Savage includes Thai words. But their definitions and explanations are woven into the narrative. For instance, in The Half Child, Jim Delbeck hires Keeney to look into the death of his daughter Maryanne, who jumped, was pushed, or fell from the roof of the Pattaya hotel where she was living. Keeney travels to Pattaya and goes undercover at the New Life Children’s Centre where Maryanne was volunteering. She’s hoping that by doing so she’ll find some clues as to how and why Maryanne died. Bit by bit Keeney learns that New Life may very be hiding some dark secrets. It’s very possible that Maryanne found out more than it was safe for her to know. Keeney also learns that Maryanne’s personal life was complicated too, and that could have led to her death. One of the people whose help Keeney seeks in this case is Police Major General Wichit, who owes her a favour. Here is Wichit’s response when Keeney asks him to act as a reference for her before she goes undercover:

 

‘Mai pen rai,’ Wichit said, the ubiquitous Thai phrase meaning ‘it doesn’t matter’, even when it did.’

 

In this way, Savage shares the meaning of mai pen rai with the reader without interrupting the flow of the story.

James Lee Burke chooses to use context, rather than definition, to let readers know what unfamiliar words mean. In A Forning for Flamingos for instance, his sleuth Dave Robicheaux and his partner Lester Benoit are assigned to transport Tee Beau Latiolais and Jimmie Lee Boggs to Louisiana’s state penitentiary at Angola. Both men have been convicted of murder, but Tee Beau’s grandmother Tante Lemon claims that he’s innocent and was with her at the time of the murder. She wants Robicheaux to look into the case and clear Tee Beau’s name. Here’s a little of the conversation they have about it:

 

‘’I  told all them people, Mr. Dave. They ain’t listen to me. What for they gonna listen an old nigger woman worked Miz Hattie’s crib? That’s what they say. Old nigger putain lyin’ for Tee Beau.’
‘His lawyer’s going to appeal. There are a lot of things that can be done yet,’ I said. I kept waiting for the elevator doors to open.
‘They gonna electrocute that boy,’ she said.
‘Tante Lemon, I can’t do anything about it,’ I said. 

 

But Robicheaux is drawn into the case when Tee Beau and Boggs escape while en route to Angola, killing Lester Benoit and leaving Robicheaux for dead. If you’ll notice in this dialogue, Burke doesn’t stop to explain what putain means. It’s not hard given the context for the reader to work that out.

Sometimes, vocabulary is highly technical. For instance, both Aaron Elkins’  Gideon Oliver and Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway are scientists. They use very technical terms in their work which makes sense. Those are specific terms that have particular meanings. However, not everyone understands what they mean. Both Elkins and Griffiths have chosen to explain those vocabulary words in the context of conversations that Oliver and Galloway have with others. For instance, in Griffiths’ The Janus Stone, Galloway is called in when a child’s skeleton is found beneath the remains of an old children’s home. Here is a bit of the conversation when Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson attend the autopsy conducted by pathologist Chris Stevenson:

 

‘‘Cause of death – decapitation?’ suggests Stevenson.
‘Poena post mortem,’ says Ruth shortly, turning to Nelson. ‘Mutilation after death. The head was cut off later.’’

 

Here, Griffith shares the meaning of the technical term within the context of the story.

There are other ways too in which authors define and explain vocabulary. It can be a challenge to do so without interrupting the flow of a story, but when the author does it well, the reader can get a deeper sense of a word or phrase and drawn further into a story.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you like having terminology explained? If you do, do you prefer glossaries, explanations, dialogue or something else? If you’re a writer how do you integrate vocabulary?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song written by Elvis Costello for singer/songwriter Wendy James.

That I Can Tell You in One Word…Tradition!*

Tradition plays a very important role in our lives. Whether it’s family tradition, religious tradition, sport tradition or something else, our traditions give us a sense of continuity and stability. And that can be comforting and very helpful in a world that sometimes seems upside-down.

There are traditions in crime fiction too. For example, one tradition in crime fiction is that there is an obvious crime, usually murder, which is then investigated. That tradition began with the earliest crime fiction and has continued even to recent releases. For instance, Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime, released just a few years ago, features the poisoning murder of Lídia Font. Her wealthy and politically powerful husband Lluís Font is a likely suspect. He believed that his wife was having an affair, and even hired Barcelona private investigators Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez to follow her and find out if she was being unfaithful. But Font claims that he’s innocent, and he wants his name cleared. So he asks the Martínez brothers to continue working on his behalf and find out who the real killer is.

Another tradition in crime fiction is that the sleuth pursues leads, makes sense of evidence and finds out who committed the crime. Again, we see that tradition in a lot of modern crime fiction. For instance, Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs begins with the gruesome discovery of a left foot that has washed up on shore near the Norwegian town of Savern. Chief Inspector William Wisting and his team begin the process of looking for clues, following leads and so on. Then another left foot is discovered. And another. It turns out that these discoveries are linked to the disappearance of a group of residents that have gone missing from the same old-age care home. Wisting and his team also discover that the missing people had another connection, this one going back to the years during and just after World War II. The tradition of narrowing down the list of suspects and finding out whodunit and whydunit is an important part of this novel.

And then there’s the tradition that crime fiction stories are told from the perspective of the sleuth and/or a sidekick/assistant. Although readers may get a look at what other characters do and say, the real focus of the novel is the sleuth. Of course not every early crime novel was written this way (for instance Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone wasn’t). But from the beginning, it’s been customary for crime stories to be told from the sleuth or sidekick’s point of view. And many modern novels follow this tradition. For instance, Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series is told from the perspective of Galloway, who is a forensic archaeology expert at the University of North Norfolk, and the perspective of DCI Harry Nelson, the official investigator of these cases and also the father of Galloway’s daughter Kate.

These and other crime fiction traditions are a critical part of the genre. They are at its roots and they give readers and authors both a structure and a set of important parameters. But here’s the thing. Times change. Ideas change. People change. And if the genre didn’t evolve too, it would become stale and outworn. It wouldn’t meet the needs and interests of today’s readers and it would limit today’s authors. So traditions are perhaps most helpful if they are integrated with adaptation and innovation.

For instance, for many years, the crime fiction tradition was that PI sleuths were male (I know there were a few early female PI sleuths; I’m talking in generalities here). But authors such as Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky changed the PI tradition. The genre is better because it includes stories that feature Sharon McCone, Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski. Not only has that innovation welcomed many new readers and authors, it’s also breathed new life into the PI sub-genre. Yes of course there are still traditional male PI fictional sleuths and some of them are terrific characters. But adapting the sub-genre to meet new needs has improved it.

When Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, she got quite a lot of criticism for it because she broke with one of the important traditions in crime fiction. She had kept with the custom of the sleuth (in this case Hercule Poirot) who investigates a murder (here, the stabbing death of retired magnate Roger Ackrody). But she did part with tradition in a fundamental way and plenty of people didn’t like that. There was a feeling she hadn’t ‘played fair.’ And yet, if you read through that novel, there are several clues as to whodunit. This novel was an innovation and helped to change and develop the genre. In hindsight, it’s often regarded as one of Christie’s best and has one of the most famous dénouements in crime fiction history.

We also see a break with tradition in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. The story is told from the perspective of Central City, Texas deputy sheriff Lou Ford and concerns the investigation of a brutal beating and later, a murder. So far, so traditional.  But Lou Ford is not at all a ‘typical’ lawman. He has a hidden dark side – he calls it, ‘the sickness’ – that affects much about him and plays a critical role in the novel. Thompson’s creation added an innovation to the genre and opened it to all sorts of different kinds of plot twists and protagonists as well as new ways to build tension.

And then there’s the crime fiction tradition that a crime novel involves an obvious crime and the ensuing investigation. That tradition is one of the founding principles of the genre. And yet, opening up the genre to include novels where there isn’t an obvious murder or other crime has allowed for memorable novels. For instance, Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost tells the story of Kate Meaney, a ten-year-old would-be private investigator. She’s even got her own agency Falcon Investigations. Kate is content with her life until her grandmother Ivy decides she would be better off going away to school. She insists that Kate sit the entrance exams at the exclusive Redspoon School and Kate reluctantly agrees after her friend Adrian Palmer persuades her to go. Palmer even goes with Kate to the school to keep her company. Then, Kate disappears. Despite an intensive police search, no trace of her is found, not even a body. Palmer is blamed for her disappearance, although he claims he’s innocent. In fact, his life is made so difficult that he leaves town. We learn the truth about Kate when twenty years later, Palmer’s sister Lisa and a friend of hers Kurt return to the mystery and piece together what happened. Without spoiling the story I can say that this isn’t at all a typical crime-followed-by-investigation kind of novel. And yet it’s powerful.

Traditions link us with the past. They give us a safe structure and they are important in helping us order our lives. But without innovation and change, traditions become limiting. They seem to be most helpful to us when they are seasoned with evolution. What do you think? When you read, what sort of balance between tradition and innovation do you like? If you’re a writer, how does tradition fit into what you write? Or doesn’t it?

 

On Another Note…
 

 

This post is dedicated to the memory of Jackie Robinson. On 15 April 1947, he became the first African-American to play in a major-league U.S. baseball game. Baseball has always been a sport rich with tradition. It still is. But then-Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey saw that in order to attract new fans and make the game more popular, baseball would need to evolve and change the tradition of fielding only White players. Rickey had the idea and Robinson had the courage, the class and the baseball talent to make that idea a reality. And baseball is far better for it. So are we as a people.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the prologue to Jerry Brock and Sheldon Harnick’s Tradition (Book by Jospeh Stein).

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.

In The Spotlight: Elly Griffiths’ The Crossing Places

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Some crime fiction series do more than just tell the story of crimes and their investigation. They also give the reader a portrait of a particular place or sort of setting and the people who live and work in it. That’s the sort of series Elly Griffiths has written so to show you what I mean, let’s turn the spotlight today on the first in her Ruth Galloway series, The Crossing Places.

When a set of old bones is discovered in a remote area of Norlfolk called the Saltmarsh, DCI Harry Nelson visits the Archaeology Department at the University of North Norfolk, He wants to know how old the bones are because he suspects they may be the bones of Lucy Downey, who disappeared ten years earlier. Nelson was one of the investigators on the original team and at the time of the disappearance, he received a series of letters that seemed to come from the person who abducted Lucy. No trace of the girl has been found though, and he has been haunted by his inability to solve the case and give her parents some resolution. Dr. Ruth Galloway, an expert on bone presentation, agrees to go with Nelson to look at the bones and give an opinion about their probable age. To her surprise, the bones turn out to belong to a girl from the Iron Age, and this opens up all sorts of possibilities for new research. So once Nelson is satisfied that the site won’t be needed for his criminal investigation, it’s opened up for new excavation.

Excited about this new development, Galloway doesn’t think too much about the more modern mystery until Nelson contacts her again. This time it’s because he’s received another letter that’s quite possibly from the person who abducted Lucy Downey. What’s more, the letter makes a veiled reference to another girl Scarlet Henderson who’s just recently been abducted. Nelson wants Galloway to look at the letters as a whole and see whether she can get any idea of the kind of person who might have written them. She recognises some of the quotes and references the writer uses although at first they don’t point to any one person. Then she remembers a man named Michael Malone AKA Cathbad, who worked with her on a dig ten years earlier and who might have the knowledge needed to write the letters.

Galloway had never thought of Cathbad as a murderer but when Nelson tracks him down, she’s no longer quite as sure of herself as she was. At the very least he represents a connection between the excavation of a very old site and the more recent disappearances. But there are certainly other likely possibilities, and Cathbad claims that he is innocent. So when he asks Galloway to help clear his name, she agrees. As Nelson and Galloway, each in a different way, investigate these disappearances, they slowly discover that it’s impossible to say who can be trusted and who can’t. That becomes even clearer when Galloway herself becomes a target. Then Galloway discovers one important clue that points her towards the answer. And in the end she and Nelson put the pieces of the puzzle together.

This is among other things a police investigation (although honestly, I wouldn’t classify at as a police procedural). So one of the important elements in the story is the actual case. Readers follow along as Nelson interviews people, tries to make sense of clues, follows leads and the like. Readers also follow along as Galloway uncovers leads and clues as well in her way. And it is to Griffiths’ credit that Galloway doesn’t do ‘police work.’ She is an expert called in by the police, but her professional involvement in the investigation says believable.

But the police investigation is only one of many strong elements in the novel. Another is the look we get at academic life. Galloway is a professor associated with the University of North Norfolk, so readers see that side of her life. There are student meetings, lectures, departmental issues and the like. And because Galloway is an archaeologist, there’s also a fascinating look at the way excavation teams work, how they set their priorities, how they go about investigating a site, and so on. And Griffiths doesn’t sugarcoat it:

 

‘Ruth remembers from the henge excavation that digging on this marshy land is a tricky business. The furthest trench, which is beyond the tide mark, will fill with water every night. This means it will, in effect, have to be dug afresh every day. And the tide can take you by surprise.’

 

It’s dirty, tiring and sometimes very physically uncomfortable. But Galloway loves her job and it’s obvious.

Another strong element in this novel is the physical setting. The Saltmarsh, where Galloway lives and where much of the story takes place is lonely and inhospitable. Galloway enjoys the solitude and there is a wild beauty in the marshland, the birds and the lack of overcrowding and noise. But it’s a stark place that’s not to everyone’s liking. It makes a very effective backdrop for the events in the story though and the sudden weather changes add to the suspense.

As much as anything else, this novel tells both Galloway’s and Nelson’s personal stories. It’s told from both of their points of view, alternating between them as the story goes on. Readers who prefer only one perspective will notice this but it’s always clear whose point of view is being shared, and Griffiths uses this strategy very effectively to tell both characters’ backstories. And it turns out that their histories do play important roles in the story.

Galloway and Nelson are interesting characters too. Galloway is single by choice and lives alone with her cats. But she’s hardly a ‘crazy cat lady’ although she does have a wry sense of humour about the way she lives. She isn’t conventionally beautiful but her intelligence, capability and ability to be sympathetic are appealing, and it’s easy to see why Nelson is drawn to her.  For his part, Nelson is dedicated to his job but not one of those stereotypical obsessed cops who drink too much and don’t care about anyone else. He loves his children and is devoted to his wife. At first, Nelson and Galloway are drawn together mostly by the puzzle they’re trying to solve. As the story goes on though, their relationship turns personal. And yet, it happens naturally and neither of them has unrealistic expectations about it.

There’s also a cast of other interesting characters in this novel. There’s Galloway’s best friend Shona, a fellow academic. There’s the Druid Cathbad, who has fascinating depths and who knows the ancient henge the dig team excavates. There’s also Galloway’s mentor Erik Anderssen, who travels from his home in Norway to help with the new dig when the Iron Age remains are discovered. And there are very real portraits of both Scarlet Henderson’s family and Lucy Downey’s.

The Crossing Places is the story of three past and present mysteries, all related and all tied up in the personal stories of Ruth Galloway and Harry Nelson. It takes place in a starkly beautiful and distinctive setting and features a look at the world of archaeology as well as a real-life look at ‘cold case’ police investigations. But what’s your view? Have you read The Crossing Places? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

Oh, and I don’t usually make this point about the books I put in the spotlight but I will in this case. The Crossing Places is the first in what I consider an excellent series that I hope you’ll get the chance to follow.

 

 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 8 April/Tuesday 9 April – The Case of the Gilded Fly – Edmund Crispin

Monday 15 April /Tuesday 16 April – The Precipice – Virginia Duigan

Monday 22 April/Tuesday 23 April – The Diggers Rest Hotel – Geoffrey McGeachin

Puzzle Pieces in the Ground*

By now you’ve probably heard of the discovery of the bones of England’s King Richard III in Leicester. And as it happens, today (or yesterday, depending on when you read this) would have been Mary Leakey’s 100^th birthday. So it seems like the perfect time to dig up some crime fiction that has archaeology as its focus. There’s a lot of it too and that makes sense. Archaeologists have added much to our knowledge of history, they’ve answered a lot of questions and they’ve given us a fascinating perspective on ourselves as a species.

Agatha Christie fans will know that she was married to an archaeologist, so several of her stories and novels have that science as a theme. I’m only going to mention one. In Murder in Mesopotamia, Hercule Poirot is returning home after a visit to the Middle East when he is asked to break his journey and investigate a murder. Louise Leidner, wife of prominent archaeologist Eric Leidner, has been found bludgeoned in her room. As Poirot gets to know the excavation team he discovers that there were several members of the team who had a good motive for murder. Besides the mystery itself, this novel gives readers a look at the way archaeologists go about what they do – or at least the way they did so at the time the novel was written. There’s information on digging, cleaning pottery and other finds and storing antiquities.

Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man is the story of the murder of Harry Steadman. Steadman is an archaeologist with Leeds University when an inheritance frees him to pursue his own goals. His passion is the set of Roman ruins in Yorkshire so he and his wife Emma move to that area. He begins to work on a large excavation project which he hopes will yield some fascinating material. When Steadman is murdered, DI Alan Banks and his team investigate the death. And there are several suspects too, including those who are opposed to a potentially valuable piece of land being set aside for an archaeological dig. As the novel moves along we learn something about the politics of getting permission to dig, starting the process and dealing with the egos involved.

Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear’s Anasazi Mystery trilogy features archaeologist William ‘Dusty’ Stewart. As a young man, he was mentored by Dr. Dale Robertson and has learned from his role model not just the scientific elements of archaeology but also its nuances. Stewart has a real feel for the Sonoran desert in which this trilogy takes place and a real respect for the people who live there. In The Visitant, the first in this series, he and his dig team discover the remains of eight women who seem to have been murdered. Robertson convinces him to work with Dr. Maureen Cole, a forensic anthropologist, to find out who these women were and why they were buried where they were found. Cole and Stewart have very different approaches to going about their research, but they complement each other and in the end we learn what happened to the victims. Throughout this trilogy (The Summoning God and Bone Walker are the other novels), readers get an ‘inside look’ at what it’s like to live and work on a dig site. The life is not at all romanticised but it’s easy to see its appeal.

Jessica Mann’s Tamara Hoyland is an archaeologist who, in the course of the series that features her, also becomes an agent for British Intelligence. In Funeral Sites, the first in this series, she works with Rosamund Sholto, who travels to England to attend her sister Phoebe Britton’s funeral. Sholto soon begins to believe that Phoebe’s husband Aiden had something to do with her death. He is blindly ambitious as well as shady and Sholto wouldn’t put it past him to have committed murder. But Aiden Britton is also powerful and well-connected. So Sholto soon finds herself on the run as she tries to get the evidence she needs. She’s helped in this case by Hoyland, whose lover is a member of British Intelligence. When Hoyland proves herself if I may put it that way, she too is invited to join the intelligence community. This series strikes an interesting balance as Mann explores not just Hoyland’s skills as an archaeologist but also her skills as an intelligence agent. Hoyland has a solid enough reputation to use her archaeology credentials in her travels so her profession serves as a useful cover for her ‘other life.’

And no discussion of archaeology in crime fiction would be complete without a mention of Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway. Galloway is a Head of Forensic Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. Because of her background and skills, she is often called to the scene when a skeleton is discovered. That’s how she meets DCI Harry Nelson, the father of her daughter Kate. Their relationship and her role as Kate’s mother form important threads through this series. But so does the professional work she does. In The House at Sea’s End for instance, she works to discover the identity of six people whose remains are found when a piece of rock crumbles into the sea. The victims do not seem to be English. What’s more, they seem to have been there since the time of World War II. As Galloway is working on this mystery, another death occurs, this time the death of a man who was writing a story on the victims. Now it’s clear that someone is desperate to make sure that no-one finds out the truth about those victims.

I know that Josephine Tey’s Inspector Alan Grant is not an archaeologist. But as I’ve mentioned the new discovery of King Richard III’s body, I couldn’t leave out Tey’s The Daughter of Time. In that novel Grant goes on the trail of a very cold case. He is in hospital with a broken leg when he gets interested in a portrait of King Richard III. As he muses on the portrait it occurs to him that the king may not have been the murderer he was always thought to be. So Grant takes it upon himself to find out what really happened in the case of the Princes in the Tower.

I wish I were better schooled in archaeology but I’m not. It’s fascinating to read about though. Want more? Sure ya do. Check out this interesting post about archaeology in crime fiction by Bernadette at Reactions to Reading. Her top-notch blog is more than worth a prominent place on any crime fiction fan’s blog roll anyway.

 

On Another Note…

 

 

I can’t help but think that the news about King Richard III would have really interested the late and sorely-missed Maxine Clarke. She was a real fan of The Daughter of Time too so my guess is that she’d have appreciated this interest in the king. Somehow I hope she knows…

Maxine was an ardent supporter of crime fiction and an avid reader. She was also a friend. So I’m honoured to be a part of Petrona Remembered, an exciting new blog that celebrates her passion for crime fiction. Please visit Petrona Remembered and consider contributing to it. Honestly it’s quite simple to submit your post on your favourite crime fiction and crime fiction topics. Check out the blog and help us to keep alive her love of the genre. See ya there!

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jack Johnson’s Traffic in the Sky.