Can’t You See I’m Smart?*

Research during the past few decades has shown us some fascinating things about the way we think and know. It used to be believed that intelligence could be measured on a single dimension. The assumption was that everyone had a certain amount of this one ‘thing’ called intelligence. But work by Howard Gardner and other researchers has changed all that. Gardner conceived of several different intelligences. According to this theory, there are several different ways of thinking and knowing; Gardner called them multiple intelligences. We each have some of each of the intelligences, but in each of us, at least one (and usually more than one) is particularly strong. Hold on – I’ll get to crime fiction in just a second.

Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences make a lot of intuitive sense if you think about it. Some people are naturally good at, say, art, music, athletics or languages. And research has supported his theory fairly consistently. We can even see these multiple intelligences woven all through crime fiction. If you look at the way various sleuths go about solving cases, you can see how different ways of thinking and knowing come through in the genre.

For instance, one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences is what he called logical-mathematical intelligence. People with a high degree of this kind of intelligence find it easy to recognise patterns and algorithms. They find numbers and codes and puzzles interesting and their skill is in deduction. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is like that. As Holmes fans know, he looks for patterns and focuses on deduction and logic.

There’s also what Gardner called visual-spatial intelligence. People with visual-spatial intelligence tend to be talented at art. They notice colour and design and respond to what they see. In a very obvious way we see that kind of intelligence in Ngaio Marsh’s Agatha Troy. She’s an artist who responds to what she sees and can create in several different media. For instance in both Final Curtain and Tied Up in Tinsel (and other novels too), Troy is commissioned to paint portraits. So she’s on the scene when murder happens at the homes where she’s staying. Although it’s technically her husband Roderick Alleyn who officially solves the cases, Troy’s skilled eyes are very helpful in finding clues. We see that especially in A Clutch of Constables in which she goes up against an international art forger known only as Jampot. Hercule Poirot also has this kind of intelligence. He’s quite observant about his visual surroundings and of course, fans know how important the appearance of his clothes and moustaches are to him.

Some people have a great deal of linguistic intelligence. Novelists, poets, journalists and other writers often fall into this category. If you love words, play a lot of word games and notice the way people use language, you’ve got a solid dose of this kind of intelligence. For instance, John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell is a lexicographer. Words and languages are his specialty. That’s how he finds out the truth in, for instance, Hag’s Nook, where a cryptic poem turns out to be key to a murder. Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse has a dose of this kind of intelligence too. He does after all solve crossword puzzles with a pen and is a stickler for certain kinds of language use.

People with a lot of kinesthetic intelligence have a solid sense of where their bodies are in space. Actors, athletes, dancers, and people who can parallel park on the first try show this kind of intelligence. People with kinesthetic intelligence like to learn by doing and using their hands and bodies. For example, Helene Tursten’s DI Irene Huss has a share of kinesthetic intelligence. She is a former judo champion who uses the principles of judo to keep herself in shape as well as to clear her mind and cope with the stresses of her life as a cop. And interestingly, we several instances in this series where Huss gets bored and tired of paperwork and the other ‘desk routines’ that are part of a cop’s life. Although she’s hardly rash, Huss prefers to be out doing things to sitting at her desk. She also enjoys going for runs and exercising the family dog. All of those are hallmarks of kinesthetic intelligence and it serves Huss well.

Gardner also proposed interpersonal intelligence. People with interpersonal intelligence are skilled at interacting with others. I don’t mean that they are necessarily manipulators; rather, they work well with all kinds of people. And that is a critical skill for a sleuth. So, most fictional sleuths have at least some degree of it. G.K. Chesterton’s Father Paul Brown for instance is highly skilled at communicating with others, at forming bonds with them and understanding their perspectives. That’s how he learns as much as he does from suspects and witnesses. Karin Fossum’s Oslo police inspector Konrad Sejer is like that too. When he’s investigating a crime, one of his talents is the ability to see things from a variety of other perspectives and ‘get in people’s heads’ to understand why and how they do what they do. People tend to become comfortable talking with him and he often finds himself better able to get information through his interactions than he would through simply reading police reports.

There are also people with a lot of what Gardner called intrapersonal intelligence. Reflective people, people who keep journals and those who are really aware of themselves show this kind of intelligence. And being aware of one’s own reactions  – one’s sense of self – can be very useful for a sleuth. For example, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux has a keen self-awareness. That self-knowledge and reflection have helped him cope with some of the traumas he’s had to face, especially his Vietnam-era experiences. For instance in A Morning For Flamingoes, Robicheaux agrees to go undercover as a ‘dirty’ cop to try to trap New Orleans crime boss Tony Cardo. Part of his assignment is to get close to Cardo but that proves increasingly difficult for Robicheaux as he becomes aware that he has sympathy for his target. Throughout this novel, Robicheaux keeps himself as grounded as he can by ‘checking in with himself.’

Another of the multiple intelligences people have is musical intelligence. Obviously singers, composers and musical artists have a healthy dose of this kind of intelligence. But it’s more than just being able to sing or play music on key. It’s also a sense of rhythm and a keen awareness of sound. If you like a soundtrack when you work, or if you find yourself singing or whistling when you weren’t aware of it, or if you can’t help walking in time to the music when you walk past a car with its radio on, you know what I mean. And if you don’t, just ask Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson, who used to be a rock singer and still does occasional gigs. Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus has musical intelligence as well although he’s hardly a famous rocker. His music collection matters a lot to him and there are lots of scenes in the Rebus novels (including a really well-done scene in Exit Music) in which he gets or listens to music.

Naturalist intelligence is actually pretty self-explanatory. People who are attuned to nature and its rhythms and who just ‘fit in’ in natural environments have a lot of naturalist intelligence. Garden enthusiasts, park rangers, those who are comfortable with animals and those who simply like to be outdoors are examples of those with naturalist intelligence. There’s a lot of it in crime fiction too. Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee, Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest, and Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon are all examples of people who learn from and use nature as they solve crimes. So does Arthur Upfield’s Napoleon ‘Bony’ Bonaparte. These sleuths can tell much from weather patterns, animal activity, ground marks and other natural phenomena. In fact, they often find clues where others can’t.

Finally there’s what Gardner called existential intelligence, the most recent of his proposals. The big questions – the ‘why’ questions – appeal to people with a lot of existential intelligence. Philosophers and members of the clergy often wrestle with these larger questions. And sometimes getting philosophical can be helpful to a sleuth. It is to Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie, who is the editor of Review of Applied Ethics. She doesn’t go out looking for physical clues, and she doesn’t search for patterns. Rather, she looks at the larger motivations people have, and considers the larger issues of morality.

You may be thinking, ‘But don’t all these sleuths also have other intelligences?’ They do indeed. That’s the thing about multiple intelligences. We’ve all got all of the intelligences to some degree. And what’s most interesting is that we can develop the ones we choose to develop.

Interested in taking a look at your own intelligences? Try this Multiple Intelligences Survey. It’s got 40 questions and took me about 10 minutes or so to complete.  By no means is it definite – it’s just one look at the way we learn and know. If you’re a writer, what intelligences does your protagonist have?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Undertones’ Smarter Than You.

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.

Well, You Say That I’m an Outlaw*

In crime fiction, we usually think of the protagonist as ‘the good guy’ – the one who catches ‘the bad guy.’ But people who break the law can also be really interesting protagonists and even sleuths. Having a criminal as a protagonist gives a really interesting perspective on a crime. It also allows for some solid depth of character.

One of G.K. Chesterton’s well-drawn characters is Hercule Flambeau, who is a master jewel thief and criminal. He’s usually able to outwit the police, but when he encounters Father Paul Brown in The Blue Cross, Flambeau finds he’s met his match. In that story, Father Brown is en route to a large gathering of priests. With him he’s brought a silver cross set with turquoise – a very attractive prize to a thief such as Flambeau. The story of how the two men interact and of how Father Brown deals with Flambeau is interesting and certainly from Flambeau’s perspective, unusual. We meet Flambeau in other stories too where he is at least the co-protagonist and although he has a criminal past, he’s painted quite sympathetically.

Agatha Christie takes an interesting look at the criminal-as-protagonist in And Then There Were None (AKA Ten Little Indians). Ten very different people receive invitations to stay as guests at a house on Indian Island, off the Devon coast. For different reasons, each accepts. On the night of their arrival, the guests are shocked when each is accused of being a criminal, specifically of causing the death of at least one other person. Then, one of the guests dies of what turns out to be poison. Later that night there’s another death. It’s soon clear that they are trapped on the island with a murderer. As more guests begin to die, the survivors have to find out who the killer is while at the same time staying alive themselves. As we learn the backstory of each person on the island, we also learn why their un-named host considers them criminals. But they’re not entirely unsympathetic people and we can feel for them as they try to decide who can be trusted and who not.

Robert Pollock’s Loophole: Or, How to Rob a Bank is the story of a group of criminals led by professional thief Mike Daniels. The team decides to try for a very big prize: a theft from the City Savings Bank. Their bold plan is to use the sewer system to tunnel under the bank. For that though they’ll need the help of an architect. They find their man in the person of Stephen Booker, an unemployed architect who’s taken to driving a night cab to put food on the table. He’s desperate for money so against his better judgement he falls in with the thieves. The group makes elaborate preparations and as they do, Pollock shows the thieves in a sympathetic light. Here for instance is Daniels’ description of thieves:

 

‘Thieves. You might just as well say salesmen or clerks in an office. It’s their business. It’s what they do. There’s nothing strange about it, not to them anyway…They do what everybody does. They have girlfriends or wives and children and hobbies. They build shelves in the kitchen and clean their cars on Sundays.’
 

The day of the robbery arrives and at first everything goes well. Then a storm moves in, bringing a lot of rain with it. Now the thieves face a literal life-or-death struggle as they try to go for their prize.

In Tony Broadbent’s The Smoke, we meet Jethro, a professional cat burglar living in post-World War II London’s West End.  He tries to convince the world that he’s ‘gone straight,’ so he takes a job in the theatre district. His real goal though is easy access to the wealthy homes in nearby Mayfair and Belgravia. At first, he’s able to go fairly un-noticed even though most people in the criminal world are convinced that he has no intention of living an ‘upright’ life. Then Jethro decides on a real coup: emeralds belonging to the wife of the Russian Ambassador. That break-in gets the interest of MI5 and Jethro soon finds himself facing off against them, the police and fellow criminals. While it’s quite clear that Jethro’s a criminal, it’s easy to feel sympathy for him.

In Jeffrey Stone’s historical novel Play Him Again we are introduced to Matt ‘Hud’ Hudson. Hud has dreams of becoming a film-maker in the growing world of Hollywood. But at the moment he’s a ‘rum-runner’ – a smuggler of then-illegal alcohol (the novel takes place in the 1920’s). Hud is devastated when his friend Danny is murdered, Hud wants to find out who killed him and get revenge. There are plenty of suspects too. For one thing, a very nasty criminal gang has moved into the area and wants to take over Hud and Danny’s operation. There are rival smuggling groups too whose members would be all too happy to have the field cleared as the saying goes. As Hud searches for answers, it’s clear that he and several of the people he deals with are criminals – thieves, con men and smugglers. But Stone presents a lot of them sympathetically and it’s not hard to wish Hud well as he tries to find out what happened to his friend.

Even when criminals aren’t ‘official’ protagonists, they can play important roles in novels and be depicted sympathetically. For example, Andrea Camilleri’s series featuring Inspector Salvo Montalbano includes a very interesting ‘regular’ character Gegè Gullotta. He’s a drug dealer and local criminal leader who runs a notorious area of the town of Vigàta. This area, called The Pasture, is a meeting place for prostitutes and their clients and for small-time marijuana and other drug deals. Gullotta and Montalbano went to school together and they’ve maintained a cordial relationship since then, although both of them find it more expedient to keep their friendship discreet. Gullotta wants to run a trouble-free operation; as he sees it he’s a businessman, nothing more. In his way Montalbano helps Gullotta by not making public examples of the people involved in Gullotta’s ‘enterprises.’ Gullotta appreciates being able to run a peaceful trade and he does his part by not letting things in The Pasture get out of control or trouble people who don’t want to be involved in what goes on there. He’s also quite tuned in to the Vigàta criminal community so he hears a lot of what goes on. More than once Montalbano benefits from what Gullotta finds out.

It’s always interesting to see stories from different points of view. When criminals are portrayed as protagonists, it’s important for authors to acknowledge that they’re lawbreakers. But at the same time, a criminal with a sympathetic character can make for an effective perspective in a crime novel. Which ones have you enjoyed?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Woody Guthrie’s Pretty Boy Floyd.

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.

Everybody’s Makin’ Believe That They Know*

It’s surprising how much of what we do and how we react is based on our assumptions – on what ‘everybody knows’ is true. ‘We all know,’ for example, what people like the biker in the ‘photo are like, right? ‘We all know,’ don’t we that a muffin has fewer calories than a doughnut does.** Right? Right? Wrong And that’s the thing about ‘what everybody knows.’ Most of it’s based on assumptions that may or may not be true at all. But those assumptions govern a lot of what we do, say and think and it can be hard to confront them. Those kinds of assumptions are such an important part of the way people think that we shouldn’t be surprised that they turn up a lot in crime fiction too. And sometimes they can have serious, even tragic consequences.

For instance, in G.K. Chesterton’s short story The Honour of Israel Gow, Father Paul Brown travels to Glengyle Castle in Glasgow, where Archibald Ogilvie, Earl of Glengyle has recently died. Glengyle lived alone except for his groundskeeper/house servant/personal assistant Israel Gow. Gow is an eccentric who, it seems, knows a lot more than he’s saying about his master’s death. ‘Everybody knows’ that Gow is deaf and perhaps ‘not in his right mind.’ ‘Everybody knows’ he may even practice some form of witchcraft or devil worship. But what ‘everybody knows’ turns out to be quite flawed, as Father Brown is able to show. When he puts the pieces of Glengyle’s death together, we learn that things are not what we assume them to be.

We also see the powerful role that ‘what everybody knows’ can play in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (AKA Murder in Retrospect). In that novel, Carla Lemarchant hires Hercule Poirot to solve the sixteen-year-old murder of her father, famous painter Amyas Crale. ‘Everybody knows’ that Crale’s wife Caroline was the jealous type who could be violent. ‘Everybody knows’ that she killed her husband because of his affair with Elsa Greer, whose portrait he was painting at the time of his death. In fact, ‘everybody knows’ a lot about what happened on the day of the murder – until Poirot looks into the case more deeply. He starts with the assumption that if Caroline Crale was not guilty, somebody else was and interviews all five of the people who were ‘on the scene’ on the day of the murder. Those interviews, plus what Poirot learns from everyone’s written account, show that ‘what everybody knows’ about Caroline Crale and about the day of her husband’s murder is very skewed and wrong.

In Ann Cleeves’ Raven Black, DI Jimmy Perez investigates the murder of Catherine Ross, who’d moved not long before to Ravenswick, Shetland. At first there doesn’t seem to be much of a need for an investigation. ‘Everybody knows’ that eccentric loner Magnus Tait is probably the killer. He doesn’t have many visitors, let alone friends. He was probably the last person to see Catherine Ross alive, though. And ‘everybody knows’ that he is probably responsible for the disappearance of another girl Catriona Bryce several years earlier. No physical evidence really connects Tait with Catherine Ross’ murder but ‘everybody knows’ he is guilty. The more Perez looks into the case though, the more he begins to question what ‘everybody knows.’ So despite pressure to wrap the case up, Perez continues the investigation and in the end he finds out who really killed Catherine Ross and why.

There’s a very clear example of the damage people can do when they believe what ‘everybody knows’ in Wendy James’ The Mistake. Jodie Evans Garrow has what most people would call a very good life. Her husband Angus is a successful attorney who’s being suggested as the right candidate to be the next mayor. Her two children are healthy and doing well enough in school and Jodie herself is what most people would call content. Then her daughter Hannah gets into an accident and is taken to a Sydney hospital – as it turns out, a hospital that Jodie knows all two well. Years earlier, Jodie gave birth to another child Ella Mary at that hospital. When a nurse who was there at the time remembers Jodie, she asks what happened to the baby. Jodie claims the baby was given up for adoption, and that’s when the real trouble begins. There turns out to be no record of the adoption, and it’s not long before people begin to ask private and then very public questions about Jodie. Before long, ‘everybody knows’ that she deliberately killed the baby. ‘Everybody knows’ that she’s mentally unstable and a lot of other things about her too. Even her family begins to wonder if ‘what everybody knows’ might be right. Only one person, Jodie’s friend Bridget ‘Bridie’ Sullivan, is really interested in what actually happened, rather than ‘what everybody knows’ happened. And as we find out the truth, we learn that ‘what everybody knows’ can’t always be trusted.

In Andrew Nette’s Ghost Money we meet Max Quinlan, an Australian ex-cop who’s taken up the business of finding missing people. He’s hired by Madeleine Avery to find her brother Charles, who seems to have disappeared. She’s willing to pay top money, so Quinlan agrees to take the case and travels to Bangkok, the last place Avery was known to have lived. That’s when he discovers the murdered body of Robert Lee, Avery’s business partner. Avery himself has disappeared but clues that Quinlan finds suggests that Avery has gone to Cambodia. Quinlan follows the trail there and takes with him a host of assumptions about Cambodia, its people and the tactics he should take to track Avery down. He’s wrong on just about all counts. It’s not until he lets go of ‘what everybody knows’ about Cambodia that he’s able to find out what happened to Charles Avery. What makes this story especially interesting is that Max Quinlan isn’t the stereotypical ‘White person with a racial bias against Asians.’ He’s half-Vietnamese himself, and he’s lived and worked in Bangkok before, so he thinks he knows how to operate in Cambodia. It’s a fascinating portrait of a character who has to confront what he always ‘knew’ about a place and its people.

‘Everybody knows’ what former prisoners are like, right? That’s exactly the set of assumptions addressed in Angela Savage’s short story The Teardrop Tattoos. In that story, a woman has recently been released from prison after serving a murder sentence. She’s given a place to live not far from a local day care facility, and settles in with her beloved pit bull Sully. She cultivates the ‘tough lesbian’ image, complete with tattoos, because ‘everybody knows’ what they’re like and leaves her alone, and that’s exactly what she wants. Then one day, she gets a complaint from the local Council because Sully is a member of a restricted breed. She’s forced to give Sully up and plans the revenge she’ll take on the woman who lodged the complaint. Throughout this story we see several examples of what ‘everybody knows’ and how very wrong that can be. And as we get to know the protagonist, we find out that there’s much more to her than what everybody thinks.

And that’s the thing about believing things that ‘everybody knows.’ Everybody isn’t always right.

 

** A Starbuck’s Apple Bran muffin has 380 calories. A Krispy Kreme original glazed donut has 200 calories. Of course there are differences among brands and varieties of muffins and donuts, but still… And you thought this blog was just about crime fiction.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Careless Talking.