You Know I Think It’s Time to Give This Game a Ride*

The Major League Baseball season has started, the National Hockey League playoffs have started and the National Basketball League playoffs will be starting in a couple of weeks. And even though the Summer Olympic Games in London won’t be held until the end of July, there’s quite a lot of fervor already as final preparations are made and all of the athletes get into their best physical condition. Sport is a really important part of lots of people’s lives even if they don’t participate themselves. If you’ve ever had to get through a traffic jam because of people leaving or going to a game, you know what I mean. If you arrange your schedule to watch your favourite team play, you know what I mean. We see that interest in sport in real life of course, and we see it in crime fiction, too. And no, I don’t just mean sleuths such as Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar and Dick Francis’ Sid Halley, who are former professional athletes. Sport’s woven all through the genre.

For instance, you wouldn’t think of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot as a lover of sport, and really he isn’t. But in The Mystery of the Blue Train, he uses tennis matches as a very good opportunity to follow up on leads in the murder of Ruth Van Aldin Kettering. She was traveling on the famed Blue Train to meet her lover when she was strangled. At first the motive seems to be a jewel theft, since a very valuable ruby necklace she had was stolen. But Poirot soon discovers that it’s more complicated than that and he looks into the case at the request of Ruth’s father Rufus Van Aldin. Several of the important people from whom Poirot thinks he can get clues are attending a tennis match, so Poirot goes, too. And it turns out he gets some interesting and useful information there, too.

Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey shows himself to be quite the cricket player in Murder Must Advertise. In that novel, Wimsey goes undercover at Pym’s Publicity, Ltd. when one of their copywriters Victor Dean is killed one afternoon when he’s at work. At first Dean’s death looks like a tragic accident (he fell down a flight of stairs), but he left behind a half-finished note alleging that someone at the company has been using company resources for illegal purposes. Pym’s management wants to get to the bottom of the matter and hires Wimsey for the purpose. Wimsey soon finds that someone in the company was using the company’s advertising resources to set up meetings between a drugs gang and a group of local dealers. Dean found out about it and was blackmailing that person, and that’s the reason he was killed. In his guise as new copywriter Death Bredon, Wimsey finds out who the killer was. He also ends up playing for the company cricket team and it’s at that match that the climactic scenes of the novel happen.

Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski follows sport closely and particularly likes the Chicago Cubs baseball team. In Indemnity Only, for instance, Warshawski is tracking down a young woman Anita Hill who seems to have disappeared. In the process of looking for the missing woman, she goes to the home of Anita’s boyfriend Pete Thayer only to find he’s been killed. Now Warshawski gets involved in a case involving insurance fraud, union thugs, and another murder. But she’s not too busy to listen to her beloved Cubs on the car radio as she drives, and we listen to the progress of the game, too. Warshawski is also a former basketball player and in Blood Shot (AKA Toxic Shock) she attends a reunion of her former team. That’s when Caroline Dijak, the organiser of the reunion, asks Warshawski’s help. Dijak wants to find her father, whom she never knew. Warshawski agrees, but then, the body of another friend is found in Dead Stick Pond. Now Warshawski has two cases, each involving friends of hers, to solve.

Peter Temple’s Jack Irish is a Fitzroy supporter and the son of a former Fitzroy player, so he spends his share of time with some of this father’s old football friends at the Prince of Prussia. In Bad Debts, Irish has just finished one case and is started on the case of the mysterious murder of Danny McKillop, a former client. He stops in at the pub and several of its usual denizens ask where he’s been.

 

“‘I had to go to Sydney,’ I said. ‘Work.’…
‘What kind of work does a man have in Sydney on Satdee arvo?’ said Norm O’Neill in a tone of amazement. These men would no more consider being away from Melbourne on a Saturday in the football season than they would consider enrolling in personal development courses.”  

 

Irish also follows horse racing, and a sub-plot of this novel involves a case of racing and betting arrangements.

Helene Tursten’s sleuth Inspector Irene Huss is a former European woman’s champion in judo and is still involved. She teaches a judo class and her daughter Katarina has inherited her interest. Huss doesn’t solve her cases by using judo, but she does use it to stay in shape, clear her mind and focus when she needs to. Her workouts at the dojo and her interest in judo are woven through the novels rather than becoming a separate plot in and of themselves.

And then there’s Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen’s The Cosy Knave. In that novel, retired teacher Rose Walnut-Whip is murdered during a football match between England and Germany. Everyone has gathered to watch the match on television at the home of grocer Tuxford Wensleydale and the noise from the match is so loud and people’s attention is so fixed on what’s happening in the game that they pay no attention to what has happened to Rose until it’s too late. Constable Archibald Penrose isn’t accustomed to having to deal with murder cases, but his boss Chief Inspector Alexander Mars-Wrigley is far too interested in the outcome of the match to pay a lot of attention to the investigation. So with the help of his fiancée Rhapsody Gershwin, Penrose has to put the pieces of the puzzle together himself.

Even when sport isn’t a major theme of a novel, it’s often woven into a story in subtle ways. In many, many crime novels, characters watch ball games on television (or attend them), they talk about their favourite teams and so forth. Sport is a very important part of life for many people, so it makes sense that it’s a part of stories, too. Just to show you what I mean, here’s a bit I particularly like from Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors, which isn’t even about sport. In that novel, Australian Federal Police Officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is taking a leave of absence from work. He’s lured back to investigate the murders of former politician Alec Dennet and the editor of his memoirs Lorraine Starke. This is the conversation that takes place just after Chen has been persuaded to come back to work and help investigate this case:

 

“‘Welcome back,’ said Talkative. “let’s go and talk post-mortems.’
‘Nah, I’ll come back tomorrow,’ I said, ‘to read my way through things.’
‘Dr. Nick will be shattered, not seeing you.’
‘He’s a South Sydney supporter,’ I said. ‘They’re used to heartbreak.’”

 

See what I mean about sport?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Fogarty’s Centerfield.

You Don’t Feel You Could Love Me, but I Feel You Could*

People who love to read have dozens of reasons for enjoying getting lost in a book. Sometimes it’s because the plot intrigues them. Sometimes it’s because they enjoy a particular topic like cooking, sports, birds or something else, and want to read about that topic. Or it could be because of that power books can have to teach us, take us on virtual trips all over the world, and introduce us to all sorts of memorable characters. What’s so interesting about crime fiction (after all, this is a blog about crime fiction…) is that it’s woven all through literature. You don’t have to have read a lot of Agatha Christie’s books to have read fiction that has to do with crime. No matter what your taste in books is, you’ll find at least hints of the mystery and suspense (and of course, the criminal activity) that make for quality crime fiction.

For example, one very popular genre of fiction is science fiction. Science fiction lovers may not think they’d like crime fiction, but there are some fine crime fiction novels that are also science fiction stories. For example, Isaac Asimov’s Elijah “Lije” Baley/R. Daneel Olivaw series takes place on a futuristic Earth (mostly in what we know now as New York City). Many of the fascinating questions that science fiction readers like to ponder are addressed in this series (e.g. What will the future be like? What would it be like if positronic robots were integrated into society? What kinds of scientific and technological developments could there be?) And yet, this series is a crime fiction series. It features a human police detective (Baley) and his positronic sleuthing partner (Olivaw) who investigate murders. They follow leads, collect evidence, make sense of clues, and search for motives, just like many other sets of fictional detectives.

People who enjoy reading about sport and athletes might say they don’t enjoy mysteries and crime fiction. But crime fiction is woven into that genre, too. For instance, many of Harlan Coben’s novels feature Myron Bolitar, a former basketball star who’s been sidelined because of an injury. He becomes an agent, and later an investigator. In the earlier Bolitar novels in particular, we see the same themes that make other sports novels appealing to their fans. There are larger topics such as the nature of competition, the roles of men and women in sports, greed, the passion and tenacity that it takes to be great, and more. There’s also interesting information about sport itself. The same is true of Dick Francis’ horse racing-themed novels. And yet, these novels are crime fiction novels. They focus on crimes (mostly murder) and their detection, and feature a lot of the elements in other crime fiction novels.

Many people enjoy reading about history. And there are some highly talented authors of historical fiction. For instance, there’s James Michener, whose historical novels have taken readers from Hawai’i to the Middle East to Poland (and many other places, too). For history buffs, authors such as Michener and Edward Rutherfurd provide delightful journeys into the past. And yet, there are plenty of elements of crime fiction in those novels as well. There are several sections in Michener’s and Rutherfurd’s work (to take just those two examples) in which someone is killed or other crimes are committed. And a good part of what keeps readers turning pages during those sections is finding out whodunit and whydunit.

There are also those who like to read romance novels. For romance fans, there’s nothing like getting caught up in the drama of falling in love, working through misunderstandings, learning to know each other, and the suspense of “will-they-or-won’t-they.” And of course, the attraction at the heart of these novels also draws readers in. Romance lovers may not think of themselves as crime fiction readers, but at times, they are. For instance, Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor and LaVyrle Spencer’s Morning Glory both involve crimes. In the former, Nicholas Stafford has been unjustly convicted of treason and needs the help of Douglass Stafford to clear his name. In the latter, Will Parker, who has a criminal past, falls in love with Eleanor “Ellie” Dinsmore. Their plans are complicated not only by Parker’s criminal reputation, but also by a blackmailer. There are a lot of other examples, too. These are romance novels, so the focus of the stories is the developing relationship between two people. But they also have plenty of crime fiction elements. And I’m sure you could name far more novels than I could in which a developing romance plays a role in a novel that’s mostly about a crime and its investigation.

Many, many readers are drawn to what’s often called “great literature.” They enjoy the work of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, William Faulkner, James Joyce and other writers who are known for their literary greatness. If you ask those readers whether they like crime fiction, you’d probably get plenty who’d tell you, “no.” But the fact is, there’s plenty of murder, mayhem and other crime in literary novels. For instance, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is considered one of the truly excellent examples of English-language literature. Gabriel García Márquez’ Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold) is regarded as a fine example of Latin American Spanish-language literature. Both authors use very highly-regarded literary styles (although those styles are quite different), and both are often named among the top writers in their languages. And yet, those novels focus on crime and mystery. Rebecca is, among many other things, the unfolding story of the death of Rebecca de Winter, who died under mysterious circumstances. Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada tells of the murder of Santiago Nasar. There are plenty of other examples, too, from other truly great writers (“The Scottish Play,” anyone?). And of course, there are many crime fiction writers whose work is also highly regarded as literary fiction (Peter Temple, anyone? P.D. James?). It really doesn’t take much looking to see that crime fiction and “great literature” have affected each other.

I could mention lots of other kinds of fiction that integrates crime, mystery and suspense. The fact is that many of the elements that make up a good crime story aren’t that different from the elements that make up any other excellent story. There’s an engaging and absorbing plot, appealing characters (or at least interesting and intriguing ones), solid writing style and a setting and context that adds to the story. Crime fiction, like other fine fiction, is about believable people facing challenges (in crime fiction’s case, crime). Like other fiction, it’s about how those conflicts are resolved. No wonder crime fiction is so appealing, even to those who don’t think they like it.

What about you? Which novels and authors do you recommend when friends and relations tell you they don’t like crime fiction? If you’re a writer, how do you make your work appealing to those who may not have tried crime fiction, or who may think they don’t like it?

 

 

On a Related Note….

It’s National Book Week, and today is National Book Lovers Day. What better way to celebrate than to try a new book or author…

 

 

 

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

>Put Me In, Coach*

>We recently had the chance to witness some spectacular athletic competition during the Winter Olympics that were held in Vancouver, B.C. And yesterday, the 2010 Major League Baseball season began. With all of this (and lots of other) sport activity going on, it seems a good time to think about how important sports are in most cultures. Practically every culture has some sort of sports or games, and it’s interesting to consider how very much integrated sport is into our lives. Even the way we speak includes lots of sports metaphors; for example, many people refer to a difficult situation as a “sticky wicket,” a weakened person as being, “on the ropes,” or a missed obligation as “dropping the ball.” With sports such an important part of our lives (even we’ve never played sports ourselves), it’s only natural that sports are integrated into crime fiction, too. Sports and athletics are very believable contexts, too, for murder mysteries; after all, they are often highly competitive, so it’s easy to imagine a murder in that kind of situation. Also, some sports attract lots of betting and gambling and that, too, is a very believable context for murder.

For example, many of the novels of Dick Francis are focused on the horse racing world. For instance, he introduces one of his sleuths, former-jockey-turned racetrack investigator Sid Halley in Odds Against. In that novel, Halley’s coping with the fact that an injury to his left hand has ended his racing career. He’s been working at the Hunt Radnor Associates Detective Agency for two years when he’s shot during the course of an investigation. When he recovers, his father-in-law, Charles Roland, engages Halley to find out what he can about Howard Kraye, a shady businessman whom Roland suspects of trying to take over his Seabury Racecourse as a part of a deal to build valuable property on the land. Halley takes the case and finds out that Kraye is part of a conspiracy to sabotage local racetracks in order to make a profit. In the end, Halley is able to uncover the plot and help save the racecourses. He also starts a new career as a racetrack investigator.

Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar novels are also centered on the world of sports. Bolitar is a former basketball star whose career was ended by a knee injury. After basketball, Bolitar worked as an FBI agent, but he’s now a sports agent, and does private investigation on the side. In his first outing, Deal Breaker, Bolitar is about to make a major deal for his first “name” client, rookie football quarterback star Christian Steele, who seems to be the “all-American” type. One day, though, Steele gets a call from an old girlfriend, Kathy Culver. What’s strange is that Kathy is supposed to be dead. Eighteen months ago, Kathy disappeared under strange circumstances, and everyone thinks that she was killed. Now, Christian starts getting strange clues that she may still be alive. So Bolitar decides to investigate to find out what really happened to Kathy. In the end, he discovers some dark secrets about Kathy’s family and her past as he uncovers the truth about her disappearance.

Sports is also the theme of Michael Balkind’s Reid Clark series. Clark is a professional golfer who’s at the top of the PGA tour. He’s also known as difficult and temperamental. In Sudden Death, Clark receives a death threat on the night before he’s supposed to tee off on the final day of the Master’s Tournament. Reid’s agent, Buck Green, suggests that he hires private investigator Jay Scott to help him find out who’s behind the death threat, and why his life is at risk. Clark agrees, and Scott goes to work. Meanwhile, Clark’s focused on winning the tour, despite the risk to his life. In Dead Ball, Clark hires Scott again. In that novel, Clark has opened up AllSports, a large golfing complex designed to give inner-city young people a chance to learn about golf. One day, Clark is giving the President of the United States and the First Lady a tour of Allsports when they find the body of Clark’s friend, Bob Thomas. When the body is found, AllSports is locked down until the police can find out who the killer is, so Clark hires Scott to find the murderer as quickly as possible.

Even when sports aren’t at the center of a mystery, they can still play an important role in a story. That’s what happens in Mark Richard Zubro’s Tom Mason/Scott Carpenter series. Mason is a high school English teacher. His lover, Scott Carpenter, is a famous baseball pitcher. So sports are often integrated into these mysteries. For instance, in Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead, we meet basketball and football player Jeff Trask, one of Mason’s remedial English students. Trask has been accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, Susan Warren, after a party they both attended. He asks Mason to help him prove that he’s innocent, and Mason and Carpenter begin to look into the death. As they begin to interview the people who were at the party, they meet some of the other people involved in Susan’s life, including vicious Becky Twitchell, the daughter of the President of the School Board. Very soon, they find that Susan’s death is just the “tip of the iceberg” as they uncover a schoolwide drugs conspiracy involving the coach, a school administrator, other students, and some unexpected people. In the end, Mason and Carpenter find that Susan Warren’s death had everything to do with the conspiracy.

Zubro has created another series, too, featuring Chicago police officers Paul Turner and Buck Fenwick, and we see sports integrated in that series, too. In Another Dead Teenager, Turner and Fenwick investigate the murders of Jake Goldstein and Frank Douglas. Goldstein and Douglas were star athletes who were well-liked, not involved in drugs or gangs, and hadn’t seemed to make any enemies. On the night of the murders, they’d been invited to meet with some of the Chicago Bears football players after a practice session, but they never showed up. When their bodies are discovered, Turner and Fenwick look into their private lives to try to find a connection, but don’t seem able to. Then, another teenager is brutally murdered. Now, it seems that there’s a serial killer at work, and the two detectives have to find out who’s behind the murders before another student dies.

There’s plenty of classic crime fiction, too, in which sports play a role. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders that seem connected only by warning notes he receives before each murder, and an ABC railway guide lying near each body. In fact, everyone thinks these killings are the work of a crazed serial murderer. The killer seems to be choosing his victims in alphabetical order, so by the time the fourth warning comes, the police are out in full force in Doncaster, where the killer warns that the murder will take place. Everyone thinks that this time, with lots of extra police on duty, and everyone on guard, the murderer will be caught. There’s only one problem, though, as one character mentions:

“’It’s easy to see you’re not a sporting man, Inspector.’
Crome stared at him.
‘What do you mean, Mr. Clark?’
‘Man alive, don’t you realize that on next Wednesday, the St. Leger is being run at Doncaster?’”

In this case, the murderer makes use of the popularity of horse racing to draw attention away from the murder. In the end, it turns out that all of the killings have been committed not by an insane person, as Poirot says, but by a sane one.

In Cat Among the Pigeons, Poirot investigates the shooting murder of Grace Springer, games mistress at Meadowbank, an exclusive school for girls. Late one night, Springer is found dead in the newly-built Sports Pavilion. At first, the police look for a personal reason for her death, but there doesn’t seem to be one. She was annoying and nosy, but in the words of another character, “she was just the games mistress.” Soon, though, some other mysterious happenings occur, including another murder and a kidnapping. Before long, it’s clear the Meadowbank is the focus of something much larger than just someone getting upset with the games mistress.

In Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, it’s cricket that plays an important role. In that novel, Lord Peter Wimsey goes undercover at Pym’s Publicity, Ltd. a highly respectable advertising company, in order to investigate the death of copywriter Victor Dean. Wimsey finds out that Dean’s death is related to a drugs ring that’s been using the advertising agency to communicate with dealers. The closer Wimsey gets to the truth, the more dangerous his own situation gets. In the end, at a very pivotal cricket match, Wimsey shows not only his ability to get out of a difficult situation, but also his skill at cricket.

Much as we may enjoy them, sports aren’t always, “good, clean fun.” They can be competitive, risky, and can lead to murder. The tension and the pressure that’s felt in sports make a naturally suspenseful background to a crime fiction story, so it makes sense that there are several crime fiction novels that focus on or include sports. When they’re well-written, even those who aren’t sports fans can really enjoy them. Do you agree? If so, which sports-related crime fiction have you enjoyed? Or, if you don’t enjoy sports, is that enough to keep you from reading sports-related crime fiction?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Fogarty’s Centerfield

Go, Phillies : )!

On Another Note: Please accept my apologies if you commented on my post about characters from different series appearing together, and I didn’t respond. Blogger decided to make me look the fool, and chewed up your comments and, for some of you, my responses. They did appear briefly, though, and I did read your comments, for which I thank you. I also tried to respond. Unfortunately, Blogger didn’t like that, either. Please know that I appreciate all your input!

>The Theme of Murder…

>One of the very noticeable developments in crime fiction in the last decades has been what I’ll call “themed” crime fiction. I’m not talking here of larger themes such as holidays, nor am I talking about sub-genres of crime fiction, such as noir, spy thrillers, cozies or police procedurals. I’m referring here to mystery novels that are centered on a topic, such as, medicine, sports, or specialized areas like wine-making. Themed crime fiction has the advantage of drawing those who might not otherwise be interested in mysteries towards the larger genre. It also allows crime fiction fans to learn something about an interesting topic. There are, of course, distinct disadvantages, too. For instance, themed crime fiction can turn away potential readers (e.g. “I’m not interested in football; why would I read a football mystery?”). There’s also a delicate balance required for a themed novel. The focus in a well-written crime fiction novel is on the mystery – the crime at the center of the story – and on the characters involved in it. Too much deviation into, say, the intricacies of a toxicity study (for medical-themed novels) or the details of a wine-tasting event (for vineyard-centered novels) can take the focus away from what’s supposed to be the main idea of a crime fiction novel – the mystery itself. That said, though, themed crime fiction has become increasingly popular, and has meant that many talented writers have been able to reach new mystery fans.

One of the best known themes for crime fiction is the medical theme. I discussed this particular kind of theme in a post from last month, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. Suffice it to say, though, that authors such as Robin Cook and Michael Palmer have made the hospital and doctor’s office some of the most popular settings in crime fiction. Authors such as Kathy Reichs have also popularized medical mysteries (although some say that novels about forensic medicine may deserve their own category). But that theme didn’t start with those authors. Thomas Scortia and Frank Robinson’s 1978 novel, The Nightmare Factor had a chilling medical theme, an deliberate epidemic of a virulent and highly contagious strain of influenza. Even earlier, series such as Helen Wells’ and Julie Campbell Tatham’s Cherry Ames series for younger readers focused on medical settings.

Another popular theme in crime fiction is sports. Sports and crime fiction “fit” together, possibly because sports can be very, very competitive; this allows for many believable motives for murder. Sports also attract gambling, and the win-at-any-cost thinking of some in sports also leads to drug (ab)use, and those also make for compelling plots and believable motives for all kinds of crime. Dick Francis’ Sid Halley novels, for instance, take place in the world of horse racing. Halley is a former champion jockey, but, due to an injury, can no longer ride. So he’s become a private investigator who specializes in solving mysteries related to racetracks, stables and horses.

More recently, Michael Balkind’s mysteries give us a look at the world of professional golf. Balkind’s novels focus on PGA champion Reid Clark, who’s got a reputation for being difficult, although he is at the top of his career. He works with his business partner, friend and agent, Buck Green and investigator Jay Scott. In Dead Ball, for instance, Scott helps Clark and Green investigate the murder of Clark’s best friend, Bob Thomas, who’s found dead on the grounds of AllSport, a large golfing complex he helped to create in New York’s Catskill Mountains. AllSport’s purpose among other things, is to introduce golf to inner-city young people, but when Thomas’ body is found, the facility is locked down until Clark, Scott and Green can find out who murdered Bob Thomas.

Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series is another example of a sports-themed series. Bolitar is a former college basketball star, whose dreams of a professional basketball career ended when he suffered a knee injury. After getting his law degree, Bolitar became a sports agent. Now one of the more sought-after agents in the business, Bolitar frequently gets involved in his clients’ lives. That includes clients who are mixed up in crime. In Coben’s Bolitar novels, the reader goes beyond the basketball court, and gets a look at merchandising, betting, drug abuse, and some of the other less-than-desirable aspects of the world of sports.

Another very popular theme in today’ crime fiction is what I’ll refer to as specialized themes. These are novels that are centered on a particular kind of business, art, craft or skill. One of them is wine-making. Ellen Crosby’s Wine Country Mystery series, for instance, gives readers an “inside look” at the operation of a Blue Ridge Mountains, Virgnia, winery. The winery is owned and operated by Lucie Montgomery, who had been living in the South of France, but was suddenly called on to run the business when her father, who’d owned the winery, died mysteriously. Michele Scott’s Wine Lover’s Mystery series also focuses on making wine and wine pairings, and allows readers to see the inner workings of a large Napa Valley winery, where her sleuth, Nikki Sands, is the wine manager at Malveaux Estates Winery.

Another “specialized” kind of mystery features antiques, antique dealing and antique shops. Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy series is an interesting example of how the antiques trade can lend itself to a crime fiction plot. Lovejoy is an East Anglia antiques dealer who’s rather shady and sometimes unscrupulous. He’s got an almost extrasensory perception, though, when it comes to telling whether something is a genuine, valuable antique or part of a scam. In especially the earlier Lovejoy novels, readers learn the “ins and outs” of the antiques industry, and Lovejoy himself is an interesting sleuth, since he doesn’t exactly keep to the “straight and narrow” path.

A lighter series of novels about antiques is Jane K. Cleland’s Josie Prescott novels. Prescott is an antiques appraiser and dealer Originally with Frisco’s, a large New York auction house, Prescott left the firm when her employer was caught in a price-fixing scam, and returned to her native New England. Now, she works as an appraiser in Rocky Point, New Hampshire. Through Prescott, readers get an “inside look” at bidding wars, antique scams, and other realities of the antique world.

There are many, many other themed novels, too, that feature weaving, knitting, fishing, veterinary medicine and many other choices. The one topic you’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned here is food. That’s because there are so many food-related mystery novels that they deserve their own discussion (my post on this topic from November is here). There’s no doubt, though, that cooking, catering, baking and other food-related business lend themselves to crime fiction, too.

Themed mysteries often appeal to those who might not otherwise enjoy crime fiction. In that sense, they broaden the genre’s audience. They also can provide interesting information, and they often take place in interesting contexts. On the other hand, themed mysteries can focus a story too far away from the center of any good crime fiction novel – the mystery plot itself. What’s your view? Do you enjoy themed novels? What themes do you read if you do?

*Note – You’ll notice that I didn’t mention Agatha Christie’s novels at all in this post. That’s because her novels arguably focused more on situations, characters, relationships and interactions more than on particular themes. We could argue, though, that some of her novels, such as Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air), Murder on the Orient Express (AKA Murder in the Calais Coach), and The Mystery of the Blue Train (among others) were centered on the theme of traveling. Other novels she wrote could be grouped around other themes. But they’re not tightly related within themes, so I didn’t include them. But I couldn’t let a post go by without discussing Christie’s work. : ).