But It’s Superficial and It’s Only Skin Deep*

If you’ve ever been to a resort, or even an upmarket club or restaurant, you know that everything there is carefully designed to cater to guests. It looks like it all happens by magic but the fact is that a lot goes on behind the scenes. And sometimes the real story comes from the people who make it all happen. The more you see that, the more you understand how little guests and tourists really see unless they look for it. There’s sometimes a real rift between the people who stay at resorts and go to those upmarket places and the people who make them ‘tick.’ That rift, and what really goes on ‘behind the scenes’ in such places, can make for interesting layers in a novel. And let’s face it; murder at a fancy place can have its own sort of ‘story appeal.’ Here are just a few examples to show you what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, Miss Marple’s nephew Raymond West arranges for his aunt to take a much-needed holiday at the Golden Palm Hotel in the West Indies. She’s not been there long when she meets Major Palgrave, who tells her the story of a man who was married twice and lost both of his wives, allegedly to suicide. Major Palgrave thinks the women were murdered, though. He doesn’t get the chance to explain why to Miss Marple but she remembers the conversation. When Major Palgrave is found dead the next morning, Miss Marple suspects that someone at the resort is connected with the case Major Palgrave described, and doesn’t want the truth to come out. The people who work ‘behind the scenes’ at this luxury resort have useful information about the case; in fact one of them ends up as a victim because of what she discovers. And it’s those ‘behind the scenes’ people and events that provide the key clues to the older mystery and to the other deaths in this novel.

In Rex Stout’s Too Many Cooks, Nero Wolfe is reluctantly persuaded to travel from his beloved New York brownstone to the posh Kanawha Spa in West Virginia. He’s been invited to deliver the keynote address to Les Quinze Maîtres, a meeting of the fifteen greatest chefs in the world, and against his better judgement he and Archie Goodwin make the trip. One evening, someone stabs one of the master chefs Phillip Laszio. At first, fellow chef Jerome Berin is suspected, but Wolfe doesn’t think he’s guilty. So even though he didn’t want to get involved in the investigation to begin with, he begins to look into the case. Some of the most important clues in this case come from waitstaff and others who work ‘behind the scenes.’ And it’s interesting to see their perceptions of what happens at the spa as opposed to the guests’ perceptions.

Judson Philips wrote a wide range of crime fiction, some of it under the name Hugh Pentecost. Under that pen name he created the Pierre Chambrun series. Chambrun is the manager of New York’s Beaumont Hotel, which caters mostly to the rich and famous. Part of the reason that the hotel is so successful is that everyone who works there knows that the first rule of business is that the guests must not be inconvenienced. So on the surface it looks as though the hotel works almost by magic. But it doesn’t. Chambrun makes it his business to know everything about the guests, and he knows all of his staff members very well too. He uses what he knows to make sure that guests get the ‘royal treatment’ for which they’ve paid. This series is told from the point of view of the hotel’s public relations director Mark Haskell, and that’s an interesting choice of storyteller. Through Haskell’s eyes we get to see how this luxury hotel ‘ticks,’ and we ‘meet’ people that the tourists don’t always get to see. For instance, in The Shape of Fear, Chambrun investigates the murder of long-time resident Murray Cardew. As he looks into the case, we see how people such as chambermaids, bartenders, bellhops and so on turn out to be very useful sources of information.

As anyone who’s been to Venice knows, there are a lot of upmarket places that are designed for tourists. But it’s what goes on behind that façade that interests Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti. For instance, Blood From a Stone begins at an open-air market that caters to tourists. One of the men selling handbags there has just laid out his wares for the day’s business when he’s shot execution-style. Brunetti and Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello investigate the case, and it turns out to be a more difficult investigation than they thought. For one thing, the victim is an unidentified Senegalese immigrant. So finding out who he was and why he was in the city proves to be a challenge. Brunetti and Vianello do find out where the man lived though, and when they get there, they discover a side of life in Venice that the tourists never see – the life of poor illegal immigrants. They also discover that this particular immigrant had a cache of diamonds. It turns out that the man’s death is connected to the diamonds and to arms trafficking.

In Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s My Soul to Take, Reykjavík attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir gets an odd case. Her client Jónas Júlíusson is the owner of an upmarket spa and resort. He wants to sue the former owners of the land on which he’s built his property because he believes the land is haunted. His claim is that the former owners knew that but didn’t tell him. Thóra doesn’t believe in ghosts but she is interested in the fee. Besides, a trip to an upmarket spa isn’t exactly an unwelcome idea. So she takes the case and travels to the spa. Not long after her arrival, the body of fellow guest Birna Hálldorsdóttir is discovered on a beach not far from the resort. Some of the aspects of the murder make Thóra wonder whether it’s related to the stories she’s heard about the land being haunted. She gets even more involved in the murder when her client is accused of the crime and asks her to defend him. As she looks into the case, Thóra discovers that it’s connected to a long-ago disappearance. She also finds that she gets a lot of useful information from receptionists and other staff members who make the resort ‘tick along.’  Through them she hears stories that the ‘regular’ tourists don’t get to know.

We also see that in Roger Smith’s Dust Devils. In that novel, we meet Sonto, who usually goes by her English name Sunday. She lives in Zululand and works at a ‘traditional Zulu village’ designed for tourists. Her boss Xolani, who uses the name Richard, guides the visitors through the village and takes them through ‘traditional ceremonies’ where they think they see what life is like in that area. They don’t. To the tourists, Sunday is a nameless, practically faceless member of the staff that makes the tour run smoothly. But of course Sunday is much more than that. In one of three main plot threads in this story, she is engaged to marry a powerful chieftain Inja Mazibuko. Mazibuko is a killer who’s firmly in the pocket of the minister of finance, so he can get away with whatever he wants, and he’s proven himself useful to the minister on some ‘delicate matters.’ When Sunday sees that she cannot avoid marrying this man (and she has some very personal reasons not to want to do so), she decides to take her fate in her own hands and do whatever she needs to do to get away. Her life is depicted starkly in this novel and it’s a behind-the-scenes life that the tourists don’t get to see.

So the next time you get the chance to stay at an upmarket place or go to an upmarket club or restaurant, remember that it’s not only the posh surface that matters. It’s often those ‘behind the façade’ stories that prove to be the most interesting. Little wonder they work well in crime fiction.

 

ps. The ‘photo is of Las Vegas’ New York, New York resort. Yes, almost all of that ‘photo is of the same hotel/casino. Like a lot of other upmarket places in Las Vegas, it’s what goes on behind that façade that’s really interesting.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Kinks’ Do it Again.

Did You Ever Have to Finally Decide?*

Most of us take thousands of decisions each day without even thinking about it. And that makes sense. Certain decisions such as which route to take to work are almost automatic anyway unless we need to alter our plans in some way. And even when we do, it’s not usually agonising (e.g. “I’ll take ____ home from work today so I can pick up the dry cleaning”). But every decision has consequences – sometimes even minor decisions. For most decisions, the consequence isn’t murder, but sometimes, even seemingly small decisions can have all sorts of unpleasant “fallout.” And in fiction, those little decisions can add interest and suspense. In mysteries, they can also work well as foreshadowing. Just take a look at crime fiction and you’ll see what I mean.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, Hercule Poirot is on a cruise of the Nile. In the course of that cruise, three murders are committed and Poirot and Colonel Race, who’s on the same cruise, investigate them. You could argue that, in the end, all of the murders have their roots in a few decisions that don’t seem so very momentous at the time.  It all starts innocently enough. Wealthy and beautiful Linnet Ridgeway seems to have it all – looks, brains and a great deal of money. She’s been friends with Jacqueline “Jackie” de Bellefort since the two were at school, so when Jackie asks a favour, Linnet doesn’t really think deeply about whether to agree to it. Jackie, who has no money of her own, has become engaged to Simon Doyle, who’s “well born,” but equally poor. Jackie wants Linnet to hire Simon as her land agent, so the couple will have enough money to get married and start life together. Linnet’s happy to help the couple, but her decision to hire Simon brings with it more disaster than she could have imagined.

Hugh Pentecost’s The Fourteen Dilemma is the story of George and Helen Watson, who take the seemingly inconsequential decision to enter the Carlton’s Creek Lottery. Much to their shock and surprise, they are the winners of the grand prize. Among the many things they win is an all-expenses paid trip to New York, including a stay at the posh Hotel Beaumont. The Watsons’ simple decision to play the lottery has changed their lives. They travel to New York with their beautiful twelve-year-old daughter Marilyn and prepare to taste “the good life.” Then, the morning after their arrival, Marilyn takes the apparently minor decision to go for a walk and explore. She wanders off from her family suite and doesn’t return. When her body is later found stuffed in a trash can, hotel manager Pierre Chambrun and public relations manager Mark Haskell work with the police to find out who killed the child and why. In the end, they discover that Marilyn Watson’s simple decision to take a walk led her to find out something she wasn’t supposed to learn, and so had fatal consequences.

In Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead, we meet Carrie Foster, an independent young woman who’s chosen to make her living as a prostitute. She’s particular about her clientele, and so far she’s been doing well enough. She’s attractive, vivacious and energetic and has no lack of business. One day, she’s waiting in a café for her current boyfriend when she attracts the attention of Gordon Matthews, a well-dressed middle-aged man with decent manners. On impulse, Matthews invites Foster for dinner and she takes the seemingly inconsequential decision of agreeing. What she doesn’t know, though, is that Gordon Matthews has recently been released from prison for the killing of his first wife Anne. For his part, Matthews doesn’t know what Foster’s profession is. That decision to have dinner together proves to have devastating consequences for both of them. But neither is aware of this at first. They begin to date and before long, they’re married and all seems to be going well. Then, Carrie begins to realise that Gordon is not the man she thought she’d married. For one thing, he can’t seem to keep a job. For another, he’s becoming critical and controlling. Gordon begins to realise that Carrie isn’t the ideal wife he thought he’d married. She’s too independent for his taste, and isn’t willing to submit her will to his the way his first wife was. Bored and restless with her life, Carrie decides to return to her old line of work. So once a week, she goes to London, telling her husband she’s involved in charity work. That decision, too, will have tragic consequences. In the end, the decisions that both of these people have taken end up wreaking havoc on more than one life.

Jason Steadman takes what seems like a simple decision in Joseph Finder’s Killer Instinct. He’s a sales representative for an electronics giant and although he’s been doing well enough, he hasn’t reached the higher echelons of his company because he doesn’t seem to have the “killer instinct” to beat his competition and rise to the top of the corporate ladder. Not only has this become a bit of a problem at work, but it’s also caused problems at home; Steadman’s wife Kate isn’t content to be married to a mid-level executive. One day, Steadman happens to meet Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces operative who also happens to be a former minor-league baseball player. It occurs to Steadman that Semko’s talent could be put to very good use on the company baseball team, so on impulse, he takes what seems to be a minor decision; he arranges for Semko to get a job in Corporate Security so he can play on the team. At first it seems to be the right decision, but then odd misfortunes begin to befall Steadman’s competitors, while Steadman’s fortunes advance unexpectedly. It’s not long before Steadman realises that Semko’s behind these events. By then it’s too late, though; Steadman is up against much more danger than he could have imagined when he invited Semko to play for the company team.

And then there’s Alexander Todorov, a Russian dissident poet whom we meet in Ian Rankin’s Exit Music. One night, his body is found in one of Edinburgh’s less-reputable areas, and John Rebus and his partner Siobhan Clarke are put on the case. At first it looks like a mugging gone wrong, but Rebus isn’t convinced. A little digging proves that Todorov’s work has upset some wealthy and powerful Russian businessmen who’ve made their homes in Edinburgh, so Rebus begins to try to make connections between that group and the killing. He’s even more convinced he’s right when local recording engineer Charles Riordan is killed and his studio burned. Todorov had recently recorded in that studio, and Rebus believes he’s found the link he was looking for. As it turns out though, the solution to this case is completely different. Todorov was killed because of a decision he took that seemed perfectly simple at the time, but turned out to be fatal for him.

In Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool, DCI Hannah Scarlett and her team are investigating the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend, who was said to have committed suicide. At the same time, Scarlett’s friend and colleague Fern Larter and her team are investigating two more recent deaths; book collector George Saffell and attorney Stuart Wagg have both been murdered in bizarre ways, and Larter thinks the two deaths are connected. While these investigations are going on, Scarlett’s personal life is also getting a bit complicated. She and her partner Marc Amos are going through a rough time, and her long hours and devotion to the Bethany Friend case aren’t helping matters. So Amos begins to be drawn to his new shop assistant Cassie Weston. She’s not only attractive and friendly, but she’s very interested in the business of book dealing, and more than willing to work extra hours and so on. One cold night, Amos offers to drive her home to spare her the long bus ride and she agrees. Along the way they stop into a pub for a drink. Amos’ apparently minor decision to do a favour for his shop assistant ends up having grave consequences he couldn’t have imagined.

Those little decisions that can turn out to have really serious consequences can add a lot of interesting tension to a story, and they can make characters seem more realistic. After all, many of us would do a favour for a colleague, or take a walk when the mood strikes us, or reach out to help a friend. So characters’ decisions to do those things make sense, even if those choices end tragically. And astute readers can sometimes notice those little decisions and see them for the foreshadowing they are. Do you notice those decisions? If you’re a mystery writer, do you leave clues in the form of those minor decisions?

 

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?

I Been in the Right Place, But it Must Have Been the Wrong Time*

Sometimes, people get involved in a murder, either as a victim or suspect, simply by being in a place at the wrong time. Tragically, that happens in real life and of course, it happens in crime fiction, too. That premise can be a little tricky in a mystery novel because it’s hard to make a coincidence really authentic. When it’s done well, though, it’s an effective and very efficient way to draw a character into a story.

We see that kind of bad timing in Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air). That’s the story of the murder of Madame Giselle, a well-known French moneylender. One afternoon, she’s on her way by air from Paris to London when she suddenly dies of what looks at first to be heart failure. Soon enough, though, it’s established that she’s been stung by a poisoned thorn, and when the police find a blowpipe on the plane, they think they’ve found the murder weapon. Hercule Poirot is traveling by the same plane and he works with Chief Inspector James “Jimmy” Japp to find out who killed Madame Giselle and why. The only possible place to look for the murderer is among the other passengers on the same flight, so each in turn comes under suspicion. One of those passengers is Mr. Clancy, a detective story novelist who seems to Japp to be a very likely prospect. Mr. Clancy admits to having passed right by Madame Giselle’s seat. He also admits that he owns a blowpipe and doesn’t know where it is at the moment. It also seems to Japp that Mr. Clancy is a little too interested in the investigation. All of this serves to make Mr. Clancy a prime suspect. Once Poirot examines the evidence and looks into the background of each passenger, he’s able to show that more than anything else, Mr. Clancy is the victim of being somewhere at the wrong time.

That’s also tragically the case with physiotherapist Rachel James in Colin Dexter’s Death is Now My Neighbour. In that novel, James is shot one morning through her kitchen window. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are assigned to investigate the murder. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious motive for her murder, so Morse and Lewis begin to look a little deeper. Then, Geoffrey Owens, who lives nearby, is also murdered. Now, it looks as though someone might have a grudge against the residents of that neighbourhood. As Morse and Lewis examine the case, though, they find that the deaths are not related in the way they think. In the end, they find that a simple case of being somewhere at the wrong time plays a major role in the murders.

In Hugh Pentecost’s The Fourteen Dilemma, the lucky Watson family has won an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, complete with a stay in the luxurious Beaumont Hotel. The family arrives and is soon settled into a suite on the exclusive fourteenth floor. The next day, twelve-year-old Marilyn Watson begins to explore her surroundings and wanders off. Her body is later discovered stuffed into a trash can, and the police and hotel detectives begin a full-scale investigation. Hotel Manager Pierre Chambrun and Public Relations Director Mark Haskell work with the authorities to find out who killed the girl. Their first suspects are Marilyn’s parents, but they are ruled out. The circle of suspects then widens to include the floor’s other residents. In the end, Chambrun and Haskell find that the Beaumont Hotel’s fourteenth floor was, tragically, the wrong place for Marilyn Watson to be during that particular time.

In Simon Brett’s What Bloody Man is That?, often-down-and-out actor Charles Paris has just gotten a small part in the Pinero Theatre’s production of Macbeth. He’s to play a few of the very small parts, and although the pay isn’t good, he’s eager to be working again. So he joins the company which includes the insufferable Warnock Belvedere, who’s to play the role of Duncan. Several of the cast members don’t get along. Others simply don’t do a very good job, so right from the start, the rehearsals go badly. Still, preparations continue. Then one night, Paris has far too much to drink after one of the rehearsals and ends up falling into a drunken stupor in his dressing room. He wakes up at three in the morning only to find Warnock Belvedere’s body in the theatre’s store-room. Still hazy from the alcohol, Paris alerts the police, who begin an investigation. Belvedere was roundly hated, so all of the cast members come under suspicion. Since Paris spent the whole night in the theatre and can’t account for himself, he’s a prime suspect. Now, Paris will have to find Belvedere’s real killer to clear his own name. In this case, going on a bender put Charles Paris in very much the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then there’s Louise Åckerblom, a Swedish estate agent whom we meet in Henning Mankell’s The White Lioness. One afternoon, she leaves a message for her husband that she’s going to look at a home in Krageholm that a prospective client would like to sell. When she doesn’t return, her husband Robert gets worried and contacts the police. At first, Detective Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander doesn’t think anything is seriously wrong. But then, a missing person’s report turns into a murder investigation when the victim’s body is found. She’s been shot, execution-style. There seems no motive to kill her, either. The Åckerbloms were a happily married couple with a legal business and neither seems to have made any enemies. But then, an explosion in a nearby house, the discovery of a severed finger and a uniquely South African weapon lead Wallander and his team to an international plot. The team discovers that Louise Åckerblom was murdered because she went to the wrong place at a very wrong time.

Ian Rankin’s Exit Music is the story of the killing of Alexander Todorov. He’s a Russian dissident poet whose body is found in one of Edinburgh’s very unpleasant neighbourhoods. At first, it looks as though he’s been the victim of a mugging gone wrong. But soon Inspector John Rebus and Sergeant Siobhan Clarke suspect otherwise. Todorov’s writing had upset some very powerful Russian businessmen who’ve recently acquired a lot of local clout. In fact, one of them has even said he wanted Todorov dead. And when evidence turns up that this Russian clique may have been doing business with Rebus’ nemesis Morris Gerald “Big Ger” Cafferty, Rebus thinks he’s got his culprit. It turns out, though, that Todorov was murdered for an entirely different reason. He was in the wrong place at a very dangerous time.

What do you think of that “right place, wrong time” theme? Do you think it’s too improbable for a good crime fiction plot, or do you think it works?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Dr. John’s Right Place Wrong Time

If I Only Had the Words to Tell You*

>High-quality crime fiction novels are memorable mostly because of their plots and characters. That’s what crime fiction fans look for when they read. But sometimes, we remember a book because of a particular phrase, sentence or bit of dialogue. When a book has an especially well-turned phrase, haunting sentence or witty bit of dialogue, we may or may not remember all of the details of the story, but we do remember that bit of writing. Some sentences, phrases and pieces of dialogue just stay with the reader.

Sometimes, that happens because what’s written is especially haunting, even eerie. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings investigate the stabbing death of George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, 4^th Baron Edgware. His wife, American actress Jane Wilkinson, is the most likely suspect; she wants to be free of her husband so she can marry the Duke of Merton, and besides, she’s even threatened to kill Lord Edgware. But on the night of Edgware’s death, Jane Wilkinson was at a dinner party in another part of London, and her presence there is verified by a dozen people. So Poirot, Hastings and Inspector James “Jimmy” Japp have to look elsewhere for the criminal. In the end, and after two more deaths, they discover who the killer is. At the end of the novel, the murderer sends a letter to Poirot which Hastings says reveals how “completely conscienceless” the murderer is. In the letter, the killer outlines what happened, and we get a very interesting portrait of that person. The very last line of the letter is particularly haunting:

“p.s. Do you think they will put me in Madame Tussaud’s?”

One of the most haunting and eerie lines (at least in my opinion) in crime fiction is the first sentence of Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone:

“Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.”

In that one sentence, Rendell conveys the desperation, fear and anger that lead a housekeeper to plan and carry out the tragic shooting of four people. Eunice Parchman is employed as housekeeper by the upper-class, educated Coverdale family, who have no idea of a secret that she desperately tries to keep. From that first sentence, we know who the killer is, and we know who the victims are; the novel builds on that fact as we find out, as the saying goes, how it all began and what exactly leads up to the murders.

Sometimes, a piece of writing is memorable because it’s funny. Witty dialogue, in particular, can stay with us for a long time and make us laugh to ourselves even when no-one else gets the joke. I don’t recommend that, though . For instance, in Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison, Lord Peter Wimsey attends the murder trial of mystery novelist Harriet Vane, who is accused of having poisoned her former lover Philip Boyes. She has both motive and opportunity, so things don’t look good for her, but when the jury can’t agree on a verdict, she gets another chance to clear her name. Wimsey’s fallen in love with Vane and determines to prove her innocence. As he’s investigating, he gets help from several people, including a reformed thief-turned-evangelist called Bill. One evening, Wimsey and friend are on their way to visit Bill:

“By the way….this person we are going to see – has he a name?”

“I believe he has, but he’s never called by it. It’s Rumm.” [Wimsey]

“Not very, perhaps, if he – er – gives lessons in lockpicking.”

“I mean, his name’s Rumm.”

“Oh: what is it then?”

“Dash it! I mean, Rumm is his name.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon.”

“But he doesn’t care to use it, now that he is a total abstainer.”

“Then what does one call him?”

“I call him Bill,” said Wimsey…

I admit it; I chuckle, at least to myself, every time I read that exchange.

There’s an equally funny bit of writing in Håkan Nesser’s Mind’s Eye, in which Inspector Van Veeteren and his team investigate the murder of Eva Ringmar and later, her husband Jurgen Mitter. When Ringmar is found dead in her bathtub, her husband is accused of the murder. He protests his innocence, but he’s got no alibi and on the night of the murder, he was so drunk that he doesn’t even remember exactly what happened. So he’s arrested, tried and convicted of the crime. During his trial, an officious prosecuting attorney asks Mitter how he knows he didn’t kill his wife, since he doesn’t remember the events of the evening. Here is Mitter’s response:

“I know I didn’t kill her; because I didn’t kill her. Just as I’m sure that you know you are not wearing frilly knickers today, because you aren’t. Not today.”

The courtroom erupts at that remark, and it endears Mitter to Van Veeteren, who begins to think that maybe Mitter is telling the truth when he claims that he’s innocent. Mitter is found guilty, and is remanded to a mental institution instead of prison, because he has no memory of what happened on the night of his wife’s murder. Shortly afterwards, Mitter himself is brutally murdered and now, Van Veeteren is convinced that Mitter was innocent. So he and his team launch a thorough investigation and in the end, they discover who the murderer really was.

Pieces of writing can also be unforgettable because of their eloquence, even if the prose isn’t particularly “flowery.” For example, in Hugh Pentecost’s The Fourteen Dilemma, the lucky Watson family wins an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, where they will stay at the exclusive Hotel Beaumont. Arrangements have been made for them to stay on the ultra-posh 14^th floor, and all sorts of special events have been planned. Then one day, beautiful twelve-year-old Marilyn Watson wanders off and doesn’t return. When her body is later found stuffed into a trash can, the hotel’s manager Pierre Chambrun and its public-relations director Mark Haskell work with the police to find out who the killer is. Together, they find out who murdered Marilyn Watson and why, and plans are laid to catch the killer. Things go awry, though, and in the end, Chambrun has to violate his own strong sense of what is right in order to make sure the murderer is brought to justice:

“Chambrun was pounding his fist against the office wall, like a man suffering some agony. He turned, and his face was the color of ashes.

‘In the end, they force us to tar ourselves with the same brush,’ he said, his voice ragged.”

Just those few lines paint an eloquent portrait of the ethical dilemmas a sleuth can face.

And then there’s Colin Dexter’s The Daughters of Cain. In that novel, Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis investigate the murders of Dr. Felix McClure and later, his former scout Ted Brooks. One of the people concerned in the case is Ellie Smith, a prostitute who counted McClure among her clients. Morse and Smith are attracted to each other although each of them is painfully aware that he’s investigating her as a possible murder suspect. Morse and Lewis find out who the murderer is, and what connects the two deaths. Then, Ellie Smith disappears. These lines show just what effect she and her disappearance have had on Morse:

“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.”

Powerful lines can make a novel unforgettable, even if we don’t remember exactly what happened in the plot. You’ve just read some of my favourite memorable lines. What are some of yours?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s If I Only Had the Words.

We’re Caught in a Trap*

>Everyone, of course, is unique. That’s what makes for such a wide diversity among people, and that’s also what makes for the most interesting characters when it comes to crime fiction. One way we really see the differences among people is in their reactions to being involved in a murder investigation. Murder is a violent and traumatic thing, so it’s bound to have a powerful effect. What’s really interesting is to see the way that different characters deal with the fact of murder.

Some crime fiction characters have an almost ghoulish interest in murder. To them, the whole thing’s exciting. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, Hercule Poirot is staying at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay. While he’s there another guest, beautiful and notorious actress Arlena Stuart Marshall, is strangled. Since Poirot was quite possibly the last person to see her alive, he gets involved in the investigation. One of the other guests at the hotel is bluff, hearty Mr. Horace Blatt. On the day of the murder, he leaves on a sailing trip and doesn’t return until after the body’s been found. When he finds out about the murder, Blatt says:

“…Missed the whole blinking show. The one time that something does happen in this out-of-the-way spot, I’m not there. Just like life, that, isn’t it?”

Of course, in true Christie fasion, it’s found out that Blatt is hiding some secrets of his own, and he becomes a suspect in Arlena Marshall’s murder.

In Christie’s 4:50 From Paddington, Miss Marple gets involved in the investigation of the strangling murder of an unknown woman whose body was dumped from a train and left at Rutherford Hall, the home of the Crackenthorpe family. None of the Crackenthorpe family seems to know who the dead woman was, so Inspector Dermot Craddock has his hands full with trying to identify the dead woman and with trying to discover what connection, if any, she may have with the Crackenthorpe family. The murder affects everyone in the family differently, but the one person who seems to actually enjoy what’s going on is young Alexander Eastley, grandson of patriarch Luther Crackenthorpe. Eastley and his friend James Stoddart-West are spending the Christmas holidays at Rutherford Hall and as soon as the body is found, they’re immediately entranced. They search eagerly for clues (and actually find one) and richly enjoy the whole investigation. In fact, when Stoddart-West’s mother finds out about the murder, she’s inclined to bring her son back home right away. Neither boy will hear of it, though; they both want to stay around for all the details.

Not everyone is fascinated at being mixed up in a murder case, though. Some people react with real fear, even if they aren’t guilty of the murder. Sometimes, that’s because they’re hiding something and are afraid the police will find out about it. That’s the case with Mary and Janet Dawson, whom we meet in Shona MacLean’s The Redemption of Alexander Seaton. They’re both prostitutes, not something most people would boast of even in today’s world, let alone that of 17^th Century Scotland, the context for this novel. So when the two sisters stumble upon a nearly dead Patrick Davidson, the local apothecary’s assistant, they don’t want to be involved. And yet, they don’t want to be cruel, either, and leave an obviously sick man. So together, they move Davidson into the nearby schoolroom of grammar school undermaster Alexander Seaton. Then they flee. When Davidson actually dies of what turns out to be poison, Seaton’s friend Charles Thom, local music master, is accused of the crime and imprisoned. He begs Seaton to clear his name, and Seaton agrees. As he slowly tries to find out who killed Davidson and why, Seaton discovers that Mary Dawson actually heard Davidson utter an important clue. When he tracks her down and finds out the clue (and later, understands what it means), he gets an important piece of the puzzle.

In Alan Orloff’s Diamonds for the Dead, Josh Handleman returns to his native Northern Virginia when his father Abe Handleman dies from a fall down a staircase. At first, Abe’s death is put down to a terrible accident. But then, Abe’s friend Lev Yurishenko tells Josh that his father was murdered. Josh doesn’t believe it at first; his father didn’t have any enemies and what’s more, he wasn’t a particularly wealthy man, so there was no-one eager for a share of any fortune. Then, Josh discovers that in fact, his father had a cache of extremely valuable diamonds that have now disappeared. It now seems clear that Abe Handleman was murdered, so Josh sets himself out to find out who killed his father and what happened to the diamonds. Through it all, the one person who seems to know more than he’s saying is Kassian, a mysterious and somewhat disreputable Russian immigrant who was staying with Abe Handleman when he died. Kassian is not only a likely suspect in the murder, but he has secrets of his own. So he’s terrified when first Josh, and then the police, begin to look into Abe’s death. In fact, in several places in the novel, he runs off rather than tell the truth about what he knows.

And then there’s Tee Beau Latioler, who gets mixed up in two murders in James Lee Burke’s A Morning For Flamingos. Tee Beau’s been accused of murdering Hippoloyte Broussard, and although he claims he was innocent, there’s enough evidence against him to send him to prison. New Iberia, Louisiana police officer Dave Robicheaux and his partner Lester Benoit are assigned to transport Latolier and Jimmie Lee Boggs, also convicted of murder, to the Angola State Penitentiary. Along the way, Boggs manages to escape and kills Benoit. He also shoots Robicheaux, leaving him for dead. Latolier knows exactly what happened, just as he knows what happened to Hippolyte Broussard, but he is terrified. So after making sure that Robicheaux is alive and will be safe until the police come, he flees to New Orleans. And he most definitely doesn’t want to be involved when Robicheaux gets the assignment to penetrate the New Orleans underworld and go after local crime boss Tony Cardo. That assignment will give Robicheaux the chance to track Boggs down, and he wants Latolier’s help for that, but Latolier wants no part of it.

Some people don’t want to be mixed up in a murder investigation because they feel their position and power should exempt them. For them, it’s almost as though murder only occurs among “common” people, not the wealthy and powerful. For example, in Hugh Pentecost’s The Fourteen Dilemma, the lucky middle-class Watson family wins an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City and a week at the very posh Hotel Beaumont. They’re soon ensconced in a luxury suite on the exclusive Fourteenth Floor. Then, beautiful twelve-year-old Marilyn Watson wanders off, and her body is later found stuffed in a trash can. Hotel manager Pierre Chambrun and public relations manager Mark Haskell work with the police and hotel security to find out who killed Marilyn Watson and why. One of the interesting things about this novel is the set of reactions of the rich and powerful people who occupy the other suites on the floor. They’re all accustomed to being spoiled, and although they all react slightly differently, and all are aware that they are suspects, there’s an underlying belief that they shouldn’t have to mixed up in something like murder. You might say that they believe their privilege should exempt them from involvement.

That’s a similar reaction to the reaction of the Vanger family in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Wealthy and powerful Henrik Vanger hires Millennium publisher Mikael Blomqvist to solve a nearly forty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of his grand-niece Harriet Vanger, who was sixteen when she went missing. Blomqvist is in desperate need of the financial backing that Vanger offers in return, and he wants information that Vanger can provide about a lawsuit that Blomqvist has just lost. So he agrees to take the case and he goes to the Vanger home, ostensibly to write a book about the history of the family. As he and his researcher Lisbeth Salander begin to investigate, they run afoul of the Vanger family, whose wealth and power have always protected them. In the end, Blomqvist and Salander find that that wealth and power have also hidden some very dark secrets.

Everyone’s got a different reaction to being involved in a murder investigation and in well-written crime fiction, different characters react differently. How do you think you’d react? How do the characters in your favourite series react to being mixed up in murder? If you’re a writer, how do your suspects react?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds.