I’ve Got a Rock and Roll Heart*

For the past sixty or so years, rock and roll music has been an integral part of a lot of cultures. Whether or not you like rock and roll, that unique fusion of blues, jazz and modern rhythms has won many millions of fans around the world. Rock is such a varied genre too that there are many listening options. I could go on and on about some of the different groups that have made musical history in the rock world, but this isn’t a musical blog, it’s a crime fiction blog. So let’s take a look at the way rock and roll has found its way into crime and mystery fiction.

In the last two decades or so of Agatha Christie’s life, rock and roll infused itself into the culture. Although Christie’s novels aren’t heavily focused on rock music, there are mentions of it here and there. For instance in Hallowe’en Party, detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is visiting a friend Judith Butler in the village of Woodleigh Common. They’re helping to prepare for a village Hallowe’en party one afternoon when one of the local girls Joyce Reynolds begins to boast that she saw a murder once. Nobody believes her and most of the people there try to hush her up. But Joyce insists that she’s telling the truth. That evening at the party, someone drowns Joyce in a bucket of water being used for apple-bobbing. Mrs. Oliver asks Hercule Poirot to investigate and he travels to Woodleigh Common to look into the matter. It turns out that the murder of Joyce Reynolds is related to a murder and a disappearance from several years earlier. In one of the party games, the girls are given mirrors in which they’re supposed to see the faces of their future husbands. With a little makeup and wizardry, two local boys provide the ‘photos’ that are given to the girls in this game. Here’s what one of the guests says during that event:

 

‘‘Do look, do look. Don’t you think he’s rather wonderful? He’s like Eddie Presweight, the pop singer. Don’t you think so?’
Mrs. Oliver did think he looked like one of the faces she daily deplored having to see in her morning paper. The beard, she thought, had been an afterthought of genius.’

 

This snippet also possibly reveals Agatha Christie’s view of popular music…

Perhaps Mrs. Oliver isn’t much of a one for rock and roll music, but Ian Rankin’s John Rebus is a fan. There are many mentions of rock and roll in the Rebus novels; I’m just going to mention one. In Let it Bleed (which Rolling Stones fans will know is the title of one of the band’s releases), Rebus and Frank Lauderdale are chasing a pair of suspects across the Forth Road Bridge. When the suspects suddenly change direction, they go over the bridge into the water, and Rebus and Lauderdale are both injured. From his hospital bed, Rebus looks into the kidnapping case that prompted the chase to begin with. At the same time he’s investigating the suicide of Hugh ‘Shug’ McAnally, a former convict who picked a very specific place and ‘audience’ for his death. That leads Rebus to a corrupt development plan and in a vintage ‘Ian Rankin way’ back to the deaths of the men who went over the bridge. Here’s what Rebus thinks about the Rolling Stones:

 

‘After a drink, he liked to listen to The Rolling Stones. Women, relationships, and colleagues had come and gone, but the Stones had always been there…The guitar riff, one of easily half a dozen in Keith’s tireless repertoire, kicked the album off. I don’t have much, Rebus thought, but I have this.’

 

Half a century after they started making music, millions of people still feel that way about the Stones.

Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson is a former rock singer. Although she’s no longer in the business full-time, she stays in touch with her former band mates and she knows the Toronto rock and roll scene. In Dead Light District for instance, she is hired to investigate the disappearance of Mary Carmen Santamaria, a prostitute who worked at Candace Curtis’ exclusive bordello. That case leads Jackson to the uglier side of Toronto’s sex trade and a case of human trafficking. In a sub-plot of this novel, Jackson gets a very enticing offer. Band mate and former lover Mick Houghton tells her that their band is planning a reunion gig and he’d like her to be a part of it. Jackson’s not sure she wants to agree though. On the one hand, she loved the creativity and energy of being a part of a band; it was intoxicating. On the other, she’s well aware that she and Mick are much better as friends than they were as lovers. She doesn’t want to put herself into the position of being attracted to him all over again. Still,

 

‘The thought of performing was appealing…It’s the kind of gig where everyone’s just there for a good time and no one takes anything too seriously. The prospect of jamming with Mick and the boys was also enticing.’

 

Jackson’s past as a rock singer adds a lot of interest to her character.

R.J. McDonnell’s PI Jason Duffy is a former rock musician who knows the San Diego music scene very well. So in Rock & Roll Homicide, he’s the one Chelsea Tucker hires. Her husband Terry was the lead singer for popular band Doberman Stub until he was murdered one day during rehearsal. The police suspect Chelsea, mostly because she is due to inherit US$5 million from an insurance policy taken out in her name. She says she is innocent though, and she doesn’t think the police will be fair to her. Duffy agrees to take the case and begins to look into it. He and his assistant Joyce Jeannine Joshlin make use of Duffy’s contacts in the business and his knowledge of contracts and the ‘business end’ of music to find out who the murderer is. It’s not long before they discover that some very nasty people have some important things to hide.

Rock and roll music is woven through a lot of other crime novels too. For instance, in Angela Savage’s The Half Child, Bangkok PI Jayne Keeney travels to Pattaya to investigate the death of Maryanne Delbeck. The police account is that she committed suicide by throwing herself from the roof of the hotel where she was living, but her father is not convinced. So he’s hired Keeney to find out the truth. Throughout this novel, as Keeney and her new business partner Rajiv Patel investigate, there are all sorts of mentions of rock music. In this scene for instance, Keeney is following up a lead:

 

‘She walked along the footpath sussing out the options, when a howling electric guitar called to her from amidst the pedestrian slow rock and R&B. Jimi Hendrix. He beckoned from a bar called B-52…’  

 

Oh, and rock music plays an important role in another very important scene in this novel…

Martin Edwards’ series featuring Liverpool attorney Harry Devlin isn’t heavily focused on rock music but it’s woven through subtly. For instance all of the Devlin novels are titled with the names of rock songs. All the Lonely People, Eve of Destruction, Yesterday’s Papers and Waterloo Sunset are just a few examples.

I know I’ve only played a few notes here; there are a lot of crime novels and series that feature rock and roll. Maybe Neil Young’s right; rock and roll can never die. Hey, hey, my, my…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of an Eric Clapton song (and a line from the chorus).

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.

Every Day When I Get Home From Work, I Feel so Frustrated*

No matter how much you enjoy doing what you do for a living, there’s probably something about it that you don’t like. I honestly can’t think of any profession – even the ones most people dream of – that has no unpleasant sides to it. But most of the time, we put up with what we don’t like about our work because what we do like matters more. That’s just as true of fictional sleuths as it is of anyone else, and when we get to see how those sleuths deal with the parts of their jobs that they don’t like, this makes them all the more human.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is generally not one for afternoon tea. However, as we learn in Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death),

 

‘Though personally deprecating ‘le five o’clock’ as inhibiting the proper appreciation of the supreme meal of the day, dinner, Poirot was now getting quite accustomed to serving it.’ 

 

In fact, in this novel, Poirot learns the details of an interesting case over tea. His indefatigable secretary Miss Lemon is concerned about her sister Mrs. Hubbard, who manages a student hostel. So Poirot invites Miss Lemon to have her sister come to tea so she can discuss her problem. She is glad to come and tells Poirot of some odd thefts and other occurrences at the hostel. Poirot agrees to look into the case and visits the hostel. When one of the residents is murdered a few days later, Poirot and Inspector Sharpe investigate. They discover that the victim found out more than it was safe for her to know about one of the other residents and that all of the occurrences are tied together.

One of the things that police detectives have to do is deal with dead bodies, whether they like it or not. And that requires a strong stomach, something Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse does not exactly have. He’s a brilliant detective and he finds the puzzle of solving murders to be irresistible. But he has no interest at all in being around corpses. For instance, in Death is Now My Neighbour, physiotherapist Rachel James is shot in her home. Morse and Sergeant Lewis begin their investigation with the people in the victim’s life. They haven’t gotten very far when there’s another murder. Journalist Geoffrey Owens, who lives not far from where Rachel James lived, is also shot. Here’s just a tiny bit of the description of that murder scene:

 

‘Owens’ body, which Morse had already viewed, howsoever briefly, sitting back, as it had been, against the cushions of the living room settee….’

 

It’s not at all that Morse doesn’t have the time to make a thorough examination. He prefers to leave that to, in this case, Dr. Laura Hobson.The case takes on a new dimension as Morse and Lewis try to figure out whether someone is trying to kill everyone in that neighbourhood or whether there’s another link between the two victims. As it turns out, there is a connection other than neighbourhood between the two victims and when Morse finds out what it is, he’s able to get on the right path to find the killer.

Ian Rankin’s John Rebus came of age as a cop before computers and the Internet became an integral part of police work. And he never does become entirely enthralled with doing computer work. He’s neither afraid of computers nor stupid though, so he does use the computer when he needs to do so. Here, for example, is one of my favourite Rebus scenes, from The Naming of the Dead. Rebus and Sergeant Siobhan Clarke have been working on a few cases. One of them is the murder of MP Ben Webster. Another is the murder of convicted rapist Cyril Colliar, who’s recently been released from prison. Rebus puts together some background information that may link these deaths to a particular website. Then, he works with freelance journalist Mairie Henderson to get some background information on the website and the people behind it:

 

‘‘Typed by my own fair hand, so the spelling might not be up to your own high journalistic standard.’
‘What is it?’ She was unfolding the single sheet of paper.
‘Something we were keeping the lid on. Two more victims…’
‘What’s a serial kilter? Is that someone who can’t stop making kilts?’
‘Give it back.’’

 

Rebus may be aware of how important computer skills are, but that doesn’t mean he has to like that part of his job.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman is a Melbourne baker who loves the act of creating breads and cakes. To her, bread is real and a lot more meaningful than her former work as an accountant. But that doesn’t mean she likes every aspect of it. In order to get her bakery open and ready for the morning trade, Chapman has to get up early. Very early. And she’s not fond of it. Here’s her observation on that (from Trick or Treat):

 

‘Four am contains, in my experience, many things. Darkness, cold, solitude, gloom, despair, madness.’
 

And yet, Chapman does what she hates to do – get up early – and starts preparing the day’s breads, cakes and rolls. To her, providing that bread is more important than is her dislike of getting up early. We see that especially in this novel, when a young man jumps from the roof of a building after ingesting some sort of hallucinogenic drug. The police suspect the drug was in bread that the victim ate, and for a while, there are questions about whether Chapman may have been responsible, however unwittingly. Although she and her bakery are later proven innocent, it’s very hard on her when the bakery’s temporarily closed.

Having one’s home life interrupted with a work call comes with the job for most police detectives. Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano knows that, but that doesn’t mean he likes it when his sleep, his private time with his lover Livia Burlando, or especially his food, is interrupted. That’s particularly true when the caller is Sergeant Catarella, who has a lot of difficulty getting simple messages across to his boss. Here, for instance, is a snippet of a conversation they have near the beginning of The Voice of the Violin:

 

‘The previous evening, finding some fresh anchovies cooked by Adelina, his housekeeper, in the fridge, he’d dressed them in a great deal of lemon juice, olive oil and freshly ground black pepper and wolfed them down. And he’d relished them, until it was all spoiled by a telephone call.
‘H’lo, Chief? Izzatchoo onna line?’
‘It’s really me, Cat. You can go ahead and talk.’
At the station they’d given Catarella the job of answering the phone, mistakenly thinking he could do less damage there than anywhere else. After getting mightily p***ed off a few times, Montalbano had come to realize that the only way to talk to him within tolerable limits of nonsense was to use the same language as he.
‘Beckin’ pardon, Chief, for the ‘sturbance.’
Uh-oh. He was begging pardon for the disturbance. Montalbano pricked up his ears. Whenever Catarella’s speech became ceremonious, it meant there was no small matter at hand.’

 

And in this case, Montalbano’s instincts are correct. The wife of a friend has died, and on the way to the funeral, the colleague driving Montalbano hits a parked car. When no-one reports the damage to the car Montalbano gets interested and goes to the house where the car was parked. That’s when he finds the body of a young woman. Now he has to find a way to officially investigate this murder without letting anyone know he didn’t enter the house exactly legally…

I don’t know of any profession or job that’s entirely pleasurable. That includes sleuthing, and it makes a sleuth more human and a more complete character when she or he has to put up with job annoyances. I’ve only mentioned a few examples here because there’s only a little room in any post. Now it’s your turn…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Todd Rundgren’s Bang  the Drum All Day

One Step Up and Two Steps Back*

There are some criminal investigations that move along in a straightforward way. They may not go very quickly but they move along. Others though are hampered by all sorts of snags and challenges. In those investigations it’s very often a case of ‘two steps forward and one step back.’ In crime fiction, either sort of investigation can make for a good story depending on how it’s handled. Straightforward investigations can have a solid pace and plenty of suspense. But investigations that are hampered can be realistic and those hurdles to overcome can add conflict and interest to a novel.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C. Murders, Hercule Poirot gets drawn into the investigation of a series of murders that begins with the killing of an elderly shopkeeper Alice Ascher. The victim’s husband is the most likely suspect. The two had been estranged for a long time and he had a well-known habit of trying to get money from her. But when the second victim, twenty-three-year-old Betty Barnard, is found, the case doesn’t seem so simple. And then there’s another murder. And another. Before each murder Poirot gets a cryptic note warning him of when and where the next murder will be. But even that doesn’t help the investigation at first. None of the murders gives Poirot or the police much in the way of clues so the investigation stalls. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that all of the murders occur during the summer holiday season when there are crowds of tourists that make it easy for the murderer to disappear amongst them. Finally there’s a break in the case and Poirot finds out who the murderer is and what the motive is. But not before the case is stalled several times.

Some investigations are hampered by powerful players who don’t want the case solved. We see that for instance in Michael Connelly’s Angels Flight. In that novel, Harry Bosch investigates the murder of Howard Elias, a prominent attorney who’s gone up against the L.A.P.D. in several cases. Elias recently took on the case of Michael Harris, who was convicted of the rape and murder of twelve-year-old Stacey Kincaid. Harris has since said that the police coerced (and that’s putting it kindly) his confession and that he’s not guilty. Before Elias can present Harris’ case at trial though, he’s found shot. The more closely Bosch looks into the Elias shooting, the clearer it is that Michael Harris was telling the truth; he did not kill Stacey Kincaid. So now Bosch has to find out not only who shot Howard Elias but who Stacey’s real killer is. To do that, Bosch has to go up against the powerful L.A.P.D. top brass, who don’t want stories of their mishandling of the case being made public. Bosch is also hampered by some highly-placed people who don’t want the truth about Stacey Kincaid’s murder to come out. But he doesn’t let those ‘backward steps’ stop him and in the end, he learns who’s behind both killings.

In James Craig’s Never Apologise, Never Explain, London police inspector John Carlyle and his assistant Joe Szyskowski are called to the scene of the murder of Agatha Mills. The victim, who lived quietly with her husband Henry, wasn’t wealthy or powerful. With a lack of other kinds of motives, the police focus on Henry Mills as the most likely suspect. He insists he’s innocent though and that Agatha had political enemies. At first the police don’t believe him but then Carlyle gets a very important clue that shows Mills was telling the truth. So Caryle and Szyskowski look into the matter more deeply. They find that Agatha Mills’ murder is tied up with international relations and politics so that finding out the truth will be very difficult. And some important and highly-connected people do not want the facts about the murder to come out. So the detectives face all sorts of setbacks as they work their way to the truth.

Of course, there are lots of other things that can set an investigation back. For instance, sometimes key witnesses or other people involved in a case simply won’t tell what they know. There are a lot of reasons that might happen. When it does it can set a case back. For instance, Karin Fossum’s When the Devil Holds the Candle sees Oslo Inspector Konrad Sejer investigating the disappearance of Andreas Winther. He hasn’t been home for a few days and his mother Runi has gotten concerned about him. At first the police don’t do much because it’s not that uncommon for a young man to go off for a few days without telling his mother about it. But when more time goes by with no sign of Andreas, Sejer begins to ask questions. Winther was last seen with his friend Sivert “Zipp” Skorpe, and from the moment Sejer meets Zipp, he’s sure that the boy knows more than he’s saying. But none of his efforts to get Zipp to talk are successful. Zipp has his own reasons for not telling everything he knows (and no; without spoilers I can tell you that Zipp did not kill Winther). The case is set back in this novel by the fact that people who could tell Sejer what he wants to know – won’t.

Sometimes an investigation is set back because the police follow up on the wrong leads, either because they’ve been lied to or because they don’t make the right deductions from the evidence. It takes skill to do that well; if it’s not handled deftly the investigator can look inept. But it does happen. For instance in Ian Rankin’s Exit Music, Inspector John Rebus and his  team investigate what looks like a mugging gone wrong. Russian dissident poet Alexander Todorov has been killed and his body found in a very bad section of Edinburgh. But Rebus doesn’t think it’s quite as simple as a case of mugging. Then there’s another murder that may be related, so Rebus continues to ask questions. It turns out that Todorov had attracted the attention of some powerful Russian businessmen, émigrés to Edinburgh, who didn’t like his politics. It also turns out that those people might have been closely associated with Rebus’ old nemesis ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty, a local crime boss. Following up on those possibilities leads Rebus in exactly the wrong direction – and sets the case back – until he finally gets the clue he needs to put him on the right path.

We also see that sort of plot device – following up on wrong leads – in several of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse stories. Very often Morse makes brilliant deductions about the cases he works, but they don’t always lead him in the right direction at first. In my opinion (so feel free to disagree if you do), Dexter handles those (mis)leads quite effectively. It’s hard to have the sleuth follow the wrong path without making that sleuth look bumbling.

There are also cases in which the investigation is set back when the prime suspect becomes a victim. That’s actually a common plot point in crime fiction so it has to be handled carefully or it becomes cliché. But when it’s done well it can be effective. For instance in Håkan Nesser’s Mind’s Eye, Inspector Van Veeteren and his team investigate the death of Eva Ringmar, whose body is found in her bathtub. Her husband Jurgen Mitter is the chief suspect. Not only had they had difficulties recently, but he was very drunk on the night of the murder and can’t account for himself. In fact he doesn’t remember much at all about that night. So nobody believes he’s innocent. In fact he’s tried for and convicted of the murder. But even at the trial Van Veeteren wonders whether Mitter might be telling the truth. Because Mitter remembers nothing about his wife’s murder, he’s placed in a mental institution instead of a conventional prison. Then he’s murdered himself. Now the case, which seemed to have been solved, takes on a completely new cast and Van Veeteren and his team have to start all over. They find the key to both murders in Eva Ringmar’s past.

There’s an innovative approach to integrating ‘one step back’ into an investigation in Gail Bowen’s Deadly Appearances, in which political science expert and academic Joanne Kilbourn investigates the murder of her friend rising political star Androu ‘Andy’ Boychuk. Boychuk is poisoned during a public speech and at first there are no strong leads, although the murder happened in full view of the audience. As a way of dealing with her grief Kilbourn decides to write a biography of Boychuk. In the process of learning about his life she finds that there was a side to her friend that no-one knew. And it turns out that the key to the murder is in Boychuk’s past. Not long after the investigation begins, Kilbourn contracts a mysterious illness that leaves her weakened and unable to eat very much. Although there are times when she feels better, the illness begins to take its toll and more than once she has to make up lost ground as the saying goes.

Having a case go ‘one step back’ is realistic and can add to the tension in a story. It can also be tiresome if it’s done too often or not effectively. What about you? Do you think this kind of plot point works? If you’re a writer, do you use this as a way to add tension and suspense to your stories?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bruce Springsteen’s One Step Up.

Baby Come Back*

Authors have many reasons for ending a series that features a particular sleuth. Sometimes they find themselves losing interest in the sleuth. And talented authors don’t want to bore readers. So they end a series before that happens. Other times the series was intended from the beginning as a limited series. There are other reasons too that authors decide to bid adieu to their sleuths. But it doesn’t always stay that way. Authors take a big risk when they bring back a protagonist they’d thought was finished, but it can end up being the right decision.

One of the most famous examples of this of course is Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The star of 56 short stories and 4 novels, Holmes was supposed to take his last bow in The Adventure of the Final Problem. In that story he has a face-to-face conflict with his nemesis Professor Moriarty at Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls. The fight ends with both men hurtling over the falls. But as Conan Doyle fans will know, the public outcry against the death of Holmes was so great that Conan Doyle was persuaded to resurrect him. This he did in The Adventure of the Empty House. In this case it was as much public opinion as anything else that led Conan Doyle to bring his protagonist back. It was risky in the sense that he had to come up with a credible way for Holmes to return. But it turned out to be most successful.

Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh Inspector John Rebus retires at the end of Exit Music. His last major case, the main focus of that novel, is the murder of Russian dissident poet Alexander Todorov. Todorov’s murder is set up to look like a mugging gone wrong, but Rebus soon suspects otherwise. There are several possible suspects too, including Rebus’ old nemesis Morris Gerald ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty. In the end Rebus and his team find out the truth about that murder and another death that occurs in the story. The novel also features the ‘goodbye’ celebration for Rebus, and thus the series ended. But Rankin has brought Rebus back in Standing in Another Man’s Grave. In that novel, Rebus has returned to work as a civilian for the Lothian and Borders Police’s Cold Case unit. That’s how he gets involved in the search for the truth about Sally Hazlitt’s disappearance. Sally disappeared in 1999 during a holiday trip to a chalet. Her body hasn’t been found, so her mother Nina hasn’t given up hope. Nina Hazlitt asks the Cold Case unit to look into the matter and Rebus gets interested and begins to investigate. He finds that there are two deaths that might be connected to Sally Hazlitt’s disappearance; if so, this could be much bigger than just one disappearance. Rebus’ return makes a lot of sense and is quite believable. First, he’s never been able to stay away from work. Second, he hasn’t died and miraculously returned. He retired, and not long ago. So it makes sense that he might be back. In this case the choice to bring Rebus back has worked out well.

Philip Kerr wrote the first novels featuring his PI Bernhard ‘Bernie’ Gunther beginning with 1989’s March Violets. In that novel, which takes place in Berlin just a few years before World War II, Gunher is hired to find a stolen diamond necklace. The case turns out to be much more complex than that though. Gunther starts getting notice from some very important people and is chosen to solve some difficult and dangerous cases in The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem. There the series ended in 1991. Or so it seemed. Fifteen years later Kerr brought Gunther back in 2006’s The One From the Other. Since that time there’ve been four other Bernie Gunther novels and a fifth is due in April of 2013. The recent novels have been extremely well-received and (in my opinion, so feel free to disagree if you do) justly so. In this case, the decision to bring a sleuth back was a wise one. It’s logical too considering the kind of character Gunther is and the fact that Kerr didn’t end the first trilogy of novels with Gunther’s death.

There’s also Ann Cleeves’ Jimmy Perez. He is the Shetland Islands police detective who features in Cleeves’ Shetland Quartet. In the final novel of the quartet Blue Lightning, Perez suffers a devastating tragedy when he investigates the murder of Angela Moore, whose body is found at the Fair Isle Bird Sanctuary. Given what happens in the novel it makes a lot of sense that he would question what he’s even doing on the police force. It’s entirely believable that the series would end based on what happens in it. And in fact, Cleeves has gone on to create the very well-regarded Vera Stanhope series. But (and I’m very glad of this personally) she’s decided to bring Jimmy Perez back. We’ll see him again in Dead Water, scheduled for release in January 2013.

Bringing back a sleuth is a big risk, especially if it’s been a while since that sleuth made an appearance. Besides the work that author has to do in terms of plot and so on, the author also has to decide what’s happened in the intervening time. Is the sleuth older? What has the sleuth been doing? If it’s not credible, readers won’t ‘buy it.’ But when it does work it can be a very wise decision.

All this is making me wonder about other sleuths we haven’t heard from that could conceivably come back. For instance there’s Michael Connelly’s Jack McEvoy. McEvoy is a successful journalist who has made his name researching and reporting on important crime cases. We last saw McEvoy in 2009’s The Scarecrow, in which he investigates the rape and murder of twenty-three-year-old Denise Babbit. Sixteen-year-old drug dealer Alonzo Winslow has allegedly confessed to the crime but McEvoy finds that his confession is not genuine and that he’s probably innocent. So McEvoy throws himself into this story to find out the truth. In the end he does, and it makes logical sense that he would end his career there. And so far, he has. Connelly himself has said that McEvoy is on the proverbial back burner. But I wonder whether we might see McEvoy feature in another novel. I hope so.

What do you think? Do you think it’s stretching credibility too far when a character whose series has ended is brought back? If you’re a writer, what are your thoughts about bringing back a protagonist?

 

 
 

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