There Ain’t Nobody That Spies Like Us*

Not long ago I got a request to take a look at spy/espionage crime fiction and I can see why there’s such an interest in it.  Well-written spy thrillers have lots of suspense and tension, and there’s plenty of room for the author to add in plot twists. Some spy novels sacrifice rich and well-developed characters for the sake of a fast-moving plot and plenty of action. But the best espionage fiction shows us the human side of the characters involved. And it’s interesting how even novels that aren’t generally thought of as ‘spy fiction’ actually could be labelled that way, and several authors who aren’t usually thought of as ‘spy novel’ authors have written novels like that.

Spy fiction has been around for quite a long time. Arthur Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes story His Last Bow features an espionage plot. In that story, which takes place just before World War I, Holmes and Watson investigate a German émigré named Van Bork. Van Bork has quietly been gathering information on the British government for a few years and plans to turn over what he has gotten to his own government. Holmes and Watson come up with a brilliant plan to stop Van Bork before he can do any damage and the end of this story is really (in my opinion) quite effective.

Agatha Christie mentions spies and spying quite frequently in her stories, even those that don’t focus on espionage. And fans of her Tommy and Tuppence Beresford novels will know that they’ve dabbled in espionage more than once. In N or M? for instance, the Beresfords are middle-aged and considered too old for regular active espionage duty. But then, Tommy gets a new mission. A British agent has discovered that a pair of German spies has landed in England and that one of them is likely staying at the Sans Souci, a hotel/guest residence in Leahampton. Tommy is asked to go to the Sans Souci and find out whether one of the other guests is the spy. This mission doesn’t include Tuppence, but of course, that doesn’t stop her. When Tommy arrives at the Sans Souci, she’s already there under the name of Mrs. Blenkensop. The Beresfords work to find out who the spy is and soon find that they’re in quite a bit of danger themselves. In the end, a chance discovery in an unexpected (and therefore, quite effective) hiding place puts the Beresfords on the right trail.

The Cold War between the US, the UK and their allies, and the USSR and its allies lasted for decades and gave rise to some of the best-known spy/espionage thrillers. Authors such as Robert Ludlum have created memorable spy novels that have the Cold War as their backdrop. Perhaps the best-known (and in my opinion, one of the most talented) of these authors is John le Carré. He’s written (among others) several novels featuring British agent George Smiley. Two that stand out (at least for me; your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary) are Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Tinker, Tailor… is the first of the Smiley novels. In it, George Smiley has been forced into early retirement and a new crop of agents has gotten into power. Everything changes though when it’s learned that a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest levels of British Intelligence. It’s soon clear to Smiley that his old nemesis Karla, a mysterious Soviet spy leader, is behind this breach of British security and he goes back on the job to catch the mole and stop Karla. Smiley plays a smaller role in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. In that story British agent Alec Leamas is recalled from East Germany when several of his team members are killed on his watch. Then, when his best agent is killed, he’s asked to take on one last assignment: the murder of Hans Dieter Mundt, who’s responsible for the killings. Want to know more about le Carré? Sure you do. Check out a superb post on his work at Mrs. Peabody Investigates, an excellent crime fiction review-and-news blog that richly deserves a place on any crime fiction fan’s blog roll.

The Cold War isn’t the only backdrop for spy thrillers. After the end of World War II, there was a great deal of speculation about Nazi plots to re-establish themselves as a world power, and plenty of spy fiction deals with that prospect. For instance, there’s Ira Levin’s The Boys From Brazil, in which Yakov Liebermann, a Nazi-hunter, discovers a frightening plan to re-create the Third Reich. And there’s Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File in which journalist Peter Miller happens to be covering the suicide of Holocaust survivor Solomon Tauber. A diary he finds eventually leads to a top-secret worldwide organisation dedicated to re-establishing a Nazi regime.

There are also plenty of spy/secret agent stories in which the ‘targets’ aren’t just Cold War or Nazi enemies but different sorts of international criminals and crime rings. For instance, Victor Banis’ The Man From C.A.M.P. introduces us to LA secret agent Jackie Holmes. In the first of those stories, Holmes works with an agent from the US Department of the Treasury to catch a gang of counterfeiters. And there’s Len Deighton’s ‘Harry Palmer,’ whom we meet in The Ipcress File. In that novel, ‘Palmer’ and his colleagues in a special department known as WOOC(P) investigate the case of several scientists who’ve disappeared. There’s also Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, who works for a special Israeli Intelligence department called The Office. He’s gone after international arms traffickers, terrorists, and other groups as well.

Spies and spy novels come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as the saying goes. For instance, there’s Dorothy Gilman’s Emily Pollifax, who in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax decides to give up her middle-class suburban widhowhood and become a CIA agent. As an elderly ‘grandmotherly’ type, she hardly looks like a spy, but she’s quite resourceful and gets quite good at her job.

And of course, no discussion of spy thrillers or espionage stories would be complete without a mention of Ian Fleming’s Bond. James Bond. Dashing and ever-resourceful, Bond epitomises the fantasy intelligence agent. The Bond novels and films were many people’s first introduction to spy fiction.

Feel free to differ with me if you do, but in my opinion, the best espionage thrillers are those that develop the characters of the people involved. They do have action and suspense. There might even be a gun battle or explosion or two. And there’s that little matter of the escapism they offer. But they are also stories about believable people. What do you think? Do you read spy fiction? What about it appeals to you? If you dislike it, what about it puts you off? I promise; I won’t blow your cover…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul McCartney’s Spies Like Us.

It’s an Illusion, It’s a Game*

Have you ever been to a magic show? I mean a really well-done show. We all know going into a show that the magician really cannot, for instance, turn water into coins. But a talented magician can make the audience believe even if it’s just for a moment that a handkerchief turned into flowers. Magicians use misdirection and other strategies to create illusions. And when they do it well, it takes all of one’s effort to remember that it isn’t real.

We see that same use of strategy to create illusion in crime fiction. I’m not referring here to things like faking an alibi. Rather, I mean strategies that make people believe that something they think they see is true, while the reality is something entirely different. And when you get people to think that something is true, they are often convinced – even to the point of testifying in court – that they are right. And that fact of human life can be useful to criminals.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies (AKA Thirteen at Dinner), Hercule Poirot investigates the stabbing death of the 4^th Baron Edgware. Edgware’s wife Jane Wilkinson is the most likely suspect. It’s well-known that she wanted a divorce from her husband so that she could marry again. She’s even approached Poirot to try to convince Edgware to withdraw his objection to the divorce. What’s more, she was heard to threaten her husband. And she was admitted to the house on the night of the murder. So at first, Chief Inspector James ‘Jimmy’ Japp believes that he’s got his culprit. But on the night of the murder Jane Wilkinson went to a dinner party in another part of London. Twelve people, including the host, are willing to swear in court that she was at the party. So Poirot, Hastings and Japp have to look elsewhere for the killer. And they find plenty of suspects too, as Edgware was an extremely unpleasant person. In the end Poirot finds out who the killer is and we get a first-class lesson in the power of illusion.

Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives introduces us to attorney Walter Eberhart, his wife Joanna and their two children Pete and Kim. The Eberharts decide to move from New York to the beautiful and quiet town of Stepford, Connecticut and at first all goes well. They are warmly welcomed and the children soon settle into school and start to make friends. But soon, Joanna begins to think that something odd is going on in Stepfored. She and her new friend Bobbie Markowe ask a few questions, but they don’t get clear answers. Besides, there is no obvious danger to them or their families. Then, disturbing things begin to happen and Joanna becomes more and more convinced that Stepford’s beauty, peace and quiet are illusions. She begins to believe that something truly sinister is going on in town. It turns out that she’s right.

We also see the use of illusion strategies in Linwood Barclay’s Bad Move Science fiction writer Zack Walker, his journalist wife Sarah and their children Angie and Paul move to a beautiful new housing development called Valley Forest Estates. Zack is hoping that the lower cost of living in the suburbs will mean that he can write full-time, and he’s utterly convinced that life in the suburbs will be safer than it is in the city where they lived before the move. But little by little, his illusion of the ‘perfect suburban life’ is shattered. First, the house itself has all sorts of structural and other problems and Zack can’t seem to get anyone in authority to respond to his requests for maintenance. Then he discovers the body of Samuel Spender, a local environmental activist, in a creek. Then there’s another murder. Little by little Zack discovers that the development has mostly been a carefully orchestrated illusion designed to cover up some nasty goings-on. It’s not until Zack puts aside his belief that life is safer in the suburbs that he’s really able to see what’s happening.

Caroline Graham’s A Ghost in the Machine also includes the use of illusion to cover up a crime. Mallory Lawson and his wife Kate move to the village of Forbes Abbot when Mallory’s wealthy Aunt Carey dies. Aunt Carey has left her home and much of her fortune to Mallory and his family on the condition that her former companion Benny Frayle will always have a home. Mallory and Kate are happy to agree to that and everyone settles into the new arrangement. Then, the Lawsons’ financial advisor Dennis Brinkley is killed in what looks like a very tragic accident. But Benny thinks it was murder and tries to get the police to investigate. No-one takes very much notice of her allegation until there’s another death. Self-styled medium Ava Garret is leading a séance one day; during the event she says some things about the murder that she couldn’t possibly know. Not long afterwards she’s poisoned. Now Inspector Tom Barnaby and his team re-open the Dennis Brinkley case and slowly link it to Ava Garret’s murder. In a sad irony, Ava’s determination to maintain the illusion that she is psychic costs her her life as the murderer uses what you could call an illusion against her.

There’s an effective use of illusion in Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen’s Toffee’s Christmas too. In that short story, an author of romance novels who calls herself Toffee Brown moves to the small Yorkshire village of Knavesborough. As she tells the local vicar’s daughter Rhapsody Gershwin, Toffee came to the village to get some rest. Although she’s very eccentric and rather put out at not being identified as the world-famous writer she is, Toffee becomes a part of village life and settles in. Then one day, Rhapsody and her sister Psalmonella discover Toffee’s body in the cottage she’s taken. Rhapsody’s fiancé local constable Archibald ‘Archie’ Primrose begins to investigate and in the process they learn what Toffee’s real identity was. That doesn’t bring them much closer to finding the murderer though. It’s not until Rhapsody discovers that another character has created an illusion that she and her fiancé catch the killer.

Betty Webb’s Desert Wives is mostly set in the compound of a polygamous sect called Purity. The sect has been run by Brother Solomon Royal until he is murdered. Private investigator Lena Jones goes undercover to join Purity and find out who killed Royal when her client Esther Corbett is accused of the crime. Esther had a good motive for the murder too, as Royal had been planning to marry Esther’s thirteen-year-old daughter Rebecca. Jones settles into Purity and begins to ask questions about Royal’s murder. What she finds is that Purity is hiding some truly ugly secrets. There’s been a very carefully-designed illusion of Purity as being a peaceful, happy group of people who help each other, meet the group’s needs in a self-sufficient way and raise the group’s children together. But the reality is far, far different. Jones discovers domestic abuse, child molestation, and intermarriage leading to some serious birth defects. She also discovers financial wrongdoing. In fact, the reality underneath the illusion of Purity is so awful that Jones finds it hard to focus on her main reason for being there. But she does discover who killed Solomon Royal and why.

The thing about well-crafted illusions is that they can be very convincing. And in crime fiction that ability to create a reality that isn’t there can be very useful to criminals. Of course, sleuths can create illusions too; maybe I’ll address that in another post…

 

ps.  The photos are of Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller, who make up the hugely popular and successful magician duo Penn and Teller. Not only are they dedicated to debunking fraudulent psychics and other fakes, but they are truly gifted illusionists themselves. Oh, and they’re as pleasant in person as you could wish for, despite their great success.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Genesis’ Abacab.

Now We Gotta Run*

One of the staples of a lot of crime fiction novels is the chase scene. I don’t mean necessarily a scene in which one car pursues another (although that certainly happens too). I mean the general sense of chasing. It’s easy to see why such scenes are a part of the genre. They can add suspense to a story. And when they’re done well, they can also be believable. After all, if a culprit is running away, it makes sense that the police would go after her or him. If a criminal thinks someone may have been a witness to a crime, it makes sense that that criminal would go after the witness too. But there’s a caveat here. Chase scenes can be overblown, melodramatic and unconvincing. They’re not as easy to write as they are to film, either, so they have to be not just believable but also written in a way that conveys the tension the author wants to convey. When chase scenes are well-written and used effectively though, they really can be effective ways to ratchet up the suspense of a story.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings travel to the French village of Merlinville-sur-Mer when Poirot gets an urgent letter from Paul Renauld, who has settled there. Renauld’s letter claims that his life is in danger and that he needs Poirot’s help. By the time Poirot and Hastings get to Renauld’s home though it’s too late; he’s been murdered. Poirot works with Hastings and with the French authorities to find out who killed Renauld and why. Towards the end of the novel, Poirot has figured out who the killer is and he makes a plan to trap the killer by offering human ‘bait.’ The killer takes the ‘bait’ and there’s a chase scene in which Poirot, Hastings, and Hastings’ new romantic interest race to get to the killer before that person claims another victim.

In Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, we are introduced to the Eberhart family. Photographer Joanna Eberhart and her attorney husband Walter have just moved with their children from New York City to the quiet suburban town of Stepford Connecticut. At first the town seems perfect. But slowly Joanna and her new friend Bobbie Markowe begin to suspect that something sinister is going on in Stepford. They both become convinced that the only solution is for the families to get out of Stepford as soon as possible, and they make plans to move at the end of the school year. But then, a frightening incident proves that the end of the school year is going to be too late. Now Joanna has to convince Walter that she’s not crazy and that they must leave Stepford immediately. Towards the end of the novel there’s a very effective chase scene in which Joanna is frantically trying to get away. And what makes this scene so effective (at least to me) is that the suspense doesn’t come from guns, threats and so on. It’s almost entirely psychological.

Michael Connelly’s The Black Ice features another kind of chase scene. L.A.P.D. detective Harry Bosch learns of what looks like a suicide in his territory. He goes to the scene even though he wasn’t officially assigned to do so and discovers that the victim is Calexico ‘Cal’ Moore, a fellow cop. The official explanation for Moore’s death is that he had gone ‘dirty’ and killed himself. Because of the potential embarrassment to the department, Bosch is ordered to leave the case alone. In fact, he’s even given other cases to work on to keep him occupied. But when one of those other cases seems to be related to Moore’s death, Bosch begins to investigate what really happened to his colleague. The trail leads to a small Mexican border town and a nasty drugs ring that’s been pushing a dangerous new drug called ‘black ice.’ As Bosch pursues the leads that took him to Mexico he finds himself up against some dangerous people and there’s a very effective chase scene in which he and a colleague go after the leader of the drugs gang. That chase leads Bosch to the truth about Cal Moore, too.

In Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers, Ystad detective Kurt Wallander and his team investigate the murders of local farmers Johannes Lövgren and his wife Maria. At first it looks like a robbery gone wrong, but there are signs that the explanation isn’t that simple. The last word Maria Lövgren said before her death was foreign, so there is a possibility that the killers were immigrants. That possibility inflames already-simmering anti-immigration feeling in the area and one night, there’s another murder, this time of a Somali immigrant who lives at a camp not far away. Now Wallander and the team have two cases to solve. At one point in the novel, Wallander has deduced who the killer of the Somali immigrant is and tracks that person down. There’s a very effective chase scene in which he goes after the killer; besides adding to the tension, it really reflects the danger of fanaticism.

There’s also Åsa Larsson’s The Blood Spilt. Kiruna police officers Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke investigate the murder of Mildred Nilsson, a local priest. Her death means that the house in which she and her husband lived will revert to the Swedish Church. So attorney Rebecka Martinsson works with the church and with Nilsson’s widower to arrange for the transfer of property; that’s how she gets involved in the murder case. She is able to provide Mella and Stålnacke with valuable information about the murder but the killer finds out that she’s gotten too close. That leads to a chase scene in which Martinsson ends up in a truly perilous situation. She survives (I don’t think it’s spoiling the novel to say that) and it’s Larsson’s credit that the scene is depicted realistically and so is its aftermath. Martinsson does not come out unscathed.

And then there’s Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool, in which DCI Hanna Scarlett and her Cold Case Review team re-open the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. Her death turns out to be related to two more recent deaths which are being investigated by Scarlett’s friend DCI Fern Larter and her team. So the two detectives pool their resources. They also get help from Oxford historian Daniel Kind, who’s pursuing a separate angle of interest in the case. With the insight she gets from Kind, and her own deductions, Scarlett figures out who the murder in all three cases is. She also figures out that another person is very likely going to be killed if she doesn’t get to the killer and the next victim in time. So she goes after the murderer in what makes for a very effective sort of chase. This chase isn’t a traditional ‘one person runs after another’ chase but it adds a great deal of tension to the story.

There are a lot of other really well-done chase scenes too – many more than I have space for in this one post. And in case you didn’t notice, none of the chase scenes I’ve mentioned come from novels that are automatically branded as ‘thrillers.’ It’s easy to find chase scenes in thrillers; it’s a little more interesting to find them in novels that aren’t…

What’s your view? Do you enjoy chase scenes? Do you find them too stereotypical (cue eye-rolling)? If you’re a writer do you use them?

 

ps. Oh, the ‘photo? The room in which my dogs are so kindly modeling chase scenes is soon to become… my ‘Ma’am Cave’/writing room.     The good side of being an ‘empty-nester…’

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Dave Clark Five’s Catch Us If You Can.

 

 

In The Spotlight: Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Suspense master Ira Levin actually got his start as a playwright; in fact, his play Deathtrap holds the record for the longest-running comedy-thriller on Broadway. But he is perhaps best known for his chilling suspense novels. Today, let’s take a closer look at his fourth novel, The Stepford Wives.

As the novel begins, photographer Joanna Eberhart and her attorney husband Walter have just moved from New York City to the small town of Stepford, Connecticut with their two children Pete and Kim. They’ve found a nice home in a pleasant, quiet neighbourhood and are settling in well. Walter’s joined Stepford’s Men’s Association, and although Joanna thinks it’s sexist and antiquated, she is glad that Walter’s found some local buddies. Pete and Kim have made new friends, too, and Joanna is looking forward to spending more time with her photography once the school year begins.

Soon after the move to Stepford, Joanna meets down-to-earth Bobbie Markowe and the two women soon become good friends. Like Joanna, Bobbie is a feminist who doesn’t feel that her identity should revolve around whether or not the house is clean. Both women are perplexed and somewhat put off by the provincial attitudes of many people in the town. Still, they like the area and they and their husbands are hoping that they’ll be able to help change the local mindset.

Then, Bobbie begins to believe that beneath its peaceful, postcard-perfect surface, something nasty is going on in Stepford. Her suspicion takes real form when one of the two womens’ friends suddenly seems to change drastically. Bobbie puts these changes together with some other facts of life in Stepford and is convinced that something is very, very wrong. Joanna is soon convinced that Bobbie’s right, and the two women decide that the best thing to do is to look for new homes and move at the end of the school year. It seems that all might work out, but a frightening event shocks Joanna into realising that just how perilous her own situation is. Now, if she’s going to survive, Joanna’s going to have to convince Walter that she’s not crazy and that she herself is in imminent danger.

One of the most important elements in this novel is the growing suspense. That, more than anything else, keeps the reader turning pages. Levin builds the suspense in several ways, too. One of them is through the contrast between the beautiful small town the Eberharts have moved to, and the ugly reality beneath the surface. Stepford itself is a well-kept, peaceful town. Here, for instance, is a bit of the description of one of the Eberhardts’ first drives through down:

 

“The day was vivid and gem-edged, a sign of autumn. They drove to Stepford Centerd (white frame Colonial shopfront, postcard-pretty)…and the picnic grounds where a community pool was under construction.”

 

And yet, there’s also a sense, even from the beginning of the novel, that the town is too good to be true. And so it turns out to be.

Another way in which Levin builds the suspense is that for much of the novel, only Joanna Eberhart and Bobbie Markowe believe that anything is wrong. Nearly everyone else in town is perfectly happy with the way things are. That contentment makes Joanna even more anxious, since there’s no support for her beliefs. In fact, Joanna questions her own sanity at one point, and pays a visit to a psychiatrist. That tension builds even more when she has to convince herself, as you might say, that she’s right and that the danger is real.

Perhaps the most effective aspect of the suspense in this novel is that Levin keeps the reader turning pages eagerly with no violence. There are no ugly, gory scenes or bloody discoveries. It is (in my opinion, so feel free to disagree with me if you do) a highly, highly effective use of hints, clues and a character’s growing fears to build suspense. The question of whether Joanna is paranoid or whether she truly faces real danger runs tautly through the novel, too, and adds to the suspense.

Another element woven throughout the novel is the issue of men’s and women’s roles, and what the feminist movement means. This novel was published in 1972, when the Women’s Liberation movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s had moved from smaller groups of people to spark a much larger social debate. The movement left many women with serious questions about what roles they should play personally and professionally. It left many men, too, with questions about where they fit in in the evolving social order. What’s truly effective about Levin’s treatment of the topic is that it’s brought to a very personal level. Joanna and Bobbie are not fulfilled by cleaning their homes, catering to their families and keeping up their physical appearances. They have other interests and want to be treated as intelligent, capable people with thoughts and ideas of their own. On the other hand, neither wants to neglect her family nor be selfish. They love their husbands and they have no desire to “put them in their places.” Especially in Joanna’s character we see the personal conflict that many women of the time felt (and many still do) about how to carve out roles for themselves. But again, this is done so effectively because Levin doesn’t discuss the feminist movement in the abstract. Instead, individual people wrestle with the issues.

The same might be said of the treatment of racial issues in the novel. This is addressed when Ruthanne Hendry, an African-American author and illustrator of children’s books, moves to Stepford with her husband Royal and their children. There aren’t institutionalised race-based restrictions on where they live and what they do. But we do see some tension as the Hendrys settle in. Ruthanne wonders whether there was local opposition to their presence and is quick to sense what she feels is racism, and it’s interesting to see how she gradually becomes aware that race is less of an issue than she thought. That said, though, there are a few hints of racial unease. For instance, at one point, the local Welcome Wagon representative tells Joanna about the Hendrys, saying,

 

“A black family is moving in on Gwendolyn Lane. But I think it’s good, don’t you?”

 

Joanna herself thinks about the whole race issue when she meets Ruthanne and wonders if introducing herself would be condescending and a sign of “White Liberal guilt.”  This question of how the various races should relate to each other in the wake of the Civil Rights movement is also treated in a very human, personalised way. This adds interesting depths to the characters and prevents the book from sounding preachy about feminism and race.

A tense and suspenseful “suburban thriller,” The Stepford Wives uses the appealing characters of Joanna Eberhart and Bobbie Markowe to tell a truly chilling story. It also addresses some very important social issues. But what’s your view? Have you read The Stepford Wives? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 6 June/Tuesday 7 June – Still Life – Louise Penny

Monday 13 June/Tuesday 14 June – A Case of Need – Michael Crichton (writing as Jeffrey Hudson)

Monday 20 June/Tuesday 21 June – Random Violence – Jassy Mackenzie

>I Know You’ve Deceived Me*

>

Last night, Mr. Confessions of a Mystery Novelist… asked me an interesting question. We were talking about a point in my current work in progress where two characters have blatantly told lies about where they were and what they were doing. My husband asked, “When your characters lie, do your readers know it’s an outright lie, or do they think you’ve just made a mistake in detail?” That’s a good question, and it raises the interesting question of how crime fiction authors handle characters who lie. On one hand, most of us don’t particularly like to lie, so we betray ourselves with hesitations, blustering, non-verbal signs that we’re uncomfortable, and so on. So having characters who show those signs is authentic and realistic, especially considering the stress of a murder investigation. On the other, if an author makes it too obvious that a character is lying, that may make it too easy on the reader, and that tends to be off-putting. Readers want authors to “play fair,” but they also don’t want the solution to a mystery to be too obvious. Like a lot of other things in crime fiction, this requires a balance.

Agatha Christie’s characters frequently hide things and they do tell lies. In fact, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Hercule Poirot claims that everyone involved in murder investigations has something to hide. In some cases, characters lie because they’re trying to cover up some embarrassing private secret. Other characters tell lies because they want to “hide” the murderer or because they’re guilty of the crime. For instance, in Evil Under the Sun, Poirot investigates the strangling murder of beautiful and notorious actress Arlena Stuart Marshall, who was staying with her family at the Jolly Roger Hotel when she was killed. Poirot and the police begin to ask questions about who was where, and who might have seen what, and they interview the staff and the other hotel guests. What they find is that many of the characters tell lies about something. Of course, the murderer lies. But also, two of the characters lie because each thinks the other has committed the crime. Another character lies because that character is hiding some illegal activity. There are other lies, too, and what’s interesting is that very few of the people who are lying act nervous, bluster, or otherwise make it clear that they’re lying. And yet, the reader doesn’t feel cheated. As different pieces of evidence come out, we slowly learn who was lying about what.

The same is true in Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death). Poirot’s secretary Miss Lemon asks him to help her sister Mrs. Hubbard get to the bottom of some strange goings-on at the hostel she manages. Poirot agrees and visits the hostel. On the night of his first visit, one of the residents, Celia Austin, admits she’s been responsible for most of the thefts that have occurred, and promises to make restitution. The matter seems to be settled until two nights later, when Celia Austin apparently commits suicide. It’s soon shown that she was murdered, and Poirot works with Inspector Sharpe to find out who killed Celia Austin and why. To do this, they look into the lives of all of the residents, and it’s interesting to see how each reacts, since many of them are hiding something. Some of them bluster and become truculent. Others try to throw suspicion on other residents. Still others lie very smoothly, so that it’s quite difficult to tell at first that they are lying. Only one of the liars is hiding the fact of being the murderer (although another liar knows who the killer is). Again, as Poirot and Inspector Sharpe and his team investigate, they slowly turn up evidence that unmasks the killer, so that the reader doesn’t feel “blindsided.” This novel also shows how different people react to feeling the need to lie. Some people are very good liars indeed; others are not good liars, and we see both types of people in this novel.

We also see a variety of different kinds of liars in Colin Dexter’s The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are investigating the poisoning death of Nicholas Quinn, the only Deaf member of Oxford’s Foreign Examinations Syndicate, which is responsible for managing exams given to students living outside of the UK, but in countries with a British education tradition. Quinn’s appointment to the Syndicate was not a unanimous choice, so more then one member of the group didn’t want him in to begin with. As if that weren’t enough, several members of the Syndicate are hiding some “dirty linen.” And then there’s the secret Quinn discovered and threatened to report. So as Morse and Lewis get to the truth about Quinn’s death, they have to get past a tissue of lies. Some members of the Syndicate lie quite smoothly, others hide behind “officialdom,” and others bluster. Again, it’s interesting to see how the different personalities in this novel react to feeling the pressure to lie.

Lying takes on a very eerie quality in Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives. That’s the story of Joanna Eberhart, who moves with her lawyer husband Walter and their children from New York City to the quiet, peaceful town of Stepford, Connecticut. At first, all goes very well. The family settles in and makes friends, and Joanna is even exploring the possibility of turning her talent at photography into a full-time career. Slowly, though, Joanna and her friend Bobbie Markowe begin to suspect that all is not as it seems in Stepford. Joanna searches for the meaning behind some strange goings-on, but the more questions she asks, the more lies she’s told. In fact, the lies in Stepford are so well-told that Joanna begins to wonder if she’s having some sort of mental breakdown. It’s really chilling to see how well-told lies and well-planned cover-ups can make one doubt oneself.

Peter Robinson’s All The Colours of Darkness also shows how accomplished a liar can be. In that novel, DI Annie Cabot is called to the scene of an apparent suicide. Mark Hardcastle, who designed costumes for the Eastvale Amateur Dramatic Society, a local theatrical troupe, has been found hung in a local woods. Very soon afterwards, the body of his lover Lawrence Silbert is discovered in Silbert’s own home. At first, it seems like this might be a case of murder/suicide. But it’s not long before Cabot and her boss Alan Banks discover that there’s more to this case than that. It seems that Silbert was an MI6 agent, especially valued because of his gift for languages. Because Silbert was a secret agent, Banks and Cabot have to sift through a whole set of official and unofficial lies to find out why Silbert and Hardcastle were killed and who killed them. In this novel, very few people start off by telling the truth and even in the end, there are still lies that people don’t admit having told.

We see a variety of different reactions to lying in Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s Last Rituals, in which she introduces her sleuth, Reykjavík attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. One day, Thóra gets an unexpected call from Germany from Amelia Guntlieb, whose son Harald was studying in Iceland when he was murdered. The police think that Harald’s former friend and room-mate Hugi Thórisson is guilty, but the Guntlieb family doesn’t think he’s responsible. They hire Thóra to work with their banking representative Matthew Reich to find out who really committed the crime. Throughout the novel, Thóra and Matthew interview Guntlieb’s friends, school-mates, professors and just about anyone else with whom he had contact. Several people have reasons to lie, including the murderer. At one point, Thóra is interviewing a group of Guntlieb’s friends. Each of them is hiding something important, and each reacts to that a bit differently. One brazens it out, one says nearly nothing, but Thóra picks up the evasiveness, and others react in other ways. It’s a very interesting example of how people with different personalities react when they’re covering something up. In the end, Thóra and Matthew find out the real reason Guntlieb was killed and are able to separate the lies that cover up other things from the lies that hide the murderer.

It’s an entirely human reaction to lie under the stress of a murder investigation, whether or not one’s actually guilty of the murder. And it’s interesting to see the way people go about lying. Some are very skilled and some aren’t. But what’s your view? Do you feel “cheated” when a killer has lied well enough that you didn’t notice it at first? If you’re a writer, how do you handle characters who lie? How obvious do you think it should be that a character is lying?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Who’s I Can See For Miles.