I Look And I Write My Book*

An interesting comment exchange has got me thinking about something you might or might not have noticed about crime fiction. But of course, you’ve probably noticed it. Crime fiction gets away with addressing some very controversial and difficult subjects. Of course crime writers aren’t the only ones who’ve done that and it’s not really a new phenomenon. Authors such as Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Swift used their pens to make statements hundreds of years ago. And they got away with it even in the days when it could be extremely dangerous to question or poke fun at society. For most crime writers the stakes aren’t so high these days. But even so, it does involve risk when an author addresses a difficult or controversial subject. And yet, a lot of crime writers have done just that.

How have they got away with it? I’m not a sociologist or psychologist, but my guess is that part of the reason is that those statements are wrapped up in well-written stories. We read those stories and get caught up in them and it’s only in the context of the story that we think about the political or social point the author is making. Also, by its very nature crime fiction deals with the darker side of human nature. People get murdered in crime fiction. So there’s a certain amount of leeway in terms of what’s considered fair game for the genre. You can probably think of a lot more examples of this kind of risk-taking than I can. Here are just a few.

Agatha Christie often held up a mirror to society in her writing. I’ll just give one example. In Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death), Hercule Poirot’s secretary Miss Lemon is concerned about some strange thefts and other events that have occurred at the student hostel managed by her sister Mrs. Hubbard. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and he pays a visit to the hostel. There, he urges Mrs. Hubbard to call in the police immediately. Before she can do that, hostel resident Celia Austin comes forward and admits she is responsible for most of the thefts. At first it looks as though the matter is settled. But two nights later Celia dies, an apparent suicide. As Poirot and Inspector Sharpe look into the case we get to know the various students. In their interactions there are some interesting discussions of racial prejudice, communism and anti-communist hysteria, all controversial topics for the time (the novel was published in 1955). That commentary though isn’t really the central focus of the novel. Instead the story itself is the main focus.

The same is true in Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison. In that novel mystery novelistHarriet Vane is arrested for the poisoning murder of her former lover Philip Boyes. There’s evidence against her, and she had a motive so the case doesn’t look particularly hopeful. Lord Peter Wimsey attends her trial and is immediately smitten with Vane. He determines to clear her name so he can marry her, and when the jury can’t agree on a verdict, he gets a month in which to do so. With help from his friends Katherine Climpson and Inspector Parker, and his valet Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey investigates and discovers who the real killer is. At the time this novel was published, it was considered socially unacceptable to live with someone and be romantically involved without being married. Women in particular were expected to live up to a very rigourous moral code. Sayers takes a look at this social ‘double standard’ in part by making Harriet Vane a sympathetic character even though she lived with Boyes without being married. There are also a few scenes in the novel where characters with more old-fashioned standards are painted unsympathetically. While women’s status is not the central focus of the story, it’s interesting to see how Sayers weaves it through the novel. She does a similar thing with the issue of the death penalty in Busman’s Honeymoon. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane have married, and gone to a country home called Tallboys for their honeymoon. When they arrive they discover that the house’s former owner William Noakes has been murdered. Wimsey discovers who the killer is and truly agonises about contributing to the killer’s arrest because he knows the killer will be executed. Again, the question of whether the death penalty is appropriate isn’t the main focus, but Sayers does address that issue.

Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö used their Martin Beck series to take a good look at the Sweden of the 1960’s and 1970’s during which the series was published. Crime fiction fans will know that they were leftists who made many critiques of their society. Let me give just two examples. In Murder at the Savoy Beck and his team investigate the murder of wealthy businessman Viktor Palmgren, who’s shot during a posh dinner at the Savoy Hotel. In the course of finding out who the killer was, the team learns quite a lot about Palmgren’s history and his business affairs and it’s clear from that he made several enemies. In the context of the search for the killers, there is a critique of the Swedish class system of the times and of the business and government elites who perpetuated it. In The Abominable Man, Beck and his team investigate the murder of police inspector Stig Nyman. As they look into the case to find out who would have wanted to kill him, they find a long list of suspects as Nyman had a history of brutality. That issue – police brutality and too many people’s willingness to look the other way – is a major theme in the novel. Although there is little doubt of Sjöwall and Whalöö’s political and social agenda, the real attention in these novels is on the plots and the characters.

We also see this in A Case of Need, which Michael Crichton wrote under the name of Jeffery Hudson. The focus in this novel is the death of Karen Randall, the daughter of wealthy and powerful surgeon J.D. Randall. OB-GYN Dr. Albert Lee is soon arrested for performing an illegal abortion (this novel was published in 1968, before abortion was legal in the U.S.) that led to the young woman’s death. Lee claims that he is innocent and is being targeted because he’s Chinese-American. He asks his friend pathologist Dr. John Berry to help clear his name and Berry agrees. As Berry searches for the truth about the death of Karen Randall, Hudson/Crichton discusses the reality of the abortion controversy. There are some very ugly scenes involving people on both sides of the issue. The issue of racial prejudice is also brought up here. But in both cases the focus remains on the story – on the question of what happened to Karen Randall and why.

That’s also the case in Ruth Rendell’s Simisola. Inspector Reg Wexford has to confront his own feelings about race and class when his physician Dr. Raymond Akande asks Wexford’s help. Akande’s twenty-two-year-old daughter Melanie hasn’t been seen for a few days and her parents are getting worried. Wexford isn’t concerned at first; there could be any number of reasons for which a young woman might go off for a few days without telling her parents. But when more time goes by Wexford agrees to look into the matter. Shortly after Melanie’s disappearance, Employment Bureau employee Annette Bystock is found murdered. Since Melanie had an appointment with Bystock just before she disappeared it’s soon clear to Wexford and his team that the two cases are related. Then, the body of a young woman is found in nearby woods. At first Wexford is sure the body is Melanie Akande’s. He’s wrong. As it turns out, all of these events are tied up with the Employment Bureau in an interesting way. As Wexford and the team look closely at the bureau, Rendell holds up a mirror to the class system, the system of providing for the unemployed and the reality of what amounts to human trafficking. There’s an unflinching look at racial prejudice too. But it’s the story and the characters that keep the reader’s attention.

Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood is the story of one awful morning when Tasmania Police sergeant John White and probationer Lucy Howard are called to the scene of a break-in. Shortly after they arrive White is murdered. The most likely suspect is seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, and there are good reasons to assume he’s responsible. But he is part Aborigine and the police know that if they don’t handle the investigation precisely ‘by the book’ they’ll be accused of brutality and racism. As the Tasmania Police come to grips with the death of their beloved sergeant, we follow the investigation of the murder. And in the course of building the context and giving background information on the characters Erskine also takes an unflinching look at race relations, police brutality (or is it?), social class and corruption. This novel takes aim at social issues while at the same time telling the story of a murder investigation.

And that, to me, is part of how crime writers have gotten away with talking about controversial topics and holding up a mirror to society. They tell stories and those stories – not so much the controversy – are at the heart of what they write.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Blonde Over Blue.

My Other World is Just a Half a Mile Away*

One of the most common reasons that there’s a murder in crime fiction is that there’s something about either the victim or the murderer that drives the killing. And one of the more interesting of those “somethings” is that either the victim or the killer is leading a double life. I don’t mean a stolen identity. Rather, I mean a person who is hiding a secret life. That’s sometimes challenging to do well in crime fiction. After all, in real life it would be difficult (‘though certainly not impossible) to hide a secret life from one’s loved ones. But it happens, and when it’s done well, that plot point can add to a novel.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons, Hercule Poirot is asked to help investigate a series of terrible events at Meadowbank, an exclusive girls’ school. One night, games mistress Grace Springer is shot in the school’s new Sports Pavilion. The police begin their investigation but it’s no sooner underway when there’s a kidnapping. And then another death. Julia Upjohn is a pupil at the school who slowly puts together a big part of the puzzle. When she does, she visits Hercule Poirot, who happens to know a friend of her mother’s. Julia tells Poirot about what’s going on at Meadowbank and he travels to the school to solve the mystery. Poirot finds out that someone at the school has been leading a secret life and that Grace Springer found out about part of that life. In the end, Poirot ties in her murder with the other events at the school and with a revolution in a Middle Eastern country and a stolen cache of jewels.

In Michael Crichton’s A Case of Need, which he wrote as Jeffery Hudson, we meet pathologist John Berry, who works at Boston’s Memorial Hospital. One day he gets a call from his friend obstetrician/gynecologist Arthur Lee. Lee has been arrested on charges that he conducted an illegal botched abortion (the book was written in 1968 when abortion was illegal in the U.S.). It’s also alleged that this abortion caused the death of Karen Randall. Lee claims that he is innocent and that he’s being framed in part because he is an Asian-American. Berry agrees to ask questions and looks into the matter. He finds that Karen Randall had a private life that was very different to the public life she led as the daughter of one of Boston Memorial’s most powerful surgeons. The Randall family wants more than anything to avoid a scandal, but Berry persists. He discovers that it was Karen Randell’s secret life that in large part led to her death.

There’s also a case of living secret lives in Nicolas Freeling’s Double Barrel. In that novel, Amsterdam’s Inspector Van der Valk is sent to the small Dutch town of Zwinderen. Someone’s been sending a series of threatening anonymous blackmailing letters to several of Zwinderen’s townsfolk. The letters have resulted in two suicides and one complete mental breakdown. So Van der Valk is asked to get to the bottom of the matter and find out who is responsible for the letters. Since the locals do not trust outsiders, Van der Valk gues under the guise of conducting a Ministry of the Interior study. He and his wife Arlette settle into the town and begin asking questions. As he gets to know the town’s residents better, Van der Valk finds that they’re really not guilty of the terrible conduct of which the letters accuse them, but they are so afraid of being ostracised by the town that they don’t even want any hints about them to come out. Van der Valk also finds that there is one person in town who does have what you could call a secret life. And he discovers that there is a dark secret in town – more important and more deadly than any of the “immoral conduct” alleged in the letters.

We also see double lives in Margaret Truman’s Murder at the FBI. FBI agent Chris Saksis and her partner and lover Ross Lizenby are assigned to the murder of fellow agent George Pritchard. Pritchard’s body was found by the rifle range at FBI headquarters in Washington, and at first, it’s believed that he was the victim of a terrorist group whose membership he was about to reveal. But there are other possibilities, too. One, for instance, is that his bitter ex-wife murdered him. There are also people at the top of the FBI administration who had a reason to want Pritchard dead. The closer Saksis gets to the truth, the more questions are raised about Pritchard and what he might have known. In the end, Saksis learns that someone was leading a double life and it’s that secret life that cost Pritchard his life.

Helene Tursten’s The Glass Devil also features secret lives. Göteborg detective Irene Huss and her team are assigned a bizarre case. Schoolteacher Jacob Schyttelius has not been seen in a few days and it’s not like him to simply not come to work. The school principal asks his cousin Sven Andersson, who is Huss’ boss, to look into the matter.  When Andersson and Huss arrive at the summer cottage where Schyttelius has been staying, they find that he’s been shot to death. Then later that evening Schyttelius’ parents are murdered, too. Huss and the team begin to look into the lives of the Schyttelius family to see why anyone would want to murder them. The more they get to know the family and the better they get to know the people in the family’s life, the more secrets they learn. And in the end, it turns out that the family was killed because of secret lives people were leading.

And then there’s Niki Rowe, whose murder is at the heart of Donna Malane’s Surrender. A year before the events in the story, Niki was stabbed, and although the police are sure they know who killed her, they could never bring charges. Now, James Patrick “Snow” Wilson, the man the police think is guilty, has been stabbed in the same way. Niki’s sister Diane Rowe is a missing person’s expert who’s often worked with the police. In fact, she used to be married to police officer Sean Callum. Callum tells Rowe that before his death Wilson confessed to the murder and said that he was paid to kill Niki Rowe. When Diane finds that Wilson has been murdered she decides to find out who killed him, as it may lead her to the person who ordered her sister’s murder. Her search for answers leads her to find out more about Niki’s life. She’d always known that Niki was an exotic dancer, but the truth is that Niki had a secret life that included all sorts of “customer service” for clients. The more Diane learns about her sister’s secret life, the more she learns that Niki was more complicated than anyone had known. As it turns out, that complexity is the reason that she was killed.

Secret and double lives aren’t easy to write as it’s hard to make it believable that a person would have a double life without some loved one knowing about it. But when they’re done well, secret lives can add an interesting layer to a novel. Which novels featuring secret lives have you enjoyed?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Half a Mile Away.

Oh and There We Were All in One Place, A Generation Lost in Space*

Part of crime fiction’s appeal is that it shows us who we are as a people (and who we have been and might yet be). Crime fiction holds up a mirror that can be both interesting and sometimes instructive. We see that quite a bit when crime fiction explores major social issues and events. And one of the great social upheavals in recent history was the set of social and political changes that took place during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. From dress to views of social roles to speech and a lot more, societies all over the world were profoundly affected when the “Baby Boomers” reached the teen and young adult years. So I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at what crime fiction has had to say about those years. Mind, this is by no means an exhaustive look; there’s simply no room in one blog post to do that. But here are just a few examples of crime fiction that take a look at that era.

Agatha Christie’s novels span the years from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, and some of them explore this era of change. For instance, in Third Girl, Hercule Poirot gets a visit from Norma Restarick, a young woman who thinks she “may have” committed a murder. When he gently presses her for more information the young woman leaves without giving her name, saying that he’s “too old.” Needless to say, Poirot is put out by this and has a conversation with his friend detective novelist Ariadne Oliver about it. As it happens, Oliver has met Norma Restarick and she and Poirot work together to find out whether the young woman could have committed a murder. Then, Norma Restarick disappears. Now the two sleuths have the added task of finding her before harm comes to her, which seems more and more likely as the novel goes on. In the end, they discover what the truth is behind Norma Restarick’s claims and her disappearance. Throughout this novel, Christie explores the “mod” culture including its fashions, its fascination with drugs and the art that was created at the time. Through the eyes of Poirot and Oliver, who are from a different era, we see how the young people, the new views and so on are perceived by others and it’s a very interesting portrait of a society that has changed dramatically.

Student unrest and radicalism was a major part of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and several stories explore that theme, too. For instance, in John Alexander Graham’s The Involvement of Arnold Wechsler, we meet Classics Professor Arnold Wechsler, who teaches at Hewes College, a small New England school. As with many schools at that time, students have been agitating for change, and the atmosphere has gotten tense. Wechsler has been avoiding the issues of student demands and politics. Instead, he’s trying to negotiate the perilous politics of getting tenure when his life is complicated by a summons to the office of College President Winthrop Dohrm. Dohrm has discovered that Wechsler’s brother David has come to Hewes College, supposedly to connect with a radical student group on campus. Dohrm wants Wechsler to contact his brother and find out if David is involved in any subversive activities or has plans to do so. That’s the last thing Wechsler wants, as he and his brother are estranged. But he also wants tenure. So he agrees to Dohrm’s request. Then, a series of frightening events occurs. A supply of drugs is stolen from a local hospital. Then, Dohrm’s grand-daughter Nancy is abducted and a ransom note is sent with David Wechsler’s initials. Then, Dohrm himself is killed when a bomb destroys the family home. As Wechsler tries to find out what’s behind all of these events and how involved David is, we get a close look at student radicalism of the era. We also get a look at the social divide between those young people and what they called “The Establishment.”

There’s a similar theme in Reginald Hill’s An Advancement of Learning, which was written at about the same time. In that novel, Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Sergeant Peter Pascoe are sent to Holm Coultram College to investigate the five-year-old death of former president Alison Girling. She was believed to have died in a freak avalanche during a holiday, but when her body is found on the school grounds, it’s clear that she was murdered. To complicate matters, there’s a radical student group on campus led in part by Franny Roote. The group has made several demands and does its best to interfere with the normal teaching and learning routine of campus. Dalziel, of course, has no patience with the group, which makes the members all the angrier, but they do respect his “presence,” and it’s interesting to see how they interact with Dalziel as the novel moves along. In the end, Dalziel and Pascoe find out who killed Alison Girling and why, and as they do, we get a very interesting look at a radicalised campus.

We also see some exploration of this era in Michael Crichton’s A Case of Need, which he wrote under the name of Jeffery Hudson. Dr. Albert Lee, a well-known obstetrician at Boston’s Memorial Hospital, has his world shattered when he is accused of murder. According to the accusation, he performed an illegal abortion (the book was written in 1968) on Karen Randall, who later died of complications from the surgery. Lee claims that he did not perform the abortion. Yet, he’s arrested and charged. He asks his friend pathologist Dr. John Berry to look into the matter and help clear his name. Berry agrees, but his investigation is soon complicated in several ways. First, he’s not entirely sure that Lee did not perform the abortion. Second, Karen Randall was the daughter of J.D. Randall, one of the most powerful surgeons at the hospital, and Randall has absolutely no desire for any scandal on his family. Third, as Berry begins to dig a little deeper, he finds that Karen Randall had a very different private life from her public persona. This was the era of sexual exploration and drug use, and Karen was involved in both of those. She’s made some friends and acquaintances who are not interested in the truth about their world coming out. Nonetheless, Berry persists and in the end, finds out what really happened to Karen Randall. One of the themes in this novel is the “generation gap” of the times, and the difficulty that Karen’s “blueblood” family has accepting the new order of things. The novel also explores other controversial questions of the day, such as drug use and whether abortion should be legal. It’s an interesting look at that era.

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahllöö’s The Laughing Policeman includes a look at one of the most controversial issues of this era; the Vietnam War. The war ignited a firestorm of controversy all over the world, and a protest against the war provides the backdrop to this novel. The American Embassy in Stockholm has been the target of anti-war demonstrations, a letter campaign and more, so many of the police are diverted from their usual duties to help protect the embassy. Then, the demonstration begins to get ugly, and even more police are needed. On the same night as the police are busy trying to keep back the demonstrators, Officers Kant and Kristiansson get word of a tragedy on a Stockholm bus. They learn that a gunman has murdered eight people, including Åke Stenström, one of their own. The gunman has picked the perfect time to commit murder, a time when the police are busy battling demonstrators. Martin Beck and his team begin to investigate and soon find deduce that the gunman has “hidden” Stenström’s murder amongst the other deaths to call attention away from it. As they slowly piece together Stenström’s last days, the team learns that he was investigating a “cold case” – the murder of Teresa Camarão, a “well born” Portuguese woman who’d become a prostitute. When the police put that piece together with the fact that not all of the victims of the bus shooting have been identified, they are able to find the key to the mystery. The mystery really isn’t about the Vietnam War, but the protests against it and the “feel” of 1960’s Stockholm provide a vivid background to the story.

Of course there are a lot of other crime novels that take place during this era and highlight the attitudes, upheavals, clothes, drugs and culture of the times. Want to dig out your bell-bottoms, light up your lava lamps, get out those love beads and think of some other examples??? .

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Don McLean’s American Pie. Thanks to Bernadette at Reactions to Reading (a superb blog you should follow – really!) for the post title that inspired this…

Oh, and for you young readers, that large thing in the middle of the ‘photo is called an album. We listened to those before there were cassettes, CD’s and MP3′s… .

I’ve Done My Sentence But Committed No Crime*

An interesting comment exchange on one of my posts has got me thinking about the toll a murder case takes on families of those involved. The police, of course, have to ask very painful and difficult questions if they’re going to find out who murdered the victim. And as nerve-wracking and upsetting as that is, many families understand that reality. What’s much worse for many families who’ve suffered tragedy such as murder is when their sorrow is plastered on the pages of newspapers and leads the television news. So it’s very little wonder that a lot of families of victims simply don’t want to talk to the press or the police. That conflict is certainly authentic and in crime fiction, it can add to the suspense of a novel. It can also “show not tell” the devastating effect of a murder on those left behind.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings work with Chief Inspector James “Jimmy” Japp to find out who committed a series of murders. The crimes seem to be connected only by the fact that Poirot receives a cryptic warning before each murder. Also, an ABC railway guide is found near each body. The second of these crimes is the murder of twenty-three-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Barnard, whose body is found strangled on a beach. Poirot, Hastings and the police go to her home to interview her parents. While they’re there, her older sister Megan arrives from London to be with the family. At first, she thinks Poirot and Hastings are reporters, and says,

 

“I don’t think I’ve got anything to say to you. My sister was a nice bright girl with no men friends. Good morning.”

 

She almost refuses to speak to them at all until she finds out who Poirot is. Then she opens up a bit and shares what she knows about her sister. But her initial reaction shows a bit of what this family is suffering.

In Michael Crichton’s A Case of Need (which he wrote under the name of Jeffery Hudson), Dr. Arthur Lee is arrested for performing an illegal abortion on Karen Randall, the daughter of J.D. Randall, one of the most influential doctors at Boston’s Memorial Hospital. Karen Randall subsequently dies, so now Lee is facing possible homicide charges, too. He claims that he did not perform the abortion and asks his friend pathologist Dr. John Berry to help clear his name. Berry begins to ask some questions and discovers some odd facts about the Randall case. The more he looks into the matter, the more he sees that the facts don’t add up to a case of a botched abortion and a doctor who’s lying about it. The Randall family is eager to avoid any kind of scandal, so they avoid the press in any way they can. And there’s a lot of pressure put on Berry to simply let the case alone. It’s bad enough that the young woman died; it would be much worse if anything much about it got into the newspapers. And we can feel some sympathy for the grieving family on that score. What’s perhaps more telling is what happens to the Lee family. Arthur Lee’s got a wife and children who become the targets of vicious hatred when word gets out about what’s happened. Even today, abortion is a highly controversial and sensitive topic; people feel strongly about it. At the time this novel was written it was illegal in the U.S. Although Lee is, in fact, innocent (I don’t think I’m giving a spoiler there; it’s not long into the story before that’s made clear), his family suffers a great deal because of the publicity about the story and because of the influence the victim’s father has at the hospital where Lee works.

We also see the toll a murder can take on those left behind in Denise Mina’s Garnethill, in which ticket-taker Maureen “Mauri” O’Donnell is suspected of the murder of her former lover Douglas Brady. There’s good reason to suspect her of the crime, since his body was found in her home and since she has a history of mental health problems. But O’Donnell knows that she’s innocent and sets out to prove that by finding out who really did kill Brady. One of the main challenges she faces is that Joe McEwan, who’s in charge of the case, is convinced that either she or her brother Liam is the murderer. But what’s worse is that the press gets wind of the case and begins to pursue O’Donnell as well. In fact, a reporter follows her to work and snaps a ‘photo. It turns out that the reporter has snapped a ‘photo of O’Donnell’s colleague instead, but O’Donnell still feels violated. Douglas Brady’s mother and wife have to deal with the “hype” from the media, too, especially since his mother Carol is MEP (Member of the European Parliament) for Strathclyde, so she has a certain prominence. Although neither Carol Brady nor her daughter is perfect, we can see how they’ve been suffering too, and we can have some sympathy for their feelings about the press.

In Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant, we meet successful Delhi attorney Ajay Kasliwal. A few months before the novel opens, one of the Kasliwal servants Mary Murmu suddenly disappeared. There are now allegations that Kasliwal is responsible for her disappearance, and probably killed her. The press has gotten hold of this story and now, the police are under pressure to make an example of this prominent attorney as a way of showing that they are not corrupt. Kasliwal knows that he is innocent and visits Vish Puri, who owns Delhi’s Most Private Investigations, Ltd. He hires Puri to find out the truth about Mary Murmu’s disappearance and clear his name. Puri agrees and as the two men begin to work together, we can have some sympathy for Kasliwal, who is by no means perfect, but whom we soon begin to see is probably not a murderer. The media and the police make much of this story and we soon see how the Kasliwal family is victimised because of that. Although that family hasn’t lost a member to murder, the disappearance takes quite a toll. And when we find out what happened to Mary Murmu, we also see the toll that life has taken on her family.

Arnaldur Indriðason’s Jar City also addresses the real toll that crime takes on families. In that novel, Inspector Erlendur and his team are called to the scene of the murder of Holberg, a seemingly innocent elderly man whose body is found in his home. At first there seems no motive for the murder, but as Erlendur and his team dig a little deeper, they find that Holberg may have been guilty of several rapes many years earlier. If so, there may be a connection between Holberg’s death and the rapes, and so it proves to be. The connection isn’t the obvious one, though. In the process of the investigation, Erlendur meets Elín, the sister of Kolbrún, one of Holberg’s rape victims. In her reaction to Erlendur’s questions we see how deeply she has felt what happened to her sister. Even though her sister has died, she is still grieving over what happened many years ago and at times, she’s truculent, even ordering Erlendur out of her home at one point. Then we learn that at the time of the rape, no-one believed Kolbrún. The police officer she spoke to all but told her that she probably encouraged Holberg’s advances. The way in which she was victimised shattered Kolbrún and in fact, she committed suicide later. Elín has not forgotten this and is not at all inclined to co-operate with any member of law enforcement now, to say nothing of the press. Little wonder, considering what her family has suffered.

One of the most poignant portraits of the toll that police and the media can take on the victims of crime and their families is in Paddy Richardson’s Traces of Red. That novel begins when Katy Dickson comes home from a week-end with a friend to find that her parents Rowan and Angela and her brother Sam have been murdered. At the time of the murders, the police get evidence that Katy’s uncle Connor Bligh is guilty. He’s duly arrested, convicted and imprisoned, and Katy begins to try to make a life for herself. Then, several years later, hints that Bligh may not be guilty begin to surface. TV journalist Rebecca Thorne is looking for the story to make her career, and chooses this one. She follows up those hints and possible new evidence. As she searches for the truth about the Dickson murders, she interviews the people who were involved in the case as well as several people who knew the Dickson family. A lot of old wounds are re-opened and as the novel continues, we see the pain of other family members. We also see Katy’s pain when Thorne approaches her for an interview:

 

“I’ve got nothing to say to you. You’ve no right to even be here.”

 

When Thorne persists, Katy goes even further:

 

“P*** off… Get her out of here. Get her out. You people are scum. Why can’t you leave me alone?”

 

It’s hard to blame Katy.

All too often it’s easy to forget the toll that crimes such as murder take on the families involved. So it’s no wonder when they refuse to work with the police or the media. That tension is not only realistic, but also adds a solid layer to a story.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Queen’s We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions.

In The Spotlight: Michael Crichton’s/Jeffery Hudson’s A Case of Need

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. As you know, Michael Crichton was an influential and popular writer perhaps best known for thrillers such as Congo and Jurassic Park. But his background actually was in medicine, and he’s written more than one novel that takes place in that world. Today, let’s take a closer look at A Case of Need, one of his first novels, which he wrote under the pen name of Jeffery Hudson.

The novel takes place in 1968 Boston, at a time when abortion was not legal in the United States. Dr. Arthur Lee, an obstetrician with Boston’s Memorial Hospital, has been arrested in connection with the death of Karen Randall, daughter of J.D. Randall, one of the most influential doctors at the hospital. It’s alleged that Lee conducted an abortion that went horribly wrong and that Karen Randall died as a result. Lee asks his good friend, pathologist Dr. John Berry, to help clear his name. Berry already knows that Lee performs abortions although they’re against the law. But Lee tells Berry that he’s innocent in this case and is being framed because it’s an open secret that he conducts abortions and some important people at the hospital are opposed to abortion. Uglier still, Lee believes he’s being framed because he’s a Chinese-American in a prejudiced society. According to Lee, Karen Randall had come to see him about an abortion, but he refused to do the procedure because her pregnancy was too far advanced. He says that he never saw her again after that first visit. So Berry begins to ask a few questions and soon finds himself enmeshed in a nasty case of power-politics, cover-ups and scapegoating. It doesn’t help matters that Berry gets hints from more than one source that Lee may be lying and may, in fact, be guilty. He doesn’t want to believe that of his friend, so he digs even deeper and finds some odd facts about Karen Randall’s death that simply don’t add up to just a botched abortion by a doctor’s who’s lying about what happened. Berry also finds himself the target of some very powerful people who want him to stay out of the matter and let the case go.

Berry pursues the case, almost as much from scientific curiosity as from loyalty to his friend, and retraces Karen Randall’s last days and weeks to try to find out what happened to her. What he discovers is that although Karen was the “blueblood” daughter of a very wealthy and powerful doctor, she was hardly a pure and innocent “angel.” Now, Berry faces off against the powerful members of the Randall family, who don’t want any public scandals; against the medical establishment at the Memorial, who are only too happy to make a scapegoat out of Lee; and against more than one person in Karen Randall’s private world of drugs and sex. In the end, Berry discovers what happened to the young woman, but not before more than one person has targeted him.

This is a medical thriller. So the hospital setting plays a major role in the novel. We follow along as Berry tracks down autopsy records, test results, medical reports and all sorts of other medical evidence that leads to the answers. The hospital environment is evident through the novel as Berry has doings with the various departments at Memorial and other hospitals. In fact, it’s that medical evidence that gives Berry a lot of clues about Karen Randall’s death – many more than he gets from what people tell him, at least at first. Science and medicine enthusiasts will enjoy this look at the scientific and medical procedures of those times. There’s a great deal of medical terminology, too. However, each term that might not be apparent to someone outside of medicine is defined in foot- and end-notes, so it’s not hard to follow along. There’s plenty of “hospital politics,” too, complete with the “pecking order” that’s so common in medical establishments.

Another important element in this novel is the ethics of abortion. Regardless of your personal position on abortion, it’s a difficult issue with no easy answers, and this book addresses the debate. Things get very ugly, too. For instance, in one frightening scene, Berry’s wife Judith takes their two children to visit Lee’s wife and their children. While they’re there, the Lee house is attacked by anti-abortion demonstrators who cause damage to the house and actually wound two of the children (‘though not seriously). The Lees also receive vicious hate mail accusing Lee of all sorts of gruesome things and threatening his life.

At the time the novel was written, the procedure was illegal, so there’s also a discussion about whether it is ever ethical for a doctor to “play God” and break the law. That said, though, Crighton/Hudson doesn’t use the opportunity to preach about abortion. Instead, he uses the opportunity to discuss the difficult choices that doctors and their patients face when they deal with risky procedures with moral and ethical implications.

Several of the characters in the novel have more depth than do characters in some thrillers. For example, although the reader is asked to sympathise with Art Lee, especially when his family is attacked, he’s not perfect. He’s arrogant, stubborn and bitter about his role as a scapegoat. And, if you believe that abortion is wrong, it can also be held against him that he performs that procedure. Even the person who killed Karen Randall is not what you’d call a bad, evil person. When we learn what really happened to the victim, we can have a little sympathy for the killer (OK, not a lot, but enough so that it’s not a case of a “cardboard character.”).

Times and social structures have changed drastically since this novel was written so in some ways, it’s also a look at a different era, both in the hospital and outside it. There are basically no female doctors in the novel and the female characters who do appear take on more traditional roles than they would in a medical mystery written today. In fact, ardent feminists will probably be disappointed in most of the female characters in the novel. They’re not weak-willed or stupid, but at the same time, they clearly occupy a lesser place in society and don’t seem to do much about it. And in an interesting little note, several of the doctors smoke, even while they’re on the job. It’s a time of hippies versus “the Establishment,” too, and this is played out in the Randall family. One can grumble at the portrayals of life, or one can see it as a “snapshot” of an era.

And then there’s the Boston setting. Crichton/Hudson was thoroughly familiar with the Boston area and it shows in the novel:

 

“Outside, cold autumnal sun splashed over the bare branches of the skeletal trees along Massachusetts Avenue. As I came down the steps of Mallory, an ambulance drove past me towards the Boston City EW [Emergency Ward].”

 

Mostly, though, this is a medical mystery that’s solved primarily by careful attention to medical details and perseverance, as well as some successful sleuthing.

The novel features some interesting characters, a thriller-like pace, fascinating ethical and legal questions and a solid mystery. But what’s your view? Have you read A Case of Need? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 
 
 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

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

Monday 27 June/Tuesday 28 June – Caves of Steel – Isaac Asimov

Tuesday 5 July/Wednesday 6 July – Mrs. Jeffries Forges Ahead – Emily Brightwell