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).

We Are Detective, Come to Collect*

One of the ways in which crime fiction has evolved in the last sixty or seventy years has arguably been the increasing variety of PI sleuths. And perhaps this is just my opinion (so do feel free to differ with me if you do) but I think it’s a good thing. In real life, private investigators take all kinds of cases, from spouses who suspect their partners of cheating to pre-hiring background checks to investigators who work with attorneys on their cases. And it hardly need be said that today’s PIs come from all kinds of backgrounds.

‘Gentleman detectives’ such as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes paved the way for the modern PI novel, which today ranges from the light (e.g. Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma. Precious Ramotswe series) to the noir (e.g.  Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series). One post is hardly enough to do the modern PI novel justice, but let’s just take a quick look at the sub-genre.

Authors such as Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane were at the forefront of the ‘hard boiled’ PI novel. In Macdonald’s The Drowning Pool for instance, Maude Slocum hires PI Lew Archer to find out who sent a slanderous letter to her husband James. The letter alleges that Maude’s been having an affair, and she is afraid that if James finds out, the marriage will end in divorce. Archer takes the case and begins his investigation. Right from the beginning he learns of the dysfunction in the Slocum family. James’ mother Olivia is quite wealthy and uses her financial power to manipulate the family. Maude and her mother-in-law have never been exactly friends, and Maude resents the fact that James is somewhat of a ‘mother’s boy.’ So when Olivia is found dead one day in her swimming pool, there’s every chance one of the family could be responsible. But then again, oil magnate Walter Kilbourne wanted to drill on the Slocum estate and Olivia was firmly set against the idea. So the murder could be the work of Kilbourne or one of his paid ‘associates.’ As Archer investigates, we get to see the seamier side of the way the wealthy live.

Anthony Bidulka’s PI sleuth Russell Quant also sometimes sees the not-so-very-nice side of ‘the beautiful life.’ In Tapas on the Ramblas for instance, wealthy business executive Charity Wiser believes that someone in her family is trying to kill her. She hires Quant to find out who it is and invites him on a family cruise to get to know the other members of the Wiser clan so he can ‘scope them out.’ As he does so, he discovers that just about everyone in the family had a motive for murder. It’s not just a matter of greed, either. There’s a lot of dysfunction in this family and the better Quant gets to know the family members, the more he uncovers about the undercurrents of resentment. Then, there are two attempts at murder and later, a death. In the end, Quant puts the pieces of the puzzle together but not before he comes close to being a victim himself.

We get an interesting look ‘behind the scenes’ of a PI firm in Julie Smith’s Talba Wallis series. Wallis lives and works in New Orleans, where she’s employed by E.V. Anthony Investigations. The firm does background checks on potential employees and at the beginning of Louisiana Bigshot, we learn that Wallis also investigates cheating spouses. In fact that’s what her friend Clayton Robineau (who goes by the name Babalu Maya) hires her to do. Babalu thinks that her fiancé Jason Wheelock has been unfaithful and wants Wallis to find out whether it’s true. At first Wallis doesn’t want to take the case; she would rather Babalu simply break up with Wheelock than learn all of the sordid details of any affair he’s having. But Babalu insists, so Wallis begins to investigate. She finds out that her friend was right and breaks the bad news. Shortly after that, Babalu is found dead, apparently a successful suicide. Wallis doesn’t think it was a suicide though, and neither does Jason Wheelock. So Wallis starts to look into the case more closely. She finds that Babalu’s family history and someone’s desperate need to protect a reputation are the keys to the murder.

Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson doesn’t work for a firm; she’s set up in business for herself. And one of the very effective elements in this series is that we get to see what it’s like to try to build up one’s client base, take care of the bills and so on. And in Dead Light District we get an interesting perspective on why some people hire private detectives instead of going to the police. Candace Curtis owns a brothel which she staffs with only the best employees. The client list is carefully vetted too. It’s an illegal business though, so when one of her employees Mary Carmen Santamaria goes missing, she can’t call the police about it. So she hires Jackson to find out what happened to Mary Carmen. Jackson is uncomfortable about the case. For one thing, she’s not comfortable with the thought of young women who, as she sees it, are being exploited. For another, Mary Carmen could simply not want to be found. If so, why shouldn’t she be left in peace? But Curtis is persuasive and a fee is a fee, so Jackson begins her investigation. But this turns out to be much more than a missing person case. First an alleged pimp is stabbed to death in a hotel and then there’s another murder. Then Curtis becomes a target. Jackson finds that what started out being a case of a prostitute who’s disappeared has led her to the underside of Toronto’s sex trade.

Some PIs don’t really think of themselves as PIs – at least not at first. Walter Mosley’s Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins doesn’t. In the first few novels, before he gets his PI license, he thinks of it as ‘doing favours.’ So does Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder. In fact in The Sins of the Fathers, he says,

 

‘Sometimes I do favors for people. They give me gifts.’

 

And yet in both of these cases the sleuths learn that the PI business can be, if not exactly lucrative, at least a source of income.

Today’s PIs are a very diverse group. There’s the wisecracking ‘world’s greatest detective’ Elvis Cole (courtesy of Robert Crais), the not-domestically-inclined Kinsey Millhone (courtesy of Sue Grafton) and lots of others too. And that variety has added to the sub-genre.

Now, you may be wondering why I’ve not mentioned one of the best known PI sleuths, Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski. I was saving this mention because today is (or yesterday was, depending on when you read this) Sara Paretsky’s birthday. So this post is in honour of what Ms. Paretsky has contributed to the crime fiction genre. V.I. Warshawski is one of the most popular PI sleuths in crime fiction. She’s a unique character with a strong commitment to social justice, a deep love of her home town (Chicago) and a true-blue sense of loyalty to her friends. She was one of the groundbreaking fictional female PIs and the novels featuring her have gained Ms. Paretsky a worldwide audience.

Happy Birthday Sara Paretsky and many more.

 

 
 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from The Thompson Twins’ We Are Detective.

You Don’t Like Me*

If you’re in any kind of profession where you work with customers or clients, I’ll bet there are some you don’t like. If so, you’re not alone. Police detectives have to investigate no matter how they may feel about a case, a suspect or a victim. And that can make it difficult to do their jobs. After all, it doesn’t make for much motivation if a cop absolutely dislikes the people involved in a case. But most cops learn to just do their work even if they dislike the cases they get. You’d think, though, that PIs would have more latitude. After all, a PI isn’t required to take a case. But as any PI could tell you, it’s not always that simple. For one thing, PIs have to make a living like anyone else. If they don’t take a given case, then they don’t earn money. So it’s hard sometimes to say, ‘no.’ Lawyers don’t always have the latitude you’d think they’d have either. Even defence lawyers don’t always get to pick and choose their clients. They may be asked to take a pro bono case. Or, they may take a case on principle, but really dislike the client. Whether it’s a PI, lawyer or someone else, it can add real tension to a plot when the sleuth and the client don’t get along.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Superintendent Spence pays a visit to Hercule Poirot to ask him to investigate the murder of a charwoman. Everyone things she was killed by her lodger James Bentley, but Spence has begun to believe that Bentley is innocent. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and travels to the village of Broadhinny, where the murder took place. Poirot is not in the least impressed with Bentley when he meets the man and it’s not hard to see why. Bentley isn’t a pleasant, agreeable, helpful client. In some ways Poirot very much does not want to pursue the investigation. But as Poirot says,

 

‘there is the principle of the thing. If a man has not committed murder, he should not be hanged.’

 

And the more Poirot looks into the case, the clearer it becomes that Bentley did not commit murder. Poirot never does develop any kind of liking for Bentley but that doesn’t stop him from finding out who killed Mrs. McGinty.

Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski doesn’t always like her clients either. For instance, in Indemnity Only, Warshawski is approached by a new client who introduces himself as influential banking VP John Thayer. Warshawski isn’t kindly disposed towards Thayer at first. Not only does she have a natural suspicion of powerful bankers, but Thayer is fairly critical of her when they first meet. It doesn’t help matters that he questions her ability to handle the matter since she’s female. Still, she listens to what Thayer has to say. He tells her that his son Pete has a girlfriend Anita, who’s disappeared. Pete blames his father for Anita’s disappearance since Thayer has never liked her. Thayer wants Warshawski to find the girl because Pete has threatened to change his name and have no more contact with his father otherwise. Warshawski reluctantly takes the case but when she goes to Pete’s apartment, she finds him dead. Then she finds out that her client is not who he says he is. Now Warshawski is involved in a complicated case involving insurance fraud, murder and corruption. She stays involved in the case and finds out later that several of the the people involved have more depths than it seems.

There’s a fascinating case of a lawyer having to deal with a client he doesn’t much like in John Grisham’s The Chamber.  Chicago attorney Adam Hall works for the law firm that is defending Sam Cayhill, who was arrested for the bombing of radical attorney Marvin Kramer’s office and the killings of his two sons. Two separate juries could not agree on a verdict but a third jury has found Cayhill guilty and he is awaiting execution. Hall, who happens to be Cayhill’s grandson, has no liking for his grandfather, who is a racist and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. There are other family reasons too for which Hall is not kindly disposed towards his grandfather either as a person or a client. Still, he takes on the case and begins to research it. As he gets to know Cayhill and does some reflection, Hall starts to really think about what his view is of the death penalty. And even though he never does become what you’d call friendly with his client, he does come to terms with his family’s past.

Jill Edmondson’s Sasha Jackson knows right away that she’s not going to like her client Christine Arvisais in Blood and Groom. Here is Jackson’s first reaction:

 

‘The uptight Manolo-shod Chihuahua who had barged into my office without an appointment seemed naked without an entourage…’

 

Arvisais then tells Jackson that her fiancé Gordon Hanes had left her and then been murdered a few months later. Here’s Jackson’s personal reaction:

 

Listening to the little bottle-blonde b**** barking at me, I automatically figured the guy who had dumped her must have had a good reason.’

 

Arvisais says that she’s innocent of the murder but everyone blames her. So she wants Jackson to find the killer and clear Arvisais’ name. Jackson agrees, but not because she has any liking for her client. And matters worsen later when the check Arvisais gives her is returned by the bank for insufficient funds…

In Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant, Delhi detective Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri takes, among other cases, the case of Brigadier Kapoor, a very powerful man. Kapoor is unhappy with his grand-daughter Tisca’s upcoming wedding because he dislikes her fiancé Mahinder Gupta. He wants Puri to find out something disreputable about Gupta so the wedding will be prevented. Puri isn’t favourably impressed with Kapoor. The man is high-handed and meddlesome; what’s more, Puri does not like the idea of manipulating lives like this. Still, he really can’t refuse the case since Kapoor has a lot of ‘clout.’ So Puri agrees to look into the case and as it goes on, he finds reasons to delay his reports to his client. He does investigate though, and finds out some surprising truths about Gupta. In the end, Puri finds an inventive way to report back to his client while still doing what his conscience dictates.

Angela Savage’s Jayne Keeney meets with a client who doesn’t exactly impress her in The Half Child. Australian businessman Jim Delbeck’s daughter Maryanne jumped, or fell, or was pushed from the rooftop of the hotel where she was living in Pattaya, Thailand. The official police report was that Maryanne committed suicide, but her father doesn’t believe it. So he’s been advised to hire a local PI who can find out the truth. Keeney doesn’t think particularly highly of Delbeck, especially at first. For one thing, he calls her ‘girl,’ which doesn’t exactly endear him to her. He also makes several racist remarks about the locals and shows little respect for the way things are done in Thailand. What’s more, Keeney isn’t sure there’s much she can do for him since the case seems straightforward. Still, she does understand Delbeck’s wish to know what really happened to his daughter. And a client’s fee is a client’s fee. So she takes the case and travels to Pattaya where she starts to ask questions. Keeney learns that Maryanne volunteered at a child care/adoption facility so she starts her search there. That’s when she discovers that this facility is hiding a secret that Maryanne may have found out. And that’s not the only possible explanation for the girl’s death, either…

Private investigators and attorneys may not always like the people they serve. But the good ones do their best to find out the truth anyway. I know I’ve only skimmed the surface of this topic; what would you like to add?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by They Might Be Giants.

It’s Just My Job, Five Days a Week*

One of the things that make PI sleuths different to cops or amateur sleuths is that PIs are in business for themselves. Cops of course are paid to be cops. They’re assigned to cases; sometimes they ask to be put on a case. But they don’t need a client base. Neither do amateur sleuths, who often have full-time jobs. But PIs have to consider the ‘business’ aspects of what they do as well as solve cases. And most PIs are not wealthy people. Their client base grows very slowly and often by word of mouth. Even if they advertise and begin to build a reputation, it’s usually local and it doesn’t mean they’ve got a world-class list of wealthy and generous clients. So it’s always interesting to see how authors of PI crime novels handle the very real fact that private investigation is as much as anything else, self-employment.

As we learn in The Musgrave Ritual, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes began to build his client base while he was a university student. His fellow students learned about him and his methods and a few hired him. Here is what Holmes says about the matter:

 

‘The third of these cases was that of the Musgrave Ritual, and it is to the interest which was aroused by that singular chain of events, and the large issues which proved to be at stake, that I trace my first stride towards the position which I now hold.

 

Reginald Musgrave is a ‘blueblood’ and he’s well-connected, so when Holmes successfully solves the mystery of two missing household staff members and a cryptic ritual, word spreads quickly. Since that time, people in all sorts of powerful positions consult Holmes.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot has also built his client base through word of mouth. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, he solves the murder of his benefactor Emily Inglethorp and word spreads. In The Murder on the Links, he has already built a reputation. In fact, that’s in part why Paul Renauld hires him. Renauld and his family live in Merlinville-sur-Mer in France, so when Renauld writes to Poirot, asking for help, Poirot and Captain hastings travel to Merlinville. By the time they get there Renauld has been murdered, so Poirot and Hastings investigate the death. In that novel there’s talk of newspaper stories of the earlier case (the Inglethorp murder) and although Christie isn’t specific, it’s clear that that case ‘made’ Poirot’s reputation.

Most PIs don’t have such a wealthy and well-placed client base as Poirot does. For instance, Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski builds her client base little by little, and because she has a passion for putting things right – for social justice – she hasn’t exactly won the hearts of Chicago’s richest and most powerful. What’s more, since fans will know that this series takes place before recent developments such as the Internet, Warshawski is limited in the advertising she can do. So at first, her client list isn’t long and her career isn’t lucrative. In fact, in Indemnity Only, we learn that
 

‘I usually only pay bills the third time they come around. If they want the money badly, they won’t forget you.’

 

She lives in a modest apartment and her office is hardly deluxe. But that makes sense for a PI who is just starting to build her business. As the series goes on, she gets more of a reputation but it’s interesting to see how she starts out.

John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee has an innovative way of building his business. He doesn’t really call himself an ‘official’ PI. He considers himself a ‘salvage consultant.’ He generally gets cases not from advertising or even being listed in a telephone directory but often through people he knows. For instance, in The Deep Blue Goodbye he’s approached by a friend, dancer/choreographer Chookie McCall, who is concerned about one of the members of her dance troupe Catherine Kerr. Kerr has had something stolen from her and is in real need, so she wants it back. The odd thing is, she’s not even sure exactly what was stolen.  More as a favour than for any other reason, McGee starts to investigate. He finds out what exactly was stolen and when it’s recovered, he arranges to take half of its value in payment. Kerr agrees and that sets a precedent for this series. McGee’s rather low-key about the business end of what he does, but his wants are few and he has real compassion for the people he helps.

And then there’s Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson. She knows that overcharging isn’t exactly going to get her a long client list. So she keeps her fees reasonable. And that’s exactly the reason for which Christine Arvisais hires her in Blood and Groom. Arvisais’ former fiancé Gordon Hanes (with whom she broke up shortly before their planned wedding) has been shot. Although she hasn’t been charged with the crime, Arvisais says that there’s a lot of gossip that she’s guilty and she wants to quell the rumours. So she hires Jackson and tells her bluntly that she’s hired her because Jackson is

 

‘…all I can afford.’
 

It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s honest, and it shows that PIs really do have to think about such things as what they’ll charge.

And it’s realistic and refreshing to have a PI who’s comfortable with that aspect of the job. For example, as we learn in Amuse Bouche, Anthony Bidulka’s Saskatoon PI Russell Quant is

 

‘…not a dawdler when it comes to business.’

 

He’s not at all what you’d call money-hungry. But he’s a businessperson who does what he does to earn a living. So when successful entrepreneur Harold Chavell hires him to find Chavell’s missing fiancé Tom Osborn, Quant is quite forthright about his fees and expectations. At first, Quant thinks this case is a matter of a trip to France, where Chavell believes Osborn has gone. When Osborn later turns up dead, right in Saskatoon, the case takes on a whole new dimension and Quant ends up having to clear his client’s name of the suspicion of murder.

Dealing with the business end of being a PI isn’t exactly the most exciting part of the job. But any real-life PI will tell you that it matters. So it adds a realistic dimension to a PI story when there’s a little business mixed in with the…business.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Elton John’s Rocket Man.

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.