We’ll Search for Tomorrow on Every Shore*

Are you the adventurous type? Some people like to dare themselves to do new things. Other people are more cautious. And of course there are strong arguments for both ways of thinking. Being adventurous leads to what can be fantastic experiences. It can also lead to an awful lot of danger and consequences for others. On the other hand being cautious means less danger and more reflection, which can be easier on one’s stress level. Caution can also mean one misses out on some amazing experiences. And too much caution can be its own kind of trap. But either type of person can make for an interesting character in crime fiction, especially if the adventurous/cautious trait isn’t carried too far.

For instance, Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit features Anne Beddingfield, who has to begin life on her own after her father’s death. She’s left with very little money and no strong personal ties, so it’s not long before she decides to get out and see what the world has to offer. She’s at a tube station one day when she sees a man fall to the tracks in what looks at first like a terrible accident. When a piece of paper falls out of the victim’s pocket, Anne picks it up and by chance, figures out that the note on the paper refers to the upcoming sailing of the Kilmorden Castle for Cape Town. On impulse she books passage on the ship and soon gets herself mixed up in a case involving stolen diamonds and international crime. Anne’s adventurous nature makes sense given her age and her circumstances and in this story it works.

In Karin Fossum’s When the Devil Holds the Candle, we meet Andreas Winther. He’s a young man who enjoys taking risks. He’s very much the easily bored type who’s always up for an adventure. He’s somewhat of a non-conformist and doesn’t have a lot of close friends, but he is good friends with Sivert ‘Zipp’ Skorpe. Together the two of them go drinking, try new things and so on. Occasionally they get into trouble, but usually it’s nothing terribly serious. Then one day Andreas’ adventurous nature pushes him and Zipp into some dangerous adventures that go too far. Certainly they go farther than Zipp intended. At the end of that day Andreas disappears. His mother Runi worries about her son and goes to the police, but the police don’t take her concerns seriously at first. Then when more time passes and Andreas still hasn’t returned, Inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre begin to look into what happened. Zipp is in the best position to know exactly where his friend is and what happened but he’s completely unwilling to co-operate (And no, it’s not because he killed Andreas. He didn’t). Bit by bit though, Sejer and Skarre learn about the kind of person Andreas is, and they find out the truth about his disappearance. In this case, Andreas’ adventurous personality fuels what happens in the book and makes sense.

So does Sam Bretton’s adventurousness in Sandy Curtis’ Deadly Tide. Sam is the daughter of Alan ‘Tug’ Bretton, captain of Sea Mistress, a fishing trawler based in Brisbane. When Bretton is accused of murdering Ewan McKay, deckhand from another ship, Sam takes his place as skipper. She’s actually got two motives for doing that. One is that if the family boat doesn’t go out, creditors may take it. The other is that she knows her father isn’t guilty of murder and wants to find out who really killed Ewan McKay. What Sam doesn’t know at first is that Chayse Jarrett, the deckhand’s she’s just hired for this trip, is an undercover cop who’s been assigned to find out whether Bretton killed McKay and whether Sea Mistress is involved in recent drugs activity in the area. First separately and then together, Sam Bretton and Chayse Jarrett look for the murderer and go up against some fairly nasty drugs smugglers. In this novel, Sam Bretton’s adventurousness makes sense; she’s the daughter of a fishing boat captain and she’s been to sea many times. For her, risk is a part of life, and Curtis doesn’t make her completely foolhardy. So we can believe that someone like Sam Bretton could exist.

But of course not all fictional protagonists, even in murder mysteries, are that adventurous. For instance, in Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn, we meet mystery novelist Martin Canning. He’s never been one to take risks. In fact, he’s happiest when he’s safely writing his novels that take place in a very ‘safe’ environment. Then one day he happens to be ‘on the scene’ when Paul Bradley brakes his silver Peugot in time to avoid hitting a pedestrian. The car behind Bradley’s, a blue Honda, doesn’t stop and hits the Peugot. The two men get into an argument that ends with the Honda driver brandishing a baseball bat. Now Bradley is in danger for his life and Canning, who’s never done a courageous thing in his life, throws his laptop case at the Honda driver, saving Bradley’s life. Out of a sense of duty, Canning accompanies Bradley to a local hospital to make sure he’s all right, and that’s how Canning gets drawn into a complicated web of fraud, theft and murder. It adds a real level of tension to this novel to see how the completely unadventurous Canning reacts to this adventure that’s been forced on him.

That happens in Linwood Barclay’s Bad Move too. Science fiction writer Zach Walker moves his family from what he sees as the too-dangerous city to a newly-developed suburb called Valley Forest Estates. Walker may write about scary science fiction creatures but in his real life he’s a very cautious person who avoids risks whenever he can. In a bitter twist of irony, he gets drawn into a frightening adventure when he goes to the community’s main sales office one day to lodge a complaint. While he’s there, he witnesses an argument between one of the community’s developers and local eco-activist Samuel Spender. Later, Walker is the one who finds Spender’s body lying in a local creek. Now, despite his best efforts, Walker gets involved in that murder and another one, as well as a case of fraud and corruption. Walker’s cautious nature highlights the irony that adds some ‘life’ and humour to this novel.

In Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind, beginning psychologist Stephanie Anderson has to face her own over-cautious self. She’s been cautious and careful – certainly not spontaneous – since her younger sister Gemma was abducted seventeen years earlier. No trace of Gemma was ever found, not even a body. Stephanie’s gone on with her life as best she could, but she’s been cautious and careful, especially about relationships. Then she begins to work with a new patient Elizabeth Clark, who tells her a story that’s eerily like her own. Elizabeth’s younger sister Gracie was abducted several years earlier and in that case too, no trace of the child was ever found. When she really absorbs this story, Anderson decides to lay her own ghosts to rest and look for the person responsible for both girls’ disappearances. Her choice leads her on a trip from Dunedin, where she lives and works, back to Wanaka, where she grew up. Along the way she finds the ability to let go and have an adventure, as well as the courage to face her past. In this novel there’s a clear connection between Anderson’s cautious nature and her past; her personality makes perfect sense and works for the story. So does her evolution as the story goes on.

What about you? Do you take on adventures? Even if you don’t in your real life, you can in the books you read. How? Let me suggest the 2013 Global Reading Challenge, being hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. This challenge invites you to read books from all over the world and gives you the chance to have some adventures without actually being in any danger. Well, unless you count the danger of missing your bus, tram or train stop because you’re caught up in a story.     Go ‘head – check it out! Find out more information and give it a go. Dare ya!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Styx’s Come Sail Away.

How Can You Just Walk Away From Me*

Most of us would like to think we’d step in to help if someone were in danger or worse. And yet, it’s not that simple. We’ve all read of cases where bystanders do nothing to try to save someone in peril and it’s easy to say that the bystanders should have done something. In some cases it’s true that bystanders are at least partly to blame when someone is hurt or killed. In other cases though, it’s more complicated than that. It’s another example really to show that snap judgements aren’t always accurate. A quick look at crime fiction shows that that sort of thing happens in stories just as it does in real life, and the picture can be just as complex in fiction.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air), French moneylender Marie Morisot is en route from Paris to London when she suddenly dies. At first, her death is put down to heart failure. But it’s not long before it’s proven that she was poisoned. Hercule Poirot, who was on the same flight, works with Chief Inspector James ‘Jimmy’ Japp and Scotland Yard authorities to find out who the killer is. They already know that the only possible suspects are the other passengers on that flight, so they begin to look into each suspect’s background. And in the end, it’s that background and history that prove to be the key to the murder. What’s interesting here is that only one suspect is guilty (I think I can say that without spoiling the story). The other suspects are innocent. And yet, they do nothing to help the victim. It’s not that they’re cold or unfeeling. Several factors are at work here. First, no-one except the killer is aware that Madame Giselle, as she is known professionally, is in danger. And when she is actually poisoned, no-one can easily hear what’s going on. Air travel at the time Christie wrote this was louder than it is now, so it was harder to hear ambient noise. And the process of killing the victim doesn’t take long. So although you might wonder why in the world nobody stepped in to help, when you think about it, it wouldn’t have been easy to do so.

There’s a sort of similarity in Josephine Tey’s The Man in the Queue (AKA Killer in the Crowd), in which Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant is given a most unusual case. Small-time bookmaker Albert Sorrell is one of a large group of people waiting at the Woofington Theatre to see a performance of Didn’t You Know?, a very popular play. The crowd is restless and when the doors finally open, everyone surges forward to take seats. In that rush forward, Sorrell is stabbed from behind and killed. The murder happens in front of dozens of witnesses, none of whom tries to prevent the murder or grab the killer. These people aren’t all heartless folks who refuse to help. For the most part, they’re quite absorbed in what they’re doing and not even aware that Sorrell’s been stabbed until the killer’s gotten away. And they remain self-absorbed as Grant begins to investigate. A few of them are more concerned about being dragged into an investigation than they are about finding the person who killed Sorrell. But most of them simply didn’t pay attention to what was going on until the victim was already dead. The killer chose a moment when everyone was concentrating on getting into the building.

Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn is the story of a car accident in Edinburgh and the events that led up to it and follow from it. Paul Bradley is at the wheel of his silver Peugot when he comes close to hitting a pedestrian. He brakes suddenly to prevent that from happening and is hit from behind by a blue Honda. The two drivers get out of their cars and begin to argue. The Honda driver brandishes a baseball bat and begins to attack Bradley. The accident happens on a busy street at a busy time of day, so there are plenty of witnesses to what happens. But only one person, crime writer Martin Canning, does anything about it. Canning throws his computer case at the Honda driver and knocks him down, saving Bradley’s life. The police respond to the accident and the fight and Bradley is taken to hospital. Canning goes along out of a sense of obligation and thereby gets drawn into a web of theft, fraud and murder. As the novel moves on we learn about several of the witnesses to the accident and the argument. None of them is a thoroughly bad or uncaring person, so why don’t more people do something? In some cases it’s because the Honda driver looks threatening and people don’t want to be his next victim. In a few others, it’s lack of awareness of what was really going on. It’s an interesting case too of being people being ‘frozen on the spot’ and not able to act right away.

There’s a death witnessed by several people in Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Alone in a Crowd, too. Dona Laura Sales Ribeiro makes a visit to Rio de Janeiro’s Twelfth Precinct and asks to see Inspector Espinosa. She is told he’s in a meeting and can’t be disturbed, so she agrees to come back a little later. Shortly after her visit to the police station, Dona Laura falls – or is pushed – under a bus. When Espinosa learns that the woman who wanted to talk to him has been killed, it doesn’t take much time for him to conclude that she was murdered. So he and his team trace her last days and weeks to find out who would have wanted to kill an inoffensive elderly woman. Dona Laura’s death is witnessed by people waiting for the bus and by people in the bus. So why doesn’t anybody do anything to prevent it? One reason is of course the physical danger. Most of us don’t want to be killed. Another reason is that it happens too quickly to give anyone time to react. And like most of us, the witnesses are minding their own business right before Dona Laura is killed. They aren’t paying much attention to her. So they don’t notice what happens until it’s too late.

Sometimes people don’t do anything to help someone in real danger because of the risk to themselves. They are very much afraid of what will happen if they step in. For instance, in Roger Smith’s Dust Devils, former journalist Robert Dell, his wife Rosie and their two children have gone out to a restaurant to celebrate Dell’s birthday. They’re taking a drive afterwards when they’re ambushed. Their Volvo is sent over a ridge, killing Rosie and the children. Dell survives and tries to flag down help. Another family passing by has witnessed what happened, and Dell tries to wave them over for help. But they drive right past although they’ve seen him. Why?

 

‘This was South Africa where Good Samaritans were gunpointed at fake accident scenes.’

 

Dell manages to survive and the police investigate the ambush. Then Dell finds himself accused of the murders of his family members. He knows he’s been framed, but no-one will believe him. His father Bobby Goodbread, from whom he’s been estranged for years, engineers his escape from prison and the two go in search of the real killer. Throughout this novel there are other points too where witnesses see things they could have prevented – but don’t. And it’s all for a very similar reason. Getting involved like that can get you killed.

Most of us don’t want to believe that we’d turn away and do nothing if someone were in desperate need of help. And those who do step up and help are, in my mind, to be admired and respected. But sometimes the decision of whether and to what extent to get involved isn’t an easy one.

For another really interesting perspective on bystanders who witness a crime and don’t act, check out this terrific post by Les Blatt of Classic Mysteries. It deals with the 1964 real-life murder of Kitty Genovese, and the controversy her death raised. Go ‘head, check it out. Oh, and follow Les’ blog while you’re at it. It’s worthy of being on every crime fiction fan’s blog roll.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Phil Collins’ Against All Odds.

I Fire Up the Willing Engine*

Since most criminals don’t want to be caught, it’s always easiest for them if a murder looks like an accident or suicide. One popular kind of ‘accident’ in crime fiction is the hit-and-run that ends up killing someone. It makes sense too, since it can be difficult to find out (at least at first) who’s responsible for the death. It can also be hard to prove that the death is not accidental. And, to put it bluntly, a car can be a very effective murder weapon. So it should be no surprise that we see hit-and-run murders all through crime fiction.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (AKA Ten Little Indians), ten people receive invitations to stay on Indian Island off the Devon coast. For different reasons they all accept. On the first night there, everyone is shocked when each one is accused of causing the death of at least one other person. One of these guests is young and reckless Anthony Marsden. He is accused of killing John and Lucy Combs, two young children who ran out of their cottage and into the street at the very moment he was driving too fast down their road. Not very long after these accusations Marsden dies of what turns out to be poison. Late that night, another person dies. Soon it becomes clear that the guests have been lured to the island and that someone is trying to kill each of them.

In Mickey Spillane’s My Gun is Quick, private investigator Mike Hammer meets a young woman Nancy Sanford in a coffee shop. They fall into conversation and she tells him her sad story. She’s a prostitute who right now doesn’t have the money to escape ‘the life.’ Hammer gives her some money, hoping that she’ll be able to start over. A few days later, he learns that she’s been killed in a hit-and-run incident not far from the coffee shop where they met. Hammer decides to investigate the death and discovers that Sanford was trapped in a major prostitution ring and that she’d been collecting evidence against those in charge. Her plan was to turn that evidence over to the authorities. Hammer goes up against the people Sanford’s evidence implicated to find out who killed her.

A hit-and-run incident turns out to be connected to a long-ago tragedy in Elizabeth George’s Traitor to Memory. Twenty-eight-year-old Gideon Davies is a world-class violinist with a highly promising musical career ahead of him. Then one night, he finds himself unable to play. Frightened at what’s happened, Davies seeks psychological help and bit by bit, he begins to unravel his own past. In the meantime Davies’ mother Eugenie is killed in what looks like a tragic hit-and-run traffic accident. But as Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers learn, Eugenie Davies’ death is more than it seems on the surface. That’s how they discover a terrible truth about the Davies family: twenty years earlier, Eugenie Davies’ two-year-old daughter Sonia was killed in a tragic drowning incident. Their nanny Katja Wolff was imprisoned as a result and has recently been released. As the book unfolds we learn how that drowning is related to Eugenie Davies’ death and her son’s musical difficulties.

Peter Temple’s Bad Debts features the hit-and-run death of Melbourne political activist Anne Jeppeson. At the time of the incident, Danny McKillop is arrested and jailed for the crime, and there’s evidence against him. That said though, his attorney Jack Irish is too lost in drinking and in grief over the loss of his wife Isabel to do a good job on McKillop’s behalf. Eight years later McKillop is released. He tries hard to contact Irish, who by then has drunk himself out of his full-time legal career and is now trying to rebuild his life. Irish doesn’t return McKillop’s calls at first but finally decides to meet with him. By the time he makes contact though, McKillop’s been murdered. Irish feels guilty about not doing a better job of defending McKillop and even worse that he didn’t contact his former client before it was too late. So he begins to investigate McKillop’s death. He finds that McKillop was framed for the killing of Anne Jeppeson, and that her death was not an accident

Although it isn’t really a hit-and-run, a car crash is the focus of Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn. Paul Bradley suddenly brakes his silver Peugot in order to avoid hitting a pedestrian. But the driver of the blue Honda behind Bradley doesn’t stop in time and hits Bradley’s Peugot. The two drivers get out of their cars and begin arguing. Things escalate quickly and very soon, the Honda driver wields a baseball bat and tries to kill Bradley. That’s when mystery novelist Martin Canning, who’s witnessed the whole thing, gets involved. Although he’s never done a courageous or reckless thing in his life he throws his computer case at the Honda driver, knocking him down and saving Bradley’s life. Another eyewitness is former cop turned PI Jackson Brodie. Brodie sees how upset Canning is by the whole thing and gives Canning his card, asking him to call if he needs anything. Canning feels compelled to accompany Bradley to the hospital. Both men end up getting drawn into this case, which has multiple threads including murder and fraud. And all of those threads lead in one way or another to that car crash.

Catherine O’Flynn’s The News Where You Are is the story of local television presenter Frank Allcroft. He’s happily married to his wife Andrea and the proud father of his eight-year-old daughter Mo, but he is struggling to deal with several changes and losses in his life. One of them is the sudden death of his mentor and predecessor at the network Phil Smethway. Allcroft and Smethway maintained their friendship after Smethway’s career took off and he went on to greater opportunities, so his death has truly upset Allcroft. Six months earlier, Smethway was killed in a hit-and-run incident while he was out jogging. The driver was never identified, but the death has been put down to tragic accident. Allcroft begins to have questions about his friend’s death though when he is drawn one day to the scene of the accident. It’s a straight road where a driver should easily have been able to see a pedestrian, and there’s plenty of room on that road so that the driver would have had plenty of space to avoid Smethway. Then Allcroft learns other things that suggest that Smethway’s death was not a simple matter of a drunken or reckless driver. As he slowly learns about Smethway’s last weeks and months, Allcroft also gets to the truth behind that hit-and-run incident.

The hit-and-run is all too tragically common in real life, and it can be an effective device in crime fiction, too. Which novels using this plot point have I forgotten to mention?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Rush’s Red Barchetta.

And You Read Your Emily Dickinson, and I My Robert Frost*

A lovely post by Sarah at Crimepieces has got me thinking about poetry. In the U.K. it’s National Poetry Day and I’m glad poetry is getting some attention. It’s a beautiful art form and one I must confess I’ve never mastered. Trust me. Poetry is everywhere, too, from the ‘master’ poets one reads to rap lyrics to advertising jingles. It takes many, many forms and that’s one thing I like about it. We also see it in crime fiction. Sarah made the point for instance that there’ve been poets who also wrote crime fiction. She’s right. There are also mentions of poetry throughout the genre. Space only allows me to mention a few of them; I’m sure you can think of others.

Several of Agatha Christie’s stories refer to poetry. One of them is The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (AKA The Mirror Crack’d). The title of the novel refers to Tennyson’s poem The Lady of Shalott, and Christie uses both the title and if you will one of the themes of the poem in the novel. Famous actress Marina Gregg and her husband have recently bought Gossington Hall, which Christie fans will remember was the property of Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Dolly in The Body in the Library. The new owners decide to have a fête at Gossington Hall as a charitable fundraiser and to make the locals feel more comfortable with the newcomers. Local resident Heather Badcock is especially excited about this event because she’s very much a fan of Marina Gregg and thrilled at the prospect of meeting her idol. On the day of the fête, Heather does get to talk to Marina Gregg; in fact, Marina even gives Heather her own cocktail. Shortly afterwards though, Heather becomes ill and dies from what turns out to be poison. At first, everyone believes that since the cocktail was intended for Marina, she was also intended to be the victim. And if that’s the case there are certainly suspects. But it’s not long before Miss Marple begins to believe that Heather was the intended victim all along. She and Dolly Bantry work together to find out who would have wanted to kill Heather Badcock and why.

Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse is a fan of the poetry of A.E. Housman and we see that influence in this series. For instance, the title of the last Inspector Morse novel The Remorseful Day comes from a line from Houseman’s XVI – (How clear, how lovely bright). It’s a very clever choice too given Morse’s name and one major event in the story. Two years before the events in The Remorseful Day, a local nurse Yvonne Harrison was found murdered in her bed. The police investigated but could never get solid evidence to arrest anyone. Now Harry Repp, who’s just been released from prison after being convicted of burglary, is the subject of an anonymous tip to the police. The suggestion is that Repp was responsible for Harrison’s murder. Superintendent Strange gives the case to Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis, and they begin to look into it. But Morse is strangely reluctant to do a lot of work on the investigation. At one point, Lewis makes a disturbing discovery that leads him to what he thinks is the reason for Morse’s apparent apathy about this case. But as you might expect from Colin Dexter, things aren’t exactly what they seem…

Emily Dickinson (whose poetry I like very much) features in at least two crime novels. One is Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog. That title is taken from the title of Dickinson’s I Started Early, Took My Dog and themes from the poem are woven through the story. There are several threads to this novel, all of which lead back to an incident in the past. One thread follows the story of Tracy Waterhouse, a former cop and now security guard. One day she witnesses prostitute Kelly Cross behaving in an abusive way towards her small daughter Courtney. On the spur of the moment Waterhouse offers to buy the child, just to keep her out of harm’s way. Cross accepts and Waterhouse ends up with a new daughter and on a new path she hadn’t imagined. Another thread features former famous actress Tilly, who’s now battling the early signs of dementia. She witnesses the exchange between Waterhouse and Cross and, not quite understanding what’s going on, gets involved, with real consequences. And then there’s Atkinson’s protagonist Jackson Brodie, a retired police officer/PI. He’s spending some time trying to make sense of his life when he witnesses a dog being badly mistreated by its owner. He rescues the dog and ends up much more attached to his new companion than he’d thought he would be. As Atkinson fans have come to expect from her, all of these threads end up being related.

Another crime novel in which Dickinson’s poetry comes up is Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road. In that novel, Aboriginal Community Police Officer (ACPO) Emily Tempest and her team are assigned to investigate the murder of prospector Albert ‘Doc’ Ozolins at Green Swamp Well. On the surface the killing looks like the tragic result of a drunken quarrel, but Tempest believes there’s more to it than that. So she starts to ask some questions. One of the people she talks to is Ozolins’ brother Wishy, who manages a transport and works depot. In the course of her meeting with Wishy, Tempest also meets Wishy’s daughter Simone ‘Simmie.’ By accident she discovers that Simmie is reading a battered copy of a book of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and they discuss it. Each is pleasantly surprised that the other likes Dickinson’s work. A little later in the novel Tempest sends Simmie a leather-bound copy of Dickinson’s complete works and one poem in particular, Wild Nights, Wild Nights, reminds Simmie of Tempest. It’s not directly relevant to solving the murder (although Tempest does accomplish that), but it’s an interesting connection between the Tempest and Simmie Ozolins.

The poetry of the Lake District’s own William Wordsworth is featured in Val McDermid’s The Grave Tattoo. Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham hears of the discovery of a long-dead body in a pond near her Lake District home. There’s talk that the body may be that of Fletcher Christian; it’s always been rumoured that he didn’t die on Pitcairn Island but survived and returned to England. If that’s the case then Gresham reasons that he might have had contact with his great friend Wordsworth. If so what could be more natural than that Wordsworth would have written about it? There’s been talk before that there may have been an unpublished Wordsworth manuscript and the discovery of this body supports that theory. So Gresham returns from London, where she lives and works, to the Lake District to investigate the possibility of such a manuscript. When she gets there she starts to try to trace the manuscript but then one of the people she interviews dies. Then another person connected with this possible manuscript also dies. It soon looks as though these deaths are related to Gresham’s search and that she may be responsible. Now Gresham has to clear her name as well as try to find the manuscript if there is one.

And then there’s Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff’s Some Kind of Peace. That’s the story of Stockholm psychologist Siri Bergman. She’s still reeling from the death of her beloved husband Stefan and although she’s functioning, you couldn’t really call her functional. For example, she cannot tolerate darkness – she even sleeps with the light on. One day Bergman gets a frightening letter that makes it clear she’s being stalked. Other incidents happen too that are intended to discredit Bergman and scare her too. Then one day, the body of Sara Matteus, one of Bergman’s clients, is found in a lake on Bergman’s property. At first the police think Bergman may be responsible but it’s not long before it’s proven that she is innocent and that someone is trying to frame her. Now Bergman has to clear her name and find out who killed Sara Matteus before the killer strikes again. In a few places in this novel there are references to Swedish poet Erik Blomberg’s Var inte rädd för mörkret (Do Not Fear the Darkness). The poem has special meaning for Siri Bergman, since Stefan left it for her before he died. At the end of the novel she begins to understand what Stefan’s message really was, and is able to start the slow process of healing from his loss.

Poetry really is a powerful form of expression; I wish I could write that way. And as these few examples show, it finds its way into a lot of writing, including crime fiction.

 

In honour of the day here are just a few poets’ blogs where you can read some fine, fine poetry:

 

Finding Time to Write
Hugauga
Real Poems 

 

Check ’em out. Tell ’em Margot sent you. Mostly, enjoy…

 

ps. The book in the ’photo is part of an 1832 edition of a collection of the poetry of William Wordsworth. I’m proud to own it.

 

 
 

NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Simon and Garfunkel’s The Dangling Conversation.

How Does it Feel?*

An excellent post by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write has got me to thinking about the way crime fiction writers may seem if you only read their novels and the way they really are. Crime novels can get ugly – really ugly. They are often violent and sometimes deal with difficult topics. But that doesn’t mean that the people who write them enjoy violence or revel in blood. It’s one thing to write about people killing other people and quite another to contemplate actually committing horrible violence or being involved with it. Seriously. Just take a look at some fictional crime fiction authors and you’ll see what I mean.

For instance in Agatha Christie’s Third Girl, Christie’s fictional detective Ariadne Oliver finds out how dangerous life can really get and how different it is to fiction. Oliver’s friend Hercule Poirot gets a visit from a young woman who says she may have committed a murder. She doesn’t give him any details, not even her name. But he’s curious about what she’s told him. It turns out that Oliver has actually met the young woman, whose name is Norma Restarick. She helps Poirot to track down Norma’s family and flat-mates and surprisingly, they tell Poirot that Norma’s not been seen in several days. By chance Oliver spots Norma and her boyfriend David Baker in a café and when Baker leaves, Oliver decides to follow him. As she herself says, she’s written more than once about one person tailing another but has never done it. Baker catches her in the act and invites her into his studio. All goes well enough until Oliver leaves the studio and ends up in real trouble. She’s often written about being in danger but this time the danger is quite real.

Dorothy Sayers’ detective novelist Harriet Vane has a similar brush with reality in Have His Carcase. In that novel Vane decides to take a hiking holiday and ends up near the village of Wovercombe. That’s where she finds a man lying on the beach. At first she thinks he’s asleep but when she gets closer, she realises he’s dead with his throat cut. Despite the fact that she’s written more than one novel in which people kill each other Vane still feels sick to her stomach and shaken by the experience. She manages to get to the nearest village and raise the alarm and the dead man is soon identified. He is Paul Alexis, a professional dancer who works at a local hotel. Lord Peter Wimsey travels to Wolvercombe to help in the investigation and between them he and Vane find out who killed Paul Alexis and why.

Martha Grimes’ Polly Praed is also a detective novelist. She’s got a keen interest in crime and a vivid imagination. In fact in The Anodyne Necklace we learn that one of her pastimes is inventing different ways to murder Littlebourne’s local squire Sir Miles Bodenheim and the members of his family. They’re all heartily disliked and Praed has thought of lots of ways to do them in. But then in The Deer Leap Praed has an all-too-real experience with murder up close when she takes a “road trip.” She stops to make a call and is directed to the nearest call box. That’s when she discovers the body of postmistress Una Quick. Quick’s death seems to be related to the disappearance of several local pets including Praed’s own beloved cat Barney. Now that Praed has to deal with real crime that touches her personally, she can’t maintain her usual detached interest.

Kate Atkinson’s Martin Canning has a rude awakening as it were in One Good Turn. Canning writes a “clean-scrubbed” mystery series featuring PI Nina Riley, who always catches the “bad guy.” Canning himself remains far removed from the ugliness of everyday life and in fact prefers his own imaginary world. One day though he’s pulled into real-life grittiness when he witnesses a car accident. Then the driver of one of the cars involved in the accident gets out and attacks the other driver. Canning throws his laptop case at the attacker thus saving the other man’s life. Despite his usual tendency to stay aloof from others Canning feels an obligation to make sure that the injured man gets hospital care. That’s how he’s drawn into a mystery involving murder, theft and more. The experience of being at such close quarters with ugliness drives Canning to some bizarre behaviour and it’s interesting to see how he tries to cope with having to deal with “blood and guts” for the first time.

There’s also Camilla Läckberg’s Erica Falck, a true-crime/crime fiction writer who returns to her hometown of Fjällbacka after several years in Stockholm. In the course of the series that features her, Falck reunites with local police officer Patrick Hedström. They develop a relationship, marry and have a family. Falck’s relationship with Hedström means that she learns about local crimes the police are investigating. Falck also runs into her own share of crime; for instance in The Ice Princess she is one of the people who discover the body of a former friend whom she only thought she knew. In The Hidden Child Falck unearths some dark local secrets when she discovers a Nazi medal among her mother’s possessions. When she’s writing Falck can maintain a certain amount of detachment. But when crime touches her own life matters are quite different. She’s still curious and still has the drive to want the crime solved but it’s much more difficult for her.

Lynda Wilcox’s Verity Long has to make the leap from murder-on-paper to murder in real life in Strictly Murder. Long is the personal assistant/researcher to well-known and highly-regarded crime novelist Kathleen “KD” Davenport. One of her jobs is to research true crime stories that Davenport adapts and uses in her plots, so she’s used to reading about crime. And although she herself doesn’t do the actual writing, Long is used to crime, violence and bloodshed. But then one day she has to deal with the real thing. She’s looking to move and goes with a house agent to view a likely place. That’s where she finds the body of famous TV presenter Jaynee Johnson. Long is badly, badly shaken and she soon realises that she could be considered a suspect. So she decides to find out who the killer is; after all, she is involved. It’s not long though before she gets a rude lesson in reality. The closer she gets to finding out the truth about Johnson’s murder, the clearer it is that someone doesn’t want her to discover it. As the novel goes on we see that for Long, there turns out to be a big difference between writing about crime and being involved in it.

And see? That’s the thing about crime writers. You may think we relish blood and murder, violence and ick. But we don’t. We really are only dangerous when we write…
 
 
 

NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone.