But You’re a Legend In Your Own Time*

There are a number of news articles, gatherings and other commemorations in honour of the late Elvis Presley, who died thirty-five years ago. You may think that interest is ghoulish or you may be interested yourself. Whatever your opinion of those memorials or of Presley’s music, it’s hard to deny his considerable influence. For many people he’s a legend and it’s all got me to thinking about what happens when someone famous dies. As the layers of that person’s public persona are peeled away, we often learn more and more about that person. We certainly see that in crime fiction when a famous person is murdered. The police often have to get past the victim’s public “self” to find the motive and the killer because most murders are committed by people the victim knew personally. As the detective learns about the victim’s personal life, readers see the famous person as a full human being rather than just a politician, an actor, a famous writer or something else.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun we meet famous actress Arlena Stuart Marshall. She, her husband Captain Kenneth Marshall and her step-daughter Linda are taking a holiday at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay. All seems to be going well enough but then shortly after their arrival Arlena begins to take a special interest in fellow guest Patrick Redfern. It’s not long before the other guests are gossiping about their affair. Late one morning Arlena is found strangled at Pixy’s Cove not far from the hotel. Hercule Poirot is staying at the Jolly Roger and as it happens he is possibly the last person to see the victim before her death. So he works with Colonel Weston and Inspector Colgate to find out who killed Arlena and why. The most obvious suspect is her husband but he’s got a solid alibi for the time of the murder. So the detectives take a closer look at the victim’s life to find out who else had a motive. As they do they find that the reality of Arlena’s life was quite different to her public reputation as a notorious “man-eater.”

Ellery Queen’s The Four of Hearts is the story of Blythe Stuart and John Royle, both famous actors. Years ago the two had a stormy but passionate romance – the kind that’s the delight of tabloid journalists. They broke up and now refuse to have anything to do with each other. Each married someone else and now has a child; Stuart’s daughter Bonnie and Royle’s son Ty have carried on their parents’ feud to the next generation. But then the top executives at Magna Studios decide to try to coax the two to co-operate on a bio-film. Ellery Queen has a contract with Magna and will be working on the screenplay. To everyone’s shock, not only do Stuart and Royle agree to do the picture, but they re-kindle their romance. The studio brass take advantage of the romance and plan a “Hollywood-style” wedding, with all of the hype that entails. The plan is for Stuart and Royle to wed on an airstrip from whence Stuart, Royle and their children are to take off for the wedding trip. When the plane lands both Stuart and Royle are dead of what turns out to be poison. At first their children blame each other but soon enough it’s proven that neither is guilty. So Queen looks more deeply into the case. As he does we learn more about Bonnie Stuart, John Royle and their backgrounds and we see sides of their lives that the public never got to see.

That’s also true of what we learn about up-and-coming politician Androu “Andy” Boychuk in Gail Bowen’s Deadly Appearances. Boychuk has just been selected to lead Saskatchewan’s provincial Official Opposition party and despite some misgivings there is a lot of hope that he’ll be both an able politician and a skilled leader. Then tragically Boychuk is poisoned at a picnic. Boyckuk’s close friend and campaign worker Joanne Kilbourn is devastated by his death, not least because it brings back memories of the loss of her husband Ian. In part to deal with her grief, Kilbourn decides to write a biography of Boychuk. In the process Kilbourn learns that there were sides to her good friend’s life that even his best friends didn’t know, let alone the public. The real Andy Boychuk was a much more complex person than the public really knew. She’s slowly putting these pieces together when there’s another murder. Now Kilbourn tries to find out what connects the murders and who would have wanted to kill both victims.

In Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water, the body of powerful party leader Silvio Luparello is found in a car in The Pasture, a notorious area of the Sicilian city of Vigatà. Inspector Salvo Montalbano is assigned the investigation and he is told to make it as brief and as quiet as possible. Any public discussion of the circumstances of Luparello’s death will cause embarrassment for his family and for the party so Montalbano is strongly urged to “rubber stamp” the official account of Luparello’s death – a fatal heart attack. But there are things about the case t hat don’t add up so Montalbano begins to dig deeper. As he does we find out more about Luparello’s life, his business and political connections and his family. It turns out that Luparello had several sides to him that the public really didn’t know about and readers learn the truth as the novel goes on. In the end, we find that his death was not as it appears on the surface.

Neither really is the death of famous former politician Alec Dennet in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. When Dennet’s body and that of his editor Lorraine Starck are found at a writer’s retreat outside of Canberra, Australian Federal Police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is persuaded to investigate. Dennet was working on his memoirs at the time of his murder. There was a great deal of talk that he was going to reveal some secrets about his life in the 1972-75 Gough Whitlam government and there are a lot of important people who don’t want those truths told. So at first it seems likely that those memoirs are the reason for Dennet’s murder. That explanation makes even more sense when it comes out that Dennet’s manuscript is missing. It really does appear that Dennet’s public persona is the reason for his murder. But as Chen and his team look more deeply into the case and into Dennet’s life they find that matters are not as simple or as complicated as that. As the investigation goes on we learn more about his private life and that of his editor and it’s interesting how both characters become more rounded and complex.

And then there’s Teresa Solana’s A Shortcut to Paradise. In that novel famous novelist Marina Dolç attends a posh awards banquet at which she receives the coveted Golden Apple prize for her latest novel. When she returns to her hotel room after the dinner, she’s murdered. The police begin their investigation and they soon have a very likely suspect: Dolç’s top rival for the prize Amadeu Cabestany. Cabestany says that he wasn’t at the hotel at the time of the murder, but he can’t prove his claim. Still his literary agent believes him and besides, Cabestany is a gold mine for her. So she hires private investigators Josep “Pep” Martínez and his brother Eduard to find out who really killed Dolç. It’s not an easy case as Dolç was a very private person. But as the Martínez brothers look into the matter they get to know the victim through conversations with her assistant and several other people in her life. They find out that there was a real difference between the Marina Dolç that readers came to know and the real Marina Dolç. And what’s interesting is that her public persona plays a role in the reason she was killed.

When a famous person dies, especially if the death is under unusual or tragic circumstances, there’s a lot of talk about what that person was really like. There’s often a lot of peeling away of the layers of the person’s life and sometimes we even get to know a little about who that famous person was as a human. As ghoulish as that interest sometimes is, in a way it’s also arguably natural; there’s definitely a lot of curiosity about famous people.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Carly Simon’s Legend in Your Own Time.

Woke Up, Fell Out of Bed, Dragged a Comb Across My Head*

One thing that makes well-written fictional sleuths appealing is that they’re human. They’re not always at their best. Real-life people aren’t always at their best either, so it makes it easier to identify with a sleuth when we see that they have to deal with those moments too. If you’ve ever gone to work and realised only later that you were wearing shoes from two different pairs, you know what I mean. If you’ve ever spilled coffee or tea on your clothes just before an important meeting, you know what I mean. Those moments may not necessarily add to the suspense of a crime fiction novel. They may not yield clues either. But they do make sleuths more human and likeable and they can make for touches of humour in a story too.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, Hercule Poirot takes a holiday at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay. One of his fellow guests is beautiful and notorious actress Arlena Stuart Marshall. Not long after she and her husband Kenneth and stepdaughter Linda arrive at the hotel, she begins a not-very-carefully hidden affair with another guest Patrick Redfern, and soon enough she’s the subject of a lot of gossip. One morning, Poirot goes down to the beach shortly after breakfast and sees that Arlena Marshall is trying to get aboard a float to take her to Pixy’s Cove, not far from the hotel. Poirot gallantly tries to help her – and soaks his white suède shoes in the process. That’s annoying enough, but he’s even more embarrassed a bit later when another guest Emily Brewster notices and comments on the shoes. Less than three hours later, all thoughts of wet shoes are banished when Arlena Marshall’s body is discovered at Pixy’s Cove. Since Poirot was arguably the last person to see the victim before her death, he helps Colonel Weston to find out who the murderer is. The first and most likely suspect is her husband Kenneth Marshall. But he’s got a solid alibi for the time of the murder, so the police and Poirot have to look elsewhere. The incident with the shoes doesn’t give Poirot a clue or solve the case. But it does add a touch of humanity and even humour.

In Helene Tursten’s Detective Inspector Huss, Irene Huss works with the rest of her team to find out the truth about the death of successful businessman Richard von Knecht. On the surface, it looks as though von Knecht jumped from the balcony of his high-rise penthouse. But soon enough, forensic evidence suggests he might have been pushed. So Huss, her boss Sven Andersson and the rest of the team look into the case. At one point, Huss travels from Göteborg to Stockholm to visit von Knecht’s first wife Mona Söder to try to get some background on von Knecht. She’s a bit delayed buying her ticket and has to rush to catch her train. It’s only then that she realises how out-of-place she looks among the business-executive types who usually travel by that train:

 

“She wasn’t wearing a suit or high-heeled shoes, and she carried no briefcase or laptop. In her black jeans, her down-filled poplin jacket, and her red wool sweater she felt like a total misfit.” 

 

Huss finds a way to deal with this embarrassment though. When a chic-looking business executive looks askance at Huss, she

 

“…gave the woman in the suit a radiant smile and sat down. That’s the most effective way to startle people. They think you’re crazy and instantly avert their eyes.”

 

I like that presence of mind. And Huss’ trip to Stockholm proves helpful too as she gets some fascinating perspective on von Knecht and his past.

In Garnethill, Denise Mina introduces us to ticket-taker Maureen “Mauri” O’Donnell. O’Donnell wakes up one day after a very long night of drinking only to find the body of her lover Douglas Brady in her living room. She calls the police and they immediately begin an investigation. O’Donnell is the prime suspect and there’s evidence against her, too. She’d recently broken up with Brady, his body was found in her flat, and she can’t account for her time after she returned to the flat. What’s worse, O’Donnell has a history of mental instability stemming from childhood abuse. So Inspector Joe McEwan isn’t inclined to treat O’Donnell with “velvet gloves,” so to speak. When the police arrive at the flat, they close off everything, including access for O’Donnell. So she can’t shower or get to her clean clothes. Hung over, unshowered and with her makeup half off from the night before, O’Donnell is interviewed and interviewed again. Her dishevelment and upset state don’t completely stop her though. In fact, she insists on being allowed to leave the station at least for a while so she can clean up. The police still aren’t entirely satisfied with her claim of innocence but finally she’s allowed to leave. She ends up having to borrow showers, clothes and couches from friends until she’s finally allowed back into her own home. O’Donnell knows that she isn’t guilty, but she also knows that McEwan suspects that either she or her brother Liam is the murderer. So she decides to find out herself who killed Douglas Brady so she can clear her name and that of her brother.

Patrik Hedström has a few of “those moments” in Camilla Läckberg’s The Ice Princess. In that novel, he and his team investigate the murder of Alexandra “Alex” Wijkner, whose frozen body is found in her bathtub. One of the first people to see the body – and the one who reports the murder to the police – is Alex’s former friend Erica Falck, who’s recently returned to the town of Fjällbacka to pursue her writing career. Erica is devastated by her friend’s death even though they haven’t been in touch in a very long time. Partly as a way of dealing with her loss, she decides to write a book about Alex. In the process she begins to ask questions about the murder. Meanwhile Patrik pursues that investigation and an investigation into another, related death in his professional capacity. The two had always been attracted to each other but hadn’t ever done anything about it. Now as they have contact during this set of investigations, they also begin a romantic relationship and that causes more than one moment of embarrassment. For instance, at one point Patrik’s been spending the night with Erica and also pursuing leads in the case. So he doesn’t take the time to change clothes for almost two days. He’s caught out by Annika Jansson, the police station’s highly competent secretary who runs just about everything. She teases him about it and about his relationship with Erica until she makes him promise to keep her updated. Patrik and Annika have a friendly relationship but that doesn’t stop him from feeling embarrassed.

And then there’s Australian Federal Police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen, who solves a double murder in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. Chen has been on leave from the police force after being badly wounded, both physically and mentally, in a case. He’s persuaded to come back on duty when former politician Alec Dennet and his editor Lorraine Starke are both murdered at a writer’s retreat near Canberra. Dennet was writing his memoirs at the time of his death and all evidence is that he and Starke were killed to prevent some of the potentially damaging material in those memoirs from becoming public. There’s more to this case than that though as Chen discovers during the investigation. At one point, he and a work mate have had a long night of drinking and are much the worse for wear, but they still have to drag themselves to Dennet’s house where they’ve planned to meet a team-mate nicknamed Talkative.  When they arrive:

 

“Talkative was sitting on the front steps…
‘The two of you aren’t in any position to throw stones,’ he said. ‘You look s***house.’
‘Filipowski fell in with a bad crowd after work and I felt honour bound to keep a fatherly eye on him. He drank. I watched. He drank for a long time. I watched for a long time. We are both very tired.’”

 

It’s not Chen’s finest moment. Still, he, Filipowski, Talkative and the rest of the team find out the surprising truth about who killed Dennet and Starke and why.

Those “less than one’s best” moments can add a lot to a sleuth’s appeal – certainly they make sleuths more human. And they can add a refreshing touch of humour to an otherwise dark story.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Beatles’ A Day in the Life.

It’s On Video*

Author and fellow blogger Rob Kitchin is putting together a collection of excellent noir short stories called Killer Reels  featuring deliciously creepy Jimmy Kiley (Oh, and you should read Kitchin’s The Rule Book and The White Gallows, too). As you can guess from the title, Killer Reels has as one of its central themes a set of films, and without giving spoilers, let me just say that Kiley is a film buff. And that’s got me thinking about how videos have found their way into crime fiction as the technology has evolved. Videos can be used as part of a plot and as evidence that sleuths find and use to catch criminals, and it’s really interesting to see how different authors choose to integrate video in their work.

For example, in Michael Connelly’s Angels Flight, Harry Bosch investigates the shooting death of Howard Elias, a controversial attorney who’s made a career out of litigating cases against the L.A.P.D., mostly for racism. Elias has recently taken the case of Michael Harris, who was arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of twelve-year-old Stacey Kincaid. Harris claims that he is not guilty of the crimes and that he’s a victim of police brutality. Elias is murdered just before this case is to come to trial so Bosch suspects that murder may be connected to Stacey Kincaid’s murder. One of the things he does to try to get as much information as he can is watch the surveillance footage of Los Angeles’ Angels Flight funicular trains, where Elias was killed, to see if he can find out who the shooter was. But someone does not want Bosch to solve this case. Not only are the cops told to “back off” the scene of the crime, but when Bosch tries to go through Elias’ law office to see why he was killed, he finds that someone’s been there ahead of him. The more Bosch learns about the case, though, the more it appears that Michael Harris was set up to be convicted for Stacey Kincaid’s murder, and that some people very high up in the L.A.P.D. are helping to cover up the case and protect their mishandling of it. In the end, though, it’s actually videos and a camera that link the killer to the original crime.

In Helene Tursten’s The Glass Devil, Superintendent Sven Andersson gets a call from his cousin, who is a school principal. One of the teachers at his school Jacob Schyttelius has not been seen in a few days, and as this isn’t like him, the principal’s concerned. Andersson agrees to look into the matter and he takes DI Irene Huss with him on a trip to the winterised cottage where Schyttelius has been staying. When they get there they find Schyttelius’ body; he’s been shot execution-style. Later that night, both of his parents are shot as well. At first it looks as though the murders might be the work of a Satanist cult. But small clues suggest that that’s just a “red herring.” When the team looks more closely at the case it begins to look as though someone may have a vendetta against the Schyttelius family. No-one can see a motive though, since that family was well-respected and liked. Bit by bit though, Andersson, Huss and the team uncover some ugly truths beneath that exterior. But they still can’t put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. It’s not until they get a look at a crucial video that they understand what’s really been going on and why these three people were murdered. In this novel, too, there’s also another very powerful use of video, but I don’t want to give away spoilers.

Video is used as a way of looking for evidence and examining the scene of a crime in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. That’s the story of the murders of Australian former politician Alec Dennet and his editor Lorraine Starke. Both were murdered while they were at a writer’s retreat near Canberra, where Dennet was writing his memoirs. Australian Federal Police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is taking a leave of absence and at first has no plans to return to work soon. But he’s persuaded to investigate this case when his workmates show him the video taken of the crime scene. When it turns out that the manuscript that Dennet was working on is missing, Chen and his team think they’ve got the motive for the murders. Dennet was a member of the Whitlam government of the mid-1970’s, and could very well have been planning to expose some things that some very powerful people do not want exposed. Unpleasant interest from a group of Russian mobsters and a gang of South African hired thugs makes that motive even more likely. In the end though, what’s really behind the killings is quite different, and part of the evidence for that comes from that video.

Donna Malane’s Surrender also features video footage in a prominent role. When James Patrick “Snow” Wilson is found murdered with his body dumped in an alley, missing person’s expert Diane Rowe takes a special interest in the case. A year earlier, her younger sister Niki was murdered in the same way. At the time, the police suspected Wilson of the crime, but there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the case. Then, shortly before his death, Wilson admitted the murder, saying that he’d been paid to kill Niki Rowe. He didn’t say who his “client” was though, so Rowe is determined to find out. She wants to know who’s behind her sister’s murder and she thinks if she can find out who killed Wilson, she’ll have her answer. So against the advice of her ex-husband Sean Callum, who’s a cop, she starts to ask questions. Bit by bit she starts to find out the truth about Niki’s life and in the process, discovers that her sister had a secret life. Niki Rowe was an exotic dancer who, as it turns out, provided special “customer service” to those willing to pay. In the end, that proves key to her murder (although not in the way you would think) and so does a set of videos related to the case.

And then there’s Patti Abbott’s short story The Snake Charmer, a part of her collection Monkey Justice. In The Snake Charmer, a man named Art is upset when his daughter Shannon starts to take up again with Corey Kruse, the boy who got her pregnant far too soon. Art’s always believed that Corey was “bad news,” so when Shannon’s daughter Zelda finds some pornographic videos under the sofa one day, Art is not at all surprised to conclude that Corey left them there during a surreptitious visit. It’s a piece of evidence he uses to prove that Shannon and Corey are seeing each other again and he decides that there’s only one way to prevent Corey from completely ruining Shannon’s life. The real truth about the videos is not what Art thinks though and that adds an interesting twist to the story.

I’ve used video surveillance in some of my own work. It gives the police some solid evidence in B-Very Flat, and in my third Joel Williams novel it’s a critical clue. Videos, whether they are evidence or simply a part of a plot, are woven into a lot of crime fiction novels and that makes sense. After all, whether one uploads them, downloads them, rents them or makes them, video films are an integral part of today’s technology.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Juliana Hatfield’s On Video.

You Know I Think It’s Time to Give This Game a Ride*

The Major League Baseball season has started, the National Hockey League playoffs have started and the National Basketball League playoffs will be starting in a couple of weeks. And even though the Summer Olympic Games in London won’t be held until the end of July, there’s quite a lot of fervor already as final preparations are made and all of the athletes get into their best physical condition. Sport is a really important part of lots of people’s lives even if they don’t participate themselves. If you’ve ever had to get through a traffic jam because of people leaving or going to a game, you know what I mean. If you arrange your schedule to watch your favourite team play, you know what I mean. We see that interest in sport in real life of course, and we see it in crime fiction, too. And no, I don’t just mean sleuths such as Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar and Dick Francis’ Sid Halley, who are former professional athletes. Sport’s woven all through the genre.

For instance, you wouldn’t think of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot as a lover of sport, and really he isn’t. But in The Mystery of the Blue Train, he uses tennis matches as a very good opportunity to follow up on leads in the murder of Ruth Van Aldin Kettering. She was traveling on the famed Blue Train to meet her lover when she was strangled. At first the motive seems to be a jewel theft, since a very valuable ruby necklace she had was stolen. But Poirot soon discovers that it’s more complicated than that and he looks into the case at the request of Ruth’s father Rufus Van Aldin. Several of the important people from whom Poirot thinks he can get clues are attending a tennis match, so Poirot goes, too. And it turns out he gets some interesting and useful information there, too.

Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey shows himself to be quite the cricket player in Murder Must Advertise. In that novel, Wimsey goes undercover at Pym’s Publicity, Ltd. when one of their copywriters Victor Dean is killed one afternoon when he’s at work. At first Dean’s death looks like a tragic accident (he fell down a flight of stairs), but he left behind a half-finished note alleging that someone at the company has been using company resources for illegal purposes. Pym’s management wants to get to the bottom of the matter and hires Wimsey for the purpose. Wimsey soon finds that someone in the company was using the company’s advertising resources to set up meetings between a drugs gang and a group of local dealers. Dean found out about it and was blackmailing that person, and that’s the reason he was killed. In his guise as new copywriter Death Bredon, Wimsey finds out who the killer was. He also ends up playing for the company cricket team and it’s at that match that the climactic scenes of the novel happen.

Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski follows sport closely and particularly likes the Chicago Cubs baseball team. In Indemnity Only, for instance, Warshawski is tracking down a young woman Anita Hill who seems to have disappeared. In the process of looking for the missing woman, she goes to the home of Anita’s boyfriend Pete Thayer only to find he’s been killed. Now Warshawski gets involved in a case involving insurance fraud, union thugs, and another murder. But she’s not too busy to listen to her beloved Cubs on the car radio as she drives, and we listen to the progress of the game, too. Warshawski is also a former basketball player and in Blood Shot (AKA Toxic Shock) she attends a reunion of her former team. That’s when Caroline Dijak, the organiser of the reunion, asks Warshawski’s help. Dijak wants to find her father, whom she never knew. Warshawski agrees, but then, the body of another friend is found in Dead Stick Pond. Now Warshawski has two cases, each involving friends of hers, to solve.

Peter Temple’s Jack Irish is a Fitzroy supporter and the son of a former Fitzroy player, so he spends his share of time with some of this father’s old football friends at the Prince of Prussia. In Bad Debts, Irish has just finished one case and is started on the case of the mysterious murder of Danny McKillop, a former client. He stops in at the pub and several of its usual denizens ask where he’s been.

 

“‘I had to go to Sydney,’ I said. ‘Work.’…
‘What kind of work does a man have in Sydney on Satdee arvo?’ said Norm O’Neill in a tone of amazement. These men would no more consider being away from Melbourne on a Saturday in the football season than they would consider enrolling in personal development courses.”  

 

Irish also follows horse racing, and a sub-plot of this novel involves a case of racing and betting arrangements.

Helene Tursten’s sleuth Inspector Irene Huss is a former European woman’s champion in judo and is still involved. She teaches a judo class and her daughter Katarina has inherited her interest. Huss doesn’t solve her cases by using judo, but she does use it to stay in shape, clear her mind and focus when she needs to. Her workouts at the dojo and her interest in judo are woven through the novels rather than becoming a separate plot in and of themselves.

And then there’s Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen’s The Cosy Knave. In that novel, retired teacher Rose Walnut-Whip is murdered during a football match between England and Germany. Everyone has gathered to watch the match on television at the home of grocer Tuxford Wensleydale and the noise from the match is so loud and people’s attention is so fixed on what’s happening in the game that they pay no attention to what has happened to Rose until it’s too late. Constable Archibald Penrose isn’t accustomed to having to deal with murder cases, but his boss Chief Inspector Alexander Mars-Wrigley is far too interested in the outcome of the match to pay a lot of attention to the investigation. So with the help of his fiancée Rhapsody Gershwin, Penrose has to put the pieces of the puzzle together himself.

Even when sport isn’t a major theme of a novel, it’s often woven into a story in subtle ways. In many, many crime novels, characters watch ball games on television (or attend them), they talk about their favourite teams and so forth. Sport is a very important part of life for many people, so it makes sense that it’s a part of stories, too. Just to show you what I mean, here’s a bit I particularly like from Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors, which isn’t even about sport. In that novel, Australian Federal Police Officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is taking a leave of absence from work. He’s lured back to investigate the murders of former politician Alec Dennet and the editor of his memoirs Lorraine Starke. This is the conversation that takes place just after Chen has been persuaded to come back to work and help investigate this case:

 

“‘Welcome back,’ said Talkative. “let’s go and talk post-mortems.’
‘Nah, I’ll come back tomorrow,’ I said, ‘to read my way through things.’
‘Dr. Nick will be shattered, not seeing you.’
‘He’s a South Sydney supporter,’ I said. ‘They’re used to heartbreak.’”

 

See what I mean about sport?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Fogarty’s Centerfield.

Though I Campaigned All My Life Towards That Goal*

Today (or tomorrow, depending on when you read this) it’s Presidents’ Day in the U.S. Whether it’s the office of the president of the United States or that of another head of state, there’s a lot of power and privilege associated with high political office. So it’s not surprising that there is also a great deal of power-brokering, “wheeling and dealing” and more at the top of the political tree. All of that intrigue makes for juicy headlines; it’s also a very effective context for crime fiction. We can believe that people will do a lot to get and keep that kind of power.

For example, in Margaret Truman’s Murder at the White House, Ron Fairbanks is offered the job of Special Counsel to the President for President-elect Robert Webster. He’s reluctant at first, being somewhat of a free thinker. Besides, he doesn’t agree politically with the president. But he accepts the position. He’s just settling into his job when Secretary of State Lansford Blaine is shot one night at the White House. The security procedures alone make it very unlikely that anyone outside the White House could have committed the crime, and there’s a call for an investigation. President Webster knows that if he doesn’t authorise a complete investigation into Blaine’s activities, he’ll be accused of cronyism and cover-ups. So he taps Fairbanks to head an independent investigation team. Fairbanks is reluctant; he’s savvy enough to know he’ll be treading on a lot of highly placed toes, so to speak. But he has his marching orders. So he and his team start asking questions. The more they learn about Lansford Blaine, the more they see that more than one person had a very good reason to want to kill the victim. Blaine made political enemies including the president’s own Chief of Staff. Even President Webster himself is not above suspicion.

Margaret Truman was, of course the daughter of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, and so had an “inside look” at White House politics.  So did Elliott Roosevelt, the son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt wrote a mystery series that reflected his knowledge of the world of Washington politics. What’s interesting is that although many people claim that Roosevelt was the author of this series, there’s also evidence that it might have been ghost-written. Whoever actually wrote the series, it’s interesting in that Eleanor Roosevelt is the sleuth.

For instance, in Murder and the First Lady, White House staffer Philip Garber is found dead in the apartment of Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary Pamela Rush-Hodgebone. She’s the most likely suspect, as she and Garber were lovers, and Garber’s body was found in her apartment. What’s more, there is evidence that she and Garber might have worked together to pull off a jewel heist in England. But Mrs. Roosevelt doesn’t believe that Rush-Hodgebone is guilty. So she sets out to clear her secretary’s name and find the real killer. That’s not going to be easy, either, since Garber’s father is a powerful Congressman who doesn’t want Mrs. Roosevelt’s “help.”  And in Murder in the Lincoln Bedroom, Mrs. Roosevelt investigates the murder of Special Counsel to the President Paul Weyrich, whose body is found in the famous Lincoln Bedroom. The murder occurs during a top-secret conference between Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Dwight Eisenhower. If the press is going to be kept from knowing about this top-level meeting, they also can’t find out about the murder, so Mrs. Roosevelt starts to look into the matter. It turns out that Weyrich was part of a plot to assassinate Roosevelt. Now Mrs. Roosevelt has to find out who’s behind the plot if she’s to keep the conspirators from making new plans.

Of course, intrigue in high political places isn’t just confined to the U.S. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s short story The Kidnapped Prime Minister, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings get an unexpected late-night visit from the leader of the House of Commons and a member of the War Cabinet. It seems that Prime Minister David MacAdam has been kidnapped on his way to deliver a very important speech in Paris. World War II is on the horizon and MacAdam’s speech was intended to “rally the troops.” MacAdam’s political enemies don’t want him to make that speech; instead, they want to move England along an appeasement path. The speech is absolutely critical to the MacAdam government and to the nation, so Poirot and Hastings are given a day in which to find the Prime Minister, as his speech is scheduled for the following day. They look into the matter and in the end, they find out who is behind the kidnapping and where the Prime Minister is.

And then there’s Margery Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse. In that novel, Albert Campion wakes up in hospital, suffering from amnesia. He knows that he has an urgent task to accomplish, but he can’t remember what that task is. Bit by bit, he begins to recover his memory and with help from various people that he encounters, he starts to put the pieces together. He slowly becomes aware that there is a conspiracy to use counterfeit currency to bring down the British government and instal a new government in its place. Now Campion has to find out who’s behind the conspiracy and stop it before those involved are able to finish what they have started.

In Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, a far-right French terrorist group called Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) wants to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. There’s already been one failed attempt on de Gaulle’s life, and OAS knows that if they send one of their own on another mission, that person may be recognised and the plot foiled again. So they hire an outside assassin, a British assassin known only as The Jackal. The Jackal agrees to make the hit and begins to prepare. The French government finds out that a plot exists, but no-one knows who The Jackal is, nor does anyone know the details of the planned assassination. So French detective Claude Lebel is assigned to track down The Jackal and stop him before he carries out the assassination.

Sometimes, political intrigue can last even after a government is no longer in office. That’s what happens in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. In that novel, Australian Federal police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is persuaded to come back to work after taking some time off to recuperate from the last case he investigated. The case that lures him back is the double murder of Alec Dennet, late of Australia’s 1972-75 Gough Whitlam government, and Dennet’s editor Lorraine Starke. Dennet was working on his memoirs at a noted writers’ retreat when he and Starke were murdered. When Chen and his team find that the manuscript Dennet was working on has disappeared, it seems clear that there’s a lot to these murders. Some very powerful people have a lot to lose if Dennet publishes everything he knows about the Whitlam government. So Chen and his team have to look for some well-kept secrets to find out who killed Dennet and Starke and why.

There’s just something about life at the top of the political tree that can be intriguing. Little wonder there’s so much crime fiction that deals with the political crème de la crème.

 

ps. As you know if you’re kind enough to read this blog, I almost always use my own ‘photos for this blog and I do it with pride. This one, though, was too good for me to pass up. Thanks, Acclaim Images .
 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Neil Young’s The Campaigner.