It’s a Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World*

Author and fellow blogger Rob Kitchin’s new standalone Stiffed has just been released and I couldn’t be happier about that. Kitchin’s very talented. I’ll get back to Stiffed in a moment, but for now, let me if I may start with the kind of novel it is. Kitchin describes it as ‘screwball noir,’ and that got me to thinking about that sort of novel. Some novels do combine screwball, sometimes even downright implausible plot points with wit to take a very different approach to a crime story. That sort of story may not be everyone’s first choice, but for people who enjoy black humour and screwball situations in their crime novels, a screwball crime novel, whether or not it’s noir, can be a refreshing treat.

Rather than launch into a description of what ‘screwball crime fiction’ is and isn’t, let me offer you a few examples of what I think of when I think of that sub-genre. I’ll start with Kitchin’s new release Stiffed. Tadhg Maguire has just started sleeping off a night of too much beer when he’s jolted awake by a shriek from his girlfriend Kate. He wakes up only to find that there’s a dead man in his bed. What’s worse, Maguire knows who the man is; he is Tony Marino, ‘right hand man’ to powerful gangster Aldo Pirelli. Maguire knows that if he calls the police, Pirelli will assume he killed Marino and that will considerably shorten Maguire’s lifespan. That’s to say nothing of his chances of being arrested for murder. So instead, he calls his friend Jason Choi and asks him to help get rid of Marino’s body. But getting rid of Marino’s body is just the beginning of their troubles. First, two unwanted ‘visitors’ charge into Maguire’s home, obviously looking for someone or something. When one kills the other, Maguire and Choi are left with not one, but two bodies to hide. That’s when they bring in some other friends to help. Along with the bodies and the fact that a couple of Maguire’s friends get kidnapped, there’s the matter of the million dollars that some very nasty people think Maguire has. And there’s the matter of evading Pirelli – if it’s possible. And all of this without Maguire knowing (at least at first) why this has all happened in his home. The story is noir in the sense that there are some ugly situations – murder, kidnapping, and more – and there is some ugly violence (although given the context, it’s not gratuitous). And there are certainly people in the novel who seem trustworthy…and aren’t. But there is a great deal of dark wit, too. For instance, here’s Maguire’s reaction to the scene in his bedroom after it’s been gone through by the late-night ‘visitors’:

 

‘Whoever went through the place enjoyed throwing things around and ripping stuff up. The outline of a dead body made with shaving foam, sketched in the middle of my bedroom floor with my bed used to be, is a particularly fetching touch.’

 

The humour in this novel comes partly from that wit and partly from the way that ordinarily-impossible situations keep piling up.

Tom Sharpe has also written some very well-regarded screwball crime novels. For example, Wilt is the story of Henry Wilt, an Assistant Lecturer at the Fenland College of Arts and Technology. Overworked, underpaid and unappreciated, he is married to the overbearing, overenthusiastic and insecure Eva. His marriage has gotten to the point where Wilt’s favourite mental occupation is imagining ways in which he could kill her. Then one day, Eva runs off with Gaskell and Sally Pringsheim, Americans who are taking a sabbatical leave in the UK. In a drunken burst of ‘creativity’ Wilt decides this is the perfect opportunity to rehearse murdering her. So he makes use of a blow-up doll and a wig, and puts the doll down a 30-foot hole at a nearby building site.  The only problem is, he is witnessed by someone who thinks the victim is real. That’s when Inspector Flint takes charge of an investigation into Henry Wilt. The more Wilt tries to get out of the increasingly bizarre trouble he’s in, the worse things get for him. And the more Inspector Flint tries to get at the truth, the stranger and more frustrating things get for him, too. This is as much a comedy of errors as it is anything else, and the wit from it comes from that and from the sparring dialogue.

Some of Linwood Barclay’s novels might well be considered screwball. Bad Move for instance tells the story of science fiction author Zack Walker and his journalist wife Sarah, who move with their children from their home in the city to the ‘safe’ suburb of Valley Forest Estates. Walker thinks that life in the suburbs will be perfect: time for him to write, a safe school for his children and a nice place to live. Things start going wrong when he happens to witness an argument between a sales executive from the Valley Forest real estate office and Samuel Spender, a local environmental activist. When Walker later finds Spender’s body in a creek, he knows there’s going to be trouble, especially when he becomes a sort-of suspect. Then, he finds a handbag left behind at a supermarket. Thinking it’s his wife’s, Walker takes the handbag only to find that it’s not Sarah’s. It belongs to the sales office secretary and it’s very full of money. Walker tries to return it without letting Sarah know, only to discover another body. Before he knows it, Walker is up against a crime ring, a murderer who’s hiding out in the suburb, and a snake.

Carl Hiaasen’s novels have also been called screwball and I can’t disagree. For instance, in Lucky You, JoLayne Lucks buys a lottery ticket that turns out to be worth US$14 million. Her plan is to use the money to buy some Florida land and turn it into a preserve. Her plans are scuttled when her ticket is stolen by a group of neo-Nazis who want to use the money to field a militia. In the meantime, features writer Tom Krone of The Register has been assigned to do a story on JoLayne’s ticket and her plans for her winnings. All he wants is his story, but he’s soon drawn into a plot to get the ticket back from the thieves. As if that’s not enough, there’s a group of ruthless land developers who are determined to make sure that land stays available. Before he knows it Krone has gotten himself into one impossible situation after another..

In Donna Moore’s Go to Helena Handbasket, we meet PI Helena Handbasket. She is hired by Owen Banks to find out his brother Robin. Owen believes Robin might have been killed by his former boss, crime boss Evan Stubezzi. It seems that Stubezzi and his gang had pulled off a jewel robbery only to discover that the jewels had disappeared, and so had Robin. Helena isn’t exactly eager to take on the ‘untouchable’ Stubezzi, but it’s a starting place and she needs the fee. Shortly after she begins her search, a handless dead body is discovered in a nearby wood. Might it be Robin’s? Helena doesn’t think it is, so she keeps on pursuing different leads and getting herself deeper into trouble as she goes. The wit in this novel comes partly from the situations Helena gets herself into, and partly from her crazy attempts to straighten up her personal life as she works on the case.

And then there’s also of course Declan Burke, whose screwball novels have gained him quite a lot of fans. In The Big O for instance we are introduced to Karen King, a receptionist who is also an armed robber. She’s been doing fairly well living those two lives but a person can’t go on forever in the stickup business. Then she learns that her ex Rossi Callaghan has been released from prison. Callaghan is after Karen because she still has some of his prized possessions, and he is not going to be kind once he finds her. So she’ll need to pull off a major job to get the money to escape him. She enlists the help of the new man in her life Ray, who happens to be pretty good at kidnapping. In fact, Karen’s boss Frank decides to hire Ray to kidnap his almost-ex Madge, who is also Karen’s best friend. As Ray, Frank, and Frank’s lawyer (whose idea the kidnapping was in the first place) put the final touches on their plan, Rossi gets closer and closer to ruining everything. Needless to say, what starts out to be a simple (if there is such a thing) kidnap plan turns out to be anything but…

Screwball novels do tend to make use of the absurd – even the impossible. So there has to be a willingness to suspend disbelief. And to be honest, they’re not always for everyone. But they can be hilarious and they allow the author the chance to play around with crime fiction plot points. They can allow the reader some real fun, too.

Do you agree? Do you enjoy the screwball novel? Which have you liked in particular?

 

Congratulations, Rob!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Kinks’ Lola.

Honesty is Hardly Ever Heard*

Most of us keep certain things to ourselves. Lots of times it’s because they’re private, and sometimes we keep things to ourselves because they are embarrassing or could cause hurt and a rift in a relationship. So it may not always be such a bad thing to keep certain things quiet. But there also comes a time when not being forthright does a lot more harm than good. We definitely see plenty of that in crime fiction. If you’ve ever had the urge to shake a character and say, ‘Well if you’d only told ___ about everything, none of this would have happened!’ you know what I mean. It’s not easy to add that plot point to a novel without making a character either not credible (i.e. Really? You’re hiding that?) or not likeable. But when it’s done well, those points where characters aren’t honest when they should be can add tension to a crime novel. And in some cases, there really wouldn’t be a solid plot without those moments.

For instance, in Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone, George and Jacqueline Coverdale hire a new housekeeper Eunice Parchman. Jacqueline doesn’t bother to check her new employee’s references particularly well but at first, it doesn’t seem to matter. Parchman does her job well enough and the busy Coverdales don’t really notice a problem. But Eunice Parchman has not been honest with the Coverdales. She is keeping a secret that she’s desperate for them not to discover, and goes to great lengths to avoid telling them. When her secret is accidentally found out, this seals the Coverdales’ fates although they don’t know it at the time. And what’s tragic about it all is that if she had simply told the Coverdales the truth from the outset, a lot of tragedy could have been avoided.

In Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, Kindle County’s chief deputy prosecutor Rožat ‘Rusty’ Sabich is assigned to investigate the murder of a colleague Carolyn Polhemus. There is a lot of pressure to solve this case quickly and Sabich gets to work right away. What he doesn’t tell his boss is that he had a relationship with Polhemus that ended just a few months before she was murdered. On the one hand, one can understand why Sabich might not exactly trumpet the news of his affair. On the other, it’s not surprising that the news of it comes out anyway, and when it does, Sabich is in far more trouble than he might have been had he simply been honest at the beginning. Soon, pieces of evidence begin to turn up that implicate Sabich in the murder and before long he finds himself arrested for the crime. Now he’s on the ‘other side,’ so to speak, and hires attorney Alejandro ‘Sandy’ Stern to defend him. Together they work with Sabich’s friend detective Dan Lipranzer to find out the truth about Carolyn Polhemus’ death and clear Sabich of the charges against him. In this novel, the fact that Sabich isn’t honest with his boss at first doesn’t change the fact of who killed the victim. But it does add a really interesting and believable layer of tension to the story.

Linwood Barclay’s Bad Move is the story of science fiction writer Zach Walker and his family. Walker believes that his family isn’t safe in the city so he moves everyone to a new home in a suburb called Valley Forest Estates. They’re not there long when they learn that their house has all sorts of problems with it, so Walker goes to the housing development’s sales office to get someone to make repairs. While he’s there, he witnesses a loud argument between a Valley Forest sales executive and environmental activist Samuel Spender. Later, Walker finds Spender’s body in a local creek and gets drawn into finding out who killed him. And that’s where Walker begins to cover up too much, especially from his wife Sarah. For instance, at one point he and Sarah are shopping when he notices a handbag left in a shopping cart. Thinking it’s his wife’s he grabs it and puts it in the car. When he sees that it’s not hers, instead of telling her he took the wrong handbag, Walker says nothing and tries to secretly return the handbag (in which, by the way, he finds quite a lot of money) to its owner. Without telling his wife what he’s doing, he goes to the owner’s home where he finds another body. The more Walker tries to stay out of trouble, the more his dissembling and hiding things gets him into trouble. Still, he finds out who committed both murders and he finds out some other interesting secrets about the housing development. On the one hand, simply telling everything right from the start would have saved Walker an awful lot of trouble. On the other, his less-than-honest choices make for some funny moments in the books and Barclay handles them well (at least in my opinion).

There’s a much less humorous look at lack of honesty in Karin Alvtegen’s Betrayal. Eva Wirenström-Berg and her husband Henrik have hit an unhappy point in their marriage. Eva thinks it’s temporary until she discovers that her husband has been unfaithful. Instead of openly and honestly discussing what’s happened, both Eva and Henrik hide things. Henrik won’t be honest with his wife about his new lover and Eva isn’t honest about the course of action she takes after she finds out about her husband’s infidelity. Their choices, and most importantly their decision not to be honest with themselves and with each other, lead to real tragedy. First, Eva’s course of action leads her in a direction she never could have anticipated. Then, Henrik too makes a choice that has an unhappy and unintended consequence. The result is devastation that could have been prevented if this couple had only been honest in the first place.

In Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, Delhi private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri learns from news broadcasts and newspapers that a former client Dr. Suresh Jha has died in a bizarre incident. According to witnesses, the goddess Kali appeared and killed Jha in revenge for his ongoing efforts to debunk spiritualism. Jha was the founder of the Delhi Institute for Rationalism and Education (DIRE), a group committed to unmasking scams committed in the name of spiritualism, and he had dedicated his life to convincing people not to believe ‘the Godmen.’ The doctor’s report, witness statements and other pieces of evidence seem to suggest that Jha’s death has a supernatural cause and a lot of people believe that. Puri, though, is not convinced. It’s not that he’s not spiritual, but he is quite certain that Jha died at very human hands. So he begins to investigate. The trail leads to a famous magician, a cult leader and other members of Jha’s organisation. Then, two more murders happen. Little by little, Puri finds out what really happened to Dr. Jha. And when he does, we learn of a few people who could have prevented the murders if they had just been honest from the start, when Puri began his investigation. Their reasons for not doing so are believable, but one still wants to ask them why on earth they didn’t simply tell Puri the truth in the first place.

And then there’s Katherine Howell’s Silent Fear, in which Sydney police detective Ella Marconi and her team investigate the shooting death of Paul Fowler. One of the first paramedics on the scene is Holly Garland, who sees to her dismay that her brother Seth is among the people who were with Fowler at the time of his death. Holly has several reasons to keep as far away from Seth as she can but when Marconi interviews her, Holly isn’t completely forthcoming about why. Holly has a past that she doesn’t want to share with anyone, least of all the people with whom she works. So she’s taken to saying nothing. The problem is that her silence begins to cause her serious trouble when one of her colleagues remembers her from another time. At first Holly dissembles, hides things and does everything she can not to tell the truth to anyone. At the end though, she finds that if she had simply told the truth, she’d have saved herself a lot of stress and trouble. Holly’s secret isn’t the reason for Paul Fowler’s murder, but it makes for an interesting and tense sub-plot.

All of us keep things to ourselves; it’s a fairly natural impulse. But there comes a time when not being honest has much more serious consequences than simply telling the truth in the first place. In real life that can cause heartache and worse. In crime fiction it can spin things deliciously out of control and cause fascinating tension.

 

 
 

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

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window*

Most of us would probably agree that breaking into someone’s home is a crime. That’s for instance one reason why police aren’t allowed to enter someone’s home unless that person invites them in or they have a warrant. In most places, evidence they get from illegal activity such as breaking and entering isn’t admissible in court anyway, so many cops don’t do that. Licensed private investigators are also limited in the searches they’re allowed to make. And having had my home broken into twice (this was years ago – not in the home I live in now), I can say that it’s a very good thing there are laws against breaking and entering. And yet, despite the fact that B & E is illegal with good reason, that doesn’t always stop sleuths from doing it at least sometimes. It’s not easy to write such a scene convincingly because as I say, real-life police officers who break and enter face serious consequences for it and so do PIs. But when it is written well, a B & E scene can add some tension to a plot.

For instance, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, Sherlock Holmes’ new client Lady Eva Brackwell is being blackmailed by Charles Augustus Milverton. He has some compromising letters she wrote and has threatened to send them to her fiancé unless she pays a very large sum of money. Holmes has nothing but contempt for Milverton, so he has no qualms about planning a way to get those letters. He learns the layout of the Milverton home and one night he and Watson break into the home to find the letters. They do get them but not before another of Milverton’s victims finds her own way of getting compromising evidence back from him.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot isn’t above B & E when he needs to make use of that strategy. In Christie’s short story The Adventure of the Cheap Flat, Captain Hastings learns of a young couple named Robinson who seem to have pulled off a fait accompli. They’ve found a nice flat at a very low rent in a nice part of London. When Hastings mentions the matter to Poirot, Poirot begins to wonder whether there’s something more going on here than just a very good piece of luck. So he takes a flat in the same building as the Robinsons’ new home. Poirot soon learns that the Robinsons have been made pawns in a plot that involves international crime and jewel theft. But he knows very well that the people involved in the plot are not going to stand by meekly and let the police arrest them. So he and Hastings break into the flat late one night and find the evidence that they need to lure and then catch the criminals.

In Linwood Barclay’s Bad Move, science fiction writer Zack Walker moves with his journalist wife Sarah and their two children to Valley Forest Estates. Walker is convinced that the city where they had been living is no longer safe and wants to give his family a safe, secure suburban place to live. The family hasn’t been in their new home long when Walker begins to notice some things that are wrong with the house they’ve bought. So he goes to Valley Forest’s sales office to complain and arrange for some repairs. That’s when he witnesses an argument between a Valley Forest sales executive and local environmental activist Samuel Spender. When Walker later finds Spender’s body in a nearby creek he knows that something must be very wrong at Valley Forest. Not long after that, Walker and his wife are doing some shopping when he spies a purse that he thinks belongs to Sarah. It doesn’t, so now Walker has to find a way to return the purse – which has quite a lot of money in it – to its owner Stefanie Knight, who works in the Valley Forest sales office. He goes to her home intending to return the purse but no-one comes to the door. Walker gets into the home only to find Knight’s body. Despite his best efforts to keep out of dangerous situations, Walker finds himself more and more mixed up in what turns out to be a case of greed and corruption leading to murder.

There’s a funny example of B & E in Donna Malane’s Surrender. Missing Person’s expert Diane Rowe finds out from her cop ex-husband Sean Callum that James Patrick ‘Snow’ Wilson has been found stabbed to death. That murder has special meaning for Rowe. A year earlier her sister Niki was murdered and everyone, including Callum, has always believed that Snow was guilty. In fact just before his death Snow admitted his guilt and said that he was paid to murder Niki. Rowe thinks that if she can find out who paid Snow, she’ll find out the truth behind her sister’s murder so she begins to investigate. She happens to be passing near the house Snow shared with his sisters when she decides on impulse to go in and see if she can find any clues as to who else was involved in her sister’s killing. She breaks in through a window only to be stopped cold by a deftly-wielded cricket bat. It turns out the house wasn’t as empty as it seemed and Snow’s sisters caught Rowe red-handed as the saying goes. When she explains why she was there, the Wilson sisters suggest that they might be able to help each other. They want to find their brother’s killer as much as Rowe wants to find her sister’s killer. So they decide to exchange what turns out to be useful information.

Paddy Richardson’s Stephanie Anderson, whom we meet in Hunting Blind, isn’t the ‘typical’ (if there is such a thing) ‘B & E type.’ She’s a beginning psychiatrist who’s lived a very careful life for the last several years. Then she begins to work with a new patient Elizabeth Clark who has a tragic past. Years earlier Clark’s sister Gracie was abducted and no trace of her was ever found. This story resonates deeply with Anderson, whose own younger sister Gemma was abducted seventeen years earlier. Anderson decides to lay her own ghosts to rest and find out who was responsible for both abductions. So she makes the journey from Dunedin where she lives and works to Wanaka where she grew up. Along the way she gets more and more information on the person who wreaked so much havoc on her life. She wants to get proof of this person’s culpability but can’t easily find hard evidence. So one day she decides on impulse to break into that person’s home and look for the evidence she needs. It’s a very tense scene and I don’t think it’s giving away spoilers to say that Richardson shows us what it’s like to get into someone’s home when one’s absolutely not supposed to be there.

There’s an interesting case of breaking into one’s own home – well, in a way – in Patricia Stoltey’s The Prairie Grass Murders. Sylvia Thorn is a Florida judge who gets an upsetting call from her brother Willie Grisseljon. Willie was visiting the family’s former home in Illinois when he discovered the half-buried body of a man in a field not far from the house. When he tried to alert the police, he was arrested for vagrancy. So Thorn travels to Illinois to arrange for her brother’s release. Once that’s accomplished, she’s ready to leave but Willie wants to return to where he found the body. When they get there, they find that the body has disappeared and the ground nearby has been disturbed as if to hide evidence. It also turns out that the dead man may be a local businessman who’s gone missing. Thorn and Grisseljon get drawn into a case of corruption and greed tied to murder. At one point Thorn goes to her old family house which is now a focal point for those behind the crimes. She breaks in and ends up trapped in a hideaway under the house when the ‘bad guys’ discover that she’s been there.

Of course any B & E scene has to be done carefully. Real-life cops and PIs know they’re not supposed to just sneak into people’s homes, so it would stretch credibility too far to have them do that on a whim. But when it’s done deftly, a B & E scene can add an interesting layer of tension to a story.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a Beatles song.

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.

It’s an Illusion, It’s a Game*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

 

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