Tension Mounts in the City Tonight*

Yesterday I had the honour of having lunch with the terrific Rob Kitchin, who blogs at The View From the Blue House. Kitchin’s blog has great reviews of crime fiction novels, and is well worth a place on your blog roll if you’re a crime fiction fan. But Kitchin isn’t just a blogger – not by any means. Like me, he’s an academic. He’s also the author of The Rule Book and The White Gallows, both featuring his sleuth Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy. Oh, and he’s the author of Killer Reels, a linked collection of short stories featuring the very creepy film buff Jimmy Kiley. And his standalone Stiffed, which he’s called ‘screwball noir,’ is due to be released this year. Check out The View From the Blue House for details about all of those books and about Kitchin’s many short stories and 100-word Drabbles.

One of the things we talked about was the way that authors use suspense and tension in their novels to engage the reader and to keep the reader turning pages. Some authors start their novels with lower levels of suspense, but gradually add it in as the novel goes on. For instance, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (AKA Ten Little Indians) is like that. The story starts, if you will, innocently enough. Ten people have been invited to Indian Island, off the Devon coast and for different reasons, each accepts. The story begins as they all travel to the island and although there are little hints of what’s to come, the tension hasn’t really set in yet. Then, when they arrive on the island and discover that their host hasn’t yet made an appearance, the tension begins. It builds after dinner that night, when each person is accused of having caused the death of at least one other person. Then, one of the guests suddenly dies of what turns out to be poison. Then there’s another death that night. One by one, the other guests also begin to die and it’s soon clear that they’ve been lured to the island and that one of them is the killer. The suspense continues to build as the survivors try to find out who the murderer is and avoid getting killed themselves.

Suspense builds gradually in Louise Penny’s A Rule Against Murder too. In that novel, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec goes on an annual wedding anniversary trip with his wife Reine-Marie. They’re staying at Manoir Bellechasse and hoping for a relaxing getaway. Soon they meet several members of the Finney family, who are also staying at the lodge. There are Thomas and Sandra Finney, Thomas’ elderly parents, and his sisters Julia and Marianna and Marianna’s child. At first all seems to be going smoothly enough although it’s clear that the Finneys are not exactly a happy family. The suspense begins to build though when it becomes clear just how dysfunctional the family really is. Then there’s a murder. Of course the tension increases then, and even more so as more revelations come out about the family and as Gamache uncovers an unexpected connection to a character fans of this series already know.

Of course, not all authors choose to build the suspense in their stories slowly. Some choose to start with a high level of tension and more or less keep up the same pacing and tension throughout the novel. That’s the case with Megan Abbott’s Die a Little. The tension in that story is built early when Bill King marries Alice Steele. Alice is a former Hollywood dressmaker’s assistant who seems to settle quickly into life as a suburban housewife. But Bill’s sister Lora doesn’t care much for Alice. She tells herself it’s because there’s just something about Alice that doesn’t seem quite right. And indeed, she finds out things about Alice that suggest that Alice isn’t telling the truth about a lot of her life. But Lora has always had a close relationship with Bill and although she doesn’t admit it to herself at first, she’s also jealous of this new woman’s presence in her brother’s life. The suspense and pacing continue as Lora gradually gets drawn more and more into Alice’s world at the same time as she feels repelled by it. Then there’s a murder. What’s more, Alice may have had something to do with it. As Lora starts asking questions, she learns more than she wanted to admit about Alice and about herself.

T.J. Cooke’s Defending Elton also starts with a strong dose of suspense and keeps that level steady throughout the novel. An enigmatic young woman Sarena Gunasekera has been found dead at the bottom of a cliff at Beachy Head near Eastbourne. Evidence shows that she was stabbed and possibly raped, and then thrown over the cliff. The evidence also strongly suggests that Elton Spears is the murderer. Spears is a troubled young man with mental problems and deficiencies, so he can’t really participate in his own defence. And yet some things he says hint that he may not be guilty. And there is also the principle of British law that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. Solicitor Jim Harwood has worked with Spears before and takes his case now, working with barrister Harry Douglas, who will defend the case in court. As the novel goes on, we learn bit by bit what Sarena’s history  was, how her story is tied up with that of crime boss Sammy Todd, and what really happened on the night she was murdered. The story is told from Harwood’s point of view, and through his narrative we learn that in this case, little is as it seems.

There are also crime novels and series where tension and suspense are not really strongly featured. The interest in those novels comes instead from character development and sometimes atmosphere and setting. Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series featuring Mma. Precious Ramotswe is like that. In each of the novels, Mma. Ramotswe and her associate Mma. Grace Makutsi are hired to solve several cases. For instance, one client hires Mma. Ramotswe to find out whether his teenage daughter is secretly seeing a boyfriend. Another wants to know which of several young women would be the best candidate to win Botswana’s Miss Beauty and Integrity pageant. Other cases involve finding long-lost people and uncovering shady practices at a health clinic. In all of these cases, there is real interest as we follow the way Mma. Ramotswe and Mma. Makutsi go about finding answers. And as the series goes on, their characters and the characters of the people in their lives develop and evolve. There’s also a strong sense of the Botswana setting. Those are the features that hold the reader’s interest rather than a high level of action and suspense.

That’s also true in M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series. Fans of this series know that Macbeth is the constable in the small Scottish town of Lochdubh. He’s got little ambition and would rather fish than do a lot of detecting. But he’s good at what he does, and he has a deep knowledge of the Highlands and its people and culture, having lived there all his life. These novels do feature murders, some of them not exactly pretty. But the real interest in the novels isn’t the suspense and tension of the cases, although of course, they are important. Rather, it’s the setting, the quirky characters and of course Macbeth himself.

Everyone’s different about the way they like their suspense. Some like it to start high and stay that way. Others prefer a different focus in their novels. And still others like the suspense to build gradually. What about you? How do you like your suspense? If you’re a writer, how do you use suspense to keep readers engaged?

 

Thanks, Rob, for a real treat of a meeting and conversation. Hey folks, do read Rob’s work. You won’t regret it.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from King Prawn’s No Peace.

Oh, Well! Just Leave Me My Coffee!*

Today (or yesterday, depending on when you read this) would have been Johann Sebastian Bach’s 328^th birthday. That may be interesting in itself to people who love classical music and Bach’s work in particular. But why mention it on this crime fictional blog? Because classical music (and Bach’s work) feature in crime fiction. And that’s not surprising considering the profound influence that Bach’s music has had both in the world of composing and performing and in the larger world. Not everyone has really listened to Bach’s work, but most people at least know the name. That’s how much of an impact he had. So it makes sense that we’d see classical music, including Bach’s work, in crime fiction.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Curtain, we learn that Styles Court (which Christie fans will know is also the setting for The Mysterious Affair at Styles) has been turned into a Guest House. Hercule Poirot writes to Hastings asking him to come to Styles Court and Hastings complies. When Hastings gets there, he discovers that one of the seemingly inoffensive guests may be a killer who has already gotten away with five murders. Poirot’s own health is failing, so he wants Hastings to be his ‘eyes and ears’ and help find the killer, whom Poirot identifies only as X. While they’re investigating, another murder occurs and it seems that X has struck again. Hastings uses Poirot’s guidance and, after several neat plot twists, finds out who X really is. One of the other guests at Styles Court is Elizabeth Cole, who as it turns out knows some interesting history about some of the rest of the guests, and has some secrets of her own. In one scene,

 

‘Poirot had been brought down…and been ensconced in the drawing room. Here, Elizabeth Cole had joined him and was playing the piano to him. She had a pleasant touch and played Bach and Mozart – both favourite composers of my friend’s.’

 

The scene in which Bach is played doesn’t solve the case. But it’s an interesting glimpse of Poirot’s character.

Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey enjoys Bach’s music, too. Both Whose Body? and Clouds of Witness include scenes in which Wimsey plays or whistles Bach. A different opinion, though, is expressed in Have His Carcase, in which Wimsey investigates the murder of Paul Alexis. Harriet Vane is taking a hiking holiday near Wilvercombe when she finds Alexis’ body. It turns out that Alexis was a professional dance partner at a nearby hotel, so Vane and later Lord Peter Wimsey look there for suspects. At one point, Wimsey is talking with Henry Weldon, the son of Alexis’ fiancée. Here’s what Weldon has to say about a concert he attended:

 

‘…I wasted a good bit of time listening to a tom-fool classical concert – my God! Bach and stuff at eleven in the morning!’

 

Of course, Wimsey differs with Weldon’s view of Bach…

We also see the power of classical music (including Bach’s work) in Elizabeth George’s A Traitor to Memory. Twenty-eight-year-old Gideon Davies is a musical genius – a world-class violinist. Then one frightening night, he finds himself unable to play. After recovering from his initial panic, Davies decides to undergo psychotherapy to find out what is blocking him from making music. Here is one of the things he says to his therapist about music:

 

‘I associate everyone with music…Dad is Bach, the solo violin sonata in G minor.’  

 

At the same as Davies is mentally digging through his past to find out what is behind his music block, he has to face another tragedy. His mother Eugenie is killed one night in what looks like a hit-and-run accident. Inspector Thomas ‘Tommy’ Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers investigate and find that both that death and Gabriel Davies’ psychological difficulties are related to the twenty-year-old drowning death of Davies’ two-year-old sister Sonia. Although Bach per se is not the reason for what happens in the story, there is an important thread in it of Davies’ way of thinking musically.

Peter Robinson’s Inspector Alan Banks is also a fan of Bach’s music. As we learn in Bad Boys, Banks’ mobile ‘phone plays Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 when he gets a call. In that novel, Banks is away on holiday, so it’s Annie Cabot who takes on the case when Juliet Doyle comes to the police station to report that her daughter Erin has a gun. It turns out that the gun is connected with Erin’s boyfriend Jaff, who is definitely not the kind of person parents want their children to bring home as dates. What’s worse, Banks’ own daughter Tracy is Erin’s best friend and knows full well the kind of person Jaff is. When Jaff talks her into going on an adventure with him, she’s excited at first, but everything soon gets out of control. Here is a bit of the description of Banks’ flight into London’s Heathrow Airport after his holiday:

 

‘…he took out his iPod and listened to Angela Hewitt playing Bach’s Keyboard Concertos…The music came out loud and clear while everything else was a distant background hum. Somehow Bach managed to calm and relax him on a flight in a way that most other music didn’t.’

 

And that’s just as well.  When Banks returns home, he’s got to cope with a fatal accident, the shooting of a colleague and the fact that his own daughter has been taken hostage.

And then there’s Louise Penny’s A Rule Against Murder. In that novel, Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie go on their annual wedding anniversary trip to Manoir Bellechasse for what is supposed to be a relaxing getaway. It turns out to be quite different. Also staying at the lodge is the Finney family: Thomas and Sandra Finney, Thomas’ elderly parents and his sisters Julia and Marianna and Marianna’s child. We soon learn that Thomas Finney has musical talent. Here’s just a bit of a scene that takes place in the lodge’s Great Room where there is a piano:

 

‘Thomas sat on the bench, raised his hands, and sent the strains of Bach lifting into the night air.
‘He plays beautifully,’ said Julia. ‘I’d forgotten.’
Gamache agreed.

 

It’s certainly not because of Bach, but all is hardly well with the Finney family and their dysfunction becomes more obvious as the reunion goes on. Then, there’s a murder. As Gamache investigates, he also finds an unexpected connection to the rural Québec town of Three Pines, and a relationship of this case to someone Penny fans know well.

What about you? Do you listen to Bach? If you do, which is your favourite piece?

 

ps. Thanks to ClassicalArchives.com for the terrific image. Check out their treasure trove of all things classical music.
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the translation of a line from Bach’s Coffeehouse Cantata. Really, did I have a choice?

Advice is Cheap, You Can Take it From Me*

In Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death), one of the residents of the hostel where most of the action takes place asks another for a piece of advice. Here’s the response:
 

‘Of course I could give you advice…, though I don’t know why anyone ever wants advice. They never take it.’
 

That’s a good point, really. People are often free with advice, although it’s frequently not heeded. For that reason alone (because it’s human and natural), it’s easy to identify with advice-giving in a crime novel, especially when the sleuth is about to do something ill-advised. On the other hand, a sleuth who always gets advice and never listens to it stops being interesting. Quickly. And characters who mind other people’s business too much are annoying. That’s to say nothing of the way investigations work in real life (e.g. would a cop really take advice from an amateur? That would take some believing.). But when it’s done credibly, getting and sometimes even heeding advice can a sleuth more human.

For instance, Christie’s Ariadne Oliver is not one to do as she’s told as a rule. And her independence is part of what makes her appealing as a character. But we see a very believable example of her taking advice in Hallowe’en Party. Poirot travels to Woodleigh Common at Mrs. Oliver’s request to find out who murdered thirteen-year-old Joyce Reynolds. The girl is found drowned at a party not many hours after boasting that she once saw a murder. So it’s fairly clear that she was probably killed by someone who feels threatened. Poirot finds out the history of the area and discovers which incident Joyce could have seen. As he does so, he realises an important fact that shows him that one of the villagers is in real danger. So he tells Mrs. Oliver to take that person to her home in London for safety. Here’s a bit of the conversation Mrs. Oliver has about it with the friend she’s been visiting in the village:
 

‘Anyway, you needn’t run away today, need you?’
‘Yes, I need to, I’ve been told to,’ said Mrs. Oliver.
‘Who’s told you – your housekeeper?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘Somebody else. One of the few people I obey.’
 

It’s actually a very tense scene and it’s a good thing that Mrs. Oliver listens to Poirot’s advice. It makes sense that she would too given he’s the experienced private investigator and they’re friends.

It’s also believable that a cop would listen to another cop’s advice, especially if the two officers trust each other. And that’s what we see in the relationship between Håkan Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren and Intendant Münster. As the series featuring these sleuths begins, Van Veeteren is Münster’s boss, but as fans will know, he leaves the police force to take part ownership in a bookshop. And yet Münster is still grateful for his advice. In The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case), Münster and his team investigate the stabbing murder of Waldemar Leverkuhn. An obvious motive doesn’t come to light quickly but then the police find out that Leverkuhn and some of his friends went in together on a lottery ticket – and won. They’d gone out to celebrate just before Leverkuhn was killed, so the police now have a new angle on this case. But that’s not entirely satisfactory either. Münster is by no means incompetent, but he’s glad for the advice and input he gets when he tells Van Veeteren about the case. And when Van Veeteren lets Münster know he’s on the wrong track, Münster heeds his advice and looks elsewhere for the killer.

We see another example of a cop giving another cop advice in Louise Penny’s Still Life. That’s the story of former schoolteacher Jane Neal, who’s killed in what looks like a tragic hunting accident. Sûreté Inspector Armand Gamache and his team travel to the small town of Three Pines to do what they think will be perfunctory work on the case. But when Gamache begins to suspect that the victim was murdered, the team’s investigation stops being routine. Assigned to Gamache’s team for the first time is Agent Yvette Nichol. She turns out to be a poor choice for the team as she is arrogant, smug and unwilling to learn. Gamache’s second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir advises Gamache to get rid of Nichol as quickly as he can. Gamache likes and trusts Beauvoir so although he’s the boss, he listens to what Beauvoir has to say. At first Gamache tries to coach and counsel Nichol, but when that’s unsuccessful, he follows Beauvoir’s advice and cuts Nichol from the team.

Readers can also believe that sleuths might heed their spouses’ advice and there are a lot of examples of that. Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti, for instance, is married to Paola Falier, who is not only an educated professor of English, but also a genuine ‘blueblood.’ Brunetti values her input and benefits from it. For instance, in Blood From a Stone, he and Ispettore Vianello investigate the execution-style shooting of an unknown Senegalese immigrant. It takes some doing, but the detectives find out where the man lived and search his room. To their surprise, they discover a cache of diamonds that turn out to be ‘blood diamonds’ used to fund a military conflict Brunetti and Vianello also find that the diamonds are connected to an illegal arms trafficking ring. But in order to get all of the answers, Brunetti wants to know the diamonds’ origin. That’s where Paola’s advice is very helpful. She advises Brunetti of an expert he might contact about a small wooden head he finds among the dead man’s possessions.  Her view is that that information may help him locate the source of the diamonds. He takes her advice, although somewhat reluctantly, and is able to trace the diamonds.

It’s also quite believable that sleuths might listen to advice from friends. That’s what we see in Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool. DCi Hannah Scarlett and DCI Fern Larter are not just colleagues but also good friends. They find themselves working both ends of the same case when Scarlett re-opens the investigation into the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. That death was always put down to suicide, but Scarlett isn’t convinced. Larter and her team are working two recent murder cases that turn out to be related to the Bethany Friend case. So on a professional level, the two women give each other information and advice. But because they are also friends, Larter knows about Scarlett’s rocky relationship with her partner Marc Amos. She also knows – well, suspects – that Scarlett is attracted to Oxford historian Daniel Kind, who helps in this investigation. At the end of the novel, she gives Scarlett advice about that matter and it’s interesting to see that while Scarlett doesn’t immediately agree with her friend, what Larter says makes an impression.

Too often, crime fiction novels have scenes where someone tells the sleuth not to pursue a case or a particular suspect. And too often, sleuths take un-necessary risks because they don’t listen to advice. Sometimes it’s nice when a novel includes a believable use of advice. Well, I think authors ought to do that, anyway.

 

 
 

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

See What You’ve Made and See Who You Are*

People often get into patterns of doing things. Sometimes a new pattern creeps up on us so subtly that we’re not even aware we’ve developed one. Sometimes we’re more deliberate about it. Patterns can weave themselves into any aspect of our lives, and for the book lover, that includes reading. If you’ve ever found yourself suddenly realising that the last several books you’ve read have been about the same topic, or take place in the same region, or treat the same theme, you know what I mean. Of course, everyone’s different about reading patterns, but it’s interesting to see how they affect our choices, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Some reading patterns start almost accidentally if I can put it that way. For instance, suppose a friend lends you a novel such as Vicki Delany’s In the Shadow of the Glacier, which introduces Trafalgar, British Columbia Constable Molly Smith. Now, suppose you enjoy that novel, so you pay a little more attention when you notice a review of Gail Bowen’s The Endless Knot, which also takes place in Canada. It’s in a very different province, but you liked the Delany, so…why not? Then you notice yourself reading other books with Canadian settings (e.g. Giles Blunt, Louise Penny or Anthony Bidulka). Before you really now what’s happened, you’ve developed a pattern of reading more Canadian crime fiction than you thought you had.

The same kind of thing happens sometimes when people read crime fiction that takes place in a given era. For example, you might read one of Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple novels that take place in the 1920’s. The era is absolutely fascinating, so perhaps that tempts you to read one of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher novels or perhaps Jeffrey Stone’s Play Him Again. Those novels also take place in the 1920’s. Before you’re even aware of it, you’ve started on a pattern of reading novels that take place in a particular time period.

We all have different sub-genres of crime fiction that particularly appeal to us and sometimes, we find that we’ve developed a pattern of mostly reading within one sub-genre. If you’ve ever tried one of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels and loved it or one of Katherine Howell’s Ella Marconi novels and loved it, you may slowly find yourself reading more and more police procedurals. And because you haven’t thought about it or planned it, you’re not even really aware you’ve been reading a lot from that sub-genre.

After a while, most of us do notice that we’ve been reading a lot about one issue, or about one place/time, or in one sub-genre. Some people don’t mind that at all and there’s nothing wrong with that. Other people though decide to change their patterns or at least add in new ones.

That’s one reason why some patterns in reading are quite deliberate. Sometimes people deliberately develop patterns by choosing a reading challenge. There are dozens out there too, and a lot of them are not difficult to meet. I’ll just mention two. One is the Vintage Mystery Challenge, hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block . Readers who notice that they haven’t read a lot of classic, Golden Age or other vintage crime fiction may want to check out that challenge; there are lots of interesting categories and lots of possibilities for books. Another challenge is the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge. You may decide for instance that you’d like to be more familiar with all sorts of fiction being written by the terrific ladies from Down Under. This challenge gives you the chance to try some of their work. The great thing about challenges is that they give the reader a focus for breaking out of patterns or trying new ones.

Some readers deliberately try a new pattern through reading blogs that focus on particular places, times, etc.  For example, a look at Glenn Harper’s International Noir Fiction may convince you to add some noir to your reading diet. You may read Barbara Fister’s Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog and find some titles there that pique your interest. I know that terrific blogs like that have gotten me to take a look at my reading patterns and think about adjusting them.

There are plenty of readers too who keep notes on what they read and take a look at them periodically. Charts and graphs on what they read help them reflect and decide what they’re going to do about their patterns. You know who you are and I really respect that self-reflection.

Writers of course have another way of focusing deliberately on their reading patterns. The best writers are also voracious readers and are well aware of what other people in their sub-genre are doing. They keep up with the major authors and series in their sub-genre to help them improve what they do. I know that reading other authors’ work helps me.

These are just a few things I’ve discovered about reading patterns. What are your views? Do you notice yourself developing patterns without being aware of it? Do you plan your patterns? What gets you in the reading patterns you’ve developed? If you’re a writer, how do your reading and writing patterns affect each other?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Don McLean’s The Pattern is Broken.

It’s the Story of Your Life, You’re Moving Down the Page*

One of the nice things about series is that the author has some room to allow the protagonist(s) to grow and mature. It’s harder in a standalone to show how a character evolves. And it makes sense that main characters would evolve and mature in some way as a series goes on. Time, experience and (hopefully) wisdom help us mature in real life and most readers want to see the same kind of growth in their fictional characters.

For instance, Dorothy Sayers’ Harriet Vane matures and evolves as Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series goes on. When we first meet Vane in Strong Poison, she’s on trial for the murder of her former lover Philip Boyes. Wimsey falls in love with her and is determined to clear her name so he can marry her. At first, Vane keeps herself at a distance from people and is unwilling to trust. She’s grateful to Wimsey but isn’t ready to really open up to him. And although she’s hardly a ‘shrinking violet,’ she does lack some self-confidence despite her success as a mystery novelist. As time goes on, she deals with the trauma of having been thought guilty of murder. She also deals with the insecurity of worrying about what others think of her. By the end of Gaudy Night, she is ready to take the risk of agreeing to marry Wimsey and we can see her mature and become a more confident person. That growth and evolution makes Vane a more well-rounded and likeable character.

Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee matures and evolves over time too. When we first meet him in People of Darkness, Chee investigates the murder of a man who was already dying, and its connection to a thirty-year-old oil field explosion and a stolen keepsake box. Chee is a member of the Navajo Nation, and his Navajo identity is very important to him. In fact he’s studying to be a yata’ali – a Navajo singer/healer. But Chee is also a member of the Navajo Tribal Police, and he’s quite familiar with the dominant U.S. culture in which the Navajo people live. What’s more, he’s in love with Mary Landon, a White teacher who lives and works on the Reservation. So at first Chee is torn between those two worlds. As time goes on and he matures, Chee also becomes surer of his identity and learns how to maintain his Navajo traditions and way of thinking despite the police work he does and his interactions with the FBI and other dominant-culture institutions. He evolves personally too although it costs him two serious relationships. When he meets and falls in love with fellow Navajo Tribal Police officer Bernadette ‘Bernie’ Maneulito, Chee is emotionally more mature and it makes sense that their relationship ends up being more lasting. We also see Chee’s evolution as a professional. At first, he tends to be more of a ‘go your own way’ type of investigator. But as time goes on he learns to work more smoothly within the police system, especially after he has the opportunity to do some supervisory work himself.

We also see a very human kind of growth and evolving maturity in Rita Mae Brown’s Mary Minor ‘Harry’ Haristeen. As the series featuring her begins, Harry is postmistress for the small Virginia town of Crozet. She is also smarting from her recent divorce from local veterinarian Pharamond ‘Fair’ Haristeen. What makes this divorce doubly painful is that Harry found out her husband was unfaithful. In Wish You Were Here, Harry gets involved in the murder of local building contractor Kelly Craycroft. As she investigates, we can see that although she’s likeable, she’s too unwilling to trust others or ask for help when she needs it. And honestly, she takes more risks than it makes sense for her to do. As the series goes on though, we see her becoming more mature. She learns to accept help both on the farm she runs and in her investigations. She takes fewer really dangerous risks too. And in her personal life, she becomes less judgemental. That growth makes more a more likeable character as the series goes on.

Even though Louise Penny’s Québec police inspector Armand Gamache is fairly mature as the series featuring him begins, there’s room for him to grow too and we see that as the series moves on. In Still Life, Gamache and his team investigate the supposedly accidental killing of beloved retired schoolteacher Jane Neal. One of the sub-plots in this novel is the hint we get that Gamache is facing serious repercussions from another case. Without giving away spoilers I can say that that case becomes a story arc and as later novels tell the story of that other case, we see how Gamache becomes more settled about it and learns to face it in a more self-confident and mature way. We also see how in Still Life, A Fatal Grace (AKA Dead Cold), The Cruelest Month and other novels in this series, Gamache faces some of his fears. For instance, he’s not especially comfortable with heights, but has to face that in Still Life. He feels haunted by a particular house (and with good reason) in the small town of Three Pines, where many of these novels take place. And yet he learns to go there and do what needs to be done. Those signs of growth make Gamache a more real character.

Martin Edwards’ DCI Hannah Scarlett does her share of maturing and growing too and what’s especially appealing about it is that she is still in the process. When we first meet Scarlett in The Coffin Trail, she is named to head the Cumbria Constabulary’s Cold Case Review team. That’s hardly a choice position and Scarlett was actually named to it because of her performance on an earlier case. So at first she’s dealing with a sense of failure and the insecurity of being the new leader of team whose respect she has to earn. It takes time but by the time of The Hanging Wood, Scarlett has learned some leadership skills and she’s more confident as she plans strategy, supervises her team and deals with her own bosses. Scarlett also does some personal growing. Throughout most of the novels in this series she lives with book dealer Marc Amos and although they care about each other, their relationship is certainly not an easy one. Amos is hardly a perfect ‘catch;’ he has his share of insecurities, immaturity and so on. But Scarlett isn’t exactly a self-confident, mature partner either. So as the series goes on, we see how she is held back by her need to do some growing of her own. The Frozen Shroud, the next entry in this Lake District series, is due to be released in April and I for one am very much looking forward to seeing how Hannah Scarlett continues to mature as a character.

In Anthony Bidulka’s Amuse Bouche, we meet Saskatoon PI Russell Quant, who has recently opened his own agency. He’s hired in this novel to find computer entrepreneur Tom Osborn, who disappeared just before his wedding to successful businessman Harold Chavell. When Osborn later turns up dead, Chavell becomes a suspect. So Quant investigates the murder to clear his client’s name. In this novel and the next few novels, Quant isn’t in a serious relationship but in the course of the series, he gets deeply involved twice. Each of those relationships teaches him about being responsible to other people and reaching out to them. He also learns a lot through the course of this series about being aware of others’ perspectives and the realities they face. Quant does some real maturing and growing up as the series continues and it makes him a more interesting and compassionate person.

And that’s the thing about characters who evolve with a series. We see how time and experience mature them and add to their richness. And that keeps a series interesting even after several novels. I know I’ve only mentioned a few examples. Which gaps have I left?

 

ps The ‘photos are of my lovely daughter as a child and recently, with her own daughter. I am so delighted at the way she’s grown up.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Five For Fighting’s Story of Your Life.