Where Did Our Love Go?*

I got an email today from an acquaintance. The email contained a link and invited me to click on it. I didn’t click on the link because the email looked suspiciously like spam. Sure enough, a short time later I got another email from the same person, who explained that the email account had been hacked and that link was a ‘hack’ link. I didn’t automatically assume the email was legitimate because I’ve learned not to implicitly trust email. After all, are there really that many incredibly wealthy people out there who have died and named me their sole heir? If you’ve ever gotten spam like that, you know what I mean.

What’s interesting is that people didn’t used to be that way about email. We used to open it, read it and act on it, often without thinking. Today we’ve learned to be a lot less trusting because too many people have taken advantage of that trust. And that example of email is really just one of many that show that we may not trust as much as we did in the past. Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery got me thinking about this very issue in an interesting comment exchange. Before I go on about it, I’ll wait a moment while you go check out her excellent crime fiction blog and follow it if you’re not. G’head – you’ll be glad you did.

Back now? Thanks. If you look at classic and Golden Age detective fiction for instance, you see quite a few examples of trust that today we would likely not consider. For instance, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes relies for information on a group of young street boys he calls the Baker Street Irregulars. They’re led by a boy named Wiggins who is their liaison with Holmes. Holmes trusts them with surveillance, messages and other assignments and they provide him a great deal of useful information. But if you think about it for a moment, and put it into today’s terms, consider how much trust that involves. He really doesn’t know these boys (except perhaps Wiggins). But he trusts that they won’t gang up on him and rob him. He trusts that they won’t extort him or commit other crimes. Could we say the same of our feelings about today’s ‘street kids?’

Let’s look for instance at Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa and group of young people he encounters in December Heat. In that novel, a fellow cop Vieira is implicated when his girlfriend Lucimar, who calls herself Magali, is killed. Vieira was very drunk on the night of the murder, so he doesn’t remember much about what happened. And his belt was found in Magali’s apartment. What’s more, his wallet and police ID have gone missing. He asks his friend Espinosa to look into the crime and help clear his name. As Espinosa starts looking into the case, he begins to try to trace the wallet. As it turns out, a street boy took it when it fell out of Vieira’s pocket. But trying to find out anything from the ‘street kids’ of Rio de Janeiro is not a simple matter. They know from bitter experience not to trust cops. Ever. They also know that anyone at any time could steal the little they have. And Espinosa is no fool either. He knows how dangerous gangs of young people can be. The story of how he gradually approaches these young people and slowly gets the information he needs is an interesting sub-plot in this novel and it reflects how much less trust is depicted here than in the Conan Doyle stories.

In Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, beautiful and wealthy Linnet Doyle is on a honeymoon cruise of the Nile with her new husband Simon. One of the other passengers is her American trustee Andrew Pennington. Now that Linnet is married, all of the considerable wealth she’s inherited comes to her directly and Pennington has brought along a raft of papers related to this.  Simon trusts Pennington and is happy to have Linnet sign whatever papers are put in front of her and his attitude may not be unusual for the times. But Linnet wants to read each document carefully before she signs it. What’s interesting here is that her attitude is considered unusually sound, especially for a woman. Today of course, we are all encouraged to read carefully anything we sign before we do so.  In fact I’d bet that many of us wonder at people who sign papers without knowing what they’re signing. In this novel, Linett’s caution turns out to be well-founded as Pennington becomes a suspect when she is murdered. Hercule Poirot, who is on the same cruise and investigates the murder, hears the story of those papers and it alerts him to the possibility that Pennington may have been mishandling his client’s money.

In Angela Savage’s The Half Child, PI Jayne Keeney travels from Bangkok, where she lives and works, to the small town of Pattaya to investigate the death of Maryanne Delbeck. Maryanne was a volunteer at an orphanage/child care facility when she allegedly committed suicide. But her father Jim doesn’t think his daughter killed herself and hires Keeney to find out the truth. One of Keeney’s useful contacts in this case is the head of the Bangkok Tourist Police Major General Wichit. His job is to make Bangkok appealing and safe for tourists but instead of getting shocked at the stories they tell him, he gets frustrated with them for what he sees as their gullibility. For instance, they exchange money outside an official currency exchange booth instead of being wary of strange offers. Then they find that the ‘currency’ they’ve bought is worthless fake money. In fact, Wichit,

 

‘…almost longed for his countrymen to show a little more ingenuity in the scams they pulled.’

 

The central plot threads in this novel aren’t focused on the idea that we trust less now than we used to do. But throughout the story, attitudes such as Wichit’s are common. Instead of a lot of sympathy for those who are swindled, there’s a general feeling that everyone ought to know that you can’t trust anyone, so people shouldn’t fall for scam artists.

In Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet Mervyn Bunter are stranded near the village of Fenchurch St. Paul in East Anglia. The Two men head towards the village where they’re rescued by Rector Theodore Venables. Not only does he bring them in out of the cold but he offers them lodging while their car is repaired. While they’re there, Lady Thorpe, the local squire’s wife, dies of influenza and Wimsey and Bunter stay on for her funeral. Six months later, they hear from Venables again when Lady Thorpe’s husband Sir Henry dies. The gravediggers were preparing for the funeral when they found another corpse in the place prepared for Sir Henry. Venables asks Wimsey to return and investigate and Wimsey agrees. It turns out that the unknown dead man is connected to a long-ago jewel robbery. Although Venables’ generosity is laudable and Wimsey turns out to be a ‘safe bet,’ letting two unknown men into your home for the night is something a lot of us might think twice about today.

And in Roger Smith’s Dust Devils we see a completely different attitude. In that novel, Robert Dell is riding with his wife Rosie and their two children when they are ambushed and their car sent off the road into a gorge. Dell survives and tries to flag down help. And in fact it’s not long before another car comes along. But the family in this car doesn’t stop to help. It’s not because the driver is a ‘bad person’ or unfeeling. But there are too many stories of innocent drivers being carjacked or worse when they stop to help a supposedly stranded person. Dell manages to get back to Cape Town though, only to find himself accused of killing his family members. He’s ‘railroaded’ into prison and thinks that his fate is sealed. Then, unexpectedly, his father Bobby Goodbread, from whom he’s been estranged for years, arranges his escape. Each for different reasons, Dell and Goodbread go in search of the person who killed Dell’s wife and children.

So, are we less trusting today than we were? Possibly. If so, there could be a number of reasons why. It may be that where one lives (safe area vs an area where a lot of crime has been reported, for instance) plays a role. Or it could be that although there’ve always been scams and worse, we’re better informed now. Media and technology have seen to that. Most of us have heard horror stories of financial scams. We’ve read about ways that criminals have found to catch their victims unaware. If we trust less it could be that the stories of what happens when we trust too much have gotten round better. But what do you think about this? Do you think we’re less trusting? Do you think it depends? On what? If we are less trusting, is that just as well? Or have we maybe become too hardened?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just got an email from the Nigerian Lottery Commission saying I’ve just won millions and millions of dollars!  Lucky lucky me! All I have to do is respond with my bank account details so my winnings can be promptly deposited into my account…   

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by the great Motown writing team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland, Jr and made famous by The Supremes.

Pack Up, Let’s Fly Away*

One of the best things about blogging is the ideas and inspiration I get from folks who are kind enough to read and comment on what I write. Just as an example, I’ve recently gotten inspiration from two separate sources. One was an excellent book review on Fair Dinkum Crime, which is the place to go for all things related to Australian crime fiction. In this case I was inspired by Bernadette at Reactions to Reading. You really need to be following that superb crime fiction review blog if you’re not. The other source that got me thinking was an interesting comment exchange with Moira at Clothes in Books, which is the most interesting and informative place I know of for discussions of clothes, style, fashion, and what they’ve meant in novels, including lots of good crime fiction. Now, I’ll be glad to wait a moment while you go ahead and stop by those blogs to follow them if you’re not already doing so. They’re all excellent blogs and more than worth being on your blog roll if you’re a crime fiction fan.

Back now? Thanks. So what did these top-notch bloggers get me thinking about? Escaping the weather. Right now, it’s blistering hot in many parts of the Southern Hemisphere. It’s cold, dark and damp in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. That’s January for you. And many people like to escape those weather extremes through what they read. So I thought it might be interesting (OK, fun, too) to look at some novels that people might use to escape that January weather.

 

Beat the Heat

 

Tired of the mid-summer January heat? One novel that comes to my mind is Arnaldur Indriðason’s Arctic Chill. In that novel, the frozen body of a young Thai boy called Elías is found near the building where he lived. There’s no question that the boy was murdered, so Reykjavík Inspector Erlendur and his team begin to investigate the case. They find an ugly and unexpected undercurrent of anti-immigration feeling that may have been behind the murder. At the same time, there are stories of a paedophile who may be in the area. If that’s true it too could have something to do with the murder. As the team is working on these cases, Erlendur also has to face another long-ago tragedy. When he was a boy, his younger brother Bergur was lost in a blizzard. He was never found and Erlendur’s had to cope with that since then. Now his daughter Eva Lind brings up the topic and forces him to confront that sorrow. There’s plenty of snow, ice and plunging temperatures in this novel.

Stan Jones’ Nathan Active series takes place in and around Chukchi, Alaska. Active, who is Inupiaq, is an Alaska State Trooper who was born near the Arctic Circle but raised in Anchorage. Now he’s returned to the Far North and the mysteries featuring him include lots of snow, ice and cold weather. For instance, in White Sky, Black Ice, Active investigates two suspicious deaths, both supposed suicides. One is of George Clinton, whose body is discovered near a local bar. The other is of Aaron Stone, who went on a hunting trip and never returned. In both cases, Active suspects that these deaths are not suicides at all and he searches for the connection between them. His suspicions seem even more logical when he finds out that the two men knew each other. Bit by bit he uncovers the truth about what happened to the two victims. A big part of this series is the look it takes at Inupiaq life, and of course for most of the year that life includes frigid weather and snow.

And then there’s Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow (AKA Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow). Smilla Jaspersen is a half-Inuit, half Danish Greenlander and not really at home in Copenhagen, where she lives. She’s more or less a loner, but she does befriend Isaiah Christiansen, a young boy who lives in her building. Isaiah too is a Greenlander who’s never quite fit in, so the two form a kind of friendship. Then one day Isaiah is killed in what looks like a tragic but accidental fall from the room of the building where they live. Jaspersen isn’t sure that’s what happened though. As a Greenlander, she has a real sense of snow (hence, the title of the novel) and what she learns from the snow on the roof gives her the first clue that this death was not accidental. So she begins to ask questions. The trail leads to an expedition that Isaiah and his father made to Greenland, and what happened there. When Jaspersen learns that, she follows the trail to Greenland where she finds the answers she’s been seeking. Snow, ice, glaciers, all of them play a role in this novel, so it’s definitely one for cooling down a hot day.

 

Warming Up

 

Ready for a break from snow and slush, ice, plunging temperatures and heavy winter coats and boots?  Here are just a few examples of novels with plenty of ‘tropical heat’ that may help take the chill off.

You may want to start with a tropical cruise like the one Agatha Christie describes in Death on the Nile. Linnet Doyle and her new husband Simon are on their honeymoon trip, which includes a cruise of the Nile. On the second night of the journey she’s shot, and Hercule Poirot and Colonel Race, who are on the same cruise, work together to investigate. The most likely suspect is Linnet’s former best friend Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ de Bellefort. They were on bad terms and Jackie had even threatened to kill Linnet. But it’s conclusively proved that she couldn’t have committed the murder so Poirot and Race have to look elsewhere for the killer. There’s plenty of warm weather and several tropical drinks to be had in this novel.

There’s also Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s December Heat. In that novel, Inspector Espinosa of the Rio de Janeiro police has to face a particularly challenging case. His former colleague retired police officer Vieira is suspected of murdering his girlfriend Lucimar, who calls herself Magali. Vieira went out with her on the night of her murder, but he got very drunk and can’t remember much of what happened. His belt has been found in her apartment though, and it is possible that he killed her. Espinosa begins to look into the case and soon concludes that it’s not the kind of murder that Vieira would have committed. At the same time as he’s investigating Magali’s murder, he’s also dealing with what looks like a drugs ring and the police corruption that allows the ring to operate. The two cases might or might not be connected. Either way Espinosa deals with the underside of Rio as he searches for the truth. Rio de Janeiro is warm – even tropical – no matter what time of year it is. Trust me. So there’s plenty of hot weather and tropical drinks to warm you up.

And of course, no discussion of warm-weather ‘escape’ novels would be complete without a mention of Andrea Camilleri’s series featuring Sicily police inspector Salvo Montalbano. He lives and works in the fictional town of Vigàta, where the weather never gets truly cold. He spends plenty of time in outdoor cafés and restaurants and swims most mornings. We get a real sense of the heat in Sicily in August Heat, when Montalbano has to stay in Vigàta for the summer instead of escape the heat as he’d planned to do. His lover Livia Burlando joins him, but things don’t work out at all as they had planned. Livia had planned to stay with some friends and their son at their beach house rental but that turns into a disaster. First, the house is infested with rats. Then, a body of young girl is discovered in the basement. She is identified as Catarina “Rina” Morreale, who was reported missing some time earlier. Now, Montalbano has to negotiate the always tricky business of his relationship with Livia as well as find out who killed Rina Morreale and why.

So there you have it: just a few suggestions for escaping from whatever temperature extremes you’re facing. But I’ll bet you have your own suggestions. Which books have you read to beat the cold or the heat?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn’s Come Fly With Me, made popular by Frank Sinatrra.

You Just Recover When Another Belief is Betrayed*

One of the ways crime fiction authors build suspense in their novels is by raising the issue of trust. In any investigation, real or fictional, the detective has to decide who’s trustworthy and who is trying to mislead. When that question is woven into a novel, it can draw the reader in (e.g. ‘Is he really on ____’s side? What if he’s trying to kill ___?’  Or ‘No!! Don’t trust her! She’s really working for ___!’).  We see a lot of this plot device in thrillers, but it can also be very effective other kinds of crime fiction too. Authors need to be careful with this plot tool though. First, a plot that’s too complicated, with too many hidden loyalties and motives, can be confusing for the reader. Second, if the characters aren’t well-drawn, then the question of, who can be trusted can make them almost cartoonish and can make the sleuth seem too gullible. But when it’s done well, the trust issue can ratchet up a story’s suspense and keep the reader turning or clicking pages.

Agatha Christie wrote several novels in which there’s a question of who’s trustworthy. I’ll just mention one of them. In The Man in the Brown Suit, we meet Anne Beddingfield, whose father has recently died, leaving her with little money. For a short time after his death, Anne lives with her father’s solicitor Mr. Flemming and his family. They’re well-meaning but Anne finds them dull and has no wish to live like that. Then one day she happens to witness a tube accident in which a man falls or is pushed onto the tracks. As his body is being recovered, Ann spots a piece of paper which she picks up. The note written on the paper makes reference to an upcoming sailing of the Kilmorden Castle for Cape Town and on impulse, Anne books a cabin. That decision draws her into a case of jewel theft, murder, faked identities and more. As the novel moves along, Anne has to decide whom she should trust. As she sorts this out, she gets closer and closer to the truth about a stolen fortune and a secret past that one of the characters is hiding. Since the story is written from Anne’s perspective, the reader follows along with her as she slowly finds out who is and who isn’t trustworthy.

Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch often has to decide whom he can and can’t trust. One of the themes in this series is corruption in the top echelons of the LAPD and hidden loyalties and agendas. We see that for instance in The Black Ice. In that novel, Bosch goes to the scene of what looks like a suicide. Fellow cop Calexico ‘Cal’ Moore has apparently taken his own life because, or so the official report says, he’d ‘gone dirty.’ But Bosch isn’t sure that’s what really happened. So he begins to ask questions about Moore’s life and death. He finds out that Moore was investigating the importation from Mexico of a new and very dangerous drug called Black Ice. That plus what he learns about Moore’s past lead Bosch to a small Mexican border town where a vicious drugs gang has a heavily fortressed operation. Bosch gets a lot of pressure from the top brass to leave the Moore case alone, but anyone who’s familiar with Harry Bosch will know that doesn’t stop him. As the story moves on and Bosch gets closer to the truth about Moore, he has to make some sometimes very quick decisions about who’s trustworthy and who isn’t and that adds to the tension.

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa knows he has to be careful about trusting too easily. He’s a cop in Rio de Janeiro, where bribery is a way of life and police corruption is all too common. What’s more, as in many places, the rich and powerful often manipulate events and people to get what they want. In A Window in Copacabana for instance, Espinosa investigates the murders of three cops. At first, it looks as though someone has a vendetta against the police. But then, the mistress of one of the murdered officers is killed. Then another one dies. And the third disappears. The more that Espinosa learns about this case, the clearer it is that this is no vengeful cop-killer. This is a case of a web of corruption involving the victims and some very ruthless people. As Espinosa gets closer to the truth, he also knows that he can’t tell just anyone what he’s found. So he gathers a very small team of people he trusts to work with him. They keep things so secret that they don’t even discuss the case while they’re at the station. Even so, Espinosa learns that you sometimes don’t know whether someone can or cannot be trusted.

That’s also what Philip Margolin’s PI sleuth Dana Cutler needs to remember in Executive Privilege. Cutler is hired to follow nineteen-year-old Charlotte Walsh and report where she goes, what she does and whom she meets. Cutler isn’t told the name of her client; the arrangement is made through a third party, highly placed attorney Dale Perry. At first, the assignment isn’t all that interesting. Walsh’s patterns are more or less predictable and nothing much comes of watching her. But then one night she leaves her car at a local mall and is driven to a secluded safe house where, to Cutler’s shock, she meets with U.S. President Christopher Farrington. Cutler is sure now that she’s out of her league as the saying goes, and calls her anonymous client, saying that she’s dropping the case. But when Walsh is murdered Cutler herself becomes the target of some highly placed people who want all of the information she’s got about the victim. Cutler quickly goes into hiding and as she slowly gets closer to the truth about the murder, she finds that she has to be extremely careful about whom to trust. So does fledgling attorney Brad Miller, who is approaching the same case from a different angle. He’s been hired by a powerful Portland, Oregon law firm and hopes his career will get a boost when he takes on the case of serial killer Clarence Little. Little’s been convicted of several grisly murders, one of which is the killing of Laurie Erickson. Little claims that he was busy committing another murder when Erickson was killed, so he is not guilty of that crime. As Miller follows up on that case to see who might have killed Laurie Erickson, he finds himself getting closer to an extremely dangerous truth. He also finds that he can no longer be sure who is trustworthy.

Betty Webb makes use of that ‘who can be trusted’ plot point in Desert Wives, which features her sleuth PI Lena Jones. Jones rescues thirteen-year-old Rebecca Corbett from a polygamous group called Purity, and returns the girl to her mother Esther. During the rescue, Jones sees that group leader Solomon Royal has been shot and badly wounded. So as soon as Rebecca is safe, Jones calls the police to report the shooting. The next day she learns that Royal has been murdered. What’s worse, Esther Corbett is suspected. If she’s arrested, it’s very likely that Rebecca will be taken from her and returned to Purity, where her father Abel is a member. So Esther is desperate to clear her name. Jones agrees to help and ends up infiltrating Purity in the guise of the newest wife of disaffected group member Saul Berkhauser. As Jones begins to take up her ‘new life’ at Purity, she slowly meets the different members of the community. Very soon Jones learns just how much danger there is for her. She discovers to her shock that the group is not the peaceful, happy community it seems on the surface. There are many instances of domestic abuse of both wives and children. There’s also child molestation and the forced marriage of girls as young as thirteen. To make matters worse, there’s so much intermarriage that there are many cases of severe birth defects. And the powerful group leaders (and even some locals who have their own power) are not eager to have those truths made public. Jones needs to keep her ‘cover’ to protect herself from those people. She also needs to keep in mind that someone in the group is a murderer who doesn’t want to be discovered. And it’s not at all clear at first which group members can be trusted and which ones cannot. Even Jones’ ‘husband’ Saul comes in for his share of suspicion since he had a motive for murdering Royal. That question of who is trustworthy adds a taut layer of suspense to this novel.

And then there’s T.J. Cooke’s Kiss and Tell, which is the story of London lawyer Jill Shadow. Shadow’s managed to get past a poor and very dysfunctional childhood to go to law school and get her legal credentials. Along the way, she had a relationship with Jimmy Briscoe, father of her daughter Hannah. Jimmy’s been in prison for several years on drugs charges and Shadow’s had to make a life for herself and Hannah. Everything’s going well enough though until Shadow takes on the pro bono case of Bella Kiss. Originally from Hungary, Bella’s lived in London for a couple of years. She’s just been arrested though for drugs smuggling on her return from a trip. She admits she had the drugs in question with her when she came into the country, but she refuses to say anything about where she got the drugs or who paid or convinced her to bring the drugs in. It soon becomes obvious that she’s trying to protect someone. Shadow knows that she can do little to help her client without knowing everything about the case, but Bella remains stubbornly uncooperative. Then Jimmy Briscoe comes back into her life. He’s finished his sentence and claims that he’s made a fresh start. But at the same time, he seems to know too much about Bella Kiss’ situation. What’s more, he has a very poor ‘track record’ with Shadow. As if that weren’t enough, Shadow begins to uncover other truths about this case. Bella seems to be a pawn in a very high-stakes and high-level game of drugs and politics, and the more she finds out about this case, the less sure Shadow is of exactly what or whom to believe. Then one of the key people involved in the case is murdered. In the meantime, there’s been another murder. Then, Shadow herself becomes a possible target. Throughout this novel, the question of whom Shadow should trust adds a strong dose of tension and interest. And since the story is told from her point of view, the reader doesn’t always know who is trustworthy either.

It’s certainly possible to overdo the theme of ‘Who can be trusted?’ But when that plot point is used carefully and the characters are well-developed, it can add much to a story and give readers an added reason to invest themselves in what happens in the novel.

 

 
 

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

How Can You Just Walk Away From Me*

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

 
 

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

But Now You Just Don’t Remember All the Things You Said, and You’re Not Sure That You Want to Know*

It’s not hard to imagine how frightening it would be to wake up and discover you’ve lost a big chunk of time. Blacking out itself is scary enough; blacking out and then waking to discover you might have done something horrible while you were blacked out is far worse. Not being able to trust one’s own memory is disorienting and sometimes truly frightening. So it’s no wonder that scenario is used in crime fiction novels. First there’s the suspense and tension as the character becomes aware that she or he might have committed a terrible crime. Then there’s the suspense that comes from the questions a blackout raises. Did that person commit the crime? Was that person framed? It can all make for a very effective plot thread so long as it falls out naturally and isn’t ‘soap opera’ contrived.

In Agatha Christie’s Third Girl, for instance, Norma Restarick has that kind of frightening experience. She believes that she may have committed a murder. She has hazy visions of the crime and doesn’t remember how she got to the scene of the crime. She’s not sure she’s guilty but the possibility is strong enough that she visits Hercule Poirot to see if he can help. Just after she meets him though, she loses her nerve and leaves in confusion, not even giving him her name. With help from his friend mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver, Poirot finds out who the young woman is and tries to find her. By then, though, she has disappeared. So Poirot and Oliver work to find out where she is and whether she really did kill someone. Then there’s another death and again it seems that Norma may have been responsible. It turns out that that the real culprit manipulated Norma with drugs and led her to think she is responsible for both deaths.

In Ellery Queen’s Ten Days Wonder, we meet Howard Van Horn, son of wealthy business entrepreneur Diedrich Van Horn. Howard’s been having troubling blackouts, and when he wakes up after one of them with blood on him, he is sure that he must have done something terrible. So he visits his college friend Ellery Queen and asks Queen to help him find out what might have happened. Queen agrees and he and Van Horn start to investigate. The trail leads to Van Horn’s home in Wrightsville, a small New England town, so the two friends go there to find out what might have happened. While they’re there Van Horn has another blackout. This time, he recovers to find that his stepmother Sally Van Horn has been murdered. There’s a very real chance he committed the crime and in fact, that’s the immediate assumption. But Queen isn’t convinced, so he continues to investigate. He discovers the truth about Sally Van Horn’s murder, but not before Howard Van Horn’s assumption of his own guilt has tragic consequences.

Lawrence Block’s The Sins of the Fathers introduces us to twenty-one-year-old Richard Vanderpoel. He had a very unhappy childhood that included the tragic death of his mother when he was young. But he’s made a life for himself and now works at an auction gallery. He shares an apartment with twenty-four-year-old Wendy Hanniford, who has her own sad history. One afternoon Wendy is murdered. Shortly afterwards Vanderpoel is seen wandering in the streets covered in her blood. The police arrest him almost immediately and he’s assumed to be guilty. Wendy’s father Cale Hanniford wants to know what led to Wendy’s death; he’s been estranged from her for quite some time and wants to know the kind of person his daughter had become. So he approaches former NYPD cop Matthew Scudder and asks him to find out. Scudder agrees and begins to look into Wendy’s life. As he does so he begins to wonder whether Richard Vanderpoel is actually guilty of her murder. He interviews Vanderpoel, who seems to have only very vague memories of what happened. Shortly after that interview Vanderpoel commits suicide. But Scudder continues his investigation. The more he learns about both young people the more he comes to believe that Richard Vanderpoel was innocent, despite the young man’s inability to remember what happened that afternoon.

Håkan Nesser’s Mind’s Eye is the story of the murder of schoolteacher Eva Ringar. Late one night she is killed and her body left in her bathtub. Her husband Jurgen Mitter is the most likely suspect for a number of reasons. Their marriage was by no means perfect. Besides, on the night of the murder he was extremely drunk and doesn’t remember what happened to his wife. He is sure he didn’t kill her but he blacked out and doesn’t remember enough to account for himself. It’s not impossible that he killed her in a drunken rage without being aware of it. So he’s arrested, tried and convicted. Because he has no memory of the night of the murder, Mitter is remanded to a mental facility instead of prison. While he’s there he slowly begins to recall the events that led up to Eva’s death. In fact he even remembers who killed his wife. When he does he contacts that person and ends up being murdered himself. Now Inspector Van Veeteren, who’s been having doubts about Mitter’s guilt, brings his team fully into action and they investigate the lives of both victims to find out who the killer is.

Maureen ‘Mauri’ O’Donnell has a similar experience in Denise Mina’s Garnethill. At the time of this novel, she’s a Glasgow ticket-taker who’s just decided to break things off with her married lover Douglas Brady. She goes out one night with a friend and after a long night of drinking goes home and falls asleep. She wakes up the next day to discover Brady’s body in her living room. She was very, very drunk that night and doesn’t remember much about coming home. She has no memory of inviting Brady over, and certainly no memory of killing him but it is possible that she’s the killer. That’s at least what detective Joe McEwan, who’s investigating the case, thinks. O’Donnell can’t really prove her innocence but she doesn’t think she’s guilty. So to clear her name, she starts asking her own questions. In the end, we learn that someone took advantage both of her drunkenness and her already-fragile mental state to frame her for the crime.

In Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s December Heat, his Rio de Janeiro Inspector Espinosa has to find out the truth about a crime possibly committed by someone he knows. Another police officer Vieira goes out one evening with his girlfriend Lucimar, who calls herself Magali. He gets very drunk and more or less blacks out. The next thing he’s aware of is waking up in his home to find that his belt, his wallet and his police identification are missing. Then he learns to his shock that Magali has been murdered and his belt has been found in her apartment. He doesn’t think he killed her although it might have happened that way. Inspector Espinosa, who’s working on the case, doesn’t think Vieira would have committed this kind of murder. So even though Magali was ‘only a prostitute,’ Espinosa digs deeper to find out who else would have had a motive and would have been able to frame Vieira so successfully.

Blackouts have to be handled carefully in crime fiction. Otherwise they can seem contrived and pull the reader out of the story. But they do happen. And when an author handles a blackout in a skilled way, the result can add a lot to the tension in a novel as both the sleuth and the suspect who’s blacked out have to figure out what’s really behind a crime.

 

 
 

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