I Admire You so Much*

Writers put a lot of themselves into their work so it means a great deal when people like what they write and say so. Praise from fellow writers has a special meaning because fellow writers truly understand what it’s like to create a story. And when that praise comes from a fellow writer whose work you also admire? That’s happened to me once and without gushing I’ll have to content myself with saying, ‘Wow!’  That’s why I was really interested when about a month and a half ago I had a suggestion from Bryan at The Vagrant Mood about doing a post on authors and the work they admire. Before I go on, I should tell you that The Vagrant Mood is a blog well worth following for commentary on books, poetry and writing in general. G’head – give it a try.

Bryan’s well-taken point was that it’s very interesting to learn about authors’ favourite writers. It shows something about both the author and the writers whose work s/he admires. For example, Agatha Christie was said to be a great admirer of Elizabeth Daly’s novels. Of course there are differences between the two writers’ characters, styles and so on. However, Daly’s Henry Gamadge is, like Christie’s own Miss Marple, an amateur sleuth. Daly’s plots are different to Christie’s but the plotting is one of the main elements in Daly’s work, just as it is in Christie’s. It’s not difficult to see why Christie liked Daly’s work.

Christie fans will know that she was also a fan of P.G. Wodehouse’s novels. In fact, Hallowe’en Party is dedicated

 

‘To P. G. Wodehouse–whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books.’

 

The dedication also shows that this admiration was mutual.

Tony Hillerman’s novels featuring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have won millions of fans. But HIllerman himself had a list of authors whose work he admired. For example, he was a fan of Margaret Coel, whose Vicky Holden/Father John O’Malley series takes place on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation. Like Hillerman, Coel has great respect for the indigenous people who feature in her novels (in Coel’s case it’s the Arapaho people). And it’s easy to see why Hillerman admired Coel’s skilled depiction of the land on which this series takes place. Readers get an authentic sense of context and setting in these novels.

A great number of people are fans of Michael Connelly’s work (I’m one of them). And it shouldn’t be surprising that his admirers include some well-known authors who are talented in their own right. For instance, Connelly and Robert Crais are mutual admirers They’ve even had their sleuths pay ‘visits’ to each other’s series. Crais’ PI sleuth Elvis Cole has a cameo appearance in Connelly’s Lost Light and in turn, Harry Bosch ‘stops in’ in Crais’ The Last Detective.

Another famous fan of Michael Connelly’s work is James Lee Burke, who calls Connelly,

 

‘…one of the best.’

 

Burke is also, by the way, a fan of James M. Cain and Dennis Lehane. He’s also said that Elizabeth George

 

‘…writes some really nice prose.’

 

For her part, Goerge has said that she is an admirer of the work of John Fowles.

As I said, Connelly has millions of admirers. He also has his favourites. Among them are Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and it’s not hard to see the connection. Like Connelly, both authors show Los Angeles at its best and its seamy, gritty worst. They also feature essentially good characters caught up in a sometimes corrupt system.

Ruth Rendell also has won millions of fans both under her own name and as Barbara Vine. She in turn has her own favourites. For instance, she is a fan of Iris Murdoch’s work. She’s also said that P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh is

 

‘…the most intelligent detective in contemporary fiction.’  

 

Rendell is also said to greatly admire Charles Dickens. Granted Dickens isn’t usually considered to be a crime fiction writer. But his novels do address questions of crime, law and order and justice.

For her part, P.D. James has said that she’s been very much influenced by the work of Dorothy Sayers, among other authors. And she has been a profound influence herself on many writers.

Any talented author will tell you that part of good writing is lots of reading. So it makes a great deal of sense that the best crime writers would have a list of authors whose work they admire. And it’s a truly special thing when the admiration is mutual.

Now it’s your turn. Do you see the influence of certain writers on the work of others? If you’re a writer, which authors do you admire? Do they influence your work?

Thanks, Bryan, for the excellent suggestion!

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Rivers Cuomo.

 

The Time Has Come to Say Fair’s Fair*

One of the important purposes that members of the clergy are supposed to serve is helping others. And for many of those in the religious life, that means pursuing social justice. We’ve all heard terrible accounts of corrupt (or worse) ministers, priests, nuns, rabbis and the like. Those stories are all the more upsetting because those are people we’ve been taught to trust. But there are a great number of people in the religious life who work for social justice and sometimes take great risks pursuing it. They advocate for the poor and disenfranchised, they speak up for human rights and a lot more, too. The real world is better for them and we see them in crime fiction as well.

For example, in Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, we meet Rector Theodore Venables. On New Year’s Eve, he comes upon Lord Peter Wimsey and Wimsey’s valet/assistant Mervyn Bunter. Their car has been in an accident near Fenchurch St. Paul and they’re stranded, so Venables takes them in. Wimsey and Bunter are settling in at the rectory when word comes that Will Thoday, one of the bell-ringers, is ill and can’t participate in the New Year’s change-ringing. Wimsey agrees to take his place and the change-ringing is a big success. The next day Venables is called to the death-bed of local squire’s wife Lady Thorpe, who dies of the same influenza that struck Will Thoday. Wimsey and Bunter stay for the funeral and then, when their car is ready, they go on their way. A few months later Wimsey gets a letter from Venables. Sir Henry Thorpe has died and preparations are being made to bury him next to his wife. But to everyone’s shock, another corpse is discovered in the gravesite. Venables wants Wimsey to return to Fenchurch and investigate. Wimsey agrees and he and Bunter go back to the village and begin asking questions. The unidentified body turns out to be connected to a decades-old robbery and some missing emeralds and Wimsey finds out the truth about the case. Towards the end of the novel, a dangerous flood strikes the Fenchurch area and many of the people are at grave risk. Theodore Venables shows both his courage and his dedication to caring for others as he does his best to help the people of Fenchurch.

Donna Leon’s Blood From a Stone features Don Alvise Perale, who was a parish priest in Oderzo, north of Venice. He saw his vocation as more than just meeting the spiritual needs of his parishioners. To him, it is important to help all of those who are desperate, poor and disenfranchised. When his parishioners objected to his opening his home to a non-Christian family from Sierra Leone, Perale got a letter from the bishop telling him to make the family leave. That’s when Perale left the priesthood. He is still a social activist though and that’s how he comes to work with Commissario Guido Brunetti in this novel. Brunetti is trying to find out the identity of a Senegalese man who was shot, execution-style, when he was laying out his wares in an open-air market. Brunetti suspects that Perale may have connections to the Senegalese immigrant community and wants his help identifying the victim. Perale’s first instinct is to protect the vulnerable members of this community from harassment, so he doesn’t want to tell Brunetti anything. But Brunetti is able to persuade him that there will be no repercussions, so Perales finally agrees to help point Brunetti in the right direction. With Perales’ help, Brunetti finds out where the dead man lived. That’s how he finds out that the man had with him a valuable cache of diamonds. Those diamonds are connected to an illegal arms-trafficking ring and to the murder.

One of Margaret Coel’s sleuths is Father John O’Malley, who works on the Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Originally from Boston, Father John is a Jesuit priest who is slowly making his way back from what he refers to as The Great Fall – alcoholism. He no longer drinks and is trying to find a new place for himself within the Catholic Church. Father John sees himself as much more than just a person who presides over religious services. He takes personal responsibility for the people he serves, and often for those on the Reservation whom he doesn’t exactly serve. In The Eagle Catcher, for instance, Arapaho tribal chair Harvey Castle is murdered shortly after asking to meet privately with Father John. Then, Castle’s nephew Anthony is arrested for the crime. Father John is certain that Anthony is not guilty, so he asks Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden to help him look into the case. Soon enough, it comes out that Castle’s death may involve some very highly-placed people – people whom the mission depends on for contributions and other support. Father John is fully aware that he could face serious consequences for continuing to investigate. He and Holden persevere though and in the end, they find out who killed Castle and why.

One of the ‘regulars’ in Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series is Sister Mary. She’s a Melbourne nun who works tirelessly to make things better for street people and others whom society has forgotten. Sister Mary is compassionate and caring, but make no mistake: she is a force to be reckoned with. Everyone respects her for the work she does and she has a way of getting people to do what she wants. Among many other things, Sister Mary is the organiser of the Soup Run, a mobile kitchen that travels to Melbourne’s worst areas to distribute food, non-alcoholic drinks and medicine to those who need it most. Chapman, who is Greenwood’s main sleuth, contributes bread from her bakery to the Soup Run and takes her turn riding along to help serve. Like everyone else, Chapman listens to Sister Mary. What makes Sister Mary so effective, both as a character in this series and as a social justice activist, is that she doesn’t back down from a difficult challenge. She bullies people for funds, permission, equipment, whatever is needed without actually making people feel that they’re being bullied. And she does an immense amount of good without preaching her own spiritual beliefs.

And then there’s Mildred Nilsson, a priest of the Swedish Church to whom we’re introduced in Åsa Larsson’s The Blood Spilt. Nilsson takes personal responsibility for the members of her congregation and in particular, she works to raise awareness of domestic violence with the goal of stopping it. When she is found murdered, attorney Rebecka Martinnsson has the thankless task of working on behalf of the Swedish Church to arrange for Nilsson’s widower to move and resume possession of the house he and Nilsson had been using. In that context, Martinsson works with Inspectors Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stålnacke, who are investigating the murder itself. They find that more than one person resented both Nilsson’s outspokenness and what they saw as meddling in their lives.

It’s sometimes very risky to live out the tenet of social justice, but there are members of the religious community who do it all the time. It’s a refreshing change to see them in crime fiction (and I know I haven’t mentioned them all. I’m thinking, for instance, of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown). That’s especially true when you consider how many awful things have been done by those who were supposed to protect the weakest among us. It’s good to know they’re not all like that.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning.

But When the Wrong Word Goes in the Right Ear*

An interesting comment exchange (Thanks, Bill!) has got me thinking about the way we choose words and the words we use. You see, here’s one of the dilemmas that authors face. There are certain words and uses of words that are generally considered offensive or that have derogatory connotations in today’s society, so it’s not considered appropriate to use them. I, for one am glad of that. People have the right not to have their ethnic group, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc., insulted. I don’t want mine insulted. That said (and here is where the dilemma comes in), authors want to create realistic characters. Readers want to read about realistic characters. Sometimes that realism includes using words or phrases that may offend some readers. There’s also the fact that times change and so does our view of what’s offensive. So an author whose stories were written in, say, the 1920’s or 1930’s, or whose stories are set in those eras, may have used language that we wouldn’t consider appropriate by modern standards. And yet, not to use that language arguably takes away from the authenticity of those stories. Finally, it’s sometimes a little difficult to know which words one ought to use; bear with me on that one, and I’ll explain myself in a bit. Like so much else in crime fiction, one’s choice of words requires a balance.

Sometimes a word or phrase that’s not what we would normally consider appropriate is the best way to express a character’s personality or add to a context, so that not using it might make the dialogue stilted. For example, in Peter Temple’s Bad Debts, sometimes-lawyer and private investigator Jack Irish is investigating the murder of a former client Danny McKillop. In the process of finding out who killed McKillop, Irish discovers that his murder is related to another death several years earlier – a death for which McKillop was framed and went to prison. Irish slowly unfolds the layers of conspiracy and corruption in this case and finds out the truth. In the meantime, he and some of his father’s football-loving friends, all Fitzroy supporters, are planning to go to a game featuring their beloved Roys versus St. Kilda. Group member Norm O’Neill says this of the Roys and the St. Kilda team:

 

“They can’t give this bunch a sheilas a beltin, might as well merge with Brighton Bowls Club.”

 

Is this comment derogatory to women? Well, yes it is. But does Temple intend it as an attack on women? I don’t think so. It’s part of the way these characters speak, it’s authentic and it makes sense given the context.

In Donna Leon’s The Girl of His Dreams, Commissario Guido Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello investigate the death of Ariana Rocich, a twelve-year-old Roma girl who apparently fell to her death from a rooftop into a canal. At first it seems that she was trying to flee after robbing an apartment and simply fell into the canal. But soon it appears that she may have been killed. Here is a conversation that Brunetti and Vianello have about the girl:

 

“‘There’s no way of knowing, though, whether she is or she isn’t,’ he [Vianello] added.
‘Isn’t what?’
‘A Gypsy.’
Voice coloured by his lingering irritation at the pathologist’s words, Brunetti said, ‘Rizzardi said we were supposed to call them Rom.’
‘Oh. How very correct of the doctor.’”

 

Brunetti himself uses the word Gypsy more than once in this novel. Is that to say he is prejudiced against the Roma people? Actually he works this case with at least the vigour with which he works any case. His use of that term isn’t intended as a slur against Ariana Rocich or her people. It’s the word he’s always used and it’s difficult for him to think in terms of a different word. So in this case, although the word isn’t considered appropriate, it serves a purpose. It helps add to one of the themes in this novel and it makes sense considering who says the word and why.

There are several classic novels in which the author uses words we would now consider derogatory and offensive. As Agatha Christie fans know, for instance, one of the alternate titles of And Then There Were None is Ten Little Indians. It also has another title that’s considered quite offensive by today’s standards. I don’t know whether that choice of title means that Christie was a racist. Certainly the same term is used in various expressions used in Christie’s work. For instance, in After the Funeral (AKA Funerals are Fatal), patriarch Richard Abernethie dies suddenly ‘though not unexpectedly. At his funeral, his younger sister Cora Lansquenet says that he was murdered. At first everyone hushes her up and Cora herself admits she spoke out of turn. But everyone secretly wonders whether Cora was right. When she herself is murdered the next day it seems even clearer that she was correct. So the family lawyer Mr. Entwhistle asks Hercule Poirot to investigate. Here’s a bit of the conversation when Poirot reveals to the family that he was hired to investigate:

 

“‘I have been a friend for many years of Mr. Entwhistle.’
‘So he’s the nigger in the woodpile!’
‘If you like to put it that way, Mr. Crossfield.’”

 

Does the use of that expression mean that this character is a racist, or that Christie was? It’s hard to say because that’s the way people spoke at that time. Those expressions were in such common use that many people used them without thinking of what they really mean.

And it wasn’t just Christie either. Ellery Queen’s The French Powder Mystery is set in great part in New York City’s French’s Department Store. One day, one of the store employees is preparing a store window demonstration when she discovers the body of Winifred French, wife of store owner Cyrus French. Inspector Richard Queen is called in and his son Ellery comes along. Together, they untangle the network of relationships and hidden motives that are behind the murder. The employee who discovers the body is referred to as “the Negress” throughout the novel. Certainly that word is offensive by today’s standards. But that’s the way people spoke at that time (the book was published in 1930). Not to use words and phrases of the time might have made the story less authentic.

So how does an author refer to certain groups of people, especially members of minority cultures? Here is how authors such as Tony Hillerman and Margaret Coel have addressed the question: they’ve asked the people themselves. Hillerman, for instance, spent decades among the Navajo people and learned what they call themselves, what they want to be called and how they see themselves. Coel has done the same thing with the members of the Arapaho Nation. Other authors too have done similar things, especially if they are not members of the cultures about which they write. So, should authors use terms such as Aborigine? Eskimo? Inuit? Native? Something else? It seems to me that authors ought to make the effort to get to know the people involved and find out from them which terms they use and do not use. That could be a very effective barometer of what counts as the right word(s) to use.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Fixx’s One Thing Leads to Another.

Where We Have Lived Since the World Began*

One of the really interesting developments we’ve seen in crime fiction in recent decades is the look the genre has given us at indigenous characters and communities. That’s not easy to do, either. It’s a challenge to create an indigenous character or explore an indigenous community honestly – without either glorifying its members and culture or condescending to them. When it works well, though, we get a fascinating perspective on unique world views and ways of life. We also get some very interesting and innovative characters.

As early as the 1930’s, Arthur Upfield showed readers the lives of some of the Aboriginal communities of Australia. His creation, Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is a member of the Queensland Police Force, so his cases frequently take him into Australia’s Outback and quite often involve the indigenous people who live there. Bony himself is half-Aborgine and thoroughly familiar with many of the indigenous cultures of the area. That knowledge and Bony’s own background are helpful to him as he investigates cases. In The Bushman Who Came Back for instance, Bony solves the shooting murder of Mrs. Bell, housekeeper at the homestead owned by Mr. Wootton. As if Mrs. Bell’s death isn’t enough to upset Wootton, his ranch hands and his staff, Mrs. Bell’s seven-year-old daughter Linda has been abducted. All evidence is that a local bushman nicknamed Yorky is the murderer and has taken Linda because she was a witness. Bony is called in to find Yorky and Linda before anything happens to the girl. In the process of tracking them and of finding out what happened on the morning of the murder, Bony discovers that Yorky is not the only suspect. He knows though that to get the answers he needs, he will need to find the bushman. So he relies not just on what Wootton and the ranch hands tell him but also on what the local Aborginal groups can tell him. In the end, it’s that knowledge as well as the knowledge he has of the land and its rhythms that lead Bony to the truth about Mrs. Bell’s murder and about what happened to Yorky and Linda.

More recently, Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest novels depict the lives of the Aboriginal communities of Australia’s Northern Territory. Tempest is a half-Aborigine/half-White member of the Aboriginal Community Police. In Diamond Dove (AKA Moonlight Downs) she returns to her home at the Moonlight Downs encampment after several years away. She’s no sooner home than she gets embroiled in a murder investigation. The leader of the Moonlight Downs encampment Lincoln Flinders is killed and his alleged murderer Blakie Japananga disappears. It all seems clear-cut at first, but Tempest isn’t sure that the obvious solution is also the correct one. So she looks into the case more deeply and finds that there was a lot more to Flinders’ death than it seemed. The same is true in Gunshot Road, in which Tempest solves the murder of prospector Albert “Doc” Ozolins, who was supposedly murdered as the result of a drunken quarrel. In both of these novels, we see the way members of the Aboriginal communities in the area live. Hyland presents them – and Tempest – honestly and respectfully. I sincerely hope there’ll be a new Emily Tempest mystery soon.

Tony Hillerman depicted the lives of Native Americans – especially the Navajo Nation – in interesting, respectful and truthful detail. His Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are both members of the Navajo Tribal Police, and the murders they investigate often require knowledge of the Navajo Way in order to solve them. For example, in Skinwalkers, a series of three murders seems to be connected to the Bad Water Clinic run by Dr. Bahe Yellowhorse. That clinic combines Western medicine with Navajo healing traditions and although it’s done some good, there are people who are suspicious of what happens there. When Chee himself becomes the target of a would-be killer, Leaphorn knows he’ll have to rely on Chee’s knowledge of the Navajo Way as Chee is more traditional than Leaphorn is. Together the two discover what’s behind the murders and in the process we see the lives of those who live in the Navajo Nation. In fact, Hillerman received the distinction of being named a Special Friend of the Navajo Nation in 1987 for his treatment of that community in his work.

Margaret Coel presents the lives of members of the Arapaho Nation in her series featuring attorney Vicky Holden, who is Arapaho, and Father John O’Malley. The focus in that series is the Arapaho community of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Neither Holden nor O’Malley is blind to the challenges faced by the indigenous people of that area. Coel is frank about issues such as alcoholism and domestic abuse on the Reservation as well as about relations between members of the Arapaho Nation and Whites. That said though, Coel treats the Arapaho people with respect and presents their lifestyles both honestly and in fascinating detail.

Peter Høeg introduced readers to half-Inuit Smilla Jasperson in Miss Smilla’s  Feeling For Snow (AKA Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow). In that novel, Jasperson meets a young boy named Isaiah Christensen – a fellow transplanted Greenlander. When the boy dies, allegedly after a fall from the roof of the building where both live, Jasperson comes to believe that he did not die accidentally. So she investigates the death despite all sorts of pressure to leave it alone. In the end, Isaiah Christensen’s death turns out to be related to two Danish expeditions to Greenland. Jasperson’s Inuit identity and her familiarity with her people’s culture prove to be very helpful as she looks into the case, and Høeg treats the Inuit people both respectfully and candidly.

Stan Jones does the same thing in his series featuring Nathan Active. Active is an Alaska State Trooper. He is also an Inupiat Eskimo, although he was given up for adoption as a baby and raised as White in Anchorage. Now he’s returned by assignment to the isolated area around Chukchi, north of the Arctic Circle. What’s interesting about this series is that Active arguably has to discover his Inupiat identity since he wasn’t raised among those people. So in a sense we see that community, at least at the start, “from the outside.”  It’s an interesting process of discovery for Active and for the reader. And Jones treats the indigenous community to which Active belongs with dignity and respect, while still being candid about the people who live in it.

And then there’s Michael Sears’ and Stanley Trollip’s (writing as Michael Stanley) Detective David “Kubu” Bengu, a member of Botswana’s CID, whom we first meet in A Carrion Death. In this novel, a body is discovered in the Botswana desert. At first it seems that the victim died by accident; it’s been almost completely eaten by hyenas and there seems no reason to believe the death is from foul play. But Kubu isn’t convinced, and begins to investigate not just the identity of the victim but also how the victim actually died. Kubu finds that this death is related to family politics as well as the politics and financial dealings of the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company. In this series, Sears and Trollip treat Kubu and the local culture candidly, but at the same time, they are depicted respectfully.

When authors present indigenous characters (of whom I’ve only had space to mention a few) with that balance of respect and candor, the result adds much to crime fiction. Which are your favourite indigenous sleuths?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Nightwish’s Creek Mary’s Blood.

A Musical Salute ;-)

Today (or tomorrow, depending on when you read this), we’re celebrating Independence Day in the U.S.. This year I’ve thought of a different sort of way to observe the occasion. I hope you enjoy
 

 

I wish a happy and safe Independence Day to my U.S. readers!