All I Wish is to Be Alone*

An interesting comment exchange (Thanks, Maxine and Barbara!) has got me thinking about one of the most common myths about murderers – that they are loners with few friends. It really is an unfortunate misconception because there are lots and lots of introverted people who don’t murder; many in fact are sleuths. There are also plenty of outgoing, extroverted people with lots of friends who do murder. Just a quick look at crime fiction will show you what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Superintendent Spence asks Hercule Poirot to investigate the murder of a charwoman who it seemed at the time was killed by her unpleasant lodger James Bentley. Spence doesn’t think Bentley is guilty but he’s been assigned to another investigation so he can’t go back over the case. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and travels to Mrs. McGinty’s village of Broadhinny. When he begins to examine the case he finds that several of the village’s residents have been keeping secrets. Mrs. McGinty found out more about one of those residents than it was safe for her to know and that’s why she was killed. What’s interesting about this mystery in terms of this post is that Bentley is a loner. He doesn’t have a lot of friends (he actually claims to have none at all) and he’s not comfortable socially. That predisposes a lot of people to believe he’s guilty. In fact, though, I don’t think it’s giving away spoilers to say that Spence is right to question Bentley’s guilt.

In Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead, we meet Gordon Matthews, who’s recently been released from prison where he served a sentence for manslaughter in the death of his wife Anne. When Anne’s father Oliver Randall hears that Matthews has been released he’s worried that Matthews will try to get custody of the two children he had with Anne and who are now living with Randall and his wife. So Randall hires private investigator Michael West to find Matthews and see how and where he’s living and whether he poses a danger to the two children. West discovers that Matthews has married again, this time to Carrie Foster. West also finds that Gordon Matthews is not the person he’s made himself out to be. At the time of his trial for Anne’s murder, Matthews claimed that she was a promiscuous alcoholic shrew and that on the day of her death, they had an argument that went too far and that’s why he killed her. But West finds that those stories about Anne are most likely not true. In fact, Matthews has told a lot of people a lot of lies about a lot of things. But he’s personable and persuasive, so he’s gotten away with it. The closer West gets to the truth about Gordon Matthews, the more danger he sees for Matthews’ new wife Carrie. In this novel, Gordon Matthews may be outgoing and may have the ability to draw people to him, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t committed murder and wouldn’t do so again.

In Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind, fledgling psychiatrist Stephanie Anderson has been assigned to work with a new patient Elizabeth Clark. At first Clark won’t even speak, but very slowly and with a few setbacks she tells Anderson her story. Several years earlier Clark’s younger sister Gracie disappeared and despite a major search effort, she was never found. There wasn’t even a body. This story eerily resembles Anderson’s own personal history. Seventeen years earlier, Anderson’s younger sister Gemma disappeared, also with no trace. Anderson wants to lay her ghosts to rest so against her better professional judgement, she gets as much information as she can from Clark. Then, she decides to search for the person responsible for Gracie’s and Gemma’s disappearances. The more she learns the more Anderson is pointed in the direction of one particular person. That person is friendly, outgoing and on the surface definitely not  the type people fear and it’s interesting to see how that quality of getting on easily with lots of people has served the perpetrator very well.

There are also many fictional sleuths who are loners, or at least who don’t have a large social circle and lots of friends. For instance, there’s Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa. Espinosa is a cop in Rio de Janeiro, which means he gets involved in all sorts of cases, some of them quite ugly. He’s dedicated to his job, but that’s not really the entire reason he’s not married. He certainly has relationships. He has lunch and dinner with acquaintances and lovers. And he certainly has the social skills he needs to function easily. But Espinosa isn’t what you would call a gregarious, outgoing kind of cop. He’s gotten quite used to being a bachelor and it most ways it suits him.

Åsa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinsson is also a fairly introverted person. She has a few close friends such as her grandparents’ neighbour Sivving Fjallborg. And she certainly can get on with people when she needs to do so. In fact, in Until They Wrath be Past, it’s her ability to get people to open up to her that allows her to find out the real story behind the murders of seventeen-year-old Wilma Persson and her boyfriend Simon Kyrö. The two young people are murdered one day while they are diving in Lake Vittangijärvi to explore the ruins of a plane that went down there during World War II. When Persson’s body surfaces the following spring, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella and her team investigate the murders. With Martinsson’s help they trace the murders to long-ago events in the area and to the way World War II affected some of the families in the area. Despite Martinsson’s ability to function around people, she is a loner. She is not interested in a large crowd of friends or a big family. She treasures her time alone and sometimes seems more comfortable with animals than with people.

And then there’s Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee. He’s a member of the Navajo Tribal Police and also a member of the Navajo Nation. It’s not the custom of the Navajo people to live in large groups as people do in cities. So Chee is accustomed to spending time alone or with very few people. He’s certainly got the social skills he needs to work with others. He has some friends and throughout the course of the series that features him he has three important relationships, the last of which ends in marriage. But Chee is by nature an introvert who doesn’t spend a lot of time surrounded by friends. He is content with his own company.

There are a lot of other examples of sleuths and other protagonists who aren’t necessarily extroverts. There are just as many examples of fictional murderers who are (I’ve actually had to be careful about that in this post so as not to give away spoilers). So really, I think we need to scotch that rumour about “the quiet ones” or “the loners” giving all the trouble, OK? Thank you. 

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Men At Work’s Who Can it Be Now?.

Everybody Laughed And My In-Laws, Too*

If you’re married, or you ever have been married, then you know that in general, you don’t just marry a person. In a sense, you marry that person’s family, too. In-laws are an important part of a lot of married people’s lives. Sometimes they’re fabulous people. Sometimes… not so much. But either way, getting married often means one’s life gets intertwined at least to some extent with an entirely new group of people. That of course brings with it a whole new dynamic and set of relationships – just the thing to add a layer of interest and sometimes tension (or even suspense) to a crime fiction novel.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (AKA A Holiday For Murder and Murder For Christmas), Simeon Lee invites all of the members of his family to spend Christmas at the family home at Gorston Hall. Lee is an unpleasant tyrant, so no-one really wants to accept the invitation. But for different reasons everyone does. On Christmas Eve, Lee is brutally killed. Hercule Poirot is spending the holiday with a friend in the area, so he gets involved in the investigation. As the story evolves, we see how stressful the visit is for Lee’s children-in-law. For instance, Lee’s son Alfred still lives at Gorston Hall with his wife Lydia. Lydia dislikes and distrusts her father-in-law, and with good reason. He’s manipulative and disrespectful of her and her husband. That causes quite a lot of tension, especially since she does love her husband and has no real desire to leave him. The same is true of Lee’s son David and his wife Hilda. Hilda intensely dislikes her father-in-law, but she does love her husband and wants him to be able to put his unhappy childhood to rest. That undercurrent of tension among in-laws adds to the suspense (and the list of suspects) in this novel.

Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead is in part the story of the Matthews family. Gordon Matthews has recently been released from prison after serving time for the killing of his wife Anne. At the trial, Matthews, his family and his legal team portrayed Anne Randall Matthews as a drunken and promiscuous shrew who made her husband’s life miserable and who instigated the final argument in which she was killed. Anne Randall’s father Oliver though has always contended that Gordon Matthews is a cold-blooded murderer. Now that Matthews has been released, Randall is concerned that he’ll try to take the couple’s two children, who’ve been living with the Randalls. So Oliver Randall hires private investigator Michael West to find out the real truth about the killing of Anne Randall, to clear the memory of her name and prevent Gordon Matthews from gaining access to his children. West agrees and looks into the case. In the meantime though, Gordon Matthews has married again. His new wife is the former Carrie Foster, who married Matthews with no idea that he could be a deliberate murderer. When West discovers this, he knows he has to redouble his efforts to find out the truth about Gordon Matthews’ first wife before it’s too late for his second wife. Throughout the novel, Gordon Matthews’ mother Hannah will not believe any ill of her son. She is convinced that her two daughters-in-law are responsible for all of her son’s marital problems and won’t consider that he could be a murderer.

Ruth Rendell’s Neil Fairfax has his issues with his parents-in-law (later ex-parents-in-law) Reg and Dora Wexford. For several of the novels, he’s married to their daughter Sylvia and both of the Wexfords dote on their grandchildren. But Sylvia and Neil have their share of problems and Sylvia’s parents sometimes find themselves caught in the middle. On one hand, Wexford in particular finds it challenging to keep up with his headstrong, opinionated daughter, especially when it comes to women’s issues. On the other hand, he loves her and doesn’t want her to be unhappy. Besides, when she leaves Neil (which happens a few times in the course of the novels), her decision has the tendency to make his own home life all the more complicated. And although Wexford doesn’t entirely blame Neil for the younger couple’s problems, he also isn’t blind to Neil’s faults. It’s a complex and sometimes difficult relationship.

We see a less tense relationship, especially over time, between Caroline Graham’s DCI Tom Barnaby and his son-in-law Nicolas “Nico.” Barnaby’s daughter Cully is the apple of her father’s eye, so when she falls in love with Nico, who’s not yet made his name as an actor, both Barnabys have their doubts. But Cully Barnaby is not easily swayed. So she marries Nico and over time, Barnaby and his son-in-law establish a solid relationship, especially when Barnaby sees that Cully has found happiness. Besides, Barnaby knows his daughter very well. Here’s his thought about their wedding:

 

“His son-in-law Nicholas had shown just such a combination of emotions on his nuptial day. Pride, deep satisfaction, elation even. The look of a hunter-gatherer who has not only come across a species thought to be extinct but has brought back a specimen for all the world to wonder at. Yet the strain showed. The wonder of being chosen was clearly grazed over by anxiety, for would not every man be seeking such a rare prize? Poor Nico. He was still hanging on in there but Barnaby sometimes wondered for how much longer.”

 

And in A Ghost in the Machine, Cully and Nico prove helpful in Barnaby’s investigation of the murder of financial advisor Dennis Brinkley, who’s killed in an apparent tragic accident. Brinkley’s friend Benny Frayle is sure he was murdered though, so she takes the case to Barnaby. In the end, it turns out that Benny Frayle was right. One evening, Cully and Nico attend a séance featuring self-styled medium Ava Garrett. It’s strange enough that she gives specific details of Brinkley’s murder, but when she’s later killed, it’s clear that something very dangerous is going on in the village of Forbes Abbott. The experience that Cully and Nico have the séance give Barnaby helpful information about the two cases.

There’s a fascinating in-law relationship depicted in Donna Leon’s series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Brunetti is married to Paola Falier, who is a genuine “blueblood.” Her parents are Conte Orazio Falier and his wife Donatella. Interestingly, the class differences between Brunetti and his parents-in-law don’t cause an undue amount of strain on the relationship over the years although it takes Brunetti some time to get used to the Faliers. And in fact, the Faliers and Brunetti help each other more than once. For instance in The Girl of His Dreams, Donatella Falier proves very helpful as Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello look into the case of a so-called minister who may be stealing from his congregants. And in About Face, Orazio Falier relies on his son-in-law to help “vet” a proposed business associate Maurizio Cataldo. Falier doesn’t want to invest any money with Cataldo until he knows something about the man and Brunetti is willing to find out what he can. He finds a lot more than just “business ventures” though when it turns out that Cataldo and his wife Franca Marinello could be involved in a case of murder as well as allegations of illegal trucking activities that Brunetti is also investigating.

And then there’s the complicated relationships within Teresa Solana’s Martínez family. Eduard Martínez and his twin brother Josep “Pep” (who prefers to be called Borja) are Barcelona private investigators who undertake matters that require a lot of delicacy and discretion. Eduard is happily married to his wife Montse. That means that he also spends his share of time with Montse’s mother and her sister Lola. The family relationships get a little entangled in A Not So Perfect Crime when Montse and Lola plot to get Lola involved with Borja. What they don’t know (and Eduard won’t tell them) is that Borja is already involved with another woman Merche, who has a husband of her own. Borja doesn’t want family strife to get in the way of solving the brothers’ first murder case, the death of Lídia Font, wife of a locally powerful politician. So Borja begins a relationship with Lola which continues through the next novel A Shortcut to Paradise.

In Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Myrtle Clover series, we meet retired teacher Myrtle Clover, whose son Red is the police chief of Bradley, North Carolina. Red is married to Elaine Clover, who has a good relationship with her mother-in-law. She’s very busy – sometimes stressed – with her own life and concerns, but she’s never too busy to take her mother-in-law shopping, see that she’s well and so on. And sometimes, Elaine has to run interference, so to speak, between her husband and his mother. For instance, in Pretty is as Pretty Dies, Myrtle gets very annoyed at her son for “volunteering” her to join a local church group. As a way of retaliation, she drags out a whole group of ceramic gnomes and “decorates” her yard with them because she knows it will thoroughly annoy her son. Elaine’s not happy with the gnomes either, and doesn’t want be the subject of local gossip. So she persuades her husband to patch up his differences with his mother. For her part, Myrtle grumpily agrees to go to a meeting of the church group – only to find the body of local real estate developer Parke Stockard lying in the church. Against her son’s wishes, Myrtle decides to investigate, to show him she’s not quite ready to be “put out to pasture” yet.

Sometimes one’s fortunate enough to have wonderful in-laws who add richness to the family. Sometimes not. Either way, they can add an interesting layer to a story.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day).

Tradin’ My Time For the Pay I Get, Livin’ on Money That I Ain’t Made Yet*

Today would have been Charles Dickens’ 200^th birthday. An interesting factoid, but why bring it up on this crime-fictional blog? There are a few reasons. One is that Dickens arguably could be called a crime writer. Want more on this compelling point? You can check out an interesting post on the topic from Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. The other reason I mention Dickens here is that he was one of the first well-known authors to really explore the lives of people who weren’t rich, titled or “well-born.” Dickens showed readers the lives of those in the working and lower classes – even the slums. In a way, one could argue that it was Dickens’ work that in part made it acceptable for modern crime writers to write about the working class and those who struggle for a living.

We see some exploration of the working and lower classes in some of Agatha Christie’s novels. For instance, in Dead Man’s Folly, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt (akin to a scavenger hunt) for an upcoming fête at Nasse House, the property of Sir George and Lady Hattie Stubbs. Oliver accepts the commission and travels to Nasse House, but when she arrives, she begins to sense that something is wrong; there’s something more going on here than a simple fête. So she asks Hercule Poirot to join her at Nasse House and investigate. He agrees and goes under the pretext of giving out the prizes for the Murder Hunt. Oliver’s suspicions are justified when on the day of the fête, there’s a murder. Fourteen-year-old Marlene Tucker, who played the part of the “victim” in the Murder Hunt, is actually strangled. Poirot works with Inspector Bland to find out who would have wanted to kill a seemingly harmless girl from a working-class family. It turns out that Marlene had found out more than it was safe for her to know about someone at the fête and that’s why she was killed. In the process of investigating, Poirot gets to know the Tucker family and we get a look at a working-class home.

John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels often show us the lives of the “down-and-out” and the working class. McGee calls himself a “salvage consultant.” He earns a living by helping people recover what’s been taken from them. He keeps a percentage of the proceeds as his fee. In that capacity he meets more than one “down and out” character. For example, in The Deep Blue Goodbye he takes the case of Catherine Kerr, who has something very valuable stolen from her and exploited by a lover. In that novel we meet Kerr and her sister, both members of the working class who are just trying to get by. It’s worth noting that in this novel and several other Travis McGee novels, the lower- and working-class characters we meet are quite often drawn with quite a lot of pride and dignity. Poor they may be; groveling they are not.

Margaret Yorke also explores the lives of working-class and sometimes lower-class people. For instance, in Speak for the Dead, we follow the life of Carrie Foster, who’s been raised in a working-class home. She gets a job in a shop, but she has a taste for adventure and like a lot of people, she wants material things, too. So she takes up life as a call girl. Her “clients” tend to be educated members of the “better” classes, and she’s not doing badly. Then one day she meets Gordon Matthews, whom she doesn’t know has recently been released from prison for murdering his wife Anne Randall. The two get along and before too much time, they’ve married. At first, Carrie thinks she’s “made it,” as Gordon seems to be doing well for himself. Within a few years, though, she realises that Gordon isn’t the man she’d thought she married. Bored, restless, and tired of her husband’s inability to keep a job, Carrie returns to her old occupation without telling Gordon. As the novel evolves, we see how Gordon and Carrie have deceived each other and how this ends up leading to tragedy.

Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus, himself a member of the working class, often works with the “down and out” and lower- and working-class people as he solves his cases. In fact some them involve members of those classes. For instance, in Black and Blue, he investigates, among other cases, the murder of Allen Mitchison, an oilman who works for T-Bird Oil out of Aberdeen. Mitchison was left an orphan early in his life and grew up mostly in children’s homes and foster care. He saw a video about North Shore oil rig work and got interested, and that work led to his chance to earn a decent living. It also leads to his murder. As Rebus looks into Mitchison’s life to see why he would have been killed, we meet plenty of other people for whom it’s considered a “step up” to be able to afford a mortgage on a home.

Denise Mina’s Garnethill trilogy focuses on the lives of working- and lower-class people as well. Beginning with Garnethill, the novels follow the life of ticket-taker and later women’s shelter worker Maureen “Mauri” O’Donnell. In Garnethill, she wakes up one morning after a long night of drinking to find that her former lover Douglas Brody has been murdered in her apartment and his body left behind. She’s the most likely suspect, so detective Joe McEwan is convinced she’s guilty. To clear her name, O’Donnell begins to ask questions and investigate in her own way. With help from her brother Liam and some friends, O’Donnell finds out the truth about Brady’s murder. In Exile, she meets Ann Harris, a client at the women’s shelter where she now works. Unexpectedly, though, Harris disappears and turns up dead two weeks later in London. O’Donnell wants to find out what happened to Harris, why she left and of course, why she died. And in Resolution, she looks into the case of Ella McGee, who sells bootlegged music at a market stall. When McGee is beaten up, she asks O’Donnell, whom she knows from the market, to help her fill out a complaint form – against her own son. In all of these novels, the characters are painted in stark and unflinching, but strong and even dignified ways.

There are also many, many fictional sleuths who are members of the working class and lower class. For instance, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum has working-class roots. So does Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and so does Colin Dexter’s Sergeant Lewis.

The lives of lower- and working-class people are arguably portrayed in much more depth and given much more attention than they have been in the past. Murders in those communities are given attention – at least in crime fiction – that they arguably wouldn’t have been given without the groundbreaking work of Charles Dickens. And for that and much more, crime fiction fans and authors owe him a debt.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Vogues’ Five O’Clock World.

Like the Circles That You Find in the Windmills of Your Mind*

One of the most interesting things about crime fiction is the way it reflects our developing understanding and the way we think. You can even use crime fiction as a way to look at some of the new developments in our knowledge over time. That’s certainly true of our understanding of the human mind. Many people find the human mind and human psychology fascinating. And as we learn more about the way people think, what motivates them and how psychology works, we see that come through in crime fiction. That’s one reason that well-written psychological novels can be so compelling.

There are certainly what you could call psychological motives in early and early-classic crime fiction. For instance, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes investigates the murders of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson. Both men are Americans, staying at a rooming house during a trip to London. Drebber dies first and it’s assumed that Arthur Charpentier, whose mother owns the rooming house, is guilty. That’s because Drebber made unwelcome advances to Charpentier’s sister Alice. But then Stangerson is murdered, and it becomes clear that the two deaths are linked. Holmes and Watson investigate and discover that these murders have their roots in the men’s pasts. The motive here is revenge, which you could call a psychological motive. But it’s not a very deep exploration of the human mind.

By the time that Agatha Christie began writing in the early 1920’s, Sigmund Freud’s groundbreaking work in psychology had made human motivation and human thinking a worldwide topic of interest. You can see that interest in psychology coming through in several of Christie’s novels, too. For instance, in Three Act Tragedy (AKA Murder in Three Acts), Hercule Poirot is invited to a cocktail party at the home of famous actor Sir Charles Cartwright. Poirot is therefore present when one of the other guests, beloved clergyman Stephen Babbington, is poisoned. There seems no motive for the murder, and little progress is made on the case. Then, noted doctor Sir Bartholomew Strange is poisoned in the same way when he has a gathering at his Yorkshire home. It’s soon clear that the two deaths are linked, and Poirot begins to see how the murders might have been accomplished. Then there’s a third death. In the end, Poirot discovers how the deaths are linked, and although you could say that the primary motive is basic fear, this novel is also an interesting exploration of the psychology of the murderer. Once we understand how that murderer thinks, the murders fall into place, you might say. Several of Christie’s later novels also explore how human psychology motivates what we do.

We see a real movement towards the psychological crime novel in the mid-to-late 1950’s with the work of authors such as Patricia Highsmith and Jim Thompson. In Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, for instance, Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are fellow passengers on a cross-country train journey. They meet by chance and begin talking. Before long, the two confide in each other as fellow passengers sometimes do. Bruno, for instance, has an unpleasant, insufferable father. Haines is unhappily married. The conversation takes a sinister turn when Bruno suggests that the two men make a compact to commit murder for each other. Bruno offers to kill Haines’ wife if Haines kills Bruno’s father. Haines brushes Bruno off, convinced that Bruno wasn’t being serious. To his dismay, he soon discovers that Bruno was all too serious when Bruno kills his wife and demands that Haines “repay the favour.” In this novel, Highsmith explores Bruno’s unehealthy psychology as well as the more stable mind of Haines, who’s suddenly thrust into a situation he couldn’t have imagined earlier.

Jim Thompson explores the unstable human psyche in The Killer Inside Me. That’s the story of Central City, Texas’ deputy sheriff Lou Ford. Everyone sees Ford as a “good guy,” if a bit dull and plodding. Ford himself knows better. When local prostitute Joyce Lakeland is severely beaten, and that incident is followed by a murder, it becomes clear that Ford may not be the person everyone thought him to be. In fact, Ford himself refers to this as “the sickness.” That slowly-developing awareness of what’s really happening adds a layer of suspense to this novel and it shows very clearly the way our increasing understanding of human psychology found its way into crime fiction.

Psychological thrillers such as those by Margaret Millar, Margaret Yorke and Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell have delved even more deeply and with more understanding into human thinking and human psychology. Of course, these are very talented authors. But we can also see how our continually increasing knowledge of psychology has found its way into their novels. For example, Margaret Millar’s Mermaid takes a look at the psychology of guilt, exceptionality, fear and attachment, among other things. Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead explores the psychology of deception as a part of the story. And Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine has explored many, many aspects of human thinking, human psychology and human motivation. Although her Reg Wexford series certainly touches on these topics, it’s really her standalones that delve into these topics. There are also other fine authors, such as Val McDermid and Håkan Nesser, who explore psychological themes in their novels. In fact, in today’s crime fiction world, even authors in other sub-genres (e.g. police procedurals, cosies, etc.) explore psychology at least a bit in their novels. And as we get to understand psychology better, we see more accurate and sometimes very interesting depictions of human thinking.

As time goes by, we’re also understanding psychological and mental disorders better, too, and it’s interesting to see that reflected in crime fiction. There are several novels in which either the sleuth or one of the main characters has a mental disorder; I’ll just mention two recent ones. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone, who has autism. When Boone finds the body of his neighbour’s dog, he decides to be a detective just like Sherlock Holmes and find out who the culprit is. In this novel, we see a careful and thoughtful portrait of what autism is like; in fact, that’s one of the “pluses” of this story.

In Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind, we meet retired orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Jennifer White. White’s been diagnosed with dementia; as this novel is written from her point of view, we follow along in a harrowing way as her disorder progresses. When White’s neighbour is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, and it’s fascinating if very disturbing to see how the crime and the other events in White’s life are seen through her eyes.

Novels like these show what we’ve learned about psychology through the last hundred years, and how interesting psychology and human motivation remain. They really seem to hold a fascination for us. But what’s your view? Do you like crime fiction that focuses on psychology, or do you prefer more traditional whodunits?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s Windmills of Your Mind.

I Gotta Know How it Feels*

Most of us have the urge every once in a while to do something naughty. It’s often something minor such as eating food that’s not exactly part of a healthy diet (not that I’ve ever done that, mind ), or spending more than we should on something we really want. Very often there’s no harm in doing something a little naughty now and again and no great damage is done. Of course, as crime fiction shows us, that urge can take people down some frightening and truly dangerous paths. But we can also identify with characters who want to break out once in a while and do something that’s not exactly on the “straight and narrow” path. That layer can help make characters more real. In crime fiction, the urge to do something naughty can also be the basis for an absorbing plot line.

In Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (AKA Murder for Christmas and A Holiday for Murder), the members of the Lee family gather for Christmas at Gorsten Hall, the family home. They’ve come at the request of the family patriarch Simeon Lee. Lee is an unpleasant man who’s made the lives of his family members miserable, so the home has not been a happy one. However, he’s also quite wealthy and very much the head of the family. So no-one refuses the invitation. On Christmas Eve, Lee is murdered. Hercule Poirot is staying nearby and agrees to look into the killing. Gorsten Hall is now not only a house of mourning, but it’s the scene of a criminal investigation, so everyone observes what you might call the decencies. But in an interesting piece of character development, one person chafes against the sombre atmosphere. Lee’s grand-daughter Pilar Estravados never met her grandfather before this visit, so she feels no real sorrow at his death. And although she has her own secrets to hide, she doesn’t feel the sense of family shame at having the Lee name connected to a murder investigation. So she decides to be naughty. She persuades Stephen Farr, one of the house party, to put some records on the gramophone and dance. Admittedly it’s a minor scene, but it adds to Pilar’s character. We can identify with her feeling no need to be particularly mournful and sad even though she doesn’t want to be offensive.

That urge to be naughty also adds character depth to Martin Edwards’ Lake District series. DCI Hannah Scharlett is the leader of the Cold Case Review team, a special squad tasked with re-examining unsolved cases. Scarlett and her team are members of the Cumbria Constabulary. In an all-too-realistic and (I think) amusing sub-plot running through the series, the constabulary’s senior management has implemented the Healthy Eating Initiative. Few of the cops are happy about it, and Edwards does a very effective job of portraying that very natural urge to eat what tastes good, even if it isn’t good for one. For instance, in The Cipher Garden, Scarlett’s giving a morning briefing to her team. Instead of the traditional Big All Day Breakfast with all sorts of high/fat food, the caterer’s been requested to provide healthier options. That doesn’t stop Scarlett’s second-in-command Nick Lowther, though:

 

“He still preferred calorie-laden junk food that resembled an exhibit in a long-ago poisoning case.”

 

There are references to this initiative in other Lake District novels, too, including The Serpent Pool. In that novel, Scarlett and her friend and co-worker Fern Larter give in cheerfully to the urge to be naughty about their diets when they meet for breakfast to discuss cases they’re investigating. The food these cops choose isn’t a major part of the mysteries, but it does add an appealing depth to their characters. We know how they feel. Incidentally, some of the mysteries themselves also have to do with giving in to that urge in much darker and more dangerous ways. But I won’t spoil the stories; read them and you’ll see what I mean.

We also see that urge to “break out” and be naughty in Kerry Greenwood’s Earthly Delights. Corrina Chapman is a former accountant-turned-bakery-owner. She lives and works in Melbourne in a Roman-style building called Insula. Insula is also home to several other residents, some of whom also own businesses there. When some of those residents begin receiving threatening anonymous letters, Chapman begins to try to find out who’s writing them and why. At the same time, a number of local junkies have been dying lately of overdoses, and the police think those deaths are connected. Chapman has no interest in finding out who’s killing junkies but she’s persuaded to get involved by her new love interest Daniel Cohen, who works with a local soup kitchen. Together, the two trace the deaths to a local Goth club called Blood Lines. In order to find out what’s going on at the club, they’ve got to be invited in to the owner’s “inner sanctum.” So the two decide to dress as Goths. For Chapman, “going Goth” for the night gives her the chance to explore “being naughty.” At the same time as she’s anxious about it, her interest’s piqued, too. And the visit to Blood Lines also gives them a vital key to the mystery of what’s behind the deaths of the junkies.

We see a darker side of the urge to be naughty in Nicolas Freeling’s Double Barrel. In that novel, Inspector Van der Valk is sent from Amsterdam to the small village of Zwinderen in the northeast Dutch province of Drente. He’s been asked to quietly investigate a series of threatening anonymous letters that have apparently caused two suicides and one complete mental breakdown. The town of Zwinderen is insular and hostile to outsiders, especially bureaucrats, so Van der Valk is given a “cover;” he’s to pretend he’s doing a sociological study of the recent economic developments that have come to Zwinderen. He and his wife Arlette take a small home in the village and begin a glorified form of snooping. In the process of uncovering the truth about the letters and the person behind them, Van der Valk also uncovers a much darker truth. As we get to know the inhabitants of the village, we learn how some of them give in to the urge to “break out,” and it’s easy to see why. Zwinderen is the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else. Gossip is rife and everyone looks through other people’s windows to see what’s going on. It’s also a very conservative town, so certain kinds of dress and behaviour are simply not tolerated. As Van der Valk learns about the people who’ve gotten the vicious letters, he also learns that not all of them are guilty of the horrible immoral behaviour of which they’re accused.  Not that Van der Valk condones criminal or promiscuous behaviour, but he can also see how the oppressive atmosphere of the village could make anyone want to “break out” and do something a little forbidden.

The urge to be naughty turns dangerous for Carrie Foster and for Nicholas Fitzmaurice in Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead. Carrie’s not what you’d call a thrill-seeker, but she’s also not bound by convention. Shortly after her graduation from school, Carrie takes up work as a relatively upmarket call girl. One day, she’s in a café waiting for her current boyfriend when she meets Gordon Matthews, whom she pegs as a successful business executive. Carrie succumbs to the urge to “break out” and accepts Matthews’ invitation to dinner. What she doesn’t know is that Matthews has recently been released from prison for killing his first wife. Before long, they’re married. At first all goes well enough. But then Carrie becomes bored and restless. Domesticity does not appeal to her and once again she gives in to the urge to do what’s generally forbidden. Once a week, she sneaks off to London where she takes up her old profession again. One night on the bus ride back home, Carrie meets Nicholas, who’s taking courses in London. The two strike up a friendship and before long, Nicholas is in love with Carrie. She finds him appealing, too. One day, Nicholas invites Carrie over to the home he shares with his grandmother. While she’s there, they both give in to the urge to be naughty and begin an affair. Their relationship turns disastrous when Nicholas discovers that Carrie’s married. Things get even worse when he finds out what she’s been doing for a living, and in the end, both of them pay the price, you might say, for giving in.

Peter Robinson deals with this issue in more than one of his Alan Banks novels. In Gallows View, for instance, we meet Trevor Sharp, a troubled teenager who’s been having difficulty at school. Trevor gets mixed up with Mick Webster, a textbook example of a juvenile delinquent. Trevor’s father warns him against having anything to do with Webster, but for the two boys, the urge to “break out” is too strong to resist. Together they embark on a series of dangerous “adventures” that get them tangled up in tragedy. DI Alan Banks, who’s recently moved to the area, encounters the boys in the course of his investigation of a series of break-ins, a voyeur who’s been making the lives of local women miserable, and a murder. Banks and his team tie the events in the story together, and we can see what the terrible consequences of wanting to “break out” can be.

There are a lot of other crime fiction novels that feature this theme; more than I’ve space for in this one post. In fact, if the theme isn’t done well it can even seem cliché. But when it is done deftly, the urge to be naughty can add interest and depth and realism to characters. It can also make for a compelling plot.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.