Why Keep the Brakes On? Let’s Misbehave!*

What do you think of when you think of the 1920’s? Do you think of ‘flappers?’ Of Babe Ruth? Prohibition?  The growth of Hollywood? It was an action-packed decade, and so many things happened at that time that it’s no wonder it’s got such an appeal. There’s a certain mystique about art-deco and 1920’s style extravagance among other things. So it’s no wonder that the 1920’s is also a big part of crime fiction.

For one thing, many people argue that the Golden Age of crime fiction began to hit its stride in the 1920’s. And I’m sure that those of you who are Golden Age fans could list a large number of authors and books from that time – many more than I could. Let me just mention a few. Dorothy Sayers’ series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey debuted in 1923 with Whose Body?, in which Wimsey investigates the murder of an unknown man whose body is found in a bathtub. This plot thread ties in with embezzlement and another man who seems to have disappeared. In this novel, we see one of the hallmarks of the 1920’s – the class differences that still remained quite strong. Wimsey and his family are wealthy and privileged. They have access to all sorts of means that ‘ordinary’ people do not. And the theme of class differences is woven into more than one of Sayers’ novels.

We also see those stark class differences in historical series. For instance, Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series features Fisher, who was born to the working class but inherited a title and fortune. So she mixes and mingles in the highest social circles. And yet, we also see that not everyone has that sort of prosperity. In Cocaine Blues for instance, Fisher gets involved in cracking an illegal (and dangerous) abortion clinic for working-class girls and young women whose families don’t have the means to make it all quietly ‘go away’ safely.

The 1920’s were also a time of great waves of immigration, and not just to the United States. Travel was becoming easier and the Great War had uprooted millions of people. The resulting diversity was one of the major social changes of the era. But that immigration also resulted in quite a lot of ethnic and racial prejudice. We see that reflected in crime fiction of the era too. In Margery Allingham’s The Crime at Black Dudley for instance, a group of friends is gathered at Black Dudley, the home of academician Wyatt Petrie. During the course of this house party, Petrie’s uncle Gordon Crombie dies, and it looks very much as though his death is suspicious. One of the guests Albert Campion takes a hand in finding out the truth about the death and about a mysterious ritual that’s supposedly associated with the family living there. In the course of the novel, there are several ‘isms’ and offensive references to members of different groups. You’ll find those in lots of other crime fiction of that decade too.

For several reasons, the roles of women changed fundamentally during the 1920’s. Just as one example, between 1920 and 1929, voting rights were extended to include women in the Czech Republic, Sweden, the U.K., the U.S. and Belgium among other countries (Australia granted federal voting rights to women in 1902, but some states granted it earlier for state elections. Canadian women had full federal voting rights in 1918. Women had had full suffrage in New Zealand since 1893).  We see the changing status of women in a lot of crime fiction from and about that era. Certainly we see it in Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series. Fisher is single and in no hurry to marry. She’s independent, liberated and although she certainly depends on her circle of friends, I’d say the word ‘demure’ hardly describes her.

We see that also in the work of Agatha Christie. Several of her female characters are independent, strong women. There’s Anne Beddingfield from The Man in the Brown Suit; there’s Katherine Grey from The Mystery of the Blue Train; and there’s ‘Cinderella’ (giving away her real name would be giving away too much of the plot) from The Murder on the Links, just to name three. All of these women think for themselves. They’re not averse to falling in love, and they’re not ‘man haters.’ But all of them reflect the reality of that time that women were coming into their own, so to speak.

A lot of people associate the 1920’s with extravagant parties and hedonism and it was certainly there. We see a hint of that in Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness (AKA Poirot Loses a Client). Hercule Poiriot and Captain Hastings investigate the death of Miss Emily Arundell, who supposedly died of liver failure, but has a group of relations desperate for her fortune. One of them is Theresa Arundell, a young ‘jet-setter’ who goes with a ‘party crowd,’ drinks heavily and so on. She’s not painted unsympathetically, but she is reckless.

And reckless is I think a good way to describe some aspects of that era. I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know for sure why the 1920’s was such a time of reckless abandon for a lot of people but here’s my guess. World War I changed everything for everyone. The real threat of mortality (especially with the influenza pandemic that followed that war) made a lot of people decide to enjoy life while they could You see that in writing from the era (e.g. F. Scott Fitzgerald) and you see that theme of deep wounds from the Great War in some terrific historical mystery series too. May I suggest Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series, ‘Charles Todd’s’ Inspector Ian Rutledge series, and Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple series. You can also see it in Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In all of those novels and series, we get a sense of the privations of the war and the ‘flu pandemic. People wanted to forget it, to plunge into life and have fun while they could.

Of course there was plenty of violence during the 1920’s too. There was a lot of union unrest and the backlash from that. There was plenty of ugly, ugly racism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration and political corruption and that too led to a lot of violence. And there was organized crime. There’s a trace of that rise in organized crime in Patricia Wentworth’s Grey Mask, in which Charles Moray returns to England after some time away only to find that his home has been taken over by a criminal gang and that the woman who broke his heart may be mixed up with it. And then there’s Jeffrey Stone’s Play Him Again. In that historical mystery, Matt ‘Hud’ Hudson is a ‘rum-runner’ – a smuggler of then-illegal alcohol who supplies Hollywood’s luminaries with ‘liquid fuel’ for their parties. When a friend of his is murdered, Hud goes after those responsible, including a very nasty crime gang that’s moved into the area. That novel also explores what Prohibition was like in the U.S. (and makes it clear why the law enforcing Prohibition was never going to be really successful).

I could go on and on about the 1920’s (Jazz, anyone? The Harlem Renaissance? The fashions!) Moira at Clothes in Books has done some great posts on the clothes and fashions of the era. Here’s just one example. But this one post doesn’t give me nearly enough space to talk about it all. The 1920’s was too influential a decade for that. So now it’s your turn. Does that era appeal to you? Which books and series from and about that era do you like? Help me please to fill the gaps I left.

 

ps. The pearls on the left in the top ‘photo are part of a long double strand of pearls that belonged to my grandmother. On the right is a double-strand necklace that belonged to my grandmother-in-law. Both are genuine vintage…   The other ‘photo is of the terrific Essie Davis, who portrayed Phryne Fisher in the very well-done (in my opinion, anyway) Australian series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. These episodes are adaptations of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher novels and if you get the chance, I can recommend them. They aren’t of course 100% true to the novels, but very nicely done I think.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Cole Porter’s Let’s Misbehave.

I’m Not the Same As I Used to Be*

An interesting comment exchange has got me thinking about the way our reading tastes and the novels and series that appeal to us change over the years. In part of course our tastes change as we mature and develop. Our tastes also change as we read more and expose ourselves to different sub-genres and authors. Want to see how you’ve changed as a reader? Pick up a book you first read at least ten years ago. Do you still feel the same way about it? Are there any authors whose work you used to love but have now drifted away from reading? I’m not talking here about authors who’ve changed their style; we’ve all had the experience of reading a novel by an author who’s long since ceased to innovate or who’s changed her or his style. I’m really talking about an author whose work you feel differently about because you’ve changed. There may even be authors whose work you used to dislike but have come to really like.

Some people for instance started out by reading spy thrillers, and there’ve been a lot to love over the decades. For instance, Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File is the story of crime reporter Peter Miller, who happens to follow an ambulance to the scene of the death of Holocaust survivor Solomon Tauber, who’s committed suicide. Through Tauber’s diary entries and some of his own investigation Miller learns of an ultra-secret worldwide organization to re-establish the Nazis as a world power.

There’s also the work of John le Carré, like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. In that novel, jaded and wearied British spy Alec Leamas is the leader of British Intelligence in East Berlin. When several of his agents are killed on his watch, it’s obvious that Leamas isn’t doing his job very well any more. Then, his best agent Karl Riemeck is murdered. Leamas is called back to London where he’s persuaded to take on just one more assignment: the murder of Hans Dieter Mundt, who organised the killings of Leamas’ agents.

Spy thrillers like these and the work or authors such as Robert Ludlum are past-paced and “high-octane” so it’s no wonder that they’ve sparked many people’s interest in crime fiction. Were spy thrillers your first introduction to crime fiction? Do you still love them as much as you did? Did you move on to more modern thriller authors such as Daniel Silva? Do you branch out into psychological thrillers such as those by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine?

Other people (and I am one of them) started out with classic or Golden Age crime fiction. For instance, one of the first crime fiction novels I read was Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead. That’s the story of the murder of a seemingly inoffensive charwoman, allegedly by her lodger James Bentley. Superintendent Spence begins to believe that perhaps Bentley isn’t guilty, and asks Hercule Poirot to investigate. Poirot travels to the village of Broadhinny to look into the matter and finds that several of the villagers are keeping secrets and that Mrs. McGinty had found out more than it was safe for her to know about one of them.

If you started out with the classics, perhaps you began with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels or stories. The Adventure of the Red-Headed League, for instance is the story of pawnbroker Jabez Wilson, who gets hired for a job that seems too good to be true: he’ll be paid to copy the Encyclopaedia Britannica. When his “dream job” disappears, Wilson visits Holmes to ask his help in unravelling the mystery.

If you started with the classics or Golden Age novels, do you still love them as much as you did? Do you still read Rex Stout, Margery Allingham, Patricia Wentworth or Ellery Queen as much as ever? Do you also read more modern authors such as Colin Dexter, Peter Lovesey or P.D. James who keep some of the classic traditions?

Lots of people began their mystery reading with books in the British or U.S. tradition, whatever the sub-genre, and have discovered translated crime fiction. For example, when Maj Sjöwall and  Per Wahlöö’s Martin Beck series was first translated in the mid-1960’s, many English-speaking crime fiction fans who’d been reading authors like Patricia Highsmith, Dick Francis or Ed McBain had a whole new series of novels to enjoy. The first in the Martin Beck series, Roseanna, is the story of the discovery of the body of an unknown woman who was murdered during a holiday cruise. She turns out to be twenty-seven-year-old Roseanna McGraw, an American who was on a tour of Sweden when she was murdered. Martin Beck and his team may not have had today’s technology, but they doggedly pursue the case and in the end, they find out who the murderer is.

There have been many other translated authors since then of course, from all over the world. Have you moved from work only in your own language to translated work? Have your feelings about “homegrown” crime fiction changed as you’ve read novels originally written in other languages?

There are also readers who began by reading cosy mysteries. If you started out with cosies, perhaps you began with LIlian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who… series featuring newspaper columnist James “Qwill” Qwilleran. Much of that series takes place in Moose County, “400 miles north of nowhere” and follows the lives of Qwill, his two seal-point Siamese cats and the various “regulars” who live in the small town of Pickax. This was a very popular and enduring series actually; it lasted from 1966 until Braun’s death in 2011 (OK, there was an 18-year break between 1968 and 1986, but still!).

If your first mystery novels were cosies you might have begun with something like Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen mysteries. Swensen is a former aspiring teacher of literature who returns to her Lake Eden, Minnesota home town after the death of her father and opens a bake shop The Cookie Jar. Fans of this series have followed the lives of Swensen, her love interests Mike and Norman, and the other residents of Lake Eden for thirteen years as I write this. These mysteries have the small-town setting, the amateur sleuth, the theme and the recipes that have become features of several cosy series over the years, so it’s easy to see why cosy fans would have started here.

If you’ve stayed with cosies, are you a fan of other cosy series such as M.C. Beaton’s Hamisch Macbeth series or Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Memphis Barbecue series? Perhaps you’ve branched out to “cosies with an edge” such as Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series. Or maybe you’ve moved on to something completely different.

Sometimes it’s really interesting to look back at the way your crime fiction tastes have changed. If you’re a writer, it’s also interesting to think about theyou’re your changing tastes in crime fiction affect your writing. So thanks, Kathy D., for the food for thought.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Elton John’s My Elusive Drug.

Though I Campaigned All My Life Towards That Goal*

Today (or tomorrow, depending on when you read this) it’s Presidents’ Day in the U.S. Whether it’s the office of the president of the United States or that of another head of state, there’s a lot of power and privilege associated with high political office. So it’s not surprising that there is also a great deal of power-brokering, “wheeling and dealing” and more at the top of the political tree. All of that intrigue makes for juicy headlines; it’s also a very effective context for crime fiction. We can believe that people will do a lot to get and keep that kind of power.

For example, in Margaret Truman’s Murder at the White House, Ron Fairbanks is offered the job of Special Counsel to the President for President-elect Robert Webster. He’s reluctant at first, being somewhat of a free thinker. Besides, he doesn’t agree politically with the president. But he accepts the position. He’s just settling into his job when Secretary of State Lansford Blaine is shot one night at the White House. The security procedures alone make it very unlikely that anyone outside the White House could have committed the crime, and there’s a call for an investigation. President Webster knows that if he doesn’t authorise a complete investigation into Blaine’s activities, he’ll be accused of cronyism and cover-ups. So he taps Fairbanks to head an independent investigation team. Fairbanks is reluctant; he’s savvy enough to know he’ll be treading on a lot of highly placed toes, so to speak. But he has his marching orders. So he and his team start asking questions. The more they learn about Lansford Blaine, the more they see that more than one person had a very good reason to want to kill the victim. Blaine made political enemies including the president’s own Chief of Staff. Even President Webster himself is not above suspicion.

Margaret Truman was, of course the daughter of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, and so had an “inside look” at White House politics.  So did Elliott Roosevelt, the son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt wrote a mystery series that reflected his knowledge of the world of Washington politics. What’s interesting is that although many people claim that Roosevelt was the author of this series, there’s also evidence that it might have been ghost-written. Whoever actually wrote the series, it’s interesting in that Eleanor Roosevelt is the sleuth.

For instance, in Murder and the First Lady, White House staffer Philip Garber is found dead in the apartment of Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary Pamela Rush-Hodgebone. She’s the most likely suspect, as she and Garber were lovers, and Garber’s body was found in her apartment. What’s more, there is evidence that she and Garber might have worked together to pull off a jewel heist in England. But Mrs. Roosevelt doesn’t believe that Rush-Hodgebone is guilty. So she sets out to clear her secretary’s name and find the real killer. That’s not going to be easy, either, since Garber’s father is a powerful Congressman who doesn’t want Mrs. Roosevelt’s “help.”  And in Murder in the Lincoln Bedroom, Mrs. Roosevelt investigates the murder of Special Counsel to the President Paul Weyrich, whose body is found in the famous Lincoln Bedroom. The murder occurs during a top-secret conference between Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Dwight Eisenhower. If the press is going to be kept from knowing about this top-level meeting, they also can’t find out about the murder, so Mrs. Roosevelt starts to look into the matter. It turns out that Weyrich was part of a plot to assassinate Roosevelt. Now Mrs. Roosevelt has to find out who’s behind the plot if she’s to keep the conspirators from making new plans.

Of course, intrigue in high political places isn’t just confined to the U.S. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s short story The Kidnapped Prime Minister, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings get an unexpected late-night visit from the leader of the House of Commons and a member of the War Cabinet. It seems that Prime Minister David MacAdam has been kidnapped on his way to deliver a very important speech in Paris. World War II is on the horizon and MacAdam’s speech was intended to “rally the troops.” MacAdam’s political enemies don’t want him to make that speech; instead, they want to move England along an appeasement path. The speech is absolutely critical to the MacAdam government and to the nation, so Poirot and Hastings are given a day in which to find the Prime Minister, as his speech is scheduled for the following day. They look into the matter and in the end, they find out who is behind the kidnapping and where the Prime Minister is.

And then there’s Margery Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse. In that novel, Albert Campion wakes up in hospital, suffering from amnesia. He knows that he has an urgent task to accomplish, but he can’t remember what that task is. Bit by bit, he begins to recover his memory and with help from various people that he encounters, he starts to put the pieces together. He slowly becomes aware that there is a conspiracy to use counterfeit currency to bring down the British government and instal a new government in its place. Now Campion has to find out who’s behind the conspiracy and stop it before those involved are able to finish what they have started.

In Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, a far-right French terrorist group called Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) wants to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. There’s already been one failed attempt on de Gaulle’s life, and OAS knows that if they send one of their own on another mission, that person may be recognised and the plot foiled again. So they hire an outside assassin, a British assassin known only as The Jackal. The Jackal agrees to make the hit and begins to prepare. The French government finds out that a plot exists, but no-one knows who The Jackal is, nor does anyone know the details of the planned assassination. So French detective Claude Lebel is assigned to track down The Jackal and stop him before he carries out the assassination.

Sometimes, political intrigue can last even after a government is no longer in office. That’s what happens in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. In that novel, Australian Federal police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is persuaded to come back to work after taking some time off to recuperate from the last case he investigated. The case that lures him back is the double murder of Alec Dennet, late of Australia’s 1972-75 Gough Whitlam government, and Dennet’s editor Lorraine Starke. Dennet was working on his memoirs at a noted writers’ retreat when he and Starke were murdered. When Chen and his team find that the manuscript Dennet was working on has disappeared, it seems clear that there’s a lot to these murders. Some very powerful people have a lot to lose if Dennet publishes everything he knows about the Whitlam government. So Chen and his team have to look for some well-kept secrets to find out who killed Dennet and Starke and why.

There’s just something about life at the top of the political tree that can be intriguing. Little wonder there’s so much crime fiction that deals with the political crème de la crème.

 

ps. As you know if you’re kind enough to read this blog, I almost always use my own ‘photos for this blog and I do it with pride. This one, though, was too good for me to pass up. Thanks, Acclaim Images .
 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Neil Young’s The Campaigner.

In The Spotlight: Margery Allingham’s The Crime at Black Dudley

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Margery Allingham’s “gentleman detective” Albert Campion doesn’t get  nearly as much popular “press” as do his contemporaries Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey. But Allingham’s work was influential in shaping the genre, so it’s more than fitting to include one of her novels in this feature. Today, let’s turn the spotlight on The Crime at Black Dudley, the first of her Albert Campion novels.

As the novel begins, a house party has just gathered at Black Dudley, the remote old home of young academician Wyatt Petrie, who’s recently taken the property over from his uncle Gordon Coombe. The house has been in the family for hundreds of years, but currently, Petrie and Coombe are the only residents. Besides Albert Campion, this house-party consists of a group of friends of Petrie’s, including Dr. George Abbershaw. Also present are some business acquaintances of Coombe’s.  On the first night at dinner, we learn that Abbershaw has become infatuated with another guest Margaret “Meggie” Oliphant. In fact that’s his main reason for attending the party. He even has a vague sense of foreboding that the week-end won’t go well, but since Meggie Oliphant will be there, Abbershaw attends.

After dinner on that first night, the guests move into the drawing room, where their attention is soon caught by a dagger on display above the fireplace. Wyatt Petrie hints that there is a legend about the dagger and he’s persuaded to tell it. According to Petrie, the dagger would glow with red when it was touched by a person who had committed murder. Later, the family developed a sort of ritual with the dagger; the ritual involved turning the lights down and passing the dagger around in the dark, with the aim being to avoid being the last one caught with the dagger. As you might expect, the guests decide to play the game themselves and Petrie is persuaded. The lights are turned off and the game begins. Abbershaw tires of the game, though and eventually goes to bed. He is settling in for the night when he’s interrupted by a fellow guest. He gets the news that Colonel Coombe has died of heart failure and he is asked to sign off on the death certificate. It seems odd to him to rush matters so much but he agrees to go and look at the body. When he does, he gets his first suspicion that the death was not natural. Abbershaw begins to believe that Coombe might have actually been stabbed in the back with the Black Dudley Dagger.

Then the next morning comes another startling revelation. One of Coombe’s business acquaintances Benjamin Dawlish claims to be missing “something important” and demands its return. In fact, he and his two associates refuse to let anyone leave until their property is returned. Abbershaw has deduced that these “associates” are actually the members of a criminal gang with whom Coombe had been working. Now they’re holding the group hostage until their property (which turns out to be a set of papers) is returned. At first, Abbershaw concludes that one of the gang has murdered Coombe. But then he discovers that he’s wrong. Now Abbershaw will need to find out the truth and help the others outwit the gang if they’re going to escape.

For that, Abbershaw gets help from Campion who, as it turns out, was paid to pick up the papers from Coombe and deliver them elsewhere. On the surface, Campion seems vague and even a little idiotic; however as we find out, he’s easy to misjudge and in the end, he plays an important role in finding out the truth about the criminal gang, the papers and the murder.

One of the interesting things about this novel is that although it does introduce Campion, he isn’t the one who really solves the crime. In fact, Abbershaw puts the pieces together. However we get an interesting “first look” at Campion. On the surface, he’s foolish, perhaps even stupid, and certainly not very engaging company. But he’s got quite a few skills as we find throughout the novel. We don’t learn much about Campion, but it’s easy to see how Allingham thought he might be developed more.

Another important element is the atmosphere. This story is set in a remote older home, so the setting is eerie:

 

“In the centre of this desolation, standing in a thousand acres of its own land, was the mansion, Black Dudley; a great grey building, bare and ugly as a fortress. No creepers hid its nakedness, and the long narrow windows were dark-curtained and uninviting….
However bleak and forbidding was Black Dudley’s exterior, the rooms within were none the less magnificent. Even here there were the same signs of neglect that were so evident in the Park, but there was also a certain dusty majesty about the dark-panelled walls with the oil-paintings hanging in their fast-blackening frames, and in the heavy, dark oak furniture, elaborately carved and utterly devoid of polish, that was very impressive and pleasing.”

 

Those who enjoy “country house” mysteries will really enjoy this particular setting. There are secret passages and cupboards and all sorts of staircases.

The mystery itself is believable in the sense that when we find out who killed Coombe and why, the murderer, motive and method fit in. That said, though, there is a very important piece of information that isn’t given to the reader until nearly the end of the book although you could argue that there is a hint just a bit earlier. Those who like clues to the murderer to be placed throughout the novel will be disappointed in that aspect of this story.

In many ways, The Crime at Black Dudley is what you might almost call a “period piece” from 1929, when it was published. The speech patterns, manners, dress, customs and even cars of the era are reflected in the novel and bring that time period alive. However, also brought alive are the “-isms” of the day. There is more than one offensive reference to one or another ethnic/national group. To be fair, the character of Meggie Oliphant is depicted as intelligent and certainly neither clingy nor helpless. Still, there are several dated references to the female characters (who are nearly always called “the girls”), and they certainly don’t play strong, important roles in the novel.

The Crime at Black Dudley is a clear example of the Golden Age “country house” mystery where a group of people are drawn together by murder in a remote home. As such, and if one looks at it as a “period piece,” it’s an interesting piece of crime fiction. And those who like the “remote country house” atmosphere will truly enjoy the creepy Black Dudley setting. But what’s your view? Have you read The Crime at Black Dudley? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 

 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 20 February/Tuesday 21 February – The Darkening Field – William Ryan

Monday 27 February/Tuesday 28 February – A Trace of Smoke – Rebecca Cantrell

Monday 5 March/Tuesday 6 March – Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter  Høeg

Where the Biggest Attraction is Playing Dangerous Games*

In Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness (AKA Poirot Loses a Client), Hercule  Poirot and Captain Hastings are investigating the death of Miss Emily Arundell. In this murder mystery, there are plenty of suspects, as Miss Arundell had a large fortune to leave and several relations who are desperate for it. In the course of the investigation, Poirot doesn’t hesitate to eavesdrop on conversations, prevaricate and do other things that Hastings considers “not playing the game.” Poirot says,

 

“…and my reply is that murder is not a game.”

 

He’s right. Murder is a very terrible and serious event. And yet, it’s interesting how often people get together for “murder games” in crime fiction, only to have one of them not leave the party alive.

Christie herself shows how serious a business murder is in Dead Man’s Folly. In that novel, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt competition for an upcoming fête at Nasse House, the property of Sir George and Lady Hattie Stubbs. She travels there to create the clues, the synopsis, and so on. As she does so she begins to feel that there’s more to this competition than a simple entertainment for a fête. So she asks Hercule Poirot to join her there and investigate. He agrees and travels to Nasse House under the pretext of giving away the prizes. Oliver’s fears are realised when fourteen-year-old Marlene Tucker, who plays the part of the “victim” during the hunt, is actually killed. Poirot works with Inspector Bland to find out who among the house party was using the fête as a pretext to commit murder. It turns out that Marlene Tucker knew more than it was safe for her to know about one of the people at the party, and that person used the game as a “cover” to silence her.

We also see a sort of murder game go terribly wrong in Margery Allingham’s The Crime at Black Dudley. Dr. George Abbershaw is among several guests invited for a house party to Black Dudley, a remote old mansion owned by Wyatt Petrie, a successful young academic. Another guest is Albert Campion, who’s got a reason of his own for being at the house. One night, Petrie tells the guests of an old family ritual, the Black Dudley Ritual. According to that ritual, participants darken all the lights in the house, and then pass an old dagger around, the idea being to get rid of it as soon as possible. The guests want to follow the ritual as a game, and finally Petrie agrees. Abbershaw isn’t eager for the game, although he isn’t squeamish, but he acquiesces in the end. The lights are darkened, the dagger is taken down and the game begins. At one point, Meggie Oliphant, another guest and the object of Abbershaw’s affections, gets the dagger which she notices seems to be covered in blood. Then someone slips it out of her hand in the darkness. This suggests to Abbershaw that something is very wrong with this game, and his worst fears are confirmed when Colonel Coombe, Petrie’s uncle, dies. At first, Abbershaw believes that Coombe was murdered by a group of thieves who were there under the guise of being Commbe’s business associates. But it’s soon enough clear that someone else is the murderer. Now Abbershaw has to find out who the murderer is before the thieves actually do commit murder (which they will not hesitate to do) or the real murderer strikes again.

In Ngaio Marsh’s first Roderick Alleyn novel A Man Lay Dead, we meet Nigel Bathgate, who, together with his cousin Charles Rankin, is invited to a house party given by Sir Hubert Handesley. The main event of the party is to be a Murder Hunt. One guest will be tagged as “the murderer,” who will choose a “victim.” The rest of the guests are charged with finding out who the “murderer” is. The game goes terribly wrong when Rankin is stabbed to death. Alleyn is called in to investigate and he soon finds that there are plenty of suspects. For one, Rankin was openly flirting with Margery Wilde, one of the other guests, despite the presence of her husband Arthur. For another, he was also involved with another guest Rosamund Grant. And then there’s the Russian-made dagger used in the crime, which points to the butler Vassily Vassilyevitch, who disappears shortly after the crime. It turns out that Vassilyevitch was involved with a Russian secret society, and that Rankin may also have been involved in that group.  So there’s no lack of suspects or clues as Alleyn sifts through the evidence.

And then there’s Anthony Berkeley’s Panic Party (AKA Mr. Pidgeon’s Island). In that novel, eccentric Oxford don Guy Pidgeon has come into a large sum of money. He buys a yacht and a private island and organises a yacht party to which Roger Sherringham is invited, along with several other guests. The yacht party starts well enough, but then the yacht malfunctions and has to dock at the deserted island. The guests go ashore and they soon find out that they’ve been stranded. Pidgeon then informs everyone that one of them is a murderer, and that he can prove who it is. He proposes that as a distraction, the guests try to find out who the killer is. No-one wants to play this game, and later, Sherringham is stunned to discover that the whole sequence of events has been a hoax; Pidgeon wanted to conduct an experiment so see how everyone would co-operate and interact. The  “fun” Pidgeon’s organised soon goes horribly wrong when he himself is pushed from a cliff on the island. Sherringham now realises that Pidgeon was right; someone is a murderer.

In The Killing Club, co-written by Michael Malone, we meet a group of New Jersey teenagers who half-jokingly put together a Death Book in which they write the names of people they would like to see die, and how they’d like to see those people killed. It’s not meant to be taken seriously but then tragically, one of the members of the group commits suicide in exactly the way mentioned in the Death Book. That trauma breaks the group up and the members go their separate ways. Ten years later, one of the group’s former members, Jamie Ferrara, has become a police officer.  She and the rest of the Killing Club re-unite to attend another member’s funeral. Shortly afterwards there’s another death. Ferrara soon realises that these deaths were not co-incidences and that they’re all related to the Death Book, which didn’t turn out to be a game at all for someone.

Linda Suzane’s The Murder Game is another piece of evidence that murder is not a game. Mystery novelist Gwen Wilson is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt in honour of Lawrence Van Hise’s 70^th birthday. Wilson has a personal connection to the Van Hise family as her mother was once Van Hise’s housekeeper. After Van Hise accused Wilson’s mother of stealing a valuable statue, she committed suicide. Now, Wilson begins to have questions about what really happened to her mother. Then on the night of the birthday party and Murder Hunt, Van Hise is murdered. Wilson has a very good motive for the murder, and since she planned the game, she also had a very good opportunity. Now, she has to find out who the real killer is in order to clear her name.

Murder games like “murder parties” can go horribly wrong, as you can see. But in real life, they usually don’t end up in a real death. Find out for yourself; check out games like the ones designed by fellow blogger and writer Elspeth Antonelli. You’ll see, they’re terrific. Just….erm…be careful .

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Byrds’ Dangerous Games.