When We’re Together, My Co-Star and Me*

A lot of crime novels feature one sleuth. Of course, if that one sleuth is at all believable, she or he gets information and sometimes help from other people, but really, there’s one main protagonist. Some authors though have chosen to develop two protagonists. I’m not talking here of pairings such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Rather, I’m talking of dual protagonists whose stories develop almost independently even though the characters are working on the same case or set of cases. It’s not easy to create that kind of partnership without confusing the reader or belabouring the story. But when it’s done well, a plot or series that involves two protagonists with separate but related stories can add a layer of depth and interest and can make for some interesting story arcs too.

Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe series is like that. There are several instances in the series where the two pursue different lines of investigation. In Recalled to Life for instance, Cissy Kohler has recently been released from prison after serving time for involvement in the 1963 murder of Pamela Westrop. At the time of her arrest, Ralph Mickledore was also arrested, tried and imprisoned for the murder. Now there are suggestions that Cissy Kohler was innocent and that Dalziel’s old mentor Wally Tallentire, who pursued the case, knew about it and hid that knowledge. Deputy Chief Constable Geoff Hiller is leading an investigation into those allegations, much to Dalziel’s anger. Dalziel doesn’t believe that Tallentire did anything wrong and he resents the questions about his mentor’s character. So he takes another look at the case, mostly to prove that his mentor was ‘clean.’ His new investigation takes him to the US to follow up with an important witness. Meanwhile, Pascoe stays behind and serves as a liaison between Hiller’s team and the CID. In that way, the two sleuths work more or less on the same case, but they do so separately, and we get their two different perspectives.

Martin Edwards’ Lake District series also features two separate protagonists. One is DCI Hannah Scarlett, who heads the Cumbria Constabulary’s Cold Case Review Team. The other is Oxford historian Daniel Kind. Although their two stories are related to the same cases, they often investigate different angles of the case in different ways. For instance, in The Serpent Pool, Scarlett and her team are re-investigating the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. They find that it’s connected to two more recent murders, so Scarlett’s angle on this case is the police business of finding out who the murderer is and how the three murders are connected. Meanwhile Kind is doing research into the life and work of Thomas De Quincy. He’s interested in De Quincey and has been invited to give a presentation at a festival to be held in honour of De Quincey. Although Kind doesn’t investigate the murders, not even unofficially, his research proves to be crucial to solving the case.

Margaret Coel’s Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley are also dual protagonists in the same series. They both work on the Arapaho people’s Wind River Reservation; Holden is a lawyer and a member of the Arapaho Nation. O’Malley is a Jesuit priest attached to the local St. Francis Mission. They know each other of course, and develop a deep friendship, but they don’t really work cases together in the way that, say, cop partners do. In The Eagle Catcher for instance, Arapaho tribal chair Harvey Castle is murdered at a powwow. His nephew Anthony is arrested for the crime, and with good reason. But O’Malley doesn’t think that he’s guilty. His angle on this case is to look into the history of the Arapaho people – a history that he knew Castle was compiling and that could provide a key to the murder. For Holden’s part, she agrees to defend Anthony Castle and starts putting together his case. She and O’Malley share information, but they have different perspectives and the story is told from their two different perspectives.

The same thing is true of Martha Grimes’ Richard Jurly/Melrose Plant series. They compare notes and are friends, but they often work separately. For instance, in The Anodyne Necklace, Inspector Jury is called to the village of Littlebourne when a human finger and later a body are discovered. Both turn out to belong to Cora Binns, a temporary secretary who’d come to Littlebourne for an interview. Jury puts the machinery of the law into motion and begins to interview the villagers as well as Cora’s family and neighbours. At the same time Melrose Plant goes to Littlebourne in the guise of wanting to buy some property there. He talks to several of the locals and learns that there was a robbery in the village about a year before Cora was killed. He and Jury also learn that another resident Katie O’Brien was attacked in a London underground station and is now in a coma. Although each man works on his own angle, Jury and Plant share what they learn and little by little, they find out that the murder of Cora Binns is related to the robbery and to the attack on Katie O’Brien.

And then there’s Elly Griffiths’ series featuring North Norfolk University archaeologist Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson. On the one hand, they share information; they’ve even had a romantic relationship. But they often go their separate ways when they’re investigating. For example, in The Janus Stone, Galloway is called in when a headless child’s skeleton is discovered beneath the ruins of the Sacred Heart Children’s Home when a new posh apartment building is put up on the same site. Galloway’s expertise is needed to determine how old the bones are. When it turns out that they are not ancient, the police begin to investigate. Nelson discovers that two children disappeared from the children’s home at about the time that the bones would have been buried. To find out the truth about the missing children and whether that case is related to the remains that have been found, Nelson interviews retired priest Father Hennessey, who was in charge of the children’s home at the time of the disappearances. Meanwhile Galloway is on a team that’s excavating Roman ruins in the area. Her team’s finds turn out to have an important connection to the case that Nelson’s investigating. They work together in that sense, but each of them pursues leads separately and the story is told from both of their perspectives.

Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs also includes two protagonists who work separately even though they co-operate and share information. In that novel, Chief Inspector William Wisting and his team investigate the bizarre appearance of a group of feet that wash up near the Norwegian town of Stavern.  The rest of the bodies can’t be found though, so there’s a lot of speculation about what has happened. There’s even talk that a particularly crazed serial killer may be responsible. Wisting and his team begin their search for answers with a look at missing person cases. They find that several of the people reported missing have either lived in or worked at the same old-age care home. That home and the long-time association among some of the residents prove to be important clues. In the meantime, Wisting’s daughter Line is also in Stavern. She’s a journalist working on a story about former prison inmates who’ve now been released. The point she wants to make is that prison does more harm than good. As she meets with her interviewees, she too finds out important information that turns out to be related to the case her father is working. The two stories are told separately and from both perspectives. And yet, they relate to the same case.

Other authors such as Deborah Crombie have done a similar thing. Katherine Howell’s got a particularly interesting approach to the dual-protagonist motif. Her series features Detective Ella Marconi of the New South Wales police. But her novels also feature other protagonists, usually paramedics and each novel focuses on a different one. It’s an innovative way to integrate other protagonists into a series.

What do you think? Do you find that having two separate protagonists with two different points of view confusing? Does it add to your enjoyment of a novel?  If you’re a writer, have you experimented with two protagonists?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Tears’ Co-Star.

The Name Game*

Authors, editors and publishers spend quite a bit of time choosing the right titles for books. And that makes sense. A good title can attract a reader’s interest and help make (and keep) a series distinctive. A ‘clunky’ title or a title that has little to do with the story can put readers off or make readers feel cheated.

So what does make for a good title? Everyone has different views about this, and the same sort of title that attracts some readers puts others off. I’m hardly an expert on title choice, but here are a few of my ideas about crime fiction titles and types of titles that work.

Traditional wisdom is that titles should be relatively short, and I can see why. Titles that are too long are cumbersome and annoying, and it’s much harder for people to remember them. There are even some very effective titles of only one word. For example, Deon Meyer’s Trackers is a highly effective title. The novel tells three stories, really. One is the story of professional bodyguard Martin Lemmer, who’s persuaded to help smuggle some rare rhinos across the border from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Another is the story of Millla Strachan, who fled an abusive husband and untenable home life and takes a new job as a journalist. The third is the story of Mat Joubert, recently retired from the police service, who’s now doing private investigation. He takes the case of Tanya Flint, whose husband Danie has disappeared. The three stories are tied together (no spoilers!), and all of them involve leaving traces, tracking those traces, and the ‘footprints’ we leave behind. The novel treats this theme on several levels and the title shows that in only one word.

Gene Kerrigan’s The Rage tells the story of Dublin DS Bob Tidey’s investigation into the murder of Emmet Sweetman. Sweetman was a successful but shady banker who’s shot in his home by two thugs. It’s also the story of Vincent Naylor, who’s recently been released from prison. Naylor, his brother Noel, and some of their friends plan a major heist – the robbery of a security company that transports money among banks and businesses. Figuring in both cases is Maura Cody, a former nun who is trying to live with her own past. As we learn what’s behind Sweetman’s murder, how the planned armed robbery plays out, and what Maura Cody is trying to live with, we see the common theme of rage. There’s rage against those who profited illegally from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years in Ireland. There’s rage against certain events that happen in the story. And there’s the rage that has come from the revelations about certain priests and nuns in the Catholic Church. The novel’s plot threads are tied together in a few ways, that theme being one of them, and it’s neatly captured in the title.

Titles can also be used effectively to tie a series together. For example, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels all include a colour in the title. There’s The Deep Blue Goodbye, The Lonely Silver Rain and those are just the first and last in the series. And Sue Grafton’s series featuring PI Kinsey Millhone are famously titled by letters of the alphabet. What’s more, each title also includes a crime-related word. I’m not sure what the title of W is For… will be, but according to her Facebook page, Grafton said (as of 22 February) that

 

‘W is for Whew!’

 

and that she has completed the ‘W’ novel. No word on publication date or actual title yet.

Many cosy series titles are linked too, so as to tie the novels together. For instance, Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) is the author of the Memphis Barbecue series, each novel of which has something related to barbecue in the title. There’s Delicious and Suspicious, Finger Lickin’ Dead, Hickory Smoked Homicide, and (coming soon), Rubbed Out. Not only do those titles link the novels, but they also are short, clever and easy to remember too.

One of the more inventive ways to title novels in a series has come from Martha Grimes, whose Richard Jury/Melrose Plant novels are each titled with the name of a pub. What’s even more effective is that the titles also have something to do with the story itself. For instance, The Anodyne Necklace concerns the murder of temporary secretary Cora Binns, the theft of several valuables, including a particular emerald necklace, and a vicious attack on sixteen-year-old Katie O’Brien. All of these incidents take place or are related to the same village, so it’s a little much for Jury and Plant to think they are unrelated. And they do turn out to be interwoven events. The title in this case gives readers an important clue to the plot and is consistent with Grimes’ other titles.

Titles can also be very effective if there’s something unusual about them – something that makes the reader curious. For example, Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing has a title that makes the reader wonder. And it’s got everything to do with the plot too. This novel concerns the case of Dr. Suresh Jha. One morning, Jha attends a meeting of the Rajpath Laughing Club, instructed by Professor Pandey. The principle behind the club is that laughing therapy provides exercise, healthy breathing and an opportunity to heal both body and soul. The members are involved in their regular laughing exercises when it seems that the goddess Kali appears and murders Jha. The event becomes a media circus and a rallying cry for those who believe that the gods and goddesses have been neglected. It comes out that Jha was the leader of the Delhi Institute for Rationalism and Education (DIRE), which is dedicated to the unmasking of fake gurus and spiritualists – ‘the godmen’ as Jha called them. Many people believe that Kali has attacked Jha in revenge for his diatribe against her worship. Delhi private investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri gets interested in this case since Jha was a client at one point. He starts to ask questions and follow up leads on what really happened. And as it turns out, this case is, in many ways, not what it seems. But as you can see, the title is not just an attention-getting title. It’s also a solid reflection of what happens in the story.

So, what got me thinking about titles? Another really fascinating title: Nigerians in Space, written by Deji Olukotun. It’s certainly an unusual title and reflects the theme of the novel. This one’s about a Nigerian government official named Bello, who contacts Nigerian scientists around the world. His proposal is that they return to Nigeria and pursue their science in their own country, so as to make Nigeria a technology/science powerhouse. He seems to be bona fide, and a few of his contacts take him up on his offer. But of course, this is a crime thriller, so things don’t go as planned…The plot lines in the novel follow the stories of three people who are affected by Bello’s offer and all are related both to that offer and in a larger way, to the concept of the moon. And no, it’s not science fiction. I’ll confess I’ve not (yet) read this novel. But the title did inspire me to think about this whole question of how we choose titles and what they mean.

What about you? Do you choose a book based on its title? Do you pay close attention to titles? Which titles have you thought were the best/cleverest? If you’re a writer, I’d be really interested in how you choose your titles.

 

ps. Many thanks to Mack at AfricaScreams for the review that led to the inspiration for this post. Folks, do check out this excellent blog. It’s a rich resource for crime fiction from Africa.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Shirley Ellis and Lincoln Chase.

Where do the Children Go?*

Of all of the topics that crime fiction treats, one of the most difficult is when harm comes to children. For most of us, there is an instinct that children must be protected and that makes sense. For one thing, that’s how our species keeps going. For another, children are among the most vulnerable among us and they can’t protect themselves the way adults can. That’s part of the reason I think for which many crime fiction fans don’t want to read novels in which children are the victims. I don’t blame them. We can keep a certain amount of emotional distance from a mystery novel in which the victim is an adult, especially if the violence described isn’t gratuitous or brutal. But it’s a different matter altogether when it’s a child. Because of that I think it takes a special skill for a crime writer to create a story that features the loss of a child.

Agatha Christie explores just that point in Murder on the Orient Express. Wealthy American businessman Samuel Ratchett is stabbed on the second night of a three-day trip across Europe on the famous Orient Express. Hercule Poirot is on the same train and is persuaded to investigate the murder. He soon discovers that this death is linked to the kidnapping/murder of three-year-old Daisy Armstrong a few years earlier. In this novel, Christie doesn’t go into lurid detail about the kidnapping and murder and the story is more effective for that. She shows very, very clearly though just how devastating the loss of a child can be.

We also see how devastating that kind of loss is in Johan Theorin’s Echoes From the Dead. Retired sea captain Gerlof Davidsson suffered a terrible tragedy twenty years ago when his grandson Jens disappeared. No trace of the boy was ever found – not even a body. Davidsson’s daughter Julia was so torn apart by her son’s disappearance that she left Øland hoping to pick up her life again. She hasn’t been successful but life has gone on for her and for her father. Then one day Davidsson receives an unusual package – a sandal belonging to Jens. This brings back the tragedy for both Davidsson and his daughter, but it also raises questions that need to be answered. So Julia reluctantly returns to Øland to help her father try to find out what really happened to Jens. Theorin doesn’t dwell in this novel on exactly what happened to the boy but the havoc his loss wrought on the family is woven through the novel.

Even fans of Martha Grimes’ Inspector Jury series find it difficult to read The Winds of Change. Not because it’s not well-written – it is. But this novel deals with the murder of an unknown five-year-old girl who’s found shot in the back. Jury and his friend Melrose Plant look into the case, each in his own way. They find that this murder may be connected to the discovery of the body of a dead woman on the property of wealthy Declan Hughes. It turns out that Hughes’ daughter Flora disappeared three years ago, leaving no trace. As Jury and Plant work to connect these tragedies, we see the effect of the loss of these children. In my opinion (so feel free to differ with me if you do) that fact makes this book especially sad to read.

In Gail Bowen’s The Wandering Souls Murders, Saskatchewan political scientist and academic Joanne Kilbourn gets drawn into a case of multiple murders when her daughter Mieka discovers the body of seventeen-year-old Bernice Morin in a garbage can. Bernice’s death is possibly related to a series of other murders and Kilbourn investigates them when her son Pete’s former girlfriend Christy Sinclair becomes a victim. Little by little, Kilbourn finds out the truth about the murders and how they are connected to Christy’s upbringing at remote Blue Heron Point. One element that adds a level of suspense and real sadness to this novel is that what’s happening near Blue Heron Point has to do with harm to children. Bowen doesn’t describe what happens in gratuitous detail. Instead, she shows just how awful harm to children really is through Kilbourn’s reactions. And this subtlety makes the novel that much more gripping and sad.

That theme of the dreadful effects of the loss of a child is handled very effectively in Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind. One afternoon, Minna and David Anderson and their four children attend a school picnic at Lake Wanaka. During the picnic four-year-old Gemma Anderson disappears. A massive search is undertaken, but no trace of her is found – not even a body. The family is shattered by what’s happened, and Gemma’s loss has several profound effects. But everyone keeps living as best as possible. Then, seventeen years later, Gemma’s older sister Stephanie makes the choice to find out what really happened to her sister. Stephanie is just beginning her career as a psychiatrist when she starts to work with a new patient Elizabeth Clark, who tells her a story that’s eerily similar to Stephanie’s own family story. Years ago Clark’s younger sister Gracie was abducted and, like Gemma Anderson, was never found. Stephanie decides to face her own ghosts and find out the truth about both girls’ disappearances. Throughout this novel, we see just how terrible it is to lose a child and Richardson shows us this in an umber of ways, none of which is gratuitous.

That’s also true in Wendy James’ The Mistake in which Jodie Evans Garrow has to face a haunting part of her past that she’s never told anyone, not even her family members. When she was nineteen, Jodie gave birth to a baby girl Ella Mary. When circumstances bring her to the same hospital years later, a nurse remembers her and asks about the baby. Jodie claims she gave the baby up for adoption but there are no adoption records to support that. On the other hand, no child’s body was found and there’s nothing to indicate that the baby was killed. So what happened to the baby? Is Jodie somehow responsible for the child’s disappearance? These questions begin to haunt Jodie as everyone begins to turn against her. People are so horrified at the thought that she might have killed her child that she becomes a pariah. Her family is torn apart and we can see as the novel moves on just how much of an impact Ella Mary’s loss has had on Jodie although she never spoke of what really happened to anyone. The impact of this novel is all that much stronger because Ella Mary was a child.

Arguably one of the most powerful depictions of the loss of a child (well, in my opinion anyway) is Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost. Ten-year-old Kate Meaney wants to be a detective. In fact, she’s already started her own detective agency Falcon Investigations. She spends quite a lot of time at the recently-opened Green Oaks Shopping Center looking for potential crime. But her grandmother Ivy believes she’d be better off going away to school. So she arranges for Kate to sit the entrance exams at the exclusive Redspoon school. Kate doesn’t want to go but her friend twenty-two-year-old Adrian Palmer persuades her to at least do the exams. In fact, he even goes with her on the bus to the school. Tragically, Kate never returns from Redspoon. A thorough search for her turns up nothing, but everyone thinks Palmer is responsible. His life is made so awful that he leaves town, planning never to return. Twenty years later his younger sister Lisa is an assistant manager at Your Music in Green Oaks. One night, she makes an unlikely friend Kurt, who’s a security guard at the mall. Kurt tells Lisa that lately he’s been seeing something odd on the security cameras: a young girl carrying a backpack. The girl looks a lot like Kate Meaney and that brings up very painful memories. But each in a different way, Lisa and Kurt work to find out the truth about the security cameras and the truth about what happened to Kate.  In this novel O’Flynn explores, among other things, the deep scars that are left when a child disappears, and how that loss affects even the most unlikely people.

It’s hard to write about the loss of a child. It was even hard to write this post because of that. So I can see why people don’t want to read about that topic. I give a lot of credit to authors who can handle it well.

 

In Memoriam

 

 

This post is dedicated to the memories of those who were lost in the 14 December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Many of those killed were children. There aren’t any words to describe the sadness and grief that their loss has left behind, so I won’t try. I truly wish their families the strength, peace and hope that they need to rebuild. I also wish for them the privacy they deserve at this time.

 

 

 

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

I’m In With the In Crowd*

Many people have a strong urge to belong – to be a part of the ‘in-group’ – especially if that group has a lot of status and power.  That desire to be in the ‘in-group’ is arguably part of the reason that some people become snobs, so that they only associate with ‘the right people’ and look down on others. Snobbery isn’t exactly the most attractive of traits, but it’s part of the human ‘package’ if you like to put it that way. And it’s sometimes an interesting reflection of deep-seated insecurity, and that can add some interesting layers to fictional characters.

Several of Agatha Christie’s novels include characters who are snobs. One of the more memorable is Marie Van Schuyler, whom we meet in Death on the Nile. Miss Van Schuyler is an extremely wealthy American ‘blueblood’ who takes a cruise of the Nile with her cousin Cornelia Robson and her private nurse Miss Bowers. Miss Van Schuyler is so obsessed with her social position that she refuses to speak to almost everyone else on board except her travel companions. Then one night another passenger Linnet Doyle is shot. Hercule Poirot is aboard the same cruise ship and he investigates the murder. Since Linnet Doyle was originally American Poirot asks Miss Van Schuyler whether she might have known her. Here is what she says about the very wealthy and beautiful victim:

 

‘As a family we have always prided ourselves on being exclusive…My dear mother would never have dreamed of calling upon any of the Hartz family [Linnet Doyle’s mother’s family] who, outside their wealth, were nobodies.’

 

This snobbery plays a role later in the novel too when Miss Van Schuyler discovers that another passenger is probably hiding a ‘blueblood’ identity.

There’s another interesting portrait of snobbery in Martha Grimes’ The Anodyne Necklace. When a dog discovers the bone of a human finger in the village of Littlebourne, Inspector Richard Jury has to change his holiday plans and travel there to investigate. Then avid bird-watcher Ernestine Craigie discovers the rest of the body in a nearby wood. The victim turns out to be Cora Binns, who worked for a London temporary services agency and who’d come to Littlebourne for a job interview. Jury’s friend Melrose Plant, who fans will know is a ‘blueblood’ himself by birth, goes to Littlebourne and takes part in the investigation under the pretense of looking for a new house. As he and Jury look into the case, we meet several of the locals, including the local squire Sir Miles Bodenheim and his family. He, his wife and his two children are heartily disliked; in fact mystery novelist Polly Praed likes to amuse herself by inventing all sorts of different deaths for each member of that family. Part of the reason for the Bodenheim family’s unpopularity is the way they look down on the other villagers. Sir Miles in particular is a snob and it’s interesting to see how he interacts with Melrose Plant, who has actually given up his title. In this novel snobbery isn’t the reason for Cora Binns’ murder, but it adds a layer of character development and an interesting thread of tension.

Snobbery plays a part in several of Rita Mae Brown’s novels featuring Mary Minor ‘Harry’ Haristeen. Harry lives in the tiny Virginia town of Crozet, where she is postmistress as the series begins.  Later she takes up farming full-time and also dabbles in wine-making. Harry is a Virginia ‘blueblood,’ one of the FFV (First Families of Virginia). She doesn’t have a lot of money but because of her status she often gets invited to ‘the best people’s’ homes. One of those people is the Queen of Crozet Marilyn ‘Big Mim’ Sanburne, another ‘blueblood’ who is very careful about whom she associates with and where she goes. Harry is a part of Big Mim’s social circle only because of her birth and it’s interesting to see how that snobbery plays out in the series. It’s also interesting to see the contrast between Big Mim’s view on social position and Harry’s. Harry is just as eligible if you will to be a snob, but she isn’t. Her circle of friends is quite eclectic.

Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher also has a very wide and varied circle of friends despite the fact that she’s a ‘blueblood.’ But snobbery does play a role in this series. In Cocaine Blues, for instance, the first in this series, Fisher is at an exclusive dinner party in London. During the evening, someone steals a valuable necklace from Madame St. Clair. Fisher discovers the thief, and when she first tells her father, he says,

 

‘What do you mean? Good family, goes back to the Conqueror.’

 

That snobbery almost, but not quite, protects the thief. When Fisher points out the culprit, she so impresses one guest that he asks her to take on a real challenge. His daughter Lydia has moved to Australia and he and his wife are concerned about her. They believe she may be in danger and they want Fisher to find out whether their fears are justified. Not having anything in particular to keep her in London, and wanting some adventure, Fisher travels back to her Melbourne home and begins to investigate. Her social position gains her entrée into the sort of circles in which Lydia moves and eventually, she finds out the truth about Lydia and along the way uncovers a very sleazy and dangerous criminal racket.

One of the funniest (at least in my opinion) portrayals of social snobbery is in Teresa Solana’s A Not so Perfect Crime. In that novel, Barcelona brothers Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez are hired by powerful politician Lluís Font to find out whether his wife Lídia is having an affair. What starts as a straightforward job turns out to be much more complicated when Lídia is murdered and her husband becomes the main suspect. He begs the Martínez brothers to continue working for him and find out who the real killer is and although they’ve never done a murder investigation, they agree. The novel is a murder mystery but it’s also a satirical portrait of the Barcelona rich and powerful. Here, for instance, is a bit of a description of a lunch date Lídia Font has shortly before she is murdered:

 

‘..when lunching with a lady friend, women from a certain social class first go shopping in order to appear in the restaurant laden with bags and, so much the better if they’re the exclusive designer variety. It’s a matter of quality rather than quantity. This way I’ve learned that a single Loewe or Vuitton bag beats any number from Bulevard Rosa or the Corte Inglés, that Armani and Chanel level peg, and that Zara is a no-no. That is Borja’s Bags’ Law. And it’s not the only unwritten code that reigns in particular zones of Barcelona’s upper reaches.’ 

 

Snobbery also plays a role in the way especially Borja interacts with clients. He gets expensive haircuts, has a wealthy and generous mistress, wears the best clothes and eats in the ‘right’ places. The brothers’ office has fake inner office doors and a non-existent secretary, so as to keep up this appearance of belonging in the ‘in group.’ Although this pretense is funny, it’s also a piercing look at the extent of snobbery.

Snobbery plays a very important role in Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig’s) Hickory-Smoked Homicide. In that novel, we are introduced to beauty pageant coach Tristan Pembroke. She’s wealthy, successful and extremely snobbish. So it’s no surprise that she’s made more than one enemy. One night Tristan is hosting an exclusive charity auction at her home. During the event she’s murdered. Local restaurant owner Lulu Taylor discovers the body and gets involved in the investigation when her daughter-in-law Sara is suspected of the murder.

It’s only natural to want to be a part of a group; most of us like that sense of belonging. Sometimes, though, that desire comes out as snobbishness. Not exactly an enviable human trait, but it can add some ‘spice’ to a crime novel.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy and Gene Page’s The In Crowd,  made popular by Dobie Gray.

Well, We All Have a Face That We Hide Away Forever*

The other day (and no, this is not going to be one of my made-up stories; this really happened), I got a rude shock. Someone I knew (‘though not very well) was arrested. This person isn’t a friend or family member and hadn’t committed a crime against me or anyone in my family. So in that sense I didn’t feel betrayal or devastation. But still, seeing someone I’d known being led away in handcuffs was unsettling. It shouldn’t have been, I suppose. The truth is anyone can commit a crime. In Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death) Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of Celia Austin. Just about everyone in the student hostel where she lives turns out to be a suspect and at one point in the novel Poirot is discussing the various motives with Inspector Sharpe, who’s officially investigating the case. Sharpe is astounded by the number of suspects and says,

 

‘‘For heaven’s sake, Poirot. You are making my head spin! Is nobody incapable of murder?’
‘I have often wondered,” said Hercule Poirot.’’
 

And yet, we are still sometimes badly shocked (yes, even crime fiction fans who you’d think wouldn’t be) when someone we’ve known turns out to be a criminal.  As someone said to me about the arrest I witnessed, ‘You think you know someone…’ We build mental images of people we know, and most of the time those images do not include ‘this person has committed a crime.’

Crime fiction authors make use of people’s habit of building mental pictures. In the ‘whodunit’ kind of mystery, one way in which the author challenges the reader is by making the criminal turn out to be someone it would be hard to picture as a criminal. Of course there is a risk to this sort of plot point. A killer who’s too far out of the realm of possibility can stretch the story’s credibility too far. But if it’s done well, a killer who ‘doesn’t seem like a criminal’ can give a story an interesting twist.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s After the Funeral (AKA Funerals Are Fatal), the Abernethie family gathers when patriarch Richard Abernethie suddenly dies. During that gathering Abernethie’s younger sister Cora Lansquenet says he was murdered. At first no-one believes her; Cora herself asks everyone to forget that she said anything. But privately everyone begins to wonder whether Cora might have been right. And when she herself is brutally murdered the next day, it seems clear that she was. Family attorney Mr. Entwhistle asks Hercule Poirot to look into the case and Poirot agrees. He finds that each of Abernethie’s relations could have had a motive for murdering him – and Cora. In the end, everyone (except Poirot of course) is shocked to find out who the killer really is. And part of the reason for that shock is that they couldn’t imagine that person being a criminal.

In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel, New York City homicide detective Elijah ‘Lije’ Baley gets a very difficult case. In the futuristic New York where he lives there are two main groups of people. The Earthmen are descendents of people who’ve always lived on Earth and built a world for themselves. The Spacers are also human, but they are descendents of those who explored space. The two groups have very different lives and perspectives, and relations between them are strained even at the best of times. Against this backdrop Baley is assigned to investigate the murder of noted Spacer Dr. Roj Nemennuh Sarton. Many Spacers suspect that an Earthman is responsible for the murder so Baley is asked to work with a Spacer partner R. Daneel Olivaw. The thing is that Olivaw is a positronic robot, and if there’s any group that Earthmen fear and hate more than they do Spacers it’s robots. So Baley and Olivaw have to break through several cultural and social barriers as they investigate. In the end, the killer turns out to be someone most people would not have guessed would commit murder.

That’s also true in Martha Grimes’ The Anodyne Necklace. In that novel, Inspector Richard Jury is called away from a planned holiday to investigate a murder. A finger bone has been discovered in the village of Littlebourne and when the rest of the body is also found, it’s clear that this was not a natural death. The victim turns out to be Cora Binns, who had worked for a London temporary services agency. She’d been on her way to an interview in Littlebourne but never made it. And this isn’t the only unsettling thing to happen in the village. One of the residents, sixteen-year-old Katie O’Brien, was brutally attacked in a London underground station. It turns out that these events are tied to a robbery a year or so before the events in the novel. And the person behind all of what happens is someone the village’s residents wouldn’t have guessed would be ‘the criminal type.’

Colin Dexter’s The Remorseful Day is the story of the murder of a nurse Yvonne Harrison. She had an unusual and complicated private life and a dysfunctional family. But when she is first killed the police can’t find any concrete evidence that implicates anyone. So the case goes ‘cold.’ Then two years later, the police receive an anonymous tip that Harry Repp, who’s just been released from prison on burglary charges, is guilty of Harrison’s murder. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are assigned to re-open the Harrison case and they begin asking questions. But Morse seems oddly reluctant to pursue the investigation. Then Lewis makes a discovery that suggests the shocking reason for Morse’s apparent apathy about the case. But this is after all Colin Dexter so things are not what they seem. When the real truth about Yvonne Harrison’s murder comes out, the killer turns out to be someone one wouldn’t have imagined as a criminal.

In Craig Johnson’s The Cold Dish, Sheriff Walt Longmire and his deputy Victoria ‘Vic’ Moretti investigate the murder of a local young man Cody Pritchard. Then a few days later, Pritchard’s friend Jacob Esper is murdered. Although there isn’t much evidence to go on, Longmire believes that he knows what’s behind these killings. A few years earlier, Pritchard, Esper and Esper’s brother George were convicted of gang-raping then-sixteen-year-old Melissa Little Bird. Longmire and his team suspect that one of Melissa’s friends or family members could be taking revenge.  But this case is not quite as clear-cut as it seems. In the end, the killer turns out to be someone a lot of people wouldn’t have suspected of the murders.

 

You think you know someone…

 

 
 

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