One Thing Leads to Another*

An interesting comment exchange with Moira at Clothes in Books has got me thinking about what happens when the police begin to investigate a murder too closely. Most murderers don’t want to be caught, so when they sense that the police might find out the truth about a killing, they try to cover up what they’ve done. Sometimes that results in even more murders. After all, if you kill a witness or a co-conspirator, that person can’t be helpful in an investigation. That’s part of the reason for which there are so many examples of crime fiction with more than one murder. One post doesn’t give me the space to mention all of the examples there are of an investigation leading to even more murder, but here are a few to show you what I mean. I hope you’ll fill in the gaps I’ve left…

Much of the action in Christianna Brand’s Green For Danger takes place in Heron’s Park Hospital, which has been designated as, among other things, a World War II military treatment facility. One day postman Joseph Higgins is rushed in with a broken femur. The injury itself isn’t life-threatening but it’s agreed that he should be treated as soon as possible. Tragically, Higgins dies during the operation and Inspector Cockrill is sent to handle the necessary paperwork. At first, the death seems like a terrible operating room accidental death. But Cockrill wants to make sure, and begins to ask questions. Then one night, one of the nurses Sister Marion Bates has too much to drink and says that she knows Higgins was murdered and she knows how it was done. Late that night she’s found murdered in the same operating room. Now Cockrill launches a full-scale investigation and narrows his search to the six people at the hospital who had the most to do with the two victims. Then there’s another death. The more Cockrill investigates, the more anxious the killer is to ‘cover up’ what happened. Cockrill gets to the truth in the end, but it’s an interesting question whether there would have been more than one death if there had never been any questions asked…

That’s also true in Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death). Some thefts and other odd occurrences have been going on at a student hostel managed by Mrs. Hubbard, sister of Hercule Poirot’s ever-efficient secretary Miss Lemon. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and visits the hostel one evening. While he’s there, Celia Austin admits to many of the thefts and the matter seems to have been cleared up. But then, two nights later, Celia dies, apparently a successful suicide. One important clue though shows that Celia was murdered, and Inspector Sharpe begins to investigate. He and Poirot carefully examine the lives of the people who live at the hostel and they find that several people have been hiding things. Then there’s another murder and later, another. Poirot and Sharpe find out who is behind the killings and they discover that in some way or other, all of the victims were killed because of what they might reveal once the questions started. This is a case where it’s easy to wonder what would have happened if the original incidents of missing things had simply been put down to one resident’s thievery and left at that.

In M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Cad, Colonel Haliburton-Smythe and his wife Mary are planning a house party in honour of promising playwright Henry Withering. Withering has just become engaged to the Halburton-Smythes’ daughter Priscilla, so the party is a chance to celebrate the engagement. One of the guests is Captain Peter Bartlett of the Highland Dragoons. He’s boorish, drinks far more than he should, and won’t let the female guests alone. What’s worse, he treats his female ‘friends’ horribly. One night, Bartlett makes a bet with fellow guest Jeremy Pomfret that he can shoot a brace of grouse before Pomfret does. When Pomfret wakes up the next morning to get started, he finds that Bartlett has already broken their arrangement by going hunting before their agreed-upon starting time. It’s not long before Bartlett is found dead, apparently the victim of a terrible shooting accident. DCI Blair arrives to begin the investigation and he is content to put the whole thing down to accident. But Constable Hamish Macbeth isn’t satisfied and begins to look at the crime scene more carefully. What he finds proves that Bartlett was murdered. The evidence points to Freddy Forbes-Grant, whose wife Vera was having an affair with Bartlett, and Forbes-Grant is arrested. But Macbeth thinks he’s innocent and keeps asking questions. Then, Vera Forbes-Grant is poisoned. Since her husband can’t be guilty of that murder, the case changes completely. In the end, Macbeth finds out who the murderer is, and it’s interesting to speculate what would have happened if Bartlett’s death had been left alone.

In Andrea Camilleri’s The Snack Thief, Inspector Salvo Montalbano and his team investigate two cases. One of them is the shooting of a Tunisian sailor who is killed when a Tunisian fishing boat opens fire on an Italian boat. That death touches off a delicate situation between Tunisia and Italy, but it’s believed to have been a ‘line of fire’ kind of death. Still, Montalbano isn’t so sure. At the same time he is investigating the stabbing death of retired executive Aurelio Lapècora, who is killed in the elevator of his apartment building. That murder has all of the hallmarks of a private murder, but Montalbano thinks it may be connected with the killing of the Tunisian sailor. It turns out that he is right; sadly though, as the investigation continues, two people who are key to the mystery are killed. Montalbano figures out who is responsible for what’s happened but it’s interesting to speculate about whether some of the victims would have been killed if he hadn’t pursued the larger investigation…

Nelson Brunanski’s Crooked Lake is the story of the murder of Harvey Kristoff, who is on the Board of Directors of the Crooked Lake Regional Park and Golf Course. The most likely suspect in this case is Nick Taylor, who’s just been fired as head greens keeper of the golf course. Kristoff has never liked Taylor and was instrumental in getting him fired. What’s more, it comes out that Nick’s wife Wilma was having an affair with Kristoff. So the RCMP investigators are sure they’ve got the right man. But Nick Taylor’s friend John ‘Bart’ Bartowski isn’t so sure. At Taylor’s request he starts to ask questions and it’s not long before he learns that there is more than one possibility for this murder. Then, assistant greens keeper Andy Meyer is also killed. It turns out that he was killed so that he wouldn’t reveal what he knew about the murder. One the one hand, he might have been killed anyway. On the other, it’s an interesting question whether he would have been murdered if the investigation into Kristoff’s death had gone as it was ‘supposed to’ go.

And that’s the thing about police investigations. Cops are supposed to catch murderers and I, for one, wouldn’t want to think about what the world would be like if they didn’t. On the other hand, sometimes an investigation brings with it even more murder. Thanks, Moira, for the inspiration!!

Now, please do yourself a favour and stop by Clothes in Books; it’s an excellent resource for and has really interesting discussion about what clothes and fashion show us about people’s personalities and about the societies in which they live.

 

 
 

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

In The Spotlight: Nelson Brunanski’s Crooked Lake

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Small-town mysteries allow authors the opportunity to explore characters’ relationships, histories and interactions in ways that aren’t always as easy in stories that are set in cities or larger towns. And small town settings can be at least as suspenseful as city settings. To see what I mean, let’s take a look at Nelson Brunanski’s small-town Saskatchewan series. Let’s turn the spotlight on Crooked Lake, the first in that series.

Nick Taylor is Head Greenskeeper at Saskatechewan’s Crooked Lake Regional Park and Golf Course. One morning he gets a notice from the Board of Directors of the golf course telling him that he’s being separated. Taylor is understandably furious, especially since he sees no glaring cause for being fired. He’s made his share of mistakes but he doesn’t feel they’re serious enough for this. Believing that he’s being ‘railroaded,’ Taylor blames Board member Harvey Kristoff, who’s never liked him and who’s been looking for a reason to fire him. That afternoon, Kristoff’s bludgeoned body is discovered next to the green on the seventh hole. The RCMP begin their investigation and it’s only a short time before they find out about Taylor’s termination and his anger at Kristoff.

One of the first people the police talk to is Taylor’s long-time friend John ‘Bart’ Bartowski, who with his wife Rosie owns Stuart Lake Lodge. Bart was one of the last people to see and speak to Taylor before the murder, so his insights into Taylor’s state of mind are important. He doesn’t want to believe his friend is guilty of murder, but there is solid evidence. For one thing, the golf club that served as the murder weapon turns out to belong to Taylor. What’s more, Taylor’s wife Wilma had an affair with Kristoff. There’s also of course the matter of Taylor’s firing. Still, Taylor is Bart’s close friend, so when Frank Hendrickson, Taylor’s lawyer, asks for Bart’s help, he’s only too happy to oblige.

It’s not long before Bart begins to really doubt his friend’s guilt so he starts asking questions. He soon finds that more than one person had a good reason to murder Kristoff. Crooked Lake being the small town that it is, it’s no time at all before the killer finds out that Bart’s being a little too curious. After a few frightening incidents, one of them life-threatening, Rosie begs her husband to leave the matter alone. The police haven’t been any too happy about his meddling anyway, and even Bart admits he should listen to his wife. But he feels a strong obligation to Taylor, in part because of their long friendship, in part because he doesn’t think Taylor’s guilty and in part because Taylor once saved his life. So he pushes on and in the end (and after another death) he’s able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

One of the most important elements in this novel is its setting and context. This story takes place in a small northern Saskatchewan town and everything about it is flavoured with that culture. Everyone knows everyone, people have long histories together going back to school days, and lots of things are done quite informally. Those relationships and the histories of the characters play important roles in the novel too, and the fact that everyone knows everyone adds to the suspense because it’s soon clear that there’s a murderer among them.

We also get a strong sense of the rhythm of life in this part of the province. Brunanski uses subtle but real details to give the reader a sense of the culture:

 

‘Most of us small town Saskatchewan folk eat the main meal of the day at noon, dinner we call it.’ 

 

This and other nuances show rather than tell the reader what the place and people are like.

The character of Bart Bartowski fits in with this setting and is another important element in the novel. Bart is intelligent and observant, but he’s a ‘regular guy.’ He knows everyone in town, he’s got the same larger concerns that other people have, and he certainly doesn’t set out to ‘play hero.’ He’s as scared as anyone might be when his life is endangered, and he’s extremely uncomfortable at feeling caught between his loyalty to his friend and his feeling that he is in, as the saying goes, way over his head.

Bart has a good relationship with his wife Rosie and although it’s tested in this novel, it’s refreshingly durable and strong. He’s a loving father of Annie, who’s at university and Stuart, who’s twelve. There’s a sub-plot in this novel that involves his family and, without giving away spoilers, I can say that it shows Bart is a caring family man.

Although this novel features an amateur sleuth, the police are not made out to be thick-headed or uncaring. They honestly believe they have the right man and they have good reason for that. Once they’re convinced that Bart is neither covering for Nick Taylor nor guilty himself, they’re as much concerned for his safety as for anything else. And their treatment of the crimes is authentic.

There’s a thread of humour in this novel too, although I wouldn’t exactly call it a ‘light’ novel:

 

‘Besides my comfortable old sofa, the loft houses the family computer. Now, call me a Luddite, but I don’t like it. And do you know why I don’t like it? Because the damn thing sucks up time like a Hoover sucks up dirt. Our twelve-year-old is a testament to that. Stuart can spend five hours straight on a Saturday playing games on the thing. His favourite is something called Hard Times, a 3-D murder fest as far as I can tell. Anyway, you can keep the modern gadgetry.’

 

As you can tell, the wit is a gently self-deprecatory but Bart is certainly not self-recriminating. And some of the scenes where he tries to get back into Rosie’s good graces when she’s miffed are funny. Or maybe that’s because I’ve been married a while too.

The mystery itself makes sense and so does the way in which Bart finds out the truth. The solution isn’t obvious, but it fits with the people involved. The reader can imagine a killer striking in the way and for the reason that this killer does.

Crooked Lake is a crime novel. It’s also an authentic look at life in that part of Saskatchewan. The story, the characters and the pace fit with the context, and especially so does Bart Barkowski. It’s not hard to wish him well as he searches for the truth. But what’s your view? Have you read Crooked Lake? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 

 
 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 10 June/Tuesday 11 June – The Lodger – Marie Belloc Lowndes

Monday 17 June/Tuesday 18 June – The Penguin Pool Murder – Stuart Palmer

Monday 24 June/Tuesday 25 June – Violent Exposure – Katherine Howell

Oh Lord, What Club Should I Choose?*

It’s the weekend and that’s when a lot of golfers who work during the week like to play their rounds. If you’ve golfed or watched it on television, you might think of it as rather non-violent. Well, at least where people are concerned. Violence against uncooperative golf clubs is another matter entirely. But really, golf courses can be dangerous places, and I don’t just mean in terms of getting caught in a sand trap. There are several crime fiction stories that feature golf courses and actually that makes sense. Golf courses can be remote, and even those that are closer to a town or city have some pretty secluded spots. So they’re effective places to leave bodies.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links, Hercule Poirot gets a letter from Paul Renauld, a Canadian émigré to France. In the letter, Renauld says that he’s in fear for his life, and he asks Poirot’s assistance. Poirot and Captain Hastings travel to Merlinville-sur-Mer, but by the time they get there it’s too late. Renauld has been stabbed and his body found on a new golf course next to the Renauld home Villa Geneviève. At first the police believe that Renauld was murdered because of his business dealings in South America. But Poirot soon discovers that Paul Renuald was hiding an important part of his past. It’s that secret that set in motion the chain of events that led to his death. There’s another Agatha Christie story in which golf clubs prove to be important, but no spoilers…

In Rex Stout’s Fer de Lance, Holland University president Paul Barstow is golfing one day when he suddenly dies, apparently from a stroke. But it’s soon proven that he was really poisoned. Meanwhile Nero Wolfe gets a visit from Maria Maffei, whose brother Carlo has mysteriously disappeared. Everyone thinks he’s gone back to Italy but she doesn’t believe it. When his body is discovered, Wolfe and Archie Goodwin know that something larger is going on. It turns out that Carlo Maffei was an expert metalworker who’d created a specially-made golf club. It also turns out that that golf club was the weapon used to poison Paul Barstow. But Maffei didn’t even know Barstow; he had no motive for murder. What’s more, it’s discovered that he didn’t even know that the golf club he’d made would be used as a murder weapon. When he found out that the golf club was used to kill he threatened to tell what he knew and was murdered to ensure that he wouldn’t. Now Wolfe and Goodwin work to find out who paid Maffei to make the golf club and later killed him and Barstow.

Elizabeth Daly’s Unexpected Night features the investigation into the death of Amberly Cowden, who’s come to Ford’s Beach, Maine with his mother Eleanor, his sister Alma and his tutor Hugh Sanderson. Amberly is set to inherit a very large fortune once he reaches the age of twenty-one; however, he’s in bad health and not expected to live long. Still, he is determined to make this trip to financially support his cousin Arthur Atwood, who’s got a small theatre group in the area. In the last hours before he actually turns twenty-one, Amberly and his family arrive at the Ocean House Resort and settle in. The next morning his body is found at the bottom of a nearby cliff and detective Mitchell is assigned to the case. The easiest explanation for the death is that Amberly succumbed to the heart disease that was already shortening his life. But if that’s so, what was he doing out by the cliff late at night? And, since he died just after inheriting a large fortune, in whose interest was it that he should die so conveniently? Rare book expert Henry Gamadge is also staying at the Ocean House, and has already struck up a friendship with the Barclays, who are cousins to the Cowdens. So he begins to ask questions too, and he and Mitchell, each in a different way, try to piece together what happened. Then there’s another death. Then, Alma Cowden is golfing one day when she’s nearly killed by a fast-moving golf ball (and yes, that can do a lot of damage). It looks as though someone is targeting the Cowden family and Gamadge and Mitchell have to work quickly to find out who’s behind the murders and the attempts (for there is another one) on Alma Cowden’s life before there’s yet another death.

Lest you think that golf-related mysteries are a thing of the past, there are quite recent ones as well. For instance, there’s Nelson Brunanski’s Crooked Lake. In that novel, we meet Nick Taylor, who’s Head Greenskeeper at Saskatechewan’s Crooked Lake Regional Park and Golf Course. One day, Taylor is abruptly fired from his job. He believes he’s been ‘railroaded’ and blames Board of Directors member Harvey Kristoff. Later that day, Kristoff is found dead next to the green on the seventh hole, bludgeoned by a golf club. The police begin investigating and one of the first people they speak to is John ‘Bart’ Bartowski, who with his wife Rosie owns a fly-fishing holiday lodge. Bart’s been a friend of Nick’s for years and what’s more, he spoke to him on the morning of the murder. There’s quite a lot of evidence against Nick – evidence that goes beyond his anger at being fired. But Bart doesn’t want to believe Nick’s guilty. Besides, he and Nick are practically life-long friends. So when Nick’s lawyer Frank Hendrickson asks for Bart’s insights, he’s only too happy to oblige. Soon, Bart begins to suspect that Nick was framed and starts asking his own questions. It turns out that there are more suspects than it seemed on the surface and when Bart becomes a target himself, it seems that he was right about Nick being framed. In the end, and after another death, Bart is able to figure out who killed Harvey Kristoff and why.

Michael Balkind has written two novels Dead Ball and Sudden Death that feature professional golfer Reid Clark. He works with his agent and friend Buck Green and private investigator Jay Scott. In Dead Ball for instance, Scott helps Clark and Green investigate the murder of Clark’s best friend Bob Thomas. The murder takes place on the grounds of AllSport, a large golfing complex he and Clark created in New York’s Catskill Mountains. AllSport’s purpose among other things is to introduce golf to inner-city young people, who might not otherwise have the chance to play. When Thomas’ body is found though, the facility is locked down until Clark, Scott and Green can discover who killed Bob Thomas.

There are other crime novels too that feature golf courses. So don’t try to convince me of the ‘gentle’ nature of the sport. Fore!! 
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Dave Gillon’s Double Bogey Blues, made popular by Mickey Jones.

Well, Life on the Farm is Kinda Laid Back*

Erm… Not always. I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I did grow up near some of the most fertile land in the U.S. so farms were a big part of the scenery. And if you stop to think about it, farming is a fairly important part of life whether you live anywhere near farm country or not. Besides the delicious fresh food, one of the best things about farms from my perspective (I have never claimed to have a psychologically well-adjusted view ) is that they make terrific settings for murder mysteries. They are filled with good hiding places for bodies, and farm communities tend to be smaller and more close-knit than some other communities, so there are all kinds of opportunities for murder motives. And then there’s the fact that some farms are isolated, so all sorts of things can happen there…

The farm belonging to Rowley Cloade figures in Agatha Christie’s Taken at the Flood (AKA There is a Tide). Cloade is trying to manage the farm in the financially straitened years during and immediately after World War II and he’s just getting by. He’s not as worried about money as some farmers are though because his wealthy uncle Gordon Cloade has always promised to take care of the family financially. Then, to everyone’s shock, Gordon Cloade marries a young widow Rosaleen Underhay. Before he can alter his will to protect his family, Cloade is tragically killed in a bomb blast. Now Rosaleen is set to inherit all of her husband’s considerable fortune, leaving his family with nothing. Then a stranger calling himself Enoch Arden comes to the area. He drops hints that Rosaleen’s first husband didn’t die as she’d always said but is alive. If that’s true then she can’t inherit. So the Cloades have every interest in finding out whether Arden’s story is true. When he is killed one night, Rowley Cloade and the rest of his family are caught up in both a family squabble and a murder investigation. Hercule Poirot has already heard the story of Cloade’s marriage and of Rosaleen’s first husband, so when two members of the Cloade family approach him to investigate, he’s interested in doing so.

In Ngaio Marsh’s Died in the Wool, New Zealand MP Flossie Rubrick finds out just how deadly farms can be. She goes to an isolated sheep pen on her husband’s farm to prepare an important speech, but doesn’t return. Three weeks later, her body turns up inside a bale of wool. Rubrick’s nephew writes to Inspector Roderick Alleyn asking him to investigate and since this could very well involve matters of national security Alleyn travels to New Zealand to look into the case. When he arrives, Alleyn gets to know the various members of the victim’s family and he finds out that more than one member had a good reason to want her dead. In the end, the murder turns out to be related to an important secret that Rubrick had discovered about one family member in particular.

Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers also shows how deadly farms can be. Johannes Lövgren and his wife Maria have a small farm not far from Ystad. One night they are brutally murdered. Ystad detective Kurt Wallander and his team are called in immediately. It’s too late to save Johannes, but Maria lives for a short time. She recovers consciousness just long enough to say the word foreign before she too dies. There is already simmering anti-immigration sentiment in the area and when the press learns what Maria Lövgren said just before she died, the situation gets even more inflamed and another murder is committed. Now Wallander has to deal with multiple murders as well as the threat of more violence. This case turns out to be simpler than it seems on the surface and one of the clues to the case turns out to be on the farm.

Linda Castillo’s series featuring police chief Kate Burkholder takes place in and around the Amish farming community of Painters Mill, Ohio. In Sworn to Silence, we learn that Burkholder was a member of the Amish community herself until she left it, for very good reasons, sixteen years earlier. Shortly after her return, the body of a young girl is found in a snowy field on a farm belonging to Isaak and Anna Stutz. Then another body is discovered. And another. These murders turn out to be connected to the reason that Burkholder left Painters Mill in the first place, so if she’s gong to catch the killer, Burkholder is also going to have to confront her own past. Besides the murder investigation, this series also gives readers a look at Amish farms and life in an Amish community.

Still interested in Amish farms? I don’t usually discuss films very much on this blog, but do see Peter Weir’s 1985 film Witness. It’s a suspenseful mystery and much of it takes place in the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In my opinion (so feel free to differ with me if you do), it’s an excellent portrayal of the Amish lifestyle as well as a solid mystery. Oh, and did I mention it features both Harrison Ford and Viggo Mortensen??

Oh, right. Farms.    Farmland turns out to be very important in Patricia Stoltey’s The Prairie Grass Murders. Former Vietnam veteran Willie Grisslejon pays a visit to the Illinois farming community where he grew up. He discovers the body of an unknown man in a field and tries to notify the local sheriff. That’s when he’s locked up as a vagrant and ordered to have a psychiatric evaluation. Willie calls his sister Sylvia Thorn, who at the time of this novel is a Florida judge, and she travels to Illinois to arrange for her brother’s release. When Willie insists on returning to the site where he found the body, they find that it has disappeared and there’ve been obvious attempts to cover up any trace of the dead man’s existence. Now Sylvia and Willie get involved in a mystery involving land disputes, corruption and greed – and a farm that seems to be the focus of a lot of what’s going on. Much of the novel takes place in the beautiful prairie farmland of Illinois.

In Martin Edwards’ The Hanging Wood, we meet Orla Payne, who works at St. Herbert’s, a residential library in the Lake District. Twenty years earlier, her brother Callum disappeared and was never found, but Orla has always believed he was murdered. She wants DCI Hannah Scarlett and her Cold Case Review team to investigate, but at first Scarlett doesn’t take her request seriously. And it’s hard to blame Scarlett for her reluctance. Orla Payne is unstable at the best of times and when she contacts Scarlett she’s been drinking so Scarlett doesn’t make it a priority. Then, Orla Payne’s body is discovered buried in a silo on Lane End Farm. There’s no way to tell at first whether she was murdered or committed suicide, so now, Scarlett and her team have a very new case to solve as well as the cold case of Callum Payne’s disappearance. With help from Oxford historian Daniel Kind, Scarlett discovers the truth about the farm, the history of the area and its families, and what really happened to Orla and Callum Payne.

Farming is a way of life for a lot of people and farms are an important part of the economy. They’re also really interesting settings for murder. I know I haven’t mentioned all of the great farm-related mysteries out there (for instance, I’m only getting acquainted with Nelson Brunanski’s Saskatchewan prairie/farmland novels, so I’m not really equipped to comment on them yet). Which ones have you enjoyed?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy.