Just Another Reason For Another Lie*

Where would the world of crime fiction be without the alibi? Alibis can range from the very specific forensic kind of detail (e.g. a person who was not physically tall enough to fire a gun from a specific angle) to the more nebulous (e.g. ‘I had no motive to kill him – hardly knew the guy’). Of course, not all modern crime fiction novels really feature alibis because they’re different sorts of crime novels. But a lot of crime fiction still puts an emphasis on sorting through alibis. I’m not a cop, but my guess is that checking alibis is probably one of the most time-consuming parts of any investigation. So it makes sense that they’d play a major role in crime fiction too.

Golden Age and classic detective fiction places quite a lot of emphasis on people’s alibis and very often, those alibis are what I’d call physical alibis. For instance, a person couldn’t have committed a crime because she or he was in a different place at the time of the murder. In Agatha Christie’s After the Funeral (AKA Funerals are Fatal), Hercule Poirot is persuaded to look into the death of wealthy entrepreneur Richard Abernethie. At first his death is put down to natural causes, but when his younger sister Cora Lansquenet says that he was murdered, everyone begins to wonder whether she was right. That seems even more likely when she herself is murdered the next day. The family lawyer Mr. Entwhistle does a little checking on his own to find out what everyone was doing on the day of Cora Lansquenet’s murder and in true Golden Age fashion, each suspect accounts for her or his time – and most of them aren’t telling the entire truth. In the end Poirot finds out the truth about both deaths and gets the various suspects to tell him what they were actually doing at the relevant times. Alibis feature in a lot of other Christie novels, too, of course.

One of the most interesting treatments of the alibi (at least in my opinion, so please feel free to differ with me if you do) is in Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train). In that novel, Guy Haines takes a cross-country train journey to visit his estranged wife Miriam. Also on the train is Charles Anthony Bruno, who has an insufferable father. The two fall into conversation, as fellow passengers sometimes do, and as the journey continues, each shares his unhappy personal life. Then Bruno suggests that each man should commit if you will the other man’s murder. That way, each man will have what Bruno thinks of as a watertight psychological alibi: no motive. Why would the police investigate a total stranger who has no motive?  At first Haines thinks that Bruno isn’t serious. But then, Bruno kills Miriam. He insists that Haines follow through with his side of the bargain and kill Bruno’s father. Haines refuses, but then Bruno makes it clear that he doesn’t have much choice. Haines finally reluctantly agrees and commits the murder. And that’s when the real trouble begins…  In this novel, we see how the concept of the alibi has broadened and evolved to include psychological alibis.

Modern novels still focus on alibis, both physical and psychological.  For instance, in Håkan Nesser’s The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case), Intendant Münster and his team investigate the stabbing death of Waldemar Leverkuhn. Leverkuhn is a seemingly inoffensive elderly man who went in with some friends on a lottery ticket. To everyone’s surprise, they win and go out to celebrate. By the time Leverkuhn’s wife Marie-Louise gets home a few hours later, he’s been brutally murdered in his bed. Once the crime is reported, the police start to investigate, beginning with Leverkuhn’s widow and with the other people who live in that apartment building. As the team talks to the various residents, we learn what each person’s alibi was. The team also talks to Leverkuhn’s children, who are grown and no longer live with their parents. They, too, give alibis that have to be checked. When it’s discovered that Leverkuhn and his friends won the lottery, those friends are also interviewed and their alibis checked. That process of getting and looking into alibis is an important part of this novel. As each alibi is discussed, we also get an increasingly clearer picture of the kind of person Leverkuhn was and that’s an important factor in the mystery too.

Amateur sleuths don’t have the force of law behind them, so it can be more of a challenge to find out what people’s alibis were. But even in those situations, alibis can play a very important role. For instance, Riley Adams (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) makes very effective use of alibis and alibi checking in her Memphis Barbecue series. In Hickory Smoked Homicide for instance, restaurant owner Lulu Taylor investigates the murder of Tristan Pembroke, an arrogant and malicious beauty pageant coach. Tristan is murdered during a large charity auction at her home, and because quite a few people attend the event, it’s not easy to tell who was exactly where when the murder was committed. Lulu wants to find the real killer because her daughter-in-law Sara is the prime suspect and she wants to clear Sara’s name. Lulu isn’t a cop, so she has to get people to give her their alibis in a less direct way. She uses a ‘chattier’ approach to find out where people say they were and it turns out to be effective. Bit by bit she finds out whose alibi is faked, and discovers who the killer is.

Lynda Wilcox’s Verity Long has to use her wits to learn and check alibis in Strictly Murder. She is the personal assistant to famous mystery novelist Kathleen Davenport; among other things her job is to find promising true crime stories so that Davenport can adapt them and use their essentials for her crime plots. In her personal life Long is looking for a new place, and as a potential home buyer she goes with a house agent one day to visit a candidate home. That’s when she discovers the body of television celebrity Jaynee Johnson. As the person who found the body, Long comes under her share of suspicion although she has no motive. So partly for that reason she decides to investigate. As the story evolves she has to talk to Johnson’s co-star, her producer, her agent and other people who might have wanted to kill Johnson. And from all of these people Long manages to get alibis. Slowly she puts the pieces of the puzzle together but not before the murderer finds out she’s investigating and targets her. In this novel, finding out where everyone was and how everyone really felt about the victim plays an important role in solving the mystery.

And that’s the thing about alibis. They can be faked or real, and they can be physical or psychological. They take all forms and the detective has to follow all of them up sometimes to find out who the killer is. But they have to be written with care. Plots that involve very complicated alibis can confuse or at least put off the reader. What about you? Do you pay a lot of attention to alibis when you read?  If you’re a crime writer, what’s your strategy for integrating everyone’s alibi?

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Eric Clapton’s No Alibis.

And the Rhythm of the Rails is All They Dream*

There’s something about trains that makes them really effective contexts for a crime fiction novel if you think about it. For one thing, all kinds of people are brought together on a train. That allows for a lot of possibilities for character development and interaction. Trains are one of those places where complete strangers – people who likely wouldn’t meet under other kinds of circumstances – end up sitting next to each other. Then too trains can be just a little claustrophobic and that can add to the tension in a story too. There’s also a certain kind of mystique about trains . Granted you might not think about the overcrowded and loud commuter train you may ride each day as having mystique, but trains have a fascinating history. They’ve been a critical part of travel, commerce and sociopolitical development for a long time so it’s natural that they play a role in crime fiction too.

One of the most famous train-related crime fiction novels is of course Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express AKA Murder in the Calais Coach. That novel is set aboard the world-famous Orient Express train that’s carrying wealthy American businessman Samuel Ratchett across Europe. On the second night of the journey Ratchett is stabbed. The only possible suspects are the other passengers in the same coach since it can be proven that no-one else on the train had access to Ratchett at the time of the murder. Hercule Poirot is on the same train en route to London and he agrees to investigate. As if the fact of murder weren’t enough, a snowstorm strands the train, making everyone even more nervous. Poirot discovers who committed the murder and as he investigates we get a real sense of what travelling by this train must have been like at the time the novel was written. I’ve read that Christie was inspired for this novel in part by a personal experience of being stranded briefly on a train (‘though not with a murderer on board). Oh, and there’s also Christie’s 4:50 From Paddington AKA What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, in which Jane Marple solves a murder that her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy witnesses while she’s riding on a train.

Another powerful train-related novel is Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. In this story Highsmith capitalises on the way in which trains bring together all sorts of disparate people. Guy Haines is on a cross-country train journey to visit his estranged wife Miriam. He’s hoping to convince her to give him a divorce. Charles Bruno is on the same train and he and Haines strike up a conversation. It’s not long before Haines feels comfortable enough to tell Bruno about his situation and in turn Bruno tells Haines that he himself has a bad relationship with his father. Bruno then makes a fantastic suggestion. He proposes that he and Haines each commit the other’s murder so to speak. His logic is that if Haines kills his father and he kills Haines’ wife, there will be no motive for the police to track down. So each will get away with murder. Haines agrees, thinking it’s all a joke. But Bruno is quite serious about it and murders Miriam. Then he begins to demand that Haines keep his end of the bargain. Now Haines is trapped into feeling obligated to commit a murder.

In Ruth Rendell’s Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, three women’s lives intersect as a result of the terrible 1999 train wreck near London’s Paddington Station. Both Zillah Leach and Minty Knox get the awful news that their partners have been killed in the crash. The third woman Fiona Harrington meets her fiancé Jeff as a result of the Paddington wreck. All three women discover that they were duped by the same good-looking con man when he too is ostensibly killed in the crash. One of the con man’s “marks” is not so ready to stand by and do nothing though and finds a way to take revenge.

Anne Holt’s 1222 brings together a varied group of passengers, all of whom are en route by train to Oslo. Then there’s a train crash in which only the conductor is killed. The passengers, including former police officer Hanne Wilhelmsen, are rescued and taken to a hotel to make other arrangements for getting to Oslo. Then there’s a murder. Wilhelmsen doesn’t want to get involved in the investigation; in fact, she’s not too keen on getting involved with people for any reason. But then there’s another death. And another. Wilhelmsen reluctantly puts her skills to use to find out who the killer is.

Max Kinnings’ Baptism tells the story of London Underground train driver George Wakeham. One morning Wakeham is caught in a nightmare when three hostage-takers break into his home and seize him and his family. Wakeham is ordered to go to his job as usual and follow all instructions that he is given by mobile ‘phone if he wants his family to survive. He gets to his duty station and into the driver’s cab of his train. Only then does he learn to his horror why he and his family were attacked. The hostage-takers plan to take his entire train captive. Terrified that he and his family will die, Wakeham follows the instructions he’s given and drives partway through a tunnel. That’s when the terrorists order him to stop the train. Hostage negotiator DCI Ed Mallory is called into action to communicate with the terrorists and somehow free not just the Wakeham family but also the more than 400 other passengers on the train. This novel, like others that feature trains, takes advantage of the claustrophia, the reality of being cooped up with strangers and the vulnerability to technology that train riders face to add to the suspense.

Trains are so much a part of a lot of people’s lives that we really don’t think about them very much, especially those of us who use them to commute. But as crime fiction shows us, trains can be quite dangerous. Have a pleasant journey.
 
 
 

NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Arlo Guthrie’s City of New Orleans.

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.

‘Cause I Don’t Love You and You Don’t Love Me*

Some interesting comment exchanges and a well-written review from Bernadette at Reactions to Reading (Do yourself a favour and follow that blog if you don’t already!) have all got me thinking about protagonists. Like real-life people, some protagonists are easy to like. Others are fascinating people but you might not want them as co-workers or want to get to know them very well. Others are not likeable at all. And of course, not everyone likes the same protagonists because people’s tastes vary. So the question is, do you have to admire the protagonist in order to be drawn into a novel? Or is it enough if you find the protagonist a realistic, well-drawn character even if not a likeable one?

The protagonist who helped spark this discussion is Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. It’s easy to see why one might not find Ripley an admirable character. He’s been described as completely amoral, and there’s a lot of truth to that. He’s been mixed up in fraud, forgery, murder and more and although he’s not without any feelings, he doesn’t have what many people think of as a conscience when it comes to what’s right or wrong. In Ripley Under Ground for instance, he and some business associates conspire to commit art forgery, fraud and more when practically unknown painter Philip Derwatt dies. One of Ripley’s associates forges new “Derwatt” paintings and the other two use their photographic and journalistic talents to promote the “new” works and increase the value of Derwatt’s art as well sell the forged work. The entire plot is Ripley’s idea, and when art enthusiast Thomas Murchison begins to suspect something is going on, Ripley is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the group’s arrangement from being uncovered. Some people find his character reprehensible or at the very least not admirable and that’s enough to put them off the novels that feature him. Others find him fascinating even if not likeable.

Another protagonist mentioned in this discussion (and also the subject of Bernadette’s terrific review) is Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong. Jade de Jong is a Johannesburg-based private investigator who’s definitely not everyone’s cuppa. She’s tough, sometimes violent, and sometimes crosses the line, as the saying goes, when she feels the ends justify the means. She can be selfish, or at least self-centred, too. For example, in Random Violence, she works with her father’s former police partner (and later, her lover) David Patel to solve a series of three apparently unrelated murders that turn out to be linked. What Patel doesn’t know (and what many readers feel she ought to have told him) is that de Jong has another agenda. Her father was murdered ten years earlier and his killer was never brought to justice. So de Jong plans to deal with her father’s murderer in her own way.  She isn’t exactly always a warm and pleasant person. But many readers find her fascinating and she certainly is both smart and resourceful. She’s also believable and well-drawn, especially considering the area of Johannesburg where she grew up, and the circumstances of her father’s death. We can imagine a person like her. But that doesn’t mean readers have to find her admirable.

That’s also true of James W. Fuerst’s Eugene “Huge” Smalls, whom we meet in Huge. Huge is a twelve-year-old boy who wants to be a detective like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Certainly the lives those detectives lead are more appealing to Huge than his own life. He’s smaller than average, which makes him a target for bullies. So does the fact that he has a lot of difficulty managing his anger. Huge gets his chance to be a detective one day when his grandmother offers to pay him to find out who defaced the sign at the senior living facility where she lives. Huge agrees and begins asking questions. On one hand, there’s a lot that’s not particularly admirable about Huge. He’s extremely self-absorbed, he blames everyone else for his problems and he’s contemptuous of a lot of people. In fact, his sister Eunice “Neecey” describes him as a “little Holden Caulfield,” and it’s easy to see why she makes that comparison. It’s also easy to see why Huge has trouble making friends and getting along. And yet, he is an interesting character. He’s also smart, loyal in his own way and determined. And he is a very realistic character. I’ve met plenty of people like him and I’ll bet you have, too.

The character of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan very much drives the series that features her. She’s a Baltimore private investigator who, as we learn in Baltimore Blues, begins her career when she loses her job as a newspaper journalist. Monaghan fans will tell you that she’s bright, funny, brave, honest and compassionate. But she’s by no means perfect. She can be impetuous, so that the reader can sometimes wonder, “How could you do something like that without thinking?!” She can also be stubborn, and not always in a positive way. And although she’s not deliberately heartless, she is sometimes tactless. And those qualities sometimes get her into very big trouble. She’s often at odds with herself too. I should note here that Lippman’s Baltimore setting is a highly effective aspect of this series. But that aside, it’s enough driven by Monaghan’s character that if you like Tess Monaghan, you’ll enjoy the series very much. If she doesn’t appeal to you, you probably won’t enjoy the series.

Even Agatha Christie, whom many acknowledge as one of the great crime writers, created characters that not everyone admires. For instance, even Christie is said to have got fed up with her creation Hercule Poirot. He is conceited, at times cryptic and sometimes downright condescending. And yet, he is an interesting character with an interesting past and of course, he’s a brilliant detective. Christie was better known for her plots than for rich character development but Poirot ‘s personality is strong enough that if it appeals to you, you’ll enjoy the novels that feature him. If you find Poirot off-putting, you won’t enjoy the plots as much.

Most of us are a mix of positive and negative traits. The same’s true of fictional protagonists. Not all of them are likeable to everyone. But does that mean you can’t enjoy novels that feature a protagonist you don’t admire? What do you think? Is it enough for you if a protagonist is believable and real? Or do you have to find her or him likeable? I’d really like your view on this because it’s one of the best kinds of questions – the kind without a simple answer.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Eric Clapton’s Promises.

In The Spotlight: Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley Under Ground

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Novels of psychological suspense have been written since the groundbreaking work of early psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and his colleagues. But it wasn’t until the 1940’s and 1950’s that this sub-genre began to hold its own. One of the best-known authors of psychological suspense novels is Patricia Highsmith, so let’s take a look at this sub-genre through one of her novel. Today let’s turn the spotlight on Ripley Under Ground.

As Ripley Under Ground begins, Tom Ripley, whom Highsmith readers will know from previous Ripley novels, has settled in the French village of Villeperce-sur-Seine with his wife Heloise Plisson. He’s doing reasonably well financially, chiefly for two reasons. First, Heloise comes from a very wealthy family. Second, Ripley and his friends Jeff Constant, Ed Banbury and Bernard Tufts manage a successful “business enterprise” of Ripley’s creation. They’ve convinced a Bond Street gallery called the Buckmaster Gallery to handle the work of painter Philip Derwatt, a relative unknown who died a few years earlier. Tufts, who is a painter himself, has started creating new “Derwatt” works. Constant, a photographer, publicises the work and Banbury, a journalist, writes up articles to keep Derwatt’s name in the public eye. The business is doing quite well and has actually grown to include a painting school among other things.

Then everything begins to fall apart. It all starts when American art enthusiast Thomas Murchison visits London for a Derwatt show at the Buckmaster. Murchison is particularly drawn to Derwatt’s work and is especially knowledgeable about it. He begins to ask some questions about the authenticity of the work when he notices subtle but real differences between the genuine Derwatts he’s seen and one of the Derwatts that are really Tufts’ work. When Ripley hears about this, he decides that the best plan is to disguise himself as Derwatt, go to London and identify the painting in question as his. Ripley’s partners agree and the plan is carried out. But even though Ripley’s Derwatt disguise is successful it’s not enough to convince Murshison absolutely, and Murchison decides he’ll go to the authorities about this case of possible fraud.

Ripley comes up with what he thinks will be a successful way to get rid of Murchison. In his own identity, he approaches Murchison as a fellow Derwatt enthusiast and invites the American to his home in France to see his Derwatts. Murchison agrees to go and during his stay, Ripley tries to persuade him not to take his concerns to the authorities. His campaign is not successful though and Ripley now knows he’ll have to take more extreme measures. He deals with “the Murchison problem” only to face an even bigger one.

Bernard Tufts has begun to crack mentally. He feels he cannot go on any longer as Derwatt since he’s failed to capture the real Derwatt’s spirit. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that his girlfriend Cynthia has ended their relationship. When Tufts finds out what Ripley’s done to protect the group from Murchison’s inquisitiveness, he finds himself drawn more or less against his will to help Ripley cover up what he’s done. This drives Tufts even more over the edge as he begins to blame Ripley for all his problems. Then, the police begin to make enquiries about Thomas Murchison. Now Ripley has to deal with that as well as the increasingly unhinged Bernard Tufts. In the end, Ripley finds a way to extricate himself and his friends.

This is a classic novel of psychological suspense, so the focus isn’t really on what you might call a mystery. We know from the beginning who does what, so to speak. The real interest in this novel comes from the buildup of psychological tension. For instance, Ripley has to keep a lot of what he does secret from his wife Heloise. During parts of the novel she’s away, but the tension only mounts when she’s at home or when they travel together. He has to find ways to tell his wife just enough but not too much. He’s also got to keep what’s happening secret from his housekeeper Mme. Annette. And then there’s Inspector Webster from London, who begins to poke around too much in the Murchison case. There’s real suspense as he and Ripley square off against each other. There’s also Ripley’s Derwatt disguise. There’s a lot of suspense as to whether he can be successful at imitating the late artist.

Another layer of suspense in this novel comes from Bernard Tufts’ gradual psychological breakdown. Bit by bit he becomes more and more unreliable and unhinged. He’s caught in a web, so to speak, because if he reveals what he knows, he also has to reveal his own part in the forgery/fraud scheme. He blames Ripley for the falling-apart of his world and it’s easy to see why. And yet, the reader still sees Tufts becoming more and more dangerous and so does Tom Ripley. There’s a real buildup of suspense as Ripley slowly realises that Tufts cannot be trusted and is a real threat to him physically as well as in terms of what he knows.

One of the other interesting elements of this novel is the character of Tom Ripley himself. Highsmith described him as amoral and it’s easy to see why, considering his actions in this novel. On one level, he is utterly self-protective and he does whatever he needs to do to keep his world safe, so to speak. For example, his concern for Tufts’ mental state isn’t compassion because Tufts is a friend who’s at the breaking point. Instead, it’s concern about what will happen to his, Ripley’s, comfortable world if Tufts cracks completely. That said though, Ripley isn’t an all-too-stereotypical psychotic serial killer who delights in murder and those who dislike gore need not worry. There really isn’t any gore in this novel. He doesn’t look forward eagerly to murder and he doesn’t take pride in killing. And he feels the anxiety that you’d expect as he faces off against the police while trying to keep as much as possible from his wife and housekeeper. He does what he feels he has to do in a very pragmatic way; he’d rather not kill, but he does when he needs to. He’d rather not keep secrets from his wife but he does when he needs to. So in that sense, he is an amoral person without what many of us would call a conscience. He’s a complex character and that adds to his interest.

Ripley Under Ground features suspense that comes not from a fast pace or a lot of action, but from character interactions and psychological confrontations. It also features a main character who’s complicated and interesting – the kind of character one can find both amoral and conscienceless and fascinating at the same time. But what’s your view? Have you read Ripley Under Ground? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 

 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 21 May/Tuesday 22 May – Never Apologise, Never Explain – James Craig

Monday 28 May/Tuesday 29 May – The Ice Princess – Camilla Läckberg

Monday 4 June/Tuesday 5 June – The Legal Limit – Martin Clark