We Figured it Out!*

The other day I had an interesting comment exchange with Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery. Our exchange was about crime novels in which the reader can identify the killer before the author reveals who that person is. Sometimes that happens, but it doesn’t always mean that we stop enjoying the novel. There is, after all, more to a crime novel than just the whodunit aspect (not that that doesn’t matter of course). If you’ve ever really enjoyed a crime novel even though you spotted the ‘bad guy’ before the author revealed all, you know what I mean. Not all of us identify the murderer in the same novels, so I can only speak for the novels where it’s happened to me. But in those novels, there were other things that held my interest even though I’d worked out who the killer was, and that’s what kept me reading. Here are a few examples to show you what I mean.

Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air) is the story of the murder of Marie Morisot. a French moneylender who does business as Madame Giselle. One day while on a flight from Paris to London, Madame Giselle suddenly dies of what turns out to have been poison. The only possible suspects are the other passengers so Hercule Poirot, who was on the same flight, works with Chief Inspector Japp to find out which of the passengers is the killer. I don’t want to give away spoilers, so I won’t say what tipped me off to the killer, but I will say I figured out who it was before the answer was revealed. But a few things kept my interest throughout the novel. One was the motive, which I’ll admit I didn’t work out for myself; the motive is believable but it’s not obvious right away. Neither is the exact method of murder. This isn’t really an ‘impossible murder’ but it takes some figuring out, and I stayed along for the ride, so to speak, to find out how exactly the thing was accomplished.

In Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison, Lord Peter Wimsey attends the murder trial of mystery novelist Harriet Vane, who is accused of having poisoned her former lover Philip Boyes. There is evidence against her too. She had arsenic in her possession, the two had quarreled, and she was the last person known to give Boyes anything to eat or drink. So the prosecution thinks it has an ‘airtight’ case. But the jury can’t agree on a verdict, so she is given another trial. Wimsey has fallen in love with Vane, so he determines to clear her name during the month before her new trial. Little by little and with help from some friends and his valet Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey traces Boyes’ last days and weeks. In the end, he’s able to work out who really killed the victim and why. I admit I was able to identify the murderer before Wimsey did. But there’s more than just ‘whodunit’ in this novel. There’s the sub-plot of Wimsey’s interest in Harriet Vane, and her reaction to it. There are also some well-drawn characters in the story that keep readers (well, this one anyway) interested. For instance, there’s Katherine Climpson, who owns a temporary services agency. She and her employees prove to be very helpful to Wimsey; they’re quick-thinking, capable and interesting. There’s also a thread of humour throughout the novel. So at least for me, working out the killer’s identity didn’t stop me enjoying the novel.

Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man introduces us to Harry Steadman, an archaeologist who left his position at Leeds University when he inherited enough money to set him up for life. His passion is the Roman ruins in Yorkshire, so he and his wife Emma moved there to allow him to excavate them. One day, Steadman is found bludgeoned. DCI Alan Banks and his team begin the investigation with a close look at Steadman’s personal and professional lives. As they do so, they discover that there are several possible suspects, including people in Steadman’s professional circle as well as his friends. Then, sixteen-year-old Sally Lumb disappears and is later found dead. It turns out that Sally knew more than was safe for her to know about the murder of Harry Steadman, and when she put what she thought was the final piece of the puzzle together, she ended up paying with her life. I’ll confess I worked out who was behind the murders, but that didn’t stop me staying involved in that story. That’s in part because at first I didn’t know how the whole thing had been accomplished. I was really interested also in untangling the complicated set of relationships that we learn about in this novel. They all play a role in what happens, and they kept me wanting to know more.

And then there’s H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote’s First Case. In that novel, Ganesh Ghote has just been promoted from Assistant Inspector to Inspector in the Bombay (now Mumbai) police force. No sooner does he receive word of his new status than he is summoned to the office of Sir Rustom Engineer, who heads the Bombay police’s Crime Branch. Engineer wants Ghote to travel to Mahableshwar to follow up on a request from an old friend Robert Dawkins. Dawkins’ wife Iris recently committed suicide and Dawkins wants to know what led up to it. Ghote’s wife Protima is about to give birth to their first child, but he doesn’t see how he can refuse this request, so he reluctantly makes the trip. When he gets to Mahableshwar, he makes contact with Dawkins and his household staff, as well as with some of the people in Iris’ past. Soon enough Ghote begins to believe that Iris Dawkins was murdered. Although the local police are unwilling to upset someone with as much power as Dawkins has, Ghote persists and in the end, he finds out that he was right about Iris’ death. Part of the appeal in this story comes from the well-crafted setting, so even though I worked out who the killer was, I stayed engaged on that score. What’s more, although I had guessed who committed the crime, I wasn’t sure how that person managed to create an alibi. So I followed along eagerly as Ghote solved that part of the puzzle.

Donna Leon’s Through a Glass, Darkly takes Commissario Guido Brunetti and Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello into Venice’s glass-blowing industry. Giorgio Tassini is night watchman at Giovanni de Cal’s glass-blowing factory; late one night he is killed in what looks like a terrible accident. But Tassini had been quite vocal in his belief that that factory and others are guilty of illegal toxic waste dumping. In fact, he blames that waste for his own daughter’s disabilities. So Brunetti and Vianello have to consider the possibility that he was murdered. They begin their investigation with Tassini’s colleagues and bosses and soon find that more than one person could have had a motive for murder. I did work out who the killer was but the suspects in this case have alibis, and it was hard to break the killer’s. I didn’t feel too badly about that though, as Brunetti doesn’t break it either at first. And even if I had worked that one out, Leon’s depiction of Venice, and her portrayal of Brunetti’s family life are ‘draws’ for me. So are the ‘regular’ characters such as Signorina Elettra Zorzi, assistant to Brunetti’s boss, and one of the very interesting characters in this series. I had no trouble remaining engaged in this one even though I had guessed the ‘whodunit’ part.

Of course, your reading experience will be different to mine. Have you worked out whodunit before the author told you? Does that put you off a story? I’d be really interested in your input on this one. If you’re a writer, what do you add to your stories to keep readers turning/clicking pages even if they do figure out whodunit?

Thanks, Tracy, for the inspiration. Folks, I encourage you to add Bitter Tea and Mystery to your blog roll. It’s an excellent source of thoughtful and informed crime fiction reviews.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Richard Adler & Jerry Ross’ Seven-And-A-Half-Cents.

Now I’m Going Outside to Have an Ice Cold Beer in the Shade*

The weekend is upon us, and a lot of people like to take some time during the weekend to sit back and relax with a beer. Some beers are meant to warm you up while you’re sitting by the fire during the winter, and others are meant to cool you down on a blistering hot summer afternoon. Either way, beer has been a part of human culture for thousands of years.  Beer is an integral part of ‘pub life,’ sport, and just spending time relaxing, whether in front of the TV or with family or friends. With beer being that much woven into so many people’s lives, it’s only natural that it’d be a part of crime fiction too.

In fact, beer plays a critical role in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (AKA Murder in Retrospect). Poirot is hired by Carla Lemarchant to investigate the sixteen-year-old murder of her father Amyas Crale, who was a famous painter. His wife Caroline was convicted of the crime and died in prison, but Carla is convinced her mother was innocent. Poirot agrees to take the case and begins to put together what actually happened on the day Crale was murdered. Police reports show that he was poisoned by coniine which was put into his beer, so one of the questions Poirot has to answer is: who would have had access to the poison and the beer, and who (besides his wife) had the motive for murder. To find those answers, Poirot interviews all five of the people who were there on the day of the murder. He also has each of them write out a personal account of what happened that day and in the days leading up to the murder. From that information he’s able to deduce who the killer is and what the motive really was.

Having a beer (or a few) together often sets up the atmosphere for the sharing of information and that’s important for a sleuth too. There’s an example of it in Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man. Archaeologist Harry Steadman has come into an inheritance, so he’s left his position at Leeds University and moved with his wife Emma to Helmthorpe to excavate the Roman ruins in the area. He’s almost finished getting the necessary permissions when he’s found bludgeoned to death. DI Alan Banks and his team begin the investigation, starting of course with Steadman’s family and friends. Steadman was in the area longer than Banks has been, so he’s going to need some background on the family, their interactions and so on. For that he turns to a local, Sergeant Weaver, who knows everyone. There’s an interesting scene in this novel that takes place in The Bridge, which was Steadman’s local. In that scene, over a couple of beers, Weaver tells Banks what was locally known about the Steadmans, who Steadman’s usual drinking partners were, and other useful pieces of ‘off the record’ information that turn out to be very helpful in solving the case.

Fans of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse will know that he is quite fond of his pint. For him, beer often serves as a ‘liquid lunch,’ and he does his best thinking (or so he believes) when he’s got a beer in front of him. There are a lot of examples in the Morse novels; I’ll just mention one. In The Way Through the Woods, Morse and Lewis have taken over the investigation of a ‘cold case,’ the disappearance of Swedish tourist Karin Eriksson, who was on her way to Wales when she went missing in Wytham Woods. Her rucksack has been found but she hasn’t. One person who may know more than he has said is David Michaels, head forester at Wytham. So Morse and Lewis take a special interest in him and at one point they find him having a beer at the White Hart:

 

‘’Am I a suspect?’ asked Michaels with a wan smile…
‘Yes,’ said Morse simply, draining his beer. ‘Another?’
‘Why not? I’d better make the most of things.’’

 

Of course, as Morse fans also know, the case isn’t quite that simple…

Peter Temple’s Jack Irish enjoys his beer, too. At the beginning of Black Tide for instance, he’s just returned to Melbourne after being gone for two weeks on a difficult case. He’s eager for a beer and some relaxation:

 

‘No phone call to my sister, Rosa, lasts less then half an hour, and from the canyons of Fitzroy, the beer was calling.’

 

On the way to The Prince, he stops by Charlie Taub’s woodworking shop where he occasionally works. Here’s a little of their conversation:

 

‘‘I gather you missed me a lot then.’ [Irish]
Another snort. ‘ What I miss, I miss someone finishes little jobs I give him. Like little tables. Day’s work for a man who actually works.’
‘Finished tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Good as done. Now, time for a beer.’’

 

The two make their way to the Prince, where Irish’s father’s football friends spend their time and in that pub, the beer is as much a part of the atmosphere and the setting as the football talk is. And it’s a good thing Irish takes this time to relax because he’s soon caught up in the case of the disappearance of Gary Connors, who might have made off with sixty thousand dollars of Irish’s father’s money…

Very often having a few beers is a way to ‘let off steam’ after a bad day. So there are plenty of scenes in crime novels where detectives do just that. In Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood, for instance, Sergeant John White of the Tasmania Police is stabbed one morning as he and probationer Lucy Howard are investigating a housebreaking. White was popular, and seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, the main suspect, has a long police record and a bad reputation. So the cops are only too happy when Rowley’s arrested at the end of the day. The murder and the investigation have taken a heavy toll on all of the team members, so they decide to go out after shift to the Ocean Queen. As they share a few rounds, they’re able to start letting everything sink in. There’s a sense of shared pain and camaraderie and the feeling of letting go, just a bit, of what happened. That’s when another patron, who’s watching television coverage of the murder and arrest, begins making disparaging comments about the police. Constable Cameron ‘Cam’ Walsh, who looked up to White as a mentor, can take no more and a beer-fueled fight follows. The juxtaposition of those two scenes really shows that having a beer (or two, or more) can be a proverbial double-edged sword.

That said though, sitting back with a beer is a really natural reaction to a bad day, or a good day, or time with friends, or time alone. It’s been a popular drink for thousands of years, and I’ll bet it’ll continue to be for a long time to come.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a nice stout just waiting for me. Happy Weekend!

 

 
 

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

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Blunt Force Trauma

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme has reached the second stop of this year’s treacherous journey and I’m pleased to say that so far, we’re all safe. Thanks to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for tending to all of our travel details.

Today we’ve reached B’s B & B and as soon as I’ve settled in I’m going to put my hard hat on because my contribution for this stop is blunt force trauma. Not all crime fictional murderers are skilled with guns, have knives, or are strong enough to overpower a victim. But add in a heavy rock, a cricket bat or another such weapon and someone can commit murder with no special background. That’s possibly why so much crime fiction involves blunt force trauma. Here are just a few examples; I’m quite sure you can think of lots more than I could.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, Hercule Poirot is on his way from the Middle East back to London when he is persuaded to change his plans and investigate the murder of Louise Leidner. She and her husband, noted archaeologist Eric Leidner, are with a dig team a few hours from Baghdad. Louise herself is not much interested in the actual dig although she’s certainly intelligent enough to follow the team’s progress. Still, all goes more or less smoothly until she starts to see hands tapping at her window and strange faces peeking in. Leidner hires a nurse Amy Leatheran to look after his wife and allay her fears. Soon enough, Leatheran finds out that there are solid reasons for those fears. Louise Leidner was married before, and always believed that her first husband died, shot as a spy after World War I. But she’s been receiving threatening letters that seem to come from her first husband. Now she’s in fear of her life, and her worst fears are realised one afternoon when she is bludgeoned in her bedroom. As Poirot looks into the case, he discovers that Louise was a much more complex person that it seemed on the surface, and that more than one person had a good motive for murder.

Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man also deals with a case of blunt force trauma. Harry Steadman is an avid historian and a skilled archaeologist. When he can manage it financially, he and his wife Emma move to Yorkshire where it is Steadman’s goal to excavate the Roman ruins in the area. He’s excited about this possibility and waiting for all the necessary permissions. Then he’s bludgeoned to death one night and his body is found the next morning. DCI Alan Banks and his team begin their investigation. They’re slowly finding out what sort of person Steadman was, who his friends, rivals and so on were and what his life was like when there’s another murder. Now the team has to find out who would have wanted or needed to kill both victims. It turns out that both incidents are related to events in Steadman’s past and to relationships among the people in his life.

There’s also an effective use of blunt force trauma in Reginald Hill’s A Clubbable Woman, the first in his Dalziel and Pascoe series. In that novel, local rugby player Sam Connon takes a beating during a match and comes home with a concussion. He makes his way upstairs and falls into a deep sleep. When he wakes, he discovers that his wife Mary’s been bludgeoned in their own home. Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Sergeant Peter Pascoe investigate the case. The first and most likely suspect is of course Connon himself. He can’t really account for his time and as it turns out he had a motive. But Dalziel isn’t at all sure the case is that simple. So he and Pascoe continue to look into it. They find that matters are indeed a lot more complicated than it seemed on the surface, and that several other people, including members of Connon’s own rugby club, could have killed the victim.

Vicki Delany’s Winter of Secrets begins with a car accident during which Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth and Ewan Williams’ rented SUV skids on some ice and plunges into the Upper Kootenay River. Constable Moonlight ‘Molly’ Smith of the Trafalgar City Police takes the assignment and goes to the scene. When the SUV is pulled out, it’s immediately clear that both young men are dead and everyone thinks at first that both died in the plunge into the river. But forensic results tell a very different story. Wyatt-Yarmouth did indeed die as a result of the accident. But Williams was dead for several hours by the time the SUV went into the river. What’s more, his body shows evidence of blunt force trauma. Now Smith and Sergeant John Winters have to deal with a case of what looks like murder. As they search for answers, they discover that the two young men were lifelong friends. They were part of a group of wealthy young people who had come to the area for a skiing holiday. All of them were staying at the same B & B, so the investigation begins to focus on the young people who stayed there. Little by little, the evidence shows what really happened to Ewan Williams.

Inspector John Carlyle and his assistant Joe Szyskowski face a blunt force trauma murder in James Craig’s Never Apologise, Never Explain. They are called to the scene when Henry Mills discovers the body of his wife Agatha in their home in Russell Square. She’s been bludgeoned and Mills himself is the most likely suspect. He claims that he was asleep when the murder occurred, and that his wife was killed by political enemies. Carlyle and Szyskowski don’t believe Mills’ story at first and he’s arrested. But soon afterwards, Carlyle gets an important clue that Mills was telling the truth. So he and Szyskowski investigate the case more thoroughly. They find that Agatha Mills’ death had everything to do with political history, UK relations with Chile and diplomacy.

And then there’s Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Progressive Dinner Deadly. Retired teacher Myrtle Clover has joined a local book club and is hoping to change the book club’s ‘reading diet’ from just best-sellers to some richer, more enduring books. To her great annoyance, her suggestion soon morphs into an idea to change the club to a progressive dinner club. Members of the club decide to do a group dinner once a month, with the members moving among each other’s houses as the meal progresses. One member hosts appetizers, another hosts main dishes and so on. Myrtle isn’t at all happy about this, being not known for her gourmet cooking. But she grumpily agrees and the first progressive dinner is planned. To everyone’s shock, when the club members arrive at the home of Jill Caulfield, they discover that she has been killed by a blow to the head with a heavy pan. Her husband Cullen is the first suspect, but as Myrtle soon discovers, he’s far from the only one. The victim was a house-cleaner who had a habit of finding out people’s secrets, and that’s not the only motive Myrtle uncovers. Then there’s another death. Now Myrtle tries to find out how the two murders are related.

I know I’ve only mentioned a few examples of the way blunt force trauma is used in crime fiction. There are many, many more and it’s easy to see why. Picking up the nearest heavy object doesn’t require a lot of special skill or background, it does the job, and lots of different items can be used for the purpose. So, yeah, crime fiction is definitely a ‘hard hat area.’

Oh, Well! Just Leave Me My Coffee!*

Today (or yesterday, depending on when you read this) would have been Johann Sebastian Bach’s 328^th birthday. That may be interesting in itself to people who love classical music and Bach’s work in particular. But why mention it on this crime fictional blog? Because classical music (and Bach’s work) feature in crime fiction. And that’s not surprising considering the profound influence that Bach’s music has had both in the world of composing and performing and in the larger world. Not everyone has really listened to Bach’s work, but most people at least know the name. That’s how much of an impact he had. So it makes sense that we’d see classical music, including Bach’s work, in crime fiction.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Curtain, we learn that Styles Court (which Christie fans will know is also the setting for The Mysterious Affair at Styles) has been turned into a Guest House. Hercule Poirot writes to Hastings asking him to come to Styles Court and Hastings complies. When Hastings gets there, he discovers that one of the seemingly inoffensive guests may be a killer who has already gotten away with five murders. Poirot’s own health is failing, so he wants Hastings to be his ‘eyes and ears’ and help find the killer, whom Poirot identifies only as X. While they’re investigating, another murder occurs and it seems that X has struck again. Hastings uses Poirot’s guidance and, after several neat plot twists, finds out who X really is. One of the other guests at Styles Court is Elizabeth Cole, who as it turns out knows some interesting history about some of the rest of the guests, and has some secrets of her own. In one scene,

 

‘Poirot had been brought down…and been ensconced in the drawing room. Here, Elizabeth Cole had joined him and was playing the piano to him. She had a pleasant touch and played Bach and Mozart – both favourite composers of my friend’s.’

 

The scene in which Bach is played doesn’t solve the case. But it’s an interesting glimpse of Poirot’s character.

Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey enjoys Bach’s music, too. Both Whose Body? and Clouds of Witness include scenes in which Wimsey plays or whistles Bach. A different opinion, though, is expressed in Have His Carcase, in which Wimsey investigates the murder of Paul Alexis. Harriet Vane is taking a hiking holiday near Wilvercombe when she finds Alexis’ body. It turns out that Alexis was a professional dance partner at a nearby hotel, so Vane and later Lord Peter Wimsey look there for suspects. At one point, Wimsey is talking with Henry Weldon, the son of Alexis’ fiancée. Here’s what Weldon has to say about a concert he attended:

 

‘…I wasted a good bit of time listening to a tom-fool classical concert – my God! Bach and stuff at eleven in the morning!’

 

Of course, Wimsey differs with Weldon’s view of Bach…

We also see the power of classical music (including Bach’s work) in Elizabeth George’s A Traitor to Memory. Twenty-eight-year-old Gideon Davies is a musical genius – a world-class violinist. Then one frightening night, he finds himself unable to play. After recovering from his initial panic, Davies decides to undergo psychotherapy to find out what is blocking him from making music. Here is one of the things he says to his therapist about music:

 

‘I associate everyone with music…Dad is Bach, the solo violin sonata in G minor.’  

 

At the same as Davies is mentally digging through his past to find out what is behind his music block, he has to face another tragedy. His mother Eugenie is killed one night in what looks like a hit-and-run accident. Inspector Thomas ‘Tommy’ Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers investigate and find that both that death and Gabriel Davies’ psychological difficulties are related to the twenty-year-old drowning death of Davies’ two-year-old sister Sonia. Although Bach per se is not the reason for what happens in the story, there is an important thread in it of Davies’ way of thinking musically.

Peter Robinson’s Inspector Alan Banks is also a fan of Bach’s music. As we learn in Bad Boys, Banks’ mobile ‘phone plays Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 when he gets a call. In that novel, Banks is away on holiday, so it’s Annie Cabot who takes on the case when Juliet Doyle comes to the police station to report that her daughter Erin has a gun. It turns out that the gun is connected with Erin’s boyfriend Jaff, who is definitely not the kind of person parents want their children to bring home as dates. What’s worse, Banks’ own daughter Tracy is Erin’s best friend and knows full well the kind of person Jaff is. When Jaff talks her into going on an adventure with him, she’s excited at first, but everything soon gets out of control. Here is a bit of the description of Banks’ flight into London’s Heathrow Airport after his holiday:

 

‘…he took out his iPod and listened to Angela Hewitt playing Bach’s Keyboard Concertos…The music came out loud and clear while everything else was a distant background hum. Somehow Bach managed to calm and relax him on a flight in a way that most other music didn’t.’

 

And that’s just as well.  When Banks returns home, he’s got to cope with a fatal accident, the shooting of a colleague and the fact that his own daughter has been taken hostage.

And then there’s Louise Penny’s A Rule Against Murder. In that novel, Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie go on their annual wedding anniversary trip to Manoir Bellechasse for what is supposed to be a relaxing getaway. It turns out to be quite different. Also staying at the lodge is the Finney family: Thomas and Sandra Finney, Thomas’ elderly parents and his sisters Julia and Marianna and Marianna’s child. We soon learn that Thomas Finney has musical talent. Here’s just a bit of a scene that takes place in the lodge’s Great Room where there is a piano:

 

‘Thomas sat on the bench, raised his hands, and sent the strains of Bach lifting into the night air.
‘He plays beautifully,’ said Julia. ‘I’d forgotten.’
Gamache agreed.

 

It’s certainly not because of Bach, but all is hardly well with the Finney family and their dysfunction becomes more obvious as the reunion goes on. Then, there’s a murder. As Gamache investigates, he also finds an unexpected connection to the rural Québec town of Three Pines, and a relationship of this case to someone Penny fans know well.

What about you? Do you listen to Bach? If you do, which is your favourite piece?

 

ps. Thanks to ClassicalArchives.com for the terrific image. Check out their treasure trove of all things classical music.
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the translation of a line from Bach’s Coffeehouse Cantata. Really, did I have a choice?

Won’t Forget, Can’t Regret What I Did For Love*

A lot of people think of the word love in its sense of romance between two people. That’s especially true on days like today (As I write this, it’s Valentine’s Day). Other people may think of love among family members or even the strong attachments we have to close friends. They’re all different ways of thinking about that same driving force. But there are other ways to look at that force too. For instance that same passion drives people who love what they do. If you’ve ever had a teacher or professor who inspired you because of that person’s passion for the subject, you know what I mean. If you’ve ever had your hair done expertly by someone who absolutely loves making people feel good about the way they look, you know what I mean. If you’re a writer with a ‘day job’ who juggles everything frantically because you are passionate about writing, you know what I mean too. Doing what you love is energising and fulfilling. And in fiction, characters who do what they love because they love it can add life and zest to a novel. Just a quick look at crime fiction should show what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s The Hollow (AKA Murder After Hours) we meet Harley Street specialist Dr. John Christow. He is passionate about medicine and medical research and the one thing that drives him more than anything else is his love for the field. In fact, it helps to make him one of the most ‘alive’ characters in this story. One week-end, he and his wife Gerda are invited to the country home of Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell. Also invited are a few other Angkatell relations. Among them is Henrietta Savernake, who is as passionate about her sculpture as Christow is about medicine. Hercule Poirot has taken a nearby cottage for getaways and the Angkatells invite him for lunch on the Sunday. When he arrives though, Poirot is met by a scene he thinks has been arranged for his ‘amusement.’ Christow’s been shot next to the swimming pool and the person who seems to have shot him is standing holding the gun. Within seconds Poirot sees that this not a tableau; it’s all too real. He works with Inspector Grange to find out who show Christow and why. Throughout the novel we see how Christow’s passion for what he does has impacted him and how Savernake’s passion for what she does influences her. That passion isn’t really the reason Christow was murdered. But it forms an important theme in this novel.

A passion for archaeology is what drives Harry Steadman in Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man. Steadman inherited a good deal of money, so he’s been able to leave his position at Leeds University and move to Yorkshire, where he can follow his dream of excavating the Roman ruins there. He and his wife Emma are more or less settled in Yorkshire and Steadman’s been working on a large excavation plan. Then one day he’s found bludgeoned to death. DI Alan Banks and his team investigate the murder and they soon find that more than one person had a motive. One of the interesting themes in this novel is the way that Steadman’s love for his profession and his passion for what he does influences all of the people in his life.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman is a baker who lives and works in Melbourne. At one time she was an accountant, until she realised that accounting simply didn’t matter to her. When she turned to baking she found a career for which she has a true love, even if it does mean getting up at four in the morning. For her, making bread is real. In fact, in Trick or Treat, she learns just how much baking means to her. In one of the plot threads of that story, there’s evidence that some of the local bread may have been poisoned with ergot. So Chapman’s bakery has to be quarantined while the authorities search for signs of ergot. She’s devastated that she can’t do what she loves and what means the most to her. She’s just as upset at the possibility that her bread could have caused harm. In the end, it gives Chapman a real sense that everything will be all right when she’s able to re-open her bakery and start creating bread again. Chapman passes on that passion (or perhaps awakens it) too. Her assistant Jason has just as much of a love for creating; in his case it’s muffins. In fact one of his nicknames is The Muffin Man. Nothing makes him happier than to come up with a delicious new variety or to perfect one he’s already created.

Val McDermid’s The Grave Tattoo introduces us to Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham. She is passionate about writing and about Wordsworth and puts up with the difficulties of being on the ‘bottom rung’ of academia as she works on her scholarship. Then she gets word that a body has been discovered in a bog not far from where she grew up in the Lake District. It’s possible that the body belongs to Fletcher Christian of H.M.S. Bounty fame. There always were stories that he didn’t die on Pitcairn Island as had been reported. If he made his way back to the Lake District, nothing would be more natural than that he might contact his good friend Wordsworth. If that happened, so Gresham reasons, Wordsworth would likely have written about the real story of what happened to his friend. And that could very well be the unpublished Wordsworth manuscript that Gresham has always believed existed. So she travels eagerly to the Lake District to find out if such a manuscript exists. Gresham soon gets mixed up in murder as first one, than another lead in her search turns up dead. In order to clear her name, she’ll have to discover who the killer is and hope that that will also lead her to the manuscript.

Martin Edwards’ Daniel Kind also loves what he does. He’s an Oxford historian whose passion for history is one of the driving forces in his life. That love of history also gives him valuable insights into the ‘cold cases’ that DCI Hannah Scarlett and her Cold Case Review team investigate. Scarlett used to work with Kind’s father Ben, so the two have known each other for some time. Scarlett may not be the keen historian that Kind is, but she respects his passion and finds that his knowledge is often helpful. For instance, his research into Lake District writer Thomas de Quincey is key to solving three murders in The Serpent Pool. Kind’s interest in history is infectious too; in fact, at the beginning of the series he moves to the Lake District in part because he’s had enough of being a ‘history celebrity.’ He’s much in demand for lectures and guest teaching and it’s easy to see why. He loves what he does.

There are of course fictional sleuths who are passionate about solving cases. That for instance is why Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes does what he does. He loves solving problems and dealing with his cases feeds that passion. It’s the same for Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse and Michael Connelly’s Hary Bosch too. And I’m sure that you can think of other fictional sleuths who are driven by their passion for solving cases.

Doing what you love and are passionate about can be one of life’s truly fulfilling experiences. In fact, Billy Joel has said, ‘If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.’ I don’t know if I’d put it in terms like that, but I think Mr. Joel has a point…

 

 
 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban’s What I Did For Love.