The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Arsenic

Well, I’ve bought my ticket and packed my bags and I’m off on another thrilling and chilling journey through the alphabet with the 2013 Crime Fiction Alphabet meme. I am delighted to be a part of this meme, so capably led by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. I’m sure she’ll keep us safe throughout the journey, won’t you Kerrie? Won’t you?????

We start our journey of course with the letter A and my contribution is…arsenic.  Arsenic is closely associated with classic and Golden Age crime fiction, but it also turns up in more modern crime fiction too. Today of course it’s easy to test for arsenic, but that doesn’t mean it’s never used. Arsenic used to be readily available in a variety of products and its symptoms are similar to those of several gastric disorders, so at least in earlier eras it wasn’t always easy to identify arsenic poisoning. And even now it’s not immediately suspected. Little wonder it was the ‘poison of choice’ for a long time.

For instance, in Agatha Christei’s 4:50 From Paddington (AKA What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!), Elspeth McGillicuddy is on her way by train to St. Mary Mead to visit her friend Miss Marple. Another train passes in the same direction and Mrs. McGillicuddy happens to glance through her window into the other train. What she sees horrifies her: a man is strangling a woman. She alerts the conductor and later the station authorities but no-one believes her. Even the police don’t believe her; after all, no-one has reported a missing woman and no dead body has been found. The only person who does believe Mrs. McGillicuddy is Miss Marple. She does her own research and deduces where the body must be: on the grounds of Rutherford Hall, the home of the Crackenthorpe family. So she arranges with her friend professional housekeeper Lucy Eyelesbarrow for Lucy to take a job at Rutherford Hall and do some sleuthing. Sure enough, the woman’s body is discovered and the police are called in. Since the body was found on the Crackenthorpes’ property, each member of the family comes in for suspicion. Then one day Lucy cooks a lunch that seems to sicken everyone. It’s discovered that the food contained arsenic, but the dose was small enough that slowly, everyone begins to feel better. Then, one of the family members suddenly worsens and dies from the arsenic. Miss Marple puts that event together with the earlier murder and figures out who the killer is and what the motive is.

Dorohy Sayers’ Strong Poison also features arsenic. Mystery novelist Harriet Vane is on trial for the poisoning murder of her former lover Philip Boyes. She had motive too as they had quarreled recently. She also had the means; her explanation is that she had purchased arsenic for research for a new novel. But the Crown is convinced that she intended to use the arsenic as a murder weapon. Lord Peter Wimsey attends the trial and becomes smitten with the defendant. In fact he determines to clear her name so he can marry her. When the jury can’t agree on a verdict, a new trial is arranged and Wimsey gets his chance. With help from his friend Katherine Climpson and his valet Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey finds out who really poisoned Philip Boyes and why.

In Rex Stout’s novella Poison à la Carte, Nero Wolfe gets a visit from millionaire Lewis Hewitt, a former client. Hewitt is a member of a gourmet group called The Ten for Aristology, and he wants to ‘borrow’ Wolfe’s chef Fritz Brenner to cook the group’s annual dinner. Wolfe and Brenner agree and the meal is duly planned and prepared. At the meal, to which Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are both invited, the guests are served by a group of Broadway actresses who are called, for this occasion, the Hebes. Each guest gets individual service from one of the Hebes. Then suddenly one of the guests Vincent Pyle dies of what turns out to be arsenic poisoning. Fritz of course is suspected but it soon comes out that there are several other suspects. Pyle was a Broadway ‘angel’ who knew more than one of the Hebes. And the other members of the Ten for Aristology aren’t exactly above suspicion either. In the end Wolfe figures out who had and took the opportunity to poison Pyle’s food.

Dashiell Hammett’s short story Fly Paper begins when Major Waldo Hambleton hires the Continental Detective Agency to track down his missing daughter Sue. Sue has been mixed up for some time with very shady people and has basically cut off communication with her family. But her father is wealthy and wants to know that she is safe. Then, Hambleton gets a request for money from his daughter and the agency sends one of its detectives to the address mentioned in the letter. The address turns out to be that of Joseph ‘Holy Joe’ Wales, whom Sue has recently begun seeing. That’s how the detective discovers that Sue has also been involved with a thug named ‘Babe’ McCloor. When the PI finally gets to Sue’s own place it’s too late; she is dead of arsenic poisoning. Now the case has changed from a missing person’s case to a case of possible murder – or was it suicide?

One of the more famous short stories featuring arsenic is Roald Dahl’s The Landlady. In that story, Billy Weaver has just arrived in Bath to start a new job after a trip from London. He’s on his way to spend the night at the Bell and Dragon when he notices a small bed-and-breakfast residence. On impulse he stops in. His landlady makes him welcome and although she seems a little eccentric, she also seems pleasant enough and the lodgings are comfortable and welcoming. So Weaver decides to stay there. Then as he’s signing the guest book, he makes an odd discovery. There are two other signatures there that somehow seem familiar to him. Bit by bit he works out who they are, but by then, well…read the story for yourself.

Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher has to deal with a case involving arsenic in Cocaine Blues. She travels from London, where she’s been living, back to her native Melbourne at the request of an acquaintance Colonel Harper and his wife. They’re concerned about their daughter Lydia, who hasn’t been at all well lately. What’s more, they suspect that their son-in-law is shady enough to be up to no good. So they ask Fisher to look into the matter. She agrees and when she gets to Melbourne, she starts circulating among the social group that includes Lydia. Slowly she uncovers what’s really going on with Lydia and her husband, and that it involves arsenic. She also finds out how that case is linked to illegal cocaine trafficking.

And then there’s Barry Maitland’s Dark Mirror. In that novel, KI Kathy Kolla and DS David Brock investigate the case of Marion Summers, a young undergraduate student who suddenly collapses and dies at the London Library in the West End. As they begin their work they find out several unusual things about the victim. She’d left – escaped, really – a difficult home life to try to make it on her own in London. That of course brings up the question of whether someone in her family might be involved in her death and the detectives discover some unhappy truths about the family. Then there’s Marion’s research into Victorian artist Gabriel Rossetti. At first the fact of her research doesn’t seem to mean much beyond explaining her presence at the library. But then the coroner’s report shows that she died by arsenic poisoning. In today’s world that’s unusual although it was common in the Victorian Era. So Kolla and Brock have to look through Marion’s research work and life as a student as well as her complicated personal life to find out who the killer is.

 

See what I mean? Arsenic as a theme runs through a lot of crime fiction; I’ve just scratched the surface here really. While you think of your own suggestions, may I get you a cup of coffee??
 

As you can tell, this is a really exciting journey! Want to come along?? You know you do. Get your own ticket and join the meme right here.

Those of Us With Ravaged Faces, Lacking in the Social Graces*

Crime fiction confronts us with our own prejudices. And one of those prejudices has to do with what we consider attractive. Of course people’s definitions of what’s attractive vary, and each culture has its own view of what ‘counts’ as ‘beautiful.’ But just about everyone is drawn to the physically appealing rather than to people who are considered unattractive. That’s why it can be very refreshing when a major character (in crime fiction, that’s usually the sleuth) is not what people think of as physically attractive. That takes writing skill.

Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Bradley, for instance, is hardly what one would call beautiful. In The Mystery of Butcher’s Shop, she is described as

 

‘A small, shriveled, bird-like woman who might have been thirty-five and who might have been ninety, clad in a blue and sulphur jumper like the plumage of a macaw…’

 

Her clothes are notoriously unattractive and she’s sometimes described as having saurian features or a reptilian smile. She is not what most people would find physically appealing, but she is a brilliant detective. She’s a psychoanalyst who has a thorough understanding of motivation and personality. And in this novel, that helps her to find out who murdered local squire Rupert Sedleigh and how his body ended up in a local butcher shop. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Bradley was portrayed by the emphatically not saurian Diana Rigg in a television series and it’s very interesting to see that Mrs. Bradley’s (lack of) taste in clothes and her unattractive appearance were given an overhaul for that series.

Rex Stout’s Archie Goodwin doesn’t fare too badly as far as appearance goes but his boss Nero Wolfe could hardly trade on his looks. Wolfe fans will know that he weighs a seventh of a ton. That’s heavy by just about anyone’s standards. Archie later says that Wolfe weighs

 

‘…between 310 and 390…’   

 

And although Wolfe isn’t depicted as hideous-looking, he doesn’t win clients over with his handsomeness. Still, when Wolfe is on the case, it’s easy to forget (even when Goodwin mentions it) that he’s much heavier than most people consider attractive. In Fer de Lance, for instance, he and Goodwin solve the unusual murder of Peter Barstow, president of Holland University. They first learn of this case when Maria Maffei visits Wolfe and asks for him to help find her brother Carlo, who has disappeared. When Carlo Maffei is found dead, it comes out that he had designed the special golf club that was used to kill Barstow. So now Goodwin and Wolfe have to find out who paid Maffei to create this design and killed him before he could reveal what he knew.  In this novel and in other novels in this series, clients don’t come to Wolfe because of his appearance; they come to him because he’s very good it what he does. Wolfe may not be physically attractive but we really do forget that when he’s on the case.

Most people probably wouldn’t call Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope ‘a looker.’ She’s somewhat overweight, has eczema, and although she keeps clean, she doesn’t exactly take a lot of pains with her appearance. Stanhope is aware of the fact that she’s not conventionally beautiful, and sometimes that makes her self-conscious, as in Silent Voices. That novel begins with Stanhope going for a swim at the local gym/spa. She specifically chooses early morning for her doctor-prescribed workout because she’d rather not be there at the same time as the club’s usual habitués, young women who are tanned, thin and have beautiful faces. During this trip Stanhope makes a horrifying discovery. When she goes to the steam room after her swim, she finds the body of social worker Jenny Lister. Once she’s on this case, it’s easy to forget that Stanhope is not what you’d think of as ‘pretty’ at all. Instead, she’s intuitive, thoughtful, determined and a very good detective.

Reginald Hill’s Superintendent Andy Dalziel isn’t exactly magazine-cover material either, physically speaking. In A Pinch of Snuff, for instance, Hill says that Dalziel’s face is

 

‘…as heavy and ugly as a slag heap.’

 

What’s more, Dalziel’s overweight and makes no effort to behave in what most people would call a socially acceptable way. But he is a sound human being with real intuition. What’s more, he’s loyal, ethical and a very good detective. Although he’s often called, ‘the Fat Man,’ his appearance really doesn’t matter in terms of his ability to solve cases. In this novel for instance, he and Inspector Pascoe investigate the Calliope Kinema Club, which has a reputation for showing extreme and sometime violent pornography. It’s all legal though, or it least it seems so until Pascoe’s dentist suspects that one of the actresses has been actually hurt or worse. When Pascoe looks into it though, the actress seems to be fine. Still, Pascoe isn’t quite satisfied. Then the club’s owner Gilbert Haggard is murdered, and the club is wrecked. Now Dalziel and Pascoe have to find out what was really going on there that would lead to murder.

And then there’s Alan Orloff’s Channing Hayes. He’s a standup comic who survived a terrible car accident that claimed the life of his fiancée Lauren Dempsey. In Killer Routine, he’s just getting back into the ‘standup life’ as co-owner of The Last Laff, a Northern Virginia comedy club. Then, Lauren’s sister Heather disappears one night just before she’s supposed to go onstage at the club. Hayes is worried about Heather so he starts asking questions and before he knows it, he’s up against Heather’s difficult parents, dangerous ex-boyfriend and several other people in her life who don’t seem to want her to be found. Hayes has a scarred face and a withered left hand because of the accident, so most people who meet him wouldn’t exactly call him gorgeous. Hayes knows this and it sometimes makes him self-conscious. But it doesn’t take away from his ability to find out what happened to Heather Dempsey. And as the story goes on, it’s easy to forget that Hayes isn’t conventionally good-looking.

All too often, media images tell us what we’re supposed to find attractive and what physical qualities we’re supposed to admire. And all too often, that means the marginalisation of those who don’t fit those images. I’m glad that crime fiction doesn’t fall into that trap and I respect authors who have the skill to create strong and sympathetic characters who aren’t conventionally attractive.

 

 

 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from Janis Ian’s At Seventeen.

If You Strip Away the Myth From the Man*

Today would have been U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s 203^rd birthday. There’ve been a lot of stories told about Lincoln, some of them true and some of them not. And that’s got me to thinking about how myths about people get passed along. When someone becomes famous or notorious, myths start building up about that person until the myths sometimes matter more than the person does. What’s more, the person behind the myths is almost never the person portrayed in them. But that usually makes the real person more interesting. Just a quick look at crime fiction should be plenty to show you want I mean.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot for instance is fully aware of his near-mythical status. In fact if truth be told he likes having that much fame. In Murder on the Orient Express for instance, he is at dinner before boarding the famous Orient Express for its three-day journey across Europe. While he’s eating, he’s approached by an old friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Bouc says,

 

‘‘But you, you are at the top of the tree nowadays, mon vieux!’
‘Some little success I have had, perhaps.’ Hercule Poirot tried to look modest but failed signally.’

 

The myths about Poirot’s skill at solving crime get new fodder in this story when on the second night of the journey, American businessman Samuel Ratchett is stabbed. Bouc asks Poirot to investigate and he agrees. Readers of Christie’s Appointment With Death will notice a reference to the way Poirot’s reputation is affected by what happens in this story. The reality is though that Poirot as a person is more interesting than his reputation. That’s why a lot of people like the fact that sometimes Christie’s stories are narrated by Captain Arthur Hastings, who shows us what the real Poirot is like, warts and all as the saying goes.

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe has also achieved near-mythical status. And some of the myths about him (e.g. that he doesn’t leave his brownstone if he can avoid it) are true. Most of Wolfe’s clients don’t really see ‘the real Wolfe’ though. They come to the brownstone, they tell him about their cases and he and his team solve those cases. Other than the fact that he’s irritable and arrogant, lots of people don’t know how much of what they’ve heard is myth and how much is true. But Archie Goodwin knows. And because the Nero Wolfe stories are told from his perspective, we get to see the Nero Wolfe behind the myths. For instance in Too Many Cooks, Wolfe is reluctantly persuaded to go to the very upmarket Kanawha Spa in West Virginia. He’s been invited to address a meeting of Les Quinze Maîtres, the fifteen greatest chefs in the world and as fans of Nero Wolfe will know, there isn’t very much that can induce Wolfe to travel. But this does. Not long after Wolfe and Goodwin arrive, one of the master chefs Phillip Laszio is stabbed. Wolfe refuses to investigate at first but is finally persuaded. In this novel we see some of the man behind the myth. For instance, Wolfe doesn’t refuse to travel out of arrogance; he’s afraid of (or shall we say very uncomfortable with) being on things that move. He’s vulnerable in other ways too and that look ‘behind the myth’ makes Wolfe more interesting.

But of course, having myths passed around about you – even if they’re in praise – isn’t always a good thing. For instance in Katherine Howell’s Silent Fear, Sydney detective Ella Marconi has to deal with the jealousy that myth-building can cause. She’s gotten quite a good reputation for solving difficult cases and word has gotten around. In this novel she and her team are working on the murder of Paul Fowler, who was shot while tossing a football around with a few friends. Another detective John Gerard has been assigned to the team and it turns out that he’s both jealous and malicious. He often refers to Marconi as ‘the great Marconi’ or ‘the great Ella Marconi’ and it’s obviously done spitefully. At first she tries to make clear that she’s no hero and no better at the job than anyone else is. But Gerard keeps up his campaign. In the end, Marconi has almost as much trouble dealing with Gerard’s jealousy and blunders as she does solving the case. Fans of Ella Marconi will know that the real person behind the ‘office myths’ is wrong sometimes, makes mistakes and is certainly not the ‘larger-than-life’ character that the myths would have one believe. But those myths get in the way of everyone seeing that.

We also see a case of myths getting in the way in Wendy James’ The Mistake. Jodie Evans Garrow has what looks like a good life – successful husband, enduring marriage, two healthy children. But then her daughter Hannah gets in an accident. As fate would have it, Hannah is taken to the same hospital where years before, Jodie gave birth to another child Ella Mary. When Jodie goes to visit Hannah, a nurse at the hospital remembers her and asks about the child. Jodie says she was given up for adoption. But when the overzealous nurse looks into the matter, she finds that there are no adoption records to support Jodie’s story. When the story begins to get around, all sorts of questions arise: What happened to the baby? Why aren’t there any records? Did Jodie have something to do with the baby’s disappearance? The more these questions are asked, the more of a pariah Jodie becomes. People begin to believe all kinds of myths about her and matters aren’t helped by the fact that even Jodie’s own mother contributes to the myth-building. In the end, we learn the truth about Jodie’s life and about Ella Mary and the reality of Jodie’s life is much more interesting and more human than the myths about her are.

In Catherine O’Flynn’s The News Where You Are, we are introduced to regional TV presenter Frank Allcroft. He’s happily married and has a good relationship with his eight-year-old daughter Mo. But he’s reached a crossroads in his life. At the same time as he’s trying to figure out his own direction, he’s also coping with the death of his legendary mentor Phil Smedway, who was killed while out jogging. Smedway was also Allcroft’s predecessor at the TV station so his loss has hit Allcroft hard. Everyone thinks the death was a tragic hit-and-run accident. But Allcroft isn’t so sure. He pays a visit to the scene of the accident and discovers that the road there is straight and even. Even an impaired driver should have been able to see Smedway in time to avoid him, and there’s plenty of space on that part of the road for a car to move out of the way. The more Allcroft thinks about it the more he wants to know why Smedway died. As he starts to ask questions, he learns more and more about his mentor, about the myths that had been built up and about the reality behind them. By the end of the novel Smedway becomes a much more interesting person in real life than the myths about him are. Among other things this novel also explores the way myths affect the person behind them.

People who become almost mythological are still people. And if you look behind the legends and myths and stories, you often find that the reality is much more interesting than the myths are.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Heaven on Their Minds.

She’s Got a Way of Talkin’*

The way we speak is as individual as we ourselves are. Each of us has for instance words and phrases we like to use or a certain kind of verbal reaction. Those verbal ‘fingerprints’ help make us unique. Certainly that’s true in real life and those ‘fingerprints’ also add depth to fictional characters. I’m not talking here of accents or the use of dialect in writing. That’s a different matter (and also really interesting. Or maybe I just think that because of my background in linguistics…). Rather, I’m talking about those ways of speaking that are unique to an individual.

For instance, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is a firm believer in psychological approaches to crime solving. The expression he uses most frequently to describe the process of thinking through a case is using ‘the little grey cells’ of the brain. For example in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot retires (or so he thinks) to the small village of King’s Abbot. When retired manufacturing tycoon Roger Ackroyd is stabbed, Ackroyd’s niece Flora asks Poirot to clear the name of her fiancé Ralph Paton, the prime suspect. So Poirot begins to ask questions. At one point he has a conversation with Inspector Raglan, who is the official investigator. They’re discussing approaches to investigation:

 

‘‘How exactly did you get to work if I may ask?’ [Poirot]
‘Certainly,’ said the inspector. ‘To begin with – method. That’s what I always say – method!’
‘Ah!’ cried the other. ‘That too is my watchword. Method, order and the little grey cells.’
‘The cells?’ said the inspector, staring.
‘The little grey cells of the brain,’ explained the Belgian.’

 

It is of course those little gray cells that help Poirot solve this case and that expression has become integrally associated with his character.

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe has plenty of individual quirks that make him unique. Those extend to the verbal too. For example, when he’s exasperated, one of Wolfe’s verbal ‘fingerprints is the word pfui; it’s designed to express both contempt and impatience and usually does. In Not Quite Dead Enough for instance, Archie Goodwin returns from wartime service only to be drawn into a military case. He’s asked to persuade his former boss Nero Wolfe to investigate the supposed suicide of Captain Albert Cross. The death has to be investigated very quietly for political and national security reasons so the Powers That Be don’t want a high-profile case. At first Wolfe is reluctant but he agrees to take a look at the case. One aspect of the investigation is tracing Cross’ movements in the days and weeks before his death. At one point he discusses those activities with a group of Cross’ colleagues:

 

‘He sent a telegram to his fiancée in Boston that he would see her on Saturday. And then committed suicide? Pfui.’

 

As it turns out, Wolfe is justified in rejecting the suicide theory. Lawson’s been murdered and Wolfe and Goodwin find out what the reasons were.

In Stephen Booth’s Dying to Sin, DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper of the Derbyshire police investigate when an old corpse turns up on Pity Wood Farm near the village of Rakedale. Until recently the farm was owned by brothers Raymond and Derek Sutton; in fact, they owned the farm at the time the body was buried there so one of the team’s tasks is to interview them. Derek Sutton has died but Raymond lives in a nursing home. He is a firm believer in old-style Biblical religion and his conversation often includes references to religion and the Bible. For instance, early in the novel, the detectives have just interviewed Sutton:

 

‘Raymond Sutton stood to one side of the window and watched the police officers get into their car at the end of the drive.
Quietly, he muttered a sentence to himself.
‘And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord?’
As the car passed out of sight, he let the curtain drop. He turned back to face the room, looked around him for a moment, and finished the quotation.
‘And he said unto them,
Wheresoever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered.’’

 

As he explains, what he says comes from the Gospel of Saint Luke. His verbal identity if you want to put it that way is related to his deep religious convictions. When another body is discovered on the farm, it looks very likely that Raymond Sutton could be the killer. And his strong religious views could provide a motive. In the end though, the killings have less to do with the Bible and more to do with the background of Pity Wood Farm.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman lives and works in a Melbourne building called Insula. She and the other residents of the building have formed a strong community and frequently help each other. One of those residents is Miriam Kaplan, who goes by her Wicca name Meroe. Meroe is deeply spiritual and is determined to use her knowledge of herbal remedies for good. She is a skilled healer who notices immediately when there is unbalance and stress in an environment. Meroe’s spirituality is part of what’s behind some of the phrases she uses frequently. One of her best-known is her greeting, ‘Blessed be.’ That’s very often the first thing she says for instance when she walks into a room. Meroe is certainly not the only person to use this expression as it’s a Wicca greeting. But in this series it gives her character an added distinction.

The use of an individual verbal ‘fingerprint’ plays an important role in Wendy James’ The Mistake. Jodie Evans Garrow has what everyone thinks of as a successful life: an attorney husband, two healthy children and a nice home in a nice area. But everything falls apart when a secret from her past comes out. When Jodie’s daughter Hannah is taken to a Sydney hospital, it turns out to be the same hospital where years earlier, she had given birth to another child. One of the nurses at the hospital remembers Jodie and asks about the child. Jodie claims she gave the baby up for adoption but as the nurse soon discovers, there are no official records. Soon some disturbing questions are raised: What happened to the baby? Why did Jodie never tell anyone about the birth? Did she somehow have something to do with the baby’s disappearance? Before long Jodie becomes a social pariah. The only bright spot as you might say is that she re-connects with an old friend from childhood Bridget ‘Bridie’ Sullivan. Jodie is invited one night to a book club meeting that Bridie also attends. At first Jodie doesn’t recognise her old friend but Bridie knows her. The one thing that finally clinches Jodie’s recognition is Bridie’s use of a pet expression ‘true story.’ She used it all the time when the women were young and Jodie remembers it.  The book club meeting turns out to be disastrous but it does result in a reunion between the two friends. Bridie is the only person who doesn’t judge Jodie and who wants to know what really happened and Jodie comes to depend on her as the case threatens to engulf her.

Our individual words and phrases can be quite distinctive and in fiction they can give a character added personality. I’m thinking for instance of Craig Johnson’s Henry Standing Bear, who doesn’t use contractions. There are other examples too. Do you notice those expressions? If you’re a writer, do you plan the unique expressions your characters use?

 
 
 

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

Why Not Come Dancing, It’s Only Natural*

Do you like to go dancing? What’s interesting about dancing is that most cultures (‘though certainly not all of them) have some form of dance whether it’s sacred or secular. And for a very long time dances were one of the few socially acceptable places for couples to meet. That’s one of the reasons they’re so popular among high school students. Dances and evenings that include dancing are also events that draw all sorts of disparate people together. Add alcohol to that mix and you have – yup, a very effective context for a crime fiction novel or at least a scene in one.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s short story Finessing the King, Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Beresford notices a personal ad in the newspaper. The ad refers to an upcoming ball called the Three Arts Ball and to an agreed meeting of some sort at a restaurant/club called Ace of Spades after the ball. Tuppence is curious enough about it to persuade her husband Tommy to take her dancing and to a late supper at the Ace of Spades. The booth next to them is occupied by Lady Vere Merivale, who’s has obviously just come from the Three Arts Ball; she’s dressed as Alice’s Queen of Hearts. With her is a man dressed in newspaper. When the man leaves, the Beresfords find that Lady Merivale has been stabbed but she gives them cryptic clue before she dies. Inspector Marriot investigates the murder but it’s Tuppence who really links the crime to the criminal.

In Rex Stout’s Champagne For One, one of Archie Goodwin’s friends persuades him to attend a dinner and dance hosted by Louise Robilotti. The not-so-hidden agenda for the evening is to support the young women who live at Grantham House, a temporary home for unwed mothers and their children. The idea of the dinner/dance is that the young ladies will get some exposure to how things are done in the ‘better’ social circles and perhaps even meet a young man. During the evening Goodwin is introduced to several of Grantham House’s residents, including Faith Usher. Goodwin is told that Faith has brought cyanide with her and intends to kill herself while she’s at the dinner/dance. During the dancing that follows the dinner Faith does in fact die from what turns out to be cyanide poisoning. Everyone is convinced that she followed through on her threat and that there’s nothing to investigate. But Goodwin isn’t sure and as time goes by he’s more and more convinced that she was murdered. So, despite intense pressure from the police and from the Roibletti family, Goodwin pursues his suspicion and we learn who killed Faith Usher and why.

In Kerry Greenwood’s Cocaine Blues, socialite Phryne Fisher agrees to take on an unusual challenge. Colonel Harper and his wife are concerned about their daughter Lydia, who has moved to Melbourne. They believe she may be in danger and want Fisher to go to Melbourne and find out whether Lydia is all right and whether her husband (whom neither Harper trusts) is up to no good. Fisher returns from London to her home town of Melbourne and begins circulating among the ‘set’ that includes Lydia. One evening Fisher’s invited to an evening of dinner and dancing at the home of Melanie Cryer and that’s where she first meets Lydia and her husband. During the evening Fisher gets the chance to show off her tango skills, meet up with a handsome Russian dancer and get some valuable background information on Lydia, her husband and a few other members of Melbourne’s elite. That information helps Fisher solve the case when Lydia’s husband John is murdered.

Dancing plays an important role in M.C. Beaton’s The Deadly Dance. In that novel, recently-established PI Agatha Raisin is hired by Mrs. Laggat-Brown when her daughter Cassandra receives a threatening letter. Cassandra Laggat-Brown is shortly to be engaged to Jason Peterson and the letter threatens her life if she does so. Mrs. Laggat-Brown wants Raisin to attend a dinner/dance at their home the following evening to see if she sees any suspicious characters. Raisin attends the dance and at first, all seems in order. Then, some planned fireworks are set off prematurely. Raisin glances up and sees what she swears is a gun. Now she begins to think that someone really is trying to kill Cassandra Laggat-Brown and she wants to know why. Despite Mrs. Laggat-Brown’s fury at Raisin’s ‘ruining the party,’ Raisin goes in search of the person responsible. And then Jason Peterson’s father Harrison dies, apparently a successful suicide. Raisin doesn’t think so though and it turns out that she’s right. That death and the attack on Cassandra Laggat-Brown are connected to each other and to an IRA cell.

And then there’s Anthony Bidulka’s Flight of Aquavit, in which successful accountant Daniel Guest hires Saskatoon PI Russell Quant to stop a blackmailer. When the blackmail case turns deadly, Quant has to put the pieces of the puzzle together before his client is murdered. Guest is vulnerable to blackmail because he’s had a few secret relationships with men and isn’t yet ready to ‘come out.’ And he has some money. It’s possible that the blackmailer is someone with whom Guest was involved so one night, he, Quant and some friends go to Diva’s, a gay bar with plenty of dancing. Since Guest has dressed in drag for the evening he’s sure that nobody will know who he is. All goes well until Guest spots the person he thinks is his quarry – and it turns out to be a very surprising person whom Quant is loathe to pursue. The scenes at Diva’s do have plenty of humour in them but they also show how useful dances and dancing can be in a crime fiction novel. They’re great places for finding clues, following people and of course, stirring up the tension.

I’ve only touched on a few examples of dances and dancing in crime fiction. There is after all only so much space in this one post. So help me out please and fill in the gaps I’ve left. Which novels have you enjoyed where dancing waltzes through the story?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Kinks’ Come Dancing. Do you know how many songs there are about dancing? It was hard to choose from among them!