I Admire You so Much*

Writers put a lot of themselves into their work so it means a great deal when people like what they write and say so. Praise from fellow writers has a special meaning because fellow writers truly understand what it’s like to create a story. And when that praise comes from a fellow writer whose work you also admire? That’s happened to me once and without gushing I’ll have to content myself with saying, ‘Wow!’  That’s why I was really interested when about a month and a half ago I had a suggestion from Bryan at The Vagrant Mood about doing a post on authors and the work they admire. Before I go on, I should tell you that The Vagrant Mood is a blog well worth following for commentary on books, poetry and writing in general. G’head – give it a try.

Bryan’s well-taken point was that it’s very interesting to learn about authors’ favourite writers. It shows something about both the author and the writers whose work s/he admires. For example, Agatha Christie was said to be a great admirer of Elizabeth Daly’s novels. Of course there are differences between the two writers’ characters, styles and so on. However, Daly’s Henry Gamadge is, like Christie’s own Miss Marple, an amateur sleuth. Daly’s plots are different to Christie’s but the plotting is one of the main elements in Daly’s work, just as it is in Christie’s. It’s not difficult to see why Christie liked Daly’s work.

Christie fans will know that she was also a fan of P.G. Wodehouse’s novels. In fact, Hallowe’en Party is dedicated

 

‘To P. G. Wodehouse–whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books.’

 

The dedication also shows that this admiration was mutual.

Tony Hillerman’s novels featuring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have won millions of fans. But HIllerman himself had a list of authors whose work he admired. For example, he was a fan of Margaret Coel, whose Vicky Holden/Father John O’Malley series takes place on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation. Like Hillerman, Coel has great respect for the indigenous people who feature in her novels (in Coel’s case it’s the Arapaho people). And it’s easy to see why Hillerman admired Coel’s skilled depiction of the land on which this series takes place. Readers get an authentic sense of context and setting in these novels.

A great number of people are fans of Michael Connelly’s work (I’m one of them). And it shouldn’t be surprising that his admirers include some well-known authors who are talented in their own right. For instance, Connelly and Robert Crais are mutual admirers They’ve even had their sleuths pay ‘visits’ to each other’s series. Crais’ PI sleuth Elvis Cole has a cameo appearance in Connelly’s Lost Light and in turn, Harry Bosch ‘stops in’ in Crais’ The Last Detective.

Another famous fan of Michael Connelly’s work is James Lee Burke, who calls Connelly,

 

‘…one of the best.’

 

Burke is also, by the way, a fan of James M. Cain and Dennis Lehane. He’s also said that Elizabeth George

 

‘…writes some really nice prose.’

 

For her part, Goerge has said that she is an admirer of the work of John Fowles.

As I said, Connelly has millions of admirers. He also has his favourites. Among them are Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and it’s not hard to see the connection. Like Connelly, both authors show Los Angeles at its best and its seamy, gritty worst. They also feature essentially good characters caught up in a sometimes corrupt system.

Ruth Rendell also has won millions of fans both under her own name and as Barbara Vine. She in turn has her own favourites. For instance, she is a fan of Iris Murdoch’s work. She’s also said that P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh is

 

‘…the most intelligent detective in contemporary fiction.’  

 

Rendell is also said to greatly admire Charles Dickens. Granted Dickens isn’t usually considered to be a crime fiction writer. But his novels do address questions of crime, law and order and justice.

For her part, P.D. James has said that she’s been very much influenced by the work of Dorothy Sayers, among other authors. And she has been a profound influence herself on many writers.

Any talented author will tell you that part of good writing is lots of reading. So it makes a great deal of sense that the best crime writers would have a list of authors whose work they admire. And it’s a truly special thing when the admiration is mutual.

Now it’s your turn. Do you see the influence of certain writers on the work of others? If you’re a writer, which authors do you admire? Do they influence your work?

Thanks, Bryan, for the excellent suggestion!

 

 
 

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

 

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland*

Whether it’s ‘franchise’ movies, fashion magazines, reality TV, video games or something else, pop culture is a big part of a lot of people’s lives. So it shouldn’t at all be surprising that we would see pop culture in crime fiction too. After all, why shouldn’t fictional characters read a gossip magazine or go to a theme park or an ‘action figure’ film? It makes sense when you think of how pervasive pop culture is in our lives.

And it’s been around for a long time, too. For example, we see pop culture in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (AKA The Mirror Crack’d). In that novel, famous movie star Marina Gregg and her husband have purchased Gossington Hall, which Christie fans will remember was the home of Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Dolly (The Body in the Library). It’s soon announced that the remodeled home will be open to the public at a charity fête and lots of the locals are excited to see the house and perhaps meet a famous movie star. Especially excited is Heather Badcock, who is very much a fan of Marina Gregg. In fact, Heather gets the chance to meet her idol, but is sickened and dies soon afterwards. At first, it’s thought that the drink that poisoned her was originally intended for the movie star. But soon enough, Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry figure out that Heather was the intended victim the whole time. Film celebrities and the pop culture that surrounds them are an important part of this novel.

The first Walt Disney film was made in 1928 and since that time, Disney films, television shows and networks, and theme parks have become integral parts of pop culture. I’ve even used a few Disney song lyrics as titles for posts.** So it shouldn’t be surprising that Disney shows up in crime fiction too. Robert Crais’ Elivs Cole for instance has a Mickey Mouse clock on the wall of his office, and in Lullaby Town, he wears a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. And that’s not the only story in which he wears pop-culture franchised clothes.

We see pop culture in Marshall Karp’s The Rabbit Factory, which features his LAPD cops Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. Eddie Elkins is an actor who portrays Rambunctious Rabbit, the ‘star’ of popular theme park Familyland. When Elkins is found strangled, Lomax and Biggs investigate the murder. They’re shocked to find that the victim was really convicted child molester Edward Ellison. So at first, it looks as though this murder was revenge for a horrendous crime. But soon enough it turns out to be more complex than that. Ellison’s death is actually the first in a series of deaths intended to ruin the network that created Familyland. Throughout this novel we see how pervasive theme-park and television culture can be.

Malls are another important part of pop culture. With their franchised store brands and ‘food court’ restaurants, they’ve been woven into pop culture life for several decades. There’s a stark and sometimes darkly funny look at the mall culture in Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost. When Green Oaks shopping center opens in 1984, ten-year-old Kate Meaney is sure that it’s going to be a magnet for all sorts of criminals and that suits her just fine. She’s a budding detective who’s opened her own agency Falcon Investigations, and she spends a lot of time at the mall watching for suspicious activity. When her grandmother insists that Kate sit the exams at the exclusive Redspoon school, she reluctantly takes the bus there with her friend twenty-two-year-old Adrian Palmer. She never returns though, and everyone thinks that Palmer is responsible for her disappearance. In fact his life is made so unbearable that he leaves town. Twenty years later, the real truth about what happened to Kate is slowly revealed when Palmer’s sister Lisa strikes up an unlikely friendship with Kurt, a security guard at the mall. Kurt’s been seeing some strange images on the security cameras – a young girl who seems to look just like Kate. Each in a different way, he and Lisa Palmer re-visit Kate’s disappearance and in the end, we find out what happened to the girl.

One of the most powerful purveyors of pop culture is television. And of course the TV culture is woven throughout crime fiction. I’ll just give a few examples. In Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig) Delicious and Suspicious, The Cooking Channel’s restaurant critic Rebecca Adrian is visiting Memphis to choose Memphis’ best barbecue restaurant. One of the top contenders is Aunt Pat’s Barbecue, which has been owned by the Taylor family for years. When Adrian is poisoned a few hours after eating at Aunt Pat’s, talk begins to go around that Aunt Pat’s food is to blame. So family matriarch Lulu Taylor investigates the murder to save her restaurant’s reputation and clear her family’s name. Oh, and three of the characters in this novel are docents at Graceland, the Memphis home of Elvis Presley. If that’s not pop culture….

In Liza Marklund’s Prime Time, journalist Annika Bengtzon is assigned to cover the story of the shooting death of Michelle Carlsson, a major TV celebrity. She was in the process of filming a TV series Summer Frolic at the Castle when she was found murdered in one of the television station’s control rooms. As Bengtzon investigates, we see the ‘pop culture power’ of television celebrities and it’s really not surprising because of that that this is deemed to be a major story.

And then there’s Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, in which Delhi investigator Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri investigates the murder of Dr. Suresh Jha. At the same time, his wife Rumpi and his mother Mummy-ji end up involved in their own mystery. They attend a ‘kitty party’ where all of the guests add some money to a kitty. Later, one woman’s name is drawn and she wins the money in the kitty. This party turns out differently though when a thief takes the money. Mummy-ji scratches the robber, hoping that there will be enough DNA evidence from that to catch the person. Later she and Rumpi go to the local forensics laboratory where a good friend of Mummy-ji’s works as a lab technician. Despite their friendship, here’s what he says:

 

‘Auntie-ji, I think you’ve been watching too much of CSI on Star TV, isn’t it?’

 

Needless to say, Mummy-ji is not pleased at this dismissal and in the end she insists on and gets her answer. But it does show how pervasive television pop culture is, even in crime fiction.

 

What about you? Do you indulge in pop culture? It’s OK, you can tell me. I won’t tell. ….

If you do love pop culture, go visit Pop Culture Nerd, a great source for all things pop culture.

 

 

** Bonus bragging rights question:  In which Disney film does Billy Joel have a major role? No fair Googling!

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.

‘Cause Every Little Thing Gonna be All Right*

An interesting comment exchange has got me to thinking about a difficult challenge that crime fiction authors face. Murder and crime are horrible things. Any writer who doesn’t acknowledge that isn’t really writing a credible story. And some authors (I’ll bet you could name at least as many as I could, likely more) focus on that and make their stories quite bleak. But not all readers want a steady diet of bleak, noir novels. So how does an author integrate the real-life sadness and horror of crime while at the same time presenting a positive, hopeful outlook? It’s not easy. But it can be done if the story is in deft hands.

Agatha Christie for instance wrote some novels that have very sad endings and messages. But some of her work is a lot more hopeful. For instance, Death in the Clouds (AKA Death in the Air) tells of the murder of Marie Morisot, usually known as Madame Giselle. She’s a French moneylender who is poisoned while she’s en route between Paris and London. The only possible suspects are her fellow passengers, one of whom is Hercule Poirot. He works with Chief Inspector James ‘Jimmy’ Japp to find out who the killer is. Very soon after the investigation begins, Poirot discovers that a number of people benefited by Madame Giselle’s death; she used information she had about her clients as ‘collateral’ for the loans she made, and several people are highly anxious that their information shouldn’t be made public. In the end, and after another murder, Poirot discovers who the murderer is. This novel certainly acknowledges the sadness of murder and in particular how stressful it is for those caught up in the investigation. But without giving away spoilers, I think I can say that we get the sense that things will be all right. The criminal is caught and the other people involved will go on.

Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series featuring Mma. Precious Ramotswe is like that too. In fact, this is the series that was mentioned in the comments (Thanks, Kathy D.!) that inspired this post. There are lots of examples of what I mean in this series; I’ll just share one. In The Kalahari Typing School For Men, we meet successful civil engineer Mr. Molofelo. When he has a narrow escape from poachers on his ostrich farm, he decides to set some things right in his life. Years ago when he was a student, Mr. Molofelo boarded with the kind and generous Tsolamosese family. While he was there, he stole a radio from them. At the same time in his life, Mr. Molofelo was involved with a girl named Tebogo Bathopi. He got her pregnant but did little to help her. Now Mr. Molofelo wants to find both the Tsolamoseses and his former girlfriend to make things right, so he hires Mma. Ramotswe to find out where they are. She agrees to take the case and tracks down the people Mr. Molofelo wants to find. On the one hand, it’s a sad story. Mma. Ramotswe’s client can’t really undo what he did. On the other, he gets the chance to make amends and we get the strong message that everything is going to be all right. It’s a story that ends on a hopeful note.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series is like that too. Chapman is a Melbourne baker who lives and works in a Roman-style building called Insula. Chapman doesn’t actively look for mysteries to solve but she frequently gets involved in them because of her loyalty to her friends and fellow residents. And some of her cases are awfully sad. For instance, in Earthly Delights, the first novel in the series, there’s a new resident in Insula Andy Holliday. A former business entrepreneur, Holliday seems to have half-drowned himself in alcohol. We soon discover that a big part of the reason is that his daughter Cherie has gone missing. We also learn that her disappearance has to do with a tragic family rift caused by a horrible incident. Chapman works with her lover Daniel Cohen and information from two other residents to find out what’s happened to Cherie. In this particular case, there is plenty of sadness and Greenwood doesn’t ‘sugarcoat’ it. But at the same time, the case is resolved in a way that gives us hope – a sense that things will be all right.

That’s also what we see in Tarquin Hall’s Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri series. Puri is a Delhi private investigator who’s usually called in to do background checks on potential brides and grooms so that families can be certain the match will be a suitable one. But sometimes Puri is involved in more difficult cases. For instance, in The Case of the Missing Servant, Puri is hired by successful attorney Ajay Kasliwal to find out what become of the Kasliwal family servant Mary Murmu. She disappeared a few months earlier and Kasliwal has been accused of raping and murdering her. The police don’t want to be accused of being ‘bought’ by the rich and powerful so they make a show of arresting Kasliwal for the crime. Kasliwal claims that although he is hardly perfect, he is innocent of any wrongdoing when it comes to Mary Murmu. So Puri and his team begin to look into the case. The truth of the case is sad and Hall doesn’t make light of what happened to Mary Murmu. At the same time, the end of that story also gives a sense that all will work out. And the ‘feel’ of the novels in this series is more or less optimistic. Hall manages this while still acknowledging the reality of what Puri and his team investigate.

And then there’s Robert Crais’ series featuring PI Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. One of the appealing things about this series is that Crais varies the novels so that they don’t get too ‘samey’ so some of the novels in this series are bleaker than others. But Lullaby Town gives a sense of hope. Famous Hollywood director Peter Alan Nelson hires Cole and Pike to find his missing ex-wife Karen Shipley and their son Toby. Nelson claims that he wants to have a relationship with Toby but he and Karen parted on very bitter terms, so she hasn’t been in contact. Cole’s reluctant at first but finally agrees to take the case. The trail leads to a small Connecticut town where Karen Shipley works in a local bank. Cole soon finds though that this isn’t going to be a simple case. Karen has gotten herself mixed up with the Mob, so some very nasty people soon take an unhealthy interest in Cole and Pike. In some ways this is a sad story and Crais doesn’t make light of the Nelson family rift. Nor does he pretend that getting mixed up with Mob types is fun and lighthearted. It’s actually quite ugly and dangerous. But the ending to this story is in many ways hopeful, and it gives us the feeling that things will work out.

Being able to send that message, while at the same time acknowledging what murder and crime are really like, is not easy. And as I said, some readers don’t want books with a hopeful message. Their taste runs to the bleak. What about you? Do you gravitate towards hopeful books? If you’re a crime writer, do you put a hopeful spin on your stories?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

You Can’t Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover…*

…Or can you? It’s a fact of life for the book-lover that there are far more good books to read than there is budget or time to read them. That means that most of us have to pick and choose among the many offerings. In some cases the choice is easy. We all have a list of authors whose work we look for and buy eagerly. And sometimes we get recommendations from people we trust. That makes it fairly easy to choose a book too. But what about the rest of the great books out there? What makes a reader pick up and flip through Book A as opposed to Book B? One answer is…the book’s cover. Covers aren’t the only basis of course on which we decide whether to read something or not, but they can really influence our decision.

For example, covers can give the reader a lot of information about the sub-genre of a crime fiction novel. Cosy mysteries tend to have covers that are quite different to the covers you see on other kinds of crime fiction. Just take a peek at these two examples. On the left is the cover of Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Quilt or Innocence, which features retired art expert Beatrice Coleman. Just a quick look will tell a reader that this is a cosy novel. There’s no violence depicted on the cover and it’s got a ‘folksy’ look to it. Now take a look at the cover to the right, of Vanda Symon’s The Faceless. Without knowing anything about the plot or characters you can tell right away that it’s a darker novel and most likely not a cosy.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

You’ll notice something else too I’ll bet about the cover of The Faceless. It’s done in attention-getting shades of black and red. Of course the purpose is to set it off from other novels. That’s part of the reason for which the covers of my two novels (Check my sidebar to see what I mean) have so much red in them. Same point.

One of the other things a useful book cover does is tell the reader something about the story. In fact I know several book lovers who get very cranky if the book cover doesn’t reflect the story. Here for example is the cover of Denise Mina’s Garnethill. The real action in that story begins when Glasgow ticket-taker Maureen ‘Mauri’ O’Donnell wakes up after a long night of drinking only to find the body of her former boyfriend Douglas Brady in her living room. Brady’s body is tied to a chair, and although the cover isn’t ‘busy’ you can tell something about the story just by looking at it.

You see the same thing on this cover of Robert Crais’ Lullaby Town. There’ve actually been several covers for that particular novel, but what works for this one (at least in my opinion, so do feel free to differ with me if you do) is that it gives a powerful message of what the story is about. In Lullaby Town, private investigator Elvis Cole is hired by powerful Hollywood director Peter Alan Nelson. Nelson wants Crais to find his ex-wife Karen and their twelve-year-old son Toby, mostly because he wants to get to know Toby better and start really being a father to his son. Cole reluctantly agrees and he and his partner Joe Pike trace Karen and Toby to a small Connecticut town. What they don’t know at first is that finding Nelson’s ex-wife and son is going to lead them right into the path of the local Mob. If you take a look at this cover, you see the focus both on film and on the boy. It gives a strong clue about the story.

Some books, especially if they are part of a series, are ‘branded’ on the cover as being a part of that series. The books in the Lilian Jackson Braun’ Cat Who… series, for instance, have a very similar look and distinctive ‘paw marks’ on the cover to indicate that they’re part of this series. Here’s an example: it’s the cover of The Cat Who Lived High. In that novel, newspaper columnist James ‘Qwill’ Qwilleran investigates the murder of art dealer Diane Bessinger. He gets involved in this case when he agrees to save the Casablanca apartment building from being demolished. While he’s working to save the building Qwill says in the apartment Bessinger used to have and thereby gets drawn into the investigation of her murder. You can see by this cover not just that it’s a Cat Who… mystery (check out the ‘paw prints’) but also something about the story.

Some book covers take advantage of television or film adaptations and tie in with them. That’s got the advantage of recognition for readers who perhaps have seen an adaptation and may be interested in trying the series. To show you what I mean, here’s one of the covers for Colin Dexter’s The Way Through the Woods. The cover features the incomparable John Thaw, who of course starred in the Inspector Morse series and who was Morse (at least in my opinion).

All of those things (shades and choice of colour, ‘brand markings’ tie-ins with adaptations and things and what’s depicted on the cover) are often very carefully chosen to get you to take notice. There are other strategies too that are used to attract your attention. Cover art is a big concern to a lot of publishers.

But does it work? What do you think? Do you choose to read or not read a book based on the cover? At the very least do you pay attention to what’s on the cover? If it matters to you, what do you look for? What puts you off? Fellow writers, what are your thoughts about the covers of your books and stories?

Want to read more? Check out this excellent post on covers from mystery novelist and superb blogger Elizabeth Spann Craig.

 

ps I know there are several aspects of this topic that I haven’t mentioned here (e.g. how covers have changed over time and the e-reader’s effect on covers). But there’s only room for so much in any one post…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Willie Dixon’s You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover, made popular by Bo Diddley.

If We Weren’t All Crazy We Would go Insane*

Sometimes life gets cold and sad. We see a lot of that in crime fiction because of course it so often deals with murder and loss and the sadness that goes with them. So every once in a while it’s good to lighten things up and refresh ourselves. One way authors of crime fiction do that is by including zany characters in their novels. Of course that’s a little risky. Too much zaniness and the character won’t be believable. But a little craziness now and again adds a refreshing dose of humour to a story and can add individuality to a character if it’s done well.

In Agatha Christie’s The Clocks for instance, special agent Colin Lamb goes to the town of Crowdean in search of a clue that may lead him to a major espionage ring. He’s passing by one of the houses in the development where he thinks the clue may lie when a young woman rushes out the front door screaming that there’s a dead man inside. Lamb does his best to help the young woman calm down. Then he goes into the house. He finds that she’s absolutely right; there’s an unidentified dead man in the living room. The owner of the house Millicent Pebmarsh claims not to know the man and the only identification he has with him is a fake business card. So Lamb and DI Richard Hardcastle begin door-to-door interviews with the families in the development. One of the first people they visit is Mrs. Hemming, who lives next door to Miss Pebmarsh and so could have seen what happened. Mrs. Hemming though was far too preoccupied with her seventeen cats to notice anything. She’s extremely eccentric, absent-minded and oblivious to just about anything not related to her cats. She does give Lamb and Hardcastle a clue though, and Poirot helps them use that clue.

Ngaio Marsh’s A Surfeit of Lampreys (AKA Death of a Peer) introduces us to a number of zany characters. In that novel, the Lamprey family makes a visit to New Zealand, where they meet Roberta Grey, who can’t help but be charmed by them. And the fact that they’re eccentric only adds to that appeal. Then, Roberta’s own parents die and she moves to London to live with an aunt. That’s when she meets the Lampreys again. Delighted to see her, the family virtually adopts her. Then tragedy strikes. The Lampreys are not good financial planners and are constantly on the brink of financial ruin. When Lord Charles Lamprey asks his wealthy brother Gabriel ‘Uncle G’ for financial help, the unpleasant Uncle G refuses. Shortly afterwards he’s murdered. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn investigates the murder and all of the Lampreys come under suspicion. Roberta doesn’t want any of them to be arrested and she does her best to see that that doesn’t happen. And that’s the thing about the way Marsh paints these characters. We don’t want them to be guilty either. They’re goofy and eccentric and that’s part of what makes them so sympathetic.

Carl Hiaasen has created a number of zany characters, and that’s part of what makes his work so appealing (well, at least to me). In Skinny Dip for instance, we are introduced to Charles ‘Chaz’ Perrone, a marine biologist in name only who’s always looking for a new angle as the saying goes. He gets a job working for agribusiness executive Samual Johnson ‘Red’ Hammernut, who needs Perrone to prove that his business is not a threat to the local Everglades environment. Perrone has developed a way to do just that by falsifying water samples, so the two enter into a business arrangement. Then Perrone’s wife Joey begins to suspect what her husband’s doing and threatens to reveal it. So on the pretense of taking her on a cruise to celebrate their anniversary, he pushes her overboard. The only problem is, Joey is a champion-level swimmer and survives. Then she decides to find out why her husband tried to kill her and take revenge in her own way. In the course of this novel we meet Medea, Chaz’ Perrone’s sometimes girlfriend. She’s a ‘new age’ reflexologist with some unusual beliefs and an eccentric way of dressing. And then there’s Broward County, Florida detective Karl Rolvaag, who investigates Joey’s disappearance and suspects her husband almost from the first. Rolvaag keeps pet pythons, much to the dismay of those who share his apartment building. There are other goofy characters too but what makes them most effective is that they have enough depth and personality to be realistic.

And then there’s Riley Adams’ (AKA Elizabeth Spann Craig’s) Cherry Hayes.  She works as a volunteer docent at Elvis Presley’s Memphis home Graceland, and is of course a Presley fanatic. In fact, she has a crash helmet with a picture of Presley on it. And part of what makes her zany is that she firmly believes that danger can come from anywhere and that it’s best to be prepared, so she wears her helmet everywhere. She wears somewhat flamboyant clothes and she’s outspoken. Her quirks and zaniness make her very appealing. But they don’t take away from her depth as a character. In Hickory Smoked Homicide for instance, Cherry’s good friend Lulu Taylor gets involved in a case of murder when Lulu’s daughter-in-law Sara is suspected of murdering local beauty pageant coach Tristan Pembroke. Lulu is sure that Sara is innocent and begins to investigate the murder. Cherry, for all of her goofiness, is smart and observant as well as a loyal friend. So she helps in the investigation and in the end, she shows up just at the right moment to help Lulu at a critical moment.

Andrea Camilleri’s Sergeant Catarella is also goofy. He’s sometimes hilariously incompetent, especially when it comes to pronouncing people’s names. And he is so determined to do his job well, and so anxious to ‘get it right’ that he gets a lot of things wrong. Because of his eccentricities he drives his boss Inspector Salvo Montalbano to distraction. Montalbano especially hates it when Catarella disturbs him early in the morning – which always seems to happen. And yet, he’s not completely a mindlessly comical character. Catarella does his job, passes along messages, and so on. And one can’t help liking him for trying so very hard. As an aside, in my opinion (so please feel free to differ with me if you do), Angelo Russo is brilliantly cast as Catarella in the Montalbano television series. I recommend the series, folks.

Of course, sometimes the main sleuth is a little zany too. Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole is. He has a Mickey Mouse clock on the wall of his office and likes to wear Hawai’ian shirts. Even to formal meetings with clients. He is a sort of geeky character too. But that’s a big part of his appeal. He’s so goofy it’s cool. And Crais lets readers see beneath the surface of Cole’s character, so that we know he’s more than just a goofball who wears Disney-themed sweatshirts. He’s smart, resourceful and interesting. And zany.

So go ahead. Wear a silly paper hat. Burst into song in public. Why not? A little zaniness can do a lot to clear away some of life’s sadness.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jimmy Buffett’s Changes in Latitudes.