We Are Detective, Come to Collect*

One of the ways in which crime fiction has evolved in the last sixty or seventy years has arguably been the increasing variety of PI sleuths. And perhaps this is just my opinion (so do feel free to differ with me if you do) but I think it’s a good thing. In real life, private investigators take all kinds of cases, from spouses who suspect their partners of cheating to pre-hiring background checks to investigators who work with attorneys on their cases. And it hardly need be said that today’s PIs come from all kinds of backgrounds.

‘Gentleman detectives’ such as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes paved the way for the modern PI novel, which today ranges from the light (e.g. Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma. Precious Ramotswe series) to the noir (e.g.  Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series). One post is hardly enough to do the modern PI novel justice, but let’s just take a quick look at the sub-genre.

Authors such as Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane were at the forefront of the ‘hard boiled’ PI novel. In Macdonald’s The Drowning Pool for instance, Maude Slocum hires PI Lew Archer to find out who sent a slanderous letter to her husband James. The letter alleges that Maude’s been having an affair, and she is afraid that if James finds out, the marriage will end in divorce. Archer takes the case and begins his investigation. Right from the beginning he learns of the dysfunction in the Slocum family. James’ mother Olivia is quite wealthy and uses her financial power to manipulate the family. Maude and her mother-in-law have never been exactly friends, and Maude resents the fact that James is somewhat of a ‘mother’s boy.’ So when Olivia is found dead one day in her swimming pool, there’s every chance one of the family could be responsible. But then again, oil magnate Walter Kilbourne wanted to drill on the Slocum estate and Olivia was firmly set against the idea. So the murder could be the work of Kilbourne or one of his paid ‘associates.’ As Archer investigates, we get to see the seamier side of the way the wealthy live.

Anthony Bidulka’s PI sleuth Russell Quant also sometimes sees the not-so-very-nice side of ‘the beautiful life.’ In Tapas on the Ramblas for instance, wealthy business executive Charity Wiser believes that someone in her family is trying to kill her. She hires Quant to find out who it is and invites him on a family cruise to get to know the other members of the Wiser clan so he can ‘scope them out.’ As he does so, he discovers that just about everyone in the family had a motive for murder. It’s not just a matter of greed, either. There’s a lot of dysfunction in this family and the better Quant gets to know the family members, the more he uncovers about the undercurrents of resentment. Then, there are two attempts at murder and later, a death. In the end, Quant puts the pieces of the puzzle together but not before he comes close to being a victim himself.

We get an interesting look ‘behind the scenes’ of a PI firm in Julie Smith’s Talba Wallis series. Wallis lives and works in New Orleans, where she’s employed by E.V. Anthony Investigations. The firm does background checks on potential employees and at the beginning of Louisiana Bigshot, we learn that Wallis also investigates cheating spouses. In fact that’s what her friend Clayton Robineau (who goes by the name Babalu Maya) hires her to do. Babalu thinks that her fiancé Jason Wheelock has been unfaithful and wants Wallis to find out whether it’s true. At first Wallis doesn’t want to take the case; she would rather Babalu simply break up with Wheelock than learn all of the sordid details of any affair he’s having. But Babalu insists, so Wallis begins to investigate. She finds out that her friend was right and breaks the bad news. Shortly after that, Babalu is found dead, apparently a successful suicide. Wallis doesn’t think it was a suicide though, and neither does Jason Wheelock. So Wallis starts to look into the case more closely. She finds that Babalu’s family history and someone’s desperate need to protect a reputation are the keys to the murder.

Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson doesn’t work for a firm; she’s set up in business for herself. And one of the very effective elements in this series is that we get to see what it’s like to try to build up one’s client base, take care of the bills and so on. And in Dead Light District we get an interesting perspective on why some people hire private detectives instead of going to the police. Candace Curtis owns a brothel which she staffs with only the best employees. The client list is carefully vetted too. It’s an illegal business though, so when one of her employees Mary Carmen Santamaria goes missing, she can’t call the police about it. So she hires Jackson to find out what happened to Mary Carmen. Jackson is uncomfortable about the case. For one thing, she’s not comfortable with the thought of young women who, as she sees it, are being exploited. For another, Mary Carmen could simply not want to be found. If so, why shouldn’t she be left in peace? But Curtis is persuasive and a fee is a fee, so Jackson begins her investigation. But this turns out to be much more than a missing person case. First an alleged pimp is stabbed to death in a hotel and then there’s another murder. Then Curtis becomes a target. Jackson finds that what started out being a case of a prostitute who’s disappeared has led her to the underside of Toronto’s sex trade.

Some PIs don’t really think of themselves as PIs – at least not at first. Walter Mosley’s Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins doesn’t. In the first few novels, before he gets his PI license, he thinks of it as ‘doing favours.’ So does Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder. In fact in The Sins of the Fathers, he says,

 

‘Sometimes I do favors for people. They give me gifts.’

 

And yet in both of these cases the sleuths learn that the PI business can be, if not exactly lucrative, at least a source of income.

Today’s PIs are a very diverse group. There’s the wisecracking ‘world’s greatest detective’ Elvis Cole (courtesy of Robert Crais), the not-domestically-inclined Kinsey Millhone (courtesy of Sue Grafton) and lots of others too. And that variety has added to the sub-genre.

Now, you may be wondering why I’ve not mentioned one of the best known PI sleuths, Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski. I was saving this mention because today is (or yesterday was, depending on when you read this) Sara Paretsky’s birthday. So this post is in honour of what Ms. Paretsky has contributed to the crime fiction genre. V.I. Warshawski is one of the most popular PI sleuths in crime fiction. She’s a unique character with a strong commitment to social justice, a deep love of her home town (Chicago) and a true-blue sense of loyalty to her friends. She was one of the groundbreaking fictional female PIs and the novels featuring her have gained Ms. Paretsky a worldwide audience.

Happy Birthday Sara Paretsky and many more.

 

 
 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from The Thompson Twins’ We Are Detective.

All the World’s Indeed a Stage and We Are Merely Players*

Today (or yesterday, depending on when you read this) would have been William Shakespeare’s 449^th birthday. I don’t think I have to convince you that Shakespeare’s work has been tremendously influential in many ways, and it’s not hard to see why many people think of him as the greatest English-language poet and playwright. Whether you agree with that or not, there’s no denying his impact on books, plays, poems and authors. People don’t always consider Shakespeare a crime fiction writer but if you think about it, he was. Murder, betrayal, jealousy, theft, politics, family dysfunction – yup, it’s all there. So it’s little wonder that we see Shakespearean references and Shakespeare’s influence throughout crime fiction. There are dozens of examples, so I’ll just mention a few.

Agatha Christie refers to Shakespeare quite a lot. Even the titles of some of her stories (e.g. Taken at the Flood (AKA There is a Tide)) are taken from Shakespeare’s work. And in there are other references too. In one of her novels (No spoilers!), Hercule Poirot says this about a murderer:

 

‘‘…I have always wondered,’ he added, ‘exactly what sort of woman Lady Macbeth was. What would she be like if you met her in real life? Well, I think I have met her.’’

 

There are lots of other allusions to Shakespeare too in the Christie canon.

Shakespeare is also woven through the plots of many theatre mysteries. I’ll just mention two to make my point. Simon Brett’s What Bloody Man is That? is the story of the Pintero Theatre’s production of The Scottish Play. Famous actor Warnock Belvedere is slated for the role of Duncan, and Brett’s sleuth Charles Paris has been given two bit parts. For Paris, this is an opportunity to re-build his career, which has suffered greatly, mostly due to his over-fondness for drinking and to the fact that he’s in emotional distress after separating from his wife. It doesn’t help that his agent isn’t exactly of the highest calibre. As the blocking, first readings and later rehearsals for the play go on, Warnock Belvedere alienates just about everyone. He is arrogant, rude, sexist and egotistical. One night after a particularly disastrous rehearsal, the cast goes to the bar to drown their sorrows. Paris takes a particularly deep dive, so to speak, but he manages to find his way back to his dressing area in the theatre and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes up at three in the morning, he discovers two things. First, he’s locked inside the theatre, as it’s been shut for the night. Also, he finds that Belvedere has also been locked in the theatre, and he is dead. At first Belvedere’s death is put down to heart failure but soon enough it’s shown that he was poisoned. Afraid he’ll be suspected by the police, Paris decides to clear his name and he begins to investigate. Shakespeare readers will know that the title of this novel comes from the play that the Pintero Theatre is producing. Some of the themes in the novel do, too.

In Deborah Nicholson’s House Report, Calgary’s Foothill Stage Network is doing a production of Much Ado About Nothing. The show’s run is going well until one night, Peter Reynolds is murdered and his body discovered in the men’s washroom. One of the first and most likely suspects is Reynolds’ ex-wife Gladys, who works as a theatre usher. She claims that she’s innocent and asks house manager Kate Carpenter to help her prove it. Carpenter is reluctant at first, but then, her lover Norman ‘Cam’ Caminksi comes under suspicion. Mostly to clear his name, Carpenter starts asking questions. With help from her assistant Graham, she narrows down the list of people who could have killed Reynolds. As she gets closer to the truth about the murder, Carpenter finds that the killer has discovered she’s on the right trail. Now she’s going to have to work even harder if she’s to find the killer before she and Graham are the next victims.

There are of course a lot of other theatre-related murder mysteries, many of which allude to Shakespeare. And really, how could they not? But Shakespeare’s influence goes beyond the surface level of his writing. Shakespeare used his characters and plots not just to tell stories, but also to make political and social commentary. If that sounds familiar it should. Many, many authors of crime fiction have done the same thing.

For example, Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö used their ten-novel Martin Beck series for similar purposes. This police procedural series features Beck and his police team as they investigate robberies, riots, disappearances, brutal murders and more. The cases are in and of themselves engaging and as a police procedural series, it’s in many people’s estimation the ‘gold standard.’  But fans of this series can tell you that the novels also serve as a vehicle for their authors’ social and political agendas. It’s not hard to see that in the context of telling stories, Sjöwall and  Whalöö were also making statements about capitalism, police brutality, class and privilege and other issues. Shakespeare probably would have respected that about them.

Sara Paretsky has done the same thing with her V.I. Warhsawski series. Warshawski is a Chicago PI who has gone after all sorts of ‘bad guys’ including insurance fraudsters, corrupt politicians and bankers, union thugs and greedy business executives. The Chicago-land setting, the plots, and Warshawski’s character have won Paretsky millions of fans worldwide. But the novels do more than just tell well-written stories about well-drawn characters (although they do that). Paretsky has strong social and political views, and her novels are one way in which she shares those views. I think Shakespeare would have respected her for that too.

Whether it’s subtle or more obvious, it’s hard to overstate Shakespeare’s influence on writing in general and on crime fiction. And on this World Book Night, it’s appropriate to salute his memory.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Rush’s Limelight.

Some Fairly Safe Bets…

An interesting comment exchange with Moira at Clothes in Books and another with Sarah at Crimepieces have got me thinking about the way savvy crime fiction fans pick up on clues and patterns in crime fiction. Oh, and one other thing savvy crime fiction fans do is follow both Clothes in Books and Crimepieces. If you’re not familiar with those excellent blogs, do go pay ‘em a visit. G’head, I’ll wait.

Right. Patterns. When you read enough crime fiction, you get to the point where you can often make some fairly accurate predictions about what sort of thing will happen in a story. Some things just become fairly safe bets. Part of the reason for this is of course that crime fiction fans are intelligent and observant people. Part of it is also that certain things just seem to lead logically to certain consequences in crime fiction. If you see that pattern often enough, you get to know it and be ready for it. In a well-written story it’s not generally a problem if the reader recognises a pattern. A strong plot and well-written characters draw a reader in even if s/he can make accurate predictions about what’s going to happen.

 

Blunt Force Trauma and ID

 

This is the pattern that Moira mentioned. Her point was that when you have a novel where the victim’s had blunt force trauma to the face, there’s a pretty good chance that there’s going to be a question of the real ID of the victim. She’s right. That’s especially true in classic and Golden Age crime fiction, where DNA and other forensic evidence weren’t accessible.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (AKA The Patriotic Murders and An Overdose of Death), Hercule Poirot investigates the shooting murder of his dentist Henry Morley. The Home Office takes a special interest in this case since one of Morley’s other patients is well-known powerful banker Alistair Blunt, who has plenty of enemies. So it may be that Morley’s murder was an attempt to get to Blunt. But then another of Morley’s patients disappears. And another dies of an overdose of adrenaline and Novocain. Time goes on and Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp are not much closer to solving this mystery. Then, the body of a woman is discovered. Her face has been so disfigured by a bludgeon that any savvy crime fiction fan will know that ID is going to be at issue. Is it the missing patient? Is it the body of her friend, whom she visited shortly before her death? Is it someone else? The question of ID proves very important in this case.

Identity also proves very important in Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors. In that novel, Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet Mervyn Bunter are stranded on New Year’s Eve near the East Anglia village of Fenchurch St. Paul. They are rescued by Rector Theodore Venables, who takes them back to the rectory and arranges for them to stay there while their car is being repaired. While they’re in the village, the local squire’s wife Lady Thorpe dies of influenza. Wimsey and Bunter attend her funeral and then go on their way when their car is ready. A few months later Venables writes to Wimsey. Lady Thorpe’s husband Sir Henry has died, and preparations are being made for his burial next to his wife. But when the gravediggers opened the grave to prepare it, they found another corpse – an unknown man. The face of the corpse has been battered beyond recognition and the hands removed, so it’s impossible to tell who the dead man is. Venables asks Wimsey to return to Fenchurch and find out who the victim is and why the body has been buried in the Thorpe grave. Wimsey acquiesces and he and Bunter make the trip. It turns out that the unknown man’s death is related to a long-ago robbery and a stolen necklace, and that his identity was deliberately disguised.

 

The Fate of the Blackmailer

 

This was Sarah’s idea. She reminded me of an episode of Midsomer Murders in which a girl attempts to blackmail a killer when she’s seen a murder and as Sarah wisely said, we all know what happens to fictional blackmailers when they try to profit from what they know. Any crime fiction fan knows that a person who sees a murder and tries to blackmail the murderer is marked. That’s a fairly safe bet.

There’s a deliciously eerie instance of this pattern in Matthew Gant’s short story The Uses of Intelligence. Eleven-year-old twins Patty and Danny Perkins are particularly gifted intellectually and quite arrogant about it. That’s part of what makes them not exactly popular. One of the few people who like them is the local banana peddler Aristos Depopoulos. When he is killed one day by a brick, the Perkins twins decide to find out for themselves who is responsible. They trace the crime back to the culprit with very little difficulty and then decide to blackmail the killer. Well….you can figure out what happens next, I’ll bet.

A blackmailer also pays a heavy price for greed in Caroline Graham’s A Place of Safety. Charlie Leathers is out one night walking his dog when he witnesses a dramatic scene. Carlotta Ryan, a troubled teen staying with the local curate and his wife, runs out onto a stone bridge over the Misbourne. Running after her is her hostess, curate’s wife Ann Lawrence. For a short time it seems that Ann is trying to convince the girl not to jump off the bridge. Then, Charlie hears the girl tell her hostess not to push, and before he knows what’s happened, Tanya has gone over the bridge and disappeared. When she doesn’t turn up, it seems as though Ann Lawrence has committed a murder, however unintentionally. Charlie Leathers is not a nice person and it occurs to him that he could make a good living by blackmailing Ann. As you can guess, it’s not long before he’s murdered – in this case garroted. Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and his assistant Gavin Troy investigate and find out the truth about Carlotta Ryan, Ann Lawrence and her husband, and the murder of Charlie Leathers.

 

Danger For the Sleuth

 

‘Bad guys’ are generally not stupid. And they usually don’t want to be caught. So it’s a pretty safe bet that if a sleuth goes anywhere alone during an investigation, she or he is bound to get into trouble. Smart sleuths know this and take precautions, but the safe money’s still on trouble for the sleuth.

For instance, in Donna Malane’s Surrender, missing person’s expert Diane Rowe has just learned that James ‘Snow’ Wilson has been murdered. This death has a real impact on Rowe because Snow was responsible for murdering her sister Niki a year earlier. Before his murder, Snow admitted – boasted even – that he’d been paid to kill Niki. Rowe believes that if she can find out who paid Snow, she can find out the truth about her sister’s death. So she begins to ask questions. Once word gets out that she’s looking into this case, you know that she’s going to run into trouble. And she does. But in the end (and honestly, with none of the traditional ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype), Rowe finds out who wanted her sister dead and why. And fans of Sara Paretsky’s V.I Warshawski and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone will know that those two sleuths frequently get into trouble.

This kind of danger doesn’t just happen to female sleuths. In Anthony Bidulka’s Flight of Aquavit, Saskatoon PI Russell Quant gets into trouble almost from the start when he takes the case of Daniel Guest. Guest is being blackmailed by someone who knows about his secret relationships with other men. He wants Quant to find the blackmailer and stop that person. In the course of his investigation, Quant runs into all sorts of dangers including a near-car crash, an abduction and a too-close-for-comfort encounter with a gun.

The funny thing is, in well-written crime fiction, it doesn’t really matter so much that you can make those bets. The stories are still good and they still draw the reader in. What about you? Which predictions have you learned are pretty safe bets? Thanks, Moira and Sarah for the inspiration!

That I Can Tell You in One Word…Tradition!*

Tradition plays a very important role in our lives. Whether it’s family tradition, religious tradition, sport tradition or something else, our traditions give us a sense of continuity and stability. And that can be comforting and very helpful in a world that sometimes seems upside-down.

There are traditions in crime fiction too. For example, one tradition in crime fiction is that there is an obvious crime, usually murder, which is then investigated. That tradition began with the earliest crime fiction and has continued even to recent releases. For instance, Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime, released just a few years ago, features the poisoning murder of Lídia Font. Her wealthy and politically powerful husband Lluís Font is a likely suspect. He believed that his wife was having an affair, and even hired Barcelona private investigators Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez to follow her and find out if she was being unfaithful. But Font claims that he’s innocent, and he wants his name cleared. So he asks the Martínez brothers to continue working on his behalf and find out who the real killer is.

Another tradition in crime fiction is that the sleuth pursues leads, makes sense of evidence and finds out who committed the crime. Again, we see that tradition in a lot of modern crime fiction. For instance, Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs begins with the gruesome discovery of a left foot that has washed up on shore near the Norwegian town of Savern. Chief Inspector William Wisting and his team begin the process of looking for clues, following leads and so on. Then another left foot is discovered. And another. It turns out that these discoveries are linked to the disappearance of a group of residents that have gone missing from the same old-age care home. Wisting and his team also discover that the missing people had another connection, this one going back to the years during and just after World War II. The tradition of narrowing down the list of suspects and finding out whodunit and whydunit is an important part of this novel.

And then there’s the tradition that crime fiction stories are told from the perspective of the sleuth and/or a sidekick/assistant. Although readers may get a look at what other characters do and say, the real focus of the novel is the sleuth. Of course not every early crime novel was written this way (for instance Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone wasn’t). But from the beginning, it’s been customary for crime stories to be told from the sleuth or sidekick’s point of view. And many modern novels follow this tradition. For instance, Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series is told from the perspective of Galloway, who is a forensic archaeology expert at the University of North Norfolk, and the perspective of DCI Harry Nelson, the official investigator of these cases and also the father of Galloway’s daughter Kate.

These and other crime fiction traditions are a critical part of the genre. They are at its roots and they give readers and authors both a structure and a set of important parameters. But here’s the thing. Times change. Ideas change. People change. And if the genre didn’t evolve too, it would become stale and outworn. It wouldn’t meet the needs and interests of today’s readers and it would limit today’s authors. So traditions are perhaps most helpful if they are integrated with adaptation and innovation.

For instance, for many years, the crime fiction tradition was that PI sleuths were male (I know there were a few early female PI sleuths; I’m talking in generalities here). But authors such as Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky changed the PI tradition. The genre is better because it includes stories that feature Sharon McCone, Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski. Not only has that innovation welcomed many new readers and authors, it’s also breathed new life into the PI sub-genre. Yes of course there are still traditional male PI fictional sleuths and some of them are terrific characters. But adapting the sub-genre to meet new needs has improved it.

When Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, she got quite a lot of criticism for it because she broke with one of the important traditions in crime fiction. She had kept with the custom of the sleuth (in this case Hercule Poirot) who investigates a murder (here, the stabbing death of retired magnate Roger Ackrody). But she did part with tradition in a fundamental way and plenty of people didn’t like that. There was a feeling she hadn’t ‘played fair.’ And yet, if you read through that novel, there are several clues as to whodunit. This novel was an innovation and helped to change and develop the genre. In hindsight, it’s often regarded as one of Christie’s best and has one of the most famous dénouements in crime fiction history.

We also see a break with tradition in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. The story is told from the perspective of Central City, Texas deputy sheriff Lou Ford and concerns the investigation of a brutal beating and later, a murder. So far, so traditional.  But Lou Ford is not at all a ‘typical’ lawman. He has a hidden dark side – he calls it, ‘the sickness’ – that affects much about him and plays a critical role in the novel. Thompson’s creation added an innovation to the genre and opened it to all sorts of different kinds of plot twists and protagonists as well as new ways to build tension.

And then there’s the crime fiction tradition that a crime novel involves an obvious crime and the ensuing investigation. That tradition is one of the founding principles of the genre. And yet, opening up the genre to include novels where there isn’t an obvious murder or other crime has allowed for memorable novels. For instance, Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost tells the story of Kate Meaney, a ten-year-old would-be private investigator. She’s even got her own agency Falcon Investigations. Kate is content with her life until her grandmother Ivy decides she would be better off going away to school. She insists that Kate sit the entrance exams at the exclusive Redspoon School and Kate reluctantly agrees after her friend Adrian Palmer persuades her to go. Palmer even goes with Kate to the school to keep her company. Then, Kate disappears. Despite an intensive police search, no trace of her is found, not even a body. Palmer is blamed for her disappearance, although he claims he’s innocent. In fact, his life is made so difficult that he leaves town. We learn the truth about Kate when twenty years later, Palmer’s sister Lisa and a friend of hers Kurt return to the mystery and piece together what happened. Without spoiling the story I can say that this isn’t at all a typical crime-followed-by-investigation kind of novel. And yet it’s powerful.

Traditions link us with the past. They give us a safe structure and they are important in helping us order our lives. But without innovation and change, traditions become limiting. They seem to be most helpful to us when they are seasoned with evolution. What do you think? When you read, what sort of balance between tradition and innovation do you like? If you’re a writer, how does tradition fit into what you write? Or doesn’t it?

 

On Another Note…
 

 

This post is dedicated to the memory of Jackie Robinson. On 15 April 1947, he became the first African-American to play in a major-league U.S. baseball game. Baseball has always been a sport rich with tradition. It still is. But then-Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey saw that in order to attract new fans and make the game more popular, baseball would need to evolve and change the tradition of fielding only White players. Rickey had the idea and Robinson had the courage, the class and the baseball talent to make that idea a reality. And baseball is far better for it. So are we as a people.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the prologue to Jerry Brock and Sheldon Harnick’s Tradition (Book by Jospeh Stein).

You Don’t Like Me*

If you’re in any kind of profession where you work with customers or clients, I’ll bet there are some you don’t like. If so, you’re not alone. Police detectives have to investigate no matter how they may feel about a case, a suspect or a victim. And that can make it difficult to do their jobs. After all, it doesn’t make for much motivation if a cop absolutely dislikes the people involved in a case. But most cops learn to just do their work even if they dislike the cases they get. You’d think, though, that PIs would have more latitude. After all, a PI isn’t required to take a case. But as any PI could tell you, it’s not always that simple. For one thing, PIs have to make a living like anyone else. If they don’t take a given case, then they don’t earn money. So it’s hard sometimes to say, ‘no.’ Lawyers don’t always have the latitude you’d think they’d have either. Even defence lawyers don’t always get to pick and choose their clients. They may be asked to take a pro bono case. Or, they may take a case on principle, but really dislike the client. Whether it’s a PI, lawyer or someone else, it can add real tension to a plot when the sleuth and the client don’t get along.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Superintendent Spence pays a visit to Hercule Poirot to ask him to investigate the murder of a charwoman. Everyone things she was killed by her lodger James Bentley, but Spence has begun to believe that Bentley is innocent. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and travels to the village of Broadhinny, where the murder took place. Poirot is not in the least impressed with Bentley when he meets the man and it’s not hard to see why. Bentley isn’t a pleasant, agreeable, helpful client. In some ways Poirot very much does not want to pursue the investigation. But as Poirot says,

 

‘there is the principle of the thing. If a man has not committed murder, he should not be hanged.’

 

And the more Poirot looks into the case, the clearer it becomes that Bentley did not commit murder. Poirot never does develop any kind of liking for Bentley but that doesn’t stop him from finding out who killed Mrs. McGinty.

Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski doesn’t always like her clients either. For instance, in Indemnity Only, Warshawski is approached by a new client who introduces himself as influential banking VP John Thayer. Warshawski isn’t kindly disposed towards Thayer at first. Not only does she have a natural suspicion of powerful bankers, but Thayer is fairly critical of her when they first meet. It doesn’t help matters that he questions her ability to handle the matter since she’s female. Still, she listens to what Thayer has to say. He tells her that his son Pete has a girlfriend Anita, who’s disappeared. Pete blames his father for Anita’s disappearance since Thayer has never liked her. Thayer wants Warshawski to find the girl because Pete has threatened to change his name and have no more contact with his father otherwise. Warshawski reluctantly takes the case but when she goes to Pete’s apartment, she finds him dead. Then she finds out that her client is not who he says he is. Now Warshawski is involved in a complicated case involving insurance fraud, murder and corruption. She stays involved in the case and finds out later that several of the the people involved have more depths than it seems.

There’s a fascinating case of a lawyer having to deal with a client he doesn’t much like in John Grisham’s The Chamber.  Chicago attorney Adam Hall works for the law firm that is defending Sam Cayhill, who was arrested for the bombing of radical attorney Marvin Kramer’s office and the killings of his two sons. Two separate juries could not agree on a verdict but a third jury has found Cayhill guilty and he is awaiting execution. Hall, who happens to be Cayhill’s grandson, has no liking for his grandfather, who is a racist and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. There are other family reasons too for which Hall is not kindly disposed towards his grandfather either as a person or a client. Still, he takes on the case and begins to research it. As he gets to know Cayhill and does some reflection, Hall starts to really think about what his view is of the death penalty. And even though he never does become what you’d call friendly with his client, he does come to terms with his family’s past.

Jill Edmondson’s Sasha Jackson knows right away that she’s not going to like her client Christine Arvisais in Blood and Groom. Here is Jackson’s first reaction:

 

‘The uptight Manolo-shod Chihuahua who had barged into my office without an appointment seemed naked without an entourage…’

 

Arvisais then tells Jackson that her fiancé Gordon Hanes had left her and then been murdered a few months later. Here’s Jackson’s personal reaction:

 

Listening to the little bottle-blonde b**** barking at me, I automatically figured the guy who had dumped her must have had a good reason.’

 

Arvisais says that she’s innocent of the murder but everyone blames her. So she wants Jackson to find the killer and clear Arvisais’ name. Jackson agrees, but not because she has any liking for her client. And matters worsen later when the check Arvisais gives her is returned by the bank for insufficient funds…

In Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant, Delhi detective Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri takes, among other cases, the case of Brigadier Kapoor, a very powerful man. Kapoor is unhappy with his grand-daughter Tisca’s upcoming wedding because he dislikes her fiancé Mahinder Gupta. He wants Puri to find out something disreputable about Gupta so the wedding will be prevented. Puri isn’t favourably impressed with Kapoor. The man is high-handed and meddlesome; what’s more, Puri does not like the idea of manipulating lives like this. Still, he really can’t refuse the case since Kapoor has a lot of ‘clout.’ So Puri agrees to look into the case and as it goes on, he finds reasons to delay his reports to his client. He does investigate though, and finds out some surprising truths about Gupta. In the end, Puri finds an inventive way to report back to his client while still doing what his conscience dictates.

Angela Savage’s Jayne Keeney meets with a client who doesn’t exactly impress her in The Half Child. Australian businessman Jim Delbeck’s daughter Maryanne jumped, or fell, or was pushed from the rooftop of the hotel where she was living in Pattaya, Thailand. The official police report was that Maryanne committed suicide, but her father doesn’t believe it. So he’s been advised to hire a local PI who can find out the truth. Keeney doesn’t think particularly highly of Delbeck, especially at first. For one thing, he calls her ‘girl,’ which doesn’t exactly endear him to her. He also makes several racist remarks about the locals and shows little respect for the way things are done in Thailand. What’s more, Keeney isn’t sure there’s much she can do for him since the case seems straightforward. Still, she does understand Delbeck’s wish to know what really happened to his daughter. And a client’s fee is a client’s fee. So she takes the case and travels to Pattaya where she starts to ask questions. Keeney learns that Maryanne volunteered at a child care/adoption facility so she starts her search there. That’s when she discovers that this facility is hiding a secret that Maryanne may have found out. And that’s not the only possible explanation for the girl’s death, either…

Private investigators and attorneys may not always like the people they serve. But the good ones do their best to find out the truth anyway. I know I’ve only skimmed the surface of this topic; what would you like to add?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by They Might Be Giants.