Step, Kick, Kick, Leap, Kick, Touch*

When you were small, what did you want to be when you grew up? For a lot of people the answer to that question is, ‘a dancer.’ When you see them onstage, dancers make it look easy. They look elegant, they sometimes wear fabulous costumes and it seems that they live an exciting life. So it’s no wonder so many children think it’d be wonderful to be a dancer. Of course if you’ve ever studied dancing then you know that it’s not at all easy to dance. It’s a challenging life in which you have to devote years of hard work to prepare and in which you have to prepare intensively for every performance. And yet there’s still a lot of mystique about dancers. Little wonder that they show up in crime fiction.

For example, one of the important characters in Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train is Mme. Mirelle, a dancer whose performances have captured everyone’s fancy. Mirelle has a great deal of talent and glamour, but that doesn’t mean she’s at all perfect. When the story begins, she’s having an affair with Derek Kettering, who can, if I may put it this way, afford to keep her in the luxury she feels she deserves. But that’s only because Kettering is married to wealthy Ruth Van Aldin. When Ruth threatens divorce, Mirelle makes it clear that she was ‘not born to be poor’ and that she will leave Kettering too. Then, Ruth is murdered during a trip from London to Nice on the Blue Train. Hercule Poirot is on the same train and gets involved in the investigation. As he slowly puts together what happened during the trip, he learns that Ruth had with her a very valuable ruby that has since been stolen, so she could have been killed for the gem. On the other hand, it turns out that both Kettering and his mistress were on the same train, so one of them could also be guilty. There are other possibilities too as Poirot soon learns…

In Dorothy Sayers’ Have His Carcase, mystery novelist Harriet Vane is on a hiking holiday near Wilvercombe. She stops to take a rest near a beach which looks comfortable and peaceful. When she wakes up, the tide is out and she sees a dead man’s body. She goes for help but by the time she returns, the tide has come in again and there is no evidence as to who the man is or who killed him. Soon, though, the victim is identified as Paul Alexis, a Russian-born professional dancer who worked at the Hotel Resplendent. Once it’s known who the dead man was, the police begin to look for people he might have known who would have had a motive to murder him. Lord Peter Wimsey joins Harriet and together they find out that there are several possibilities. There’s some evidence that Alexis might have been mixed up in Russian politics and that this might be a politically-motivated killing. Alexis’ personal life also comes in for some scrutiny and there are some possibilities there too. In the end an interesting cipher leads Harriet and Lord Peter to the truth.

Christopher Fowler’s Full Dark House is really the story of two mysteries. One told in flashback form is the first case that Arthur Bryant and John May of London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) worked. In that flashback it’s 1940 and the Palace Theatre is planning a production of Orpheus. Dancer Tanya Capistrania is to have a solo part in the production, so she spends a great deal of time at the theatre rehearsing. One afternoon she’s just finished when she is killed and her feet removed. That’s just the sort of unusual crime that the PCU was set up to investigate, so Bryant and May begin their work. Then, Charles Senechal, who was to have another role in the production, is killed by a heavy piece of scenery. Then there’s another death, and the disappearance of one of the other dancers. It’s clear now that someone wants to ruin the production and Bryant and May have to find out who it is before there are more disasters.

In Tony Hillerman’s Sacred Clowns, Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee has been asked to find Delmar Kinetewa, who disappeared from his residential school. He tracks the boy to a Tano ceremonial event that involves sacred dancing. One of the dancers is Kinetewa’s uncle Francis Sayesva, who has an important part in the ritual. The dance finishes and the crowd watching it begins to disperse. That’s when Sayesva is found dead in an alley. When Chee discovers the relationship between Sayesva and Kinetewa, he is sure that the murder is related to the boy’s disappearance. As it turns out, it’s also related to the murder Eric Dorsey, a shop teacher at the school the boy attended. What’s interesting about this story is that it’s actually something Sayesva does during his part of the dance that leads to his death.

And then there’s Paddy Richardson’s Cross Fingers, her second novel featuring Wellington television journalist Rebecca Thorne. Thorne is working on an exposé that she hopes will reveal the shady dealings of crooked property developer Denny Graham. She’s got witnesses lined up and she’s ready to put the piece together when her boss Tim Morrow asks her to work on something else. It’s the 30^th anniversary of the protests against the 1981 Springboks’ tour of New Zealand, and Morrow wants her to do a piece on the events of that year. At the time of The Tour, apartheid was still in full force in South Africa and many New Zealanders thought that letting the Springboks play in their country would condone apartheid. On the other hand, rugby is extremely important in New Zealand, so a lot of rugby fans wanted the tour to go on. The police were tasked with protecting the guests, maintaining order and still allowing people to peacefully protest. As anyone who knows about The Tour can tell you, things went from tense to devastating. But at first Thorne is reluctant to do the story, as she is afraid she’ll lose the faith of the people who are willing to talk to her about Denny Graham. What’s more, she feels that the story’s been done already – she doesn’t have much new to add. Morrow insists though and Thorne gets started. Then she finds an angle on The Tour that no-one’s done. During the protests, two people dressed as lambs would come to the games to entertain the crowd. They’d dance, make fun and generally try to liven things up. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped appearing at the protests and games. Thorne wants to follow up and find out what happened to The Lambs. One of them turns out to be a professional dancer who was murdered during The Tour. As Thorne looks into that murder and into what happened to The Lambs, she uncovers some long-held secrets that someone is willing to do an awful lot to keep hidden.

Dancers look graceful, have a lot of talent and seem to have lives that a lot of the rest of us might envy. But they work incredibly hard to get to the proverbial top of the tree and not a lot of their lives is really all that glamourous Still, they spellbind us in real life and in crime fiction…

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Marvin Hamlish and Edward Kleban’s I Hope I Get It.

The Back of Beyond is a Place Where I Love to be*

It can be very convenient to live near shops, restaurants and so on. It’s easier to get a lot of life’s tasks done and it can be isolating to live in a more remote area – dangerous, too. But let’s face it; traffic, annoying neighbours and basically the noise and hassle of other people living nearby can grate on the nerves. So it’s no wonder that some people choose to live in the back of beyond. Living in a more remote area does complicate life in some ways, but you don’t have to fight traffic, you don’t have to deal with loud or offensive neighbours and you do get some real peace and quiet. It can add to a story’s interest too when fictional characters live like that. When it’s done well, readers get a look at what it’s like to live in an area most of us don’t get to see.

For example, Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee lives in a trailer in a remote part of the Navajo Reservation. For most of the series featuring him, he lives there alone. It’s not that Chee dislikes other people. But he’s not interested in having near neighbours. In part that’s because it’s the Navajo way to have a lot of space between homes. Living in the back of beyond also allows Chee to live in the way he chooses. In several of the early novels in the series Chee is studying to be a yata’ali, a Navajo Singer/healer, so he uses the land near his trailer to practice. In Skinwalkers for instance, he gets involved in a case of three mysterious deaths that are all linked to the Bad Water Clinic run by Dr. Bahe Yellowhorse. The clinic combines Western medicine with traditional approaches to healing and has had some real success. Still, some people resent it so it’s not exactly surprising that it’s the focus of a killer. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is investigating these deaths when a killer tries to target Chee. Leaphorn and Chee work together to find out who is behind the killings and what the motive is. At one point, Chee has a day off from work, so he decides to practice some of the sand painting that’s a part of the yata’ali’s ritual:

 

‘He used it [flat land that he’s cleared near his trailer] to practice dry painting the images used in the ceremonials he was learning.
At the moment, Chee was squatting at the edge of this floor. He was finishing the picture of Sun’s Creation, an episode from the origin story used on the second night of the Blessing Way.’

 

That’s not something a person can easily do who has a lot of nearby neighbours.

Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole also prefers to live more or less away from neighbours although he does live in greater Hollywood. In The Monkey’s Raincoat, we learn that living away from most people gives him among other things a terrific view. Here’s the description of the sights from his deck:

 

‘The rich black of the canyon was dotted with jack-o’-lantern lit houses, orange and white and yellow and red in the night. Where the canyon flattened out into Hollywood and the basin beyond, the lights concentrated into thousands of blue-white diamonds spilled over the earth. I liked that.’

 

Of course, Cole doesn’t always get time to enjoy his peace and quiet. In this novel for instance, Ellen Lang hires Cole to find her husband Mort, who’s disappeared and taken their son Perry with him. Cole agrees, mostly to make sure that the boy is safe. He begins looking for Mort but matters get complicated when Mort Lang is found dead. Perry is still missing and now Cole works with his partner Joe Pike to find out what happened to Mort and where Perry is, if he is still alive.

Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest also chooses to live in the back of beyond. She’s an Aboriginal Community Police Officer (ACPO) who spends most of her time in the Moonlight Downs encampment. As we learn in Moonlight Downs, the encampment is

 

‘…miles from nowhere. The nearest town, Bluebush, was four hours of rough roads away, Alice Springs another five beyond that.’

 

But Emily doesn’t mind. She’s not much of a one for big cities and lots of neighbours and she has a deep connection with the land. And in Gunshot Road it’s that understanding of the land that begins to point her towards the truth in the murder of Albert ‘Doc’ Ozolins. He’s killed one night after a drunken quarrel and the police think that John ‘Wireless’ Petherbridge, with whom Ozolins had the quarrel, is responsible. But Tempest notices some odd things about the land near Ozolins’ shack, and that’s her first indication that this was no heat-of-the-moment killing. So she starts asking questions and in the end, discovers that Ozolins had found out some things some things that were not safe for him to know.

Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon likes to live in the middle of nowhere too. After her husband’s tragic death, Pigeon became a US Park Ranger and now serves in a variety of different National Parks. In Track of the Cat for instance, she’s assigned to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. That’s where one day she discovers the body of fellow ranger Sheila Drury. She and Drury weren’t exactly close friends, but she gets involved in the investigation when the police reports suggest that Drury was killed by a mountain lion. Pigeon has a deep love of nature and is afraid that if word gets out that a mountain lion killed Drury, this will mean that those endangered animals will become targets. So she begins her own investigation. It turns out that Drury had discovered some things she wasn’t meant to know and when Pigeon finds out what those things are, she has to not only catch a killer, but stay alive herself. Pigeon does have a small government-issue home, but it’s not fancy. Still, she doesn’t much care; she’s just as much at home in a bedroll as she is anywhere else.

Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway also enjoys living in the back of beyond. She has a small house on the Saltmarsh on the North Norfolk coast. It’s isolated but she likes living there. As we learn in The Crossing Places,

 

‘It was research that first brought her to the Saltmarsh, but she doesn’t know herself what it is that makes her stay..’ 

 

It’s a lonely place with rough weather and not a lot of what most people think of as lovely scenery. But it’s a haven for all sorts of birds and other wildlife, and although Gallaway doesn’t dislike people, it does afford her the privacy she prefers. What’s more, it allows her to be close to the Roman ruins that interest her professionally (she is an archaeologist). It’s that interest that first gets her involved in The Crossing Places with DCI Harry Nelson. He’s investigating the discovery of a skeleton that may very well be the body of a missing girl whose case he’s been tying to solve for ten years. The skeleton turns out to be ancient, and not related directly to Nelson’s case. But it gets Galloway involved in that case and in the case of another girl who goes missing.

Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind introduces us to Stephanie Anderson, a newly-minted psychologist who lives and works in Dunedin. During a counseling session one of her patients Elisabeth Clark tells her a haunting story. Clark’s younger sister Gracie was abducted years earlier and never found – there wasn’t even a body. This case is eerily like the tragedy that befell Anderson’s own family. Her younger sister Gemma was also abducted and despite a massive search, was never found. Although she knows it isn’t exactly professional, Anderson decides to use what Clark has told her as well as her own memories to try to track down the person who wrought such havoc in so many people’s lives. So she travels from Dunedin to her family home in Wanaka. Along the way she meets Dan, a hunting guide who lives in a remote area and who offers to take her on a hunting trip. Ordinarily Anderson’s not the hunting type, but she finds herself drawn to Dan, so she agrees. Before the trip he invites her to his home for dinner:

 

‘She almost misses it [the drive], has to reverse and negotiate her way back , then off the highway and into the drive…it’s rough, just loose shingle, and steep, and her heart’s in her mouth because after twenty metres she’s driving almost vertically and the car’s shuddering. The track narrows, she can see the sheer drop below and she has to brake and swerve around a curve and then she’s on a wider drive leading to the house.’

 

As Anderson soon finds out, Dan likes to live away from a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean he lives in a hovel…

It can be inconvenient, even dangerous at times, but there can be a real appeal to living away from people, even at the back of beyond. At the very least you never have to sit in traffic. OK, your turn: which gaps have I left?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Kevin Moyna’s The Back of Beyond.

I’m Sorry, But I’m Just Thinking of the Right Words to Say*

Believable sleuths can’t solve crimes by themselves. Besides the help they may need from experts such as forensics professionals and other scientists, they also need to get answers from witnesses and suspects. Oh and there’s the not-so-trivial matter of having to work with supervisors. All of this means that sleuths have to develop a certain amount of skill and diplomacy. I think a lot of readers enjoy it when sleuths speak their minds, especially when what they say is witty. But in real life, we can’t always get away with saying what we’re really thinking; life just doesn’t work that way. There are a lot of examples in crime fiction where sleuths have to use tact when they might much rather not. I’ll just have space here for a few, but I think you get the point.

In Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (AKA The Mirror Crack’d), Miss Marple has been weakened by a bout with bronchitis, and her nephew Raymond West has been kind enough to arrange for Miss Knight to help out in the house and look after his aunt. But Miss Marple is not best pleased with Miss Knight; she’s well-meaning, but she’s condescending, meddlesome and annoyingly perky. Miss Marple knows that confronting Miss Knight directly won’t get her anywhere and besides, she was not raised to be rude. So she cleverly and tactfully finds a way to get Miss Knight out of the house one afternoon so she can take a walk by herself. That’s how she meets Heather Badcock, who ends up getting poisoned at a charity fête. There’s a really humourous look in this novel at the strategies Miss Marple uses to get what she wants without being caustic about it.

Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee needs a great deal of tact in Tony Hillerman’s The Dark Wind. Among other cases, he’s investigating the disappearance of Joseph Musket. Musket may very well have been mixed up with drugs trafficking, and even if he isn’t, he could have valuable information about a plane crash that Chee witnessed since he was in the area. Chee thinks that Musket’s mother Fannie Musket may know something about her son’s whereabouts; she may even know something about the plane crash. Chee very much wants to talk to her but he also knows that barging in and insisting on answers isn’t going to get him anywhere. So he handles the situation more tactfully:

 

‘Chee and Mrs. Musket had introduced themselves, by family, by kinship, and by clan…He had told her that he hoped she would talk to him about her son.

 ‘You are hunting for him,’ she said. Navajo is a language which loads its meanings into its verbs. She used the word which means ‘to stalk,’ as a hunted animal and not the form which means, ‘to search for,’ as for someone lost. The tone was as accusing as the word.

 Chee changed the verb. ‘I search for him,’ Chee said. ‘But I know I will not find him here. I am told he is a smart man. He would not come here while we search for him, and even if he had, I would not ask his mother to tell me where to find him. I just want to learn what kind of a man he is.’’

 

Chee’s tact puts Fannie Musket somewhat more at ease, and she ends up by giving him some useful information.

We also see the real value of tact in Arnaldur Indriðason’s Jar City. In that novel, Reykjavík police inspector Erlendur and his team are called to the scene when the body of a seemingly inoffensive old man named Holberg is found in his flat. At first it looks like a burglary gone wrong, but there are cryptic signs that this was a deliberate murder. Holberg wasn’t rich though, and he didn’t have any obvious enemies. So Erlendur and the team have to dig deeper to find out who the killer is. They discover that Holberg has a dark secret hidden in his past. Many years earlier, he was accused of (‘though not arrested for) rape. What’s more, if the rumours about him are true, there were several victims. As a part of the investigation, Erlendur interviews Elín, the sister of Kolbrún, who made the first accusation of rape against Holberg. Kolbrún committed suicide, so Erlendur knows that Elín is dealing with a lot of loss and grief. What he soon learns too is that Elín is deeply distrustful of police. At the time Kolbrún made the accusation of rape, no-one believed her and in fact, she was humiliated. Elín is convinced that was part of what led to her suicide. So Erlendur knows that he will have to be extremely diplomatic and tactful if he’s going to get Elín to talk to him about her sister. Eventually she does thaw sufficiently to tell him what she knows, and despite a few more ‘bumps in the road,’ she proves to be very helpful.

There’s also Jonathan Kellerrman’s When the Bough Breaks, which introduces us to child psychologist Alex Delaware. For a few reasons Delaware has retired from his practice, but he’s called back as an expert when his friend LAPD cop Milo Sturgis is faced with an unusual case. Dr. Morton Handler and his lover Elena Gutierrez have been brutally murdered in Handler’s home. The only real witness is seven-year-old Melody Quinn, who lives in the same building. Sturgis wants Delaware to talk to the child and see whether he can get her to open up about what she may have seen or heard. Delaware agrees, but he’s soon blocked by the child’s pediatrician Dr. Lionel Towle, who argues that Delaware poses a threat to the child. It’s soon clear that some very important people do not want the murderer caught but Sturgis still has his homicides to solve and Delware has gotten curious (and concerned about Melody’s welfare). So each in his own way, the two men pursue the case. At one point, Delaware visits the home of Elena Gutierrez’ parents and asks her mother Cruz for whatever help she can give. Cruz Gutierrez is in mourning. Besides, she doesn’t really trust the police and she’s from a different culture. But Delaware is tactful and besides, he’s accompanied by Elena’s best friend Raquel Ochoa, who is close to the family. So little by little he and Raquel put Cruz at her ease. Her input turns out to be helpful.

In Angela Savage’s The Half Child, Jim Delbeck learns that his daughter Maryanne has died from a fall off the roof of the Pattaya, Thailand hotel where she was living. The official police report is that she committed suicide, but Delbeck doesn’t believe it. So he hires Bangkok PI Jayne Keeney to look into the matter. One of his reasons for hiring her is that she knows the country and the language. Keeney agrees to take the case and prepares to travel to Pattaya. She knows though that she can’t just go there and start asking people questions. In any case that approach would probably ensure that people wouldn’t talk to her. That’s particularly true in this culture, which values certain kinds of tactful ways of dong and saying things. So Keeney uses the more diplomatic strategy of contacting an acquaintance Police Major General Wichit, who heads the Tourist Police. He is powerful enough that offending him would be foolish and gaining his support could be helpful. Besides, he owes Keeney a favour. Wichit agrees to help, and it turns out that his support is useful. Throughout this novel, we see an interesting difference between the tact that Keeney needs to use on the surface, so to speak, and her real private thoughts. And in the end, that tact proves quite helpful as she slowly gets closer to the truth about Maryanne Delbeck’s death.

Lots of readers enjoy outspoken sleuths. I know I do. They say things we wish we could say and they can be witty. But in real life, there are times when it’s much more productive to be tactful. The wise sleuth knows this and the realistic crime novel makes use of it.

 

 
 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from When in Rome’s The Promise.

Can’t You See I’m Smart?*

Research during the past few decades has shown us some fascinating things about the way we think and know. It used to be believed that intelligence could be measured on a single dimension. The assumption was that everyone had a certain amount of this one ‘thing’ called intelligence. But work by Howard Gardner and other researchers has changed all that. Gardner conceived of several different intelligences. According to this theory, there are several different ways of thinking and knowing; Gardner called them multiple intelligences. We each have some of each of the intelligences, but in each of us, at least one (and usually more than one) is particularly strong. Hold on – I’ll get to crime fiction in just a second.

Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences make a lot of intuitive sense if you think about it. Some people are naturally good at, say, art, music, athletics or languages. And research has supported his theory fairly consistently. We can even see these multiple intelligences woven all through crime fiction. If you look at the way various sleuths go about solving cases, you can see how different ways of thinking and knowing come through in the genre.

For instance, one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences is what he called logical-mathematical intelligence. People with a high degree of this kind of intelligence find it easy to recognise patterns and algorithms. They find numbers and codes and puzzles interesting and their skill is in deduction. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is like that. As Holmes fans know, he looks for patterns and focuses on deduction and logic.

There’s also what Gardner called visual-spatial intelligence. People with visual-spatial intelligence tend to be talented at art. They notice colour and design and respond to what they see. In a very obvious way we see that kind of intelligence in Ngaio Marsh’s Agatha Troy. She’s an artist who responds to what she sees and can create in several different media. For instance in both Final Curtain and Tied Up in Tinsel (and other novels too), Troy is commissioned to paint portraits. So she’s on the scene when murder happens at the homes where she’s staying. Although it’s technically her husband Roderick Alleyn who officially solves the cases, Troy’s skilled eyes are very helpful in finding clues. We see that especially in A Clutch of Constables in which she goes up against an international art forger known only as Jampot. Hercule Poirot also has this kind of intelligence. He’s quite observant about his visual surroundings and of course, fans know how important the appearance of his clothes and moustaches are to him.

Some people have a great deal of linguistic intelligence. Novelists, poets, journalists and other writers often fall into this category. If you love words, play a lot of word games and notice the way people use language, you’ve got a solid dose of this kind of intelligence. For instance, John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell is a lexicographer. Words and languages are his specialty. That’s how he finds out the truth in, for instance, Hag’s Nook, where a cryptic poem turns out to be key to a murder. Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse has a dose of this kind of intelligence too. He does after all solve crossword puzzles with a pen and is a stickler for certain kinds of language use.

People with a lot of kinesthetic intelligence have a solid sense of where their bodies are in space. Actors, athletes, dancers, and people who can parallel park on the first try show this kind of intelligence. People with kinesthetic intelligence like to learn by doing and using their hands and bodies. For example, Helene Tursten’s DI Irene Huss has a share of kinesthetic intelligence. She is a former judo champion who uses the principles of judo to keep herself in shape as well as to clear her mind and cope with the stresses of her life as a cop. And interestingly, we several instances in this series where Huss gets bored and tired of paperwork and the other ‘desk routines’ that are part of a cop’s life. Although she’s hardly rash, Huss prefers to be out doing things to sitting at her desk. She also enjoys going for runs and exercising the family dog. All of those are hallmarks of kinesthetic intelligence and it serves Huss well.

Gardner also proposed interpersonal intelligence. People with interpersonal intelligence are skilled at interacting with others. I don’t mean that they are necessarily manipulators; rather, they work well with all kinds of people. And that is a critical skill for a sleuth. So, most fictional sleuths have at least some degree of it. G.K. Chesterton’s Father Paul Brown for instance is highly skilled at communicating with others, at forming bonds with them and understanding their perspectives. That’s how he learns as much as he does from suspects and witnesses. Karin Fossum’s Oslo police inspector Konrad Sejer is like that too. When he’s investigating a crime, one of his talents is the ability to see things from a variety of other perspectives and ‘get in people’s heads’ to understand why and how they do what they do. People tend to become comfortable talking with him and he often finds himself better able to get information through his interactions than he would through simply reading police reports.

There are also people with a lot of what Gardner called intrapersonal intelligence. Reflective people, people who keep journals and those who are really aware of themselves show this kind of intelligence. And being aware of one’s own reactions  – one’s sense of self – can be very useful for a sleuth. For example, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux has a keen self-awareness. That self-knowledge and reflection have helped him cope with some of the traumas he’s had to face, especially his Vietnam-era experiences. For instance in A Morning For Flamingoes, Robicheaux agrees to go undercover as a ‘dirty’ cop to try to trap New Orleans crime boss Tony Cardo. Part of his assignment is to get close to Cardo but that proves increasingly difficult for Robicheaux as he becomes aware that he has sympathy for his target. Throughout this novel, Robicheaux keeps himself as grounded as he can by ‘checking in with himself.’

Another of the multiple intelligences people have is musical intelligence. Obviously singers, composers and musical artists have a healthy dose of this kind of intelligence. But it’s more than just being able to sing or play music on key. It’s also a sense of rhythm and a keen awareness of sound. If you like a soundtrack when you work, or if you find yourself singing or whistling when you weren’t aware of it, or if you can’t help walking in time to the music when you walk past a car with its radio on, you know what I mean. And if you don’t, just ask Jill Edmondson’s Toronto PI Sasha Jackson, who used to be a rock singer and still does occasional gigs. Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus has musical intelligence as well although he’s hardly a famous rocker. His music collection matters a lot to him and there are lots of scenes in the Rebus novels (including a really well-done scene in Exit Music) in which he gets or listens to music.

Naturalist intelligence is actually pretty self-explanatory. People who are attuned to nature and its rhythms and who just ‘fit in’ in natural environments have a lot of naturalist intelligence. Garden enthusiasts, park rangers, those who are comfortable with animals and those who simply like to be outdoors are examples of those with naturalist intelligence. There’s a lot of it in crime fiction too. Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee, Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest, and Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon are all examples of people who learn from and use nature as they solve crimes. So does Arthur Upfield’s Napoleon ‘Bony’ Bonaparte. These sleuths can tell much from weather patterns, animal activity, ground marks and other natural phenomena. In fact, they often find clues where others can’t.

Finally there’s what Gardner called existential intelligence, the most recent of his proposals. The big questions – the ‘why’ questions – appeal to people with a lot of existential intelligence. Philosophers and members of the clergy often wrestle with these larger questions. And sometimes getting philosophical can be helpful to a sleuth. It is to Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie, who is the editor of Review of Applied Ethics. She doesn’t go out looking for physical clues, and she doesn’t search for patterns. Rather, she looks at the larger motivations people have, and considers the larger issues of morality.

You may be thinking, ‘But don’t all these sleuths also have other intelligences?’ They do indeed. That’s the thing about multiple intelligences. We’ve all got all of the intelligences to some degree. And what’s most interesting is that we can develop the ones we choose to develop.

Interested in taking a look at your own intelligences? Try this Multiple Intelligences Survey. It’s got 40 questions and took me about 10 minutes or so to complete.  By no means is it definite – it’s just one look at the way we learn and know. If you’re a writer, what intelligences does your protagonist have?

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Undertones’ Smarter Than You.

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.