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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

 
 

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

I’m Just a Poor Soul in the Unemployment Line, My God, I’m Hardly Alive*

If you’ve ever been unemployed, you know the mix of fear and shame that being out of work can bring. There are of course people who don’t want to work. But the vast majority of people without jobs are not unemployed because they like it that way. On one level, the most basic of levels, unemployment threatens one’s security. Even for people who live in countries that have social ‘safety nets,’ unemployment means re-thinking every purchase. It means possibly having to leave one’s home. It means a struggle to provide the barest essentials. On another level there’s the whole matter of social perception. People who are unemployed, especially if it’s for more than a brief period, are often looked at with pity or worse, with hostility (i.e. ‘Why don’t you get off your lazy a*** and get a job!’). On yet another level there’s the deep sense of shame one feels when one doesn’t have work. After all, many people’s identities are tied up with what they do. I’ll bet when you meet someone for the first time, one of the questions that invariably get asked is, ‘What do you do for a living?’ So it’s not surprising that being unemployed deeply affects the way we act, the way we think and the way we look at the world. And it can drive people to all sorts of things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Little wonder then that unemployment is a thread that’s woven through a lot of crime fiction. Let me just give a few examples.

Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead is the story of Hercule Poirot’s investigation into the murder of a charwoman. Everyone in the village of Broadhinny thinks that Mrs. McGinty was murdered by her lodger James Bentley. And there is evidence against him. And yet, Superintendent Spence thinks Bentley may be innocent, so he asks Poirot to go to Broadhinny and look into the matter. One of the things that Poirot finds out quickly is that there’s a lot of local prejudice against Bentley. He had a job at an estate agent’s office but lost it and hasn’t been able to find another. That in itself is a major strike against him and it deeply affects his already shaky self-confidence. In fact, Bentley is so lacking in self-respect that he sees little point in re-investigating the case. Fortunately for him, Poirot doesn’t see things the same way and is able to find out the truth about Mrs. McGinty’s death.

In Mickey Spillane’s The Big Kill, we meet William Decker. He’s a former safecracker who’s decided to ‘go straight’ mostly for the sake of his son. But it’s hard to find a job and after all, one can’t feed a child on good intentions. So Decker takes a fateful decision. One day, Spillane’s sleuth Mike Hammer is in a seedy bar when Decker comes in with his son. He downs two drinks in quick succession, says goodbye to his son and leaves the bar. Seconds later he’s knocked down in what looks like a hit-and-run incident. Hammer dashes outside in time to see that this is no ordinary hit-and-run tragedy. The passenger in the car that struck Decker also shot him to make he was dead. Hammer takes in Decker’s son and determines to find out who’s behind the murder. It turns out that Decker was desperate for money and got mixed up with a local criminal gang. At first it looks as though members of that gang killed him as punishment for bungling a job. But the reality turns out to be quite different.

Robert Pollock’s Loophole takes a solid look at several levels on which unemployment can wreak havoc on a person. Stephen Booker is an architect who’s just lost his job. At first, he works hard to find another, but he’s unsuccessful and begins to sink into depression. Finally, he settles for the only thing that he can find: a job driving a cab at night. He doesn’t earn much money but his self-respect and his marriage are suffering and he’s desperate for whatever he can get. Booker’s cab driving puts him in touch with professional thief Mike Daniels, who’s busy planning a major heist. He and his team want to break into the City Savings Deposit Bank. When Daniels discovers that Booker is an architect by background, he decides that the team could really use Booker’s expertise to perfect their plan. At first Booker refuses. But his sense of self-respect and his dire financial straits finally convince him that he ought to go along with the gang and that’s what he does. On the day of the break-in, all is planned and ready until a major storm comes through and changes everything. Now, Booker, Daniels and the rest will have to fight the weather as well as look out for the police and security staff if they’re to get their haul.

Ruth Rendell’s Simisola takes a close look at the financial and social consequences of unemployment. Twenty-two-year-old Melanie Akande wants to find a job and get her adult life started, so she schedules an appointment at the local employment bureau. Shortly after that appointment she disappears. Her father, who’s a doctor, asks his patient Reg Wexford to look into the disappearance and after a few days, Wexford does so. He and his team are just beginning to ask questions when the body of Annette Bystock is discovered. It was with Bystock that Melanie Akande had her appointment so the investigation team starts to focus its attention on the employment bureau. As the team members interview the bureau’s employees and those who make use of the employment service, we see the effects of not having a job on everyone’s perceptions. For example, those who apply for help are given appointments and then made to wait, sometimes for hours, until someone actually sees them. And those who work at the bureau don’t all have what you could call compassionate attitudes. On the other hand, not all of the job applicants are hard-working people who have simply had a tragic piece of bad luck. In the meantime, Wexford’s son-in-law Neil has lost his job. He is hardly perfect, but we see in his response to being unemployed how frustrating, enervating and humiliating it can be to be jobless. Rendell doesn’t offer easy answers to the problem of unemployment, which is just as well; there aren’t any. But she does invite the reader to think about how being unemployed affects one’s sense of self-worth and one’s choices. She also invites readers to think about the effects of others’ perceptions of those who have no jobs.

There’s an unflinching look at that perception in Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood. That novel’s main plot is the investigation into the murder of Tasmania police sergeant John White, who is stabbed when he and a colleague Lucy Howard are called to the scene of a break-in. The prime suspect for the crime is seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, who comes from Glenorchy, a low-income suburb of Hobart. Police Commissioner Ron Chalmers is furious that one of his best men has been killed and is only too happy to write Darren Rowley off. As we learn more about Chalmers, we also learn his attitude towards those without jobs, especially those who live in places like Glenorchy. Here’s a bit of the way he compares the unemployed residents of Glenorchy with other people:

 

‘One generation of normal, sane, hardworking, decent, contributing human beings as opposed to two generations of dole-bludging, thieving, fighting pieces of trash.’

 

Chalmers’ attitude about the unemployed is extreme. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t shared by a lot of people.

That social perception of unemployment as a disgrace, combined with the sense of personal shame and of course, the fear of not being able to survive, makes having no job a very stressful situation.  Sadly, it happens to millions of people so it’s no surprise that crime writers explore the problem. I know I’ve only mentioned a few examples here. There are many more.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Styx’s Blue Collar Man (Long Nights). Readers who are kind enough to check this blog regularly may remember that I just used this song a few days ago. Usually I don’t do that, but this part of the song reflects the reality for a lot of people without jobs.

You’ll See Things in a Different Way*

One of the ways in which authors give characters depth is by sharing their perspectives – their stories. When we see the way different characters view the same event, a few things happen. First, we get a broader view of what happened. Second, we get a better sense of those characters. It takes a deft hand to do that without confusing the reader but when it’s done well, it can add richness to a story.

Agatha Christie uses that strategy in Five Little Pigs (AKA Murder in Retrospect). In that novel, Carla Lemarchant hires Hercule Poirot to investigate the sixteen-year-old poisoning murder of her father Amyas Crale. Crale’s wife Caroline was convicted of the crime and died in prison, but Carla is sure her mother was innocent. Poirot takes the case and begins the job by interviewing the five people who were ‘on the scene’ at the time of the murder. Each of the people he speaks to has a different view of Caroline Crale and of what happened on the day of the murder. In addition to the personal interviews Poirot asks each person to write an account of the crime and the days that led up to it. In those accounts and those interviews, Poirot finds clues that lead him to the truth. It’s a fascinating way to look at precisely the same person and crime from five completely different perspectives.

We see that also in Karin Alvtegen’s Betrayal. Eva Wirenström-Berg and her husband Henrik have been having some marital trouble. Still, Eva has always wanted a happy family life, especially now that she and Henrik are parents to young Axel. Then Eva discovers that her husband has been unfaithful. In the meantime we also meet Jonas Hansson, whose fiancée Anna has been in a coma for over two years after an incident in which she nearly drowned. By chance Eva and Jonas meet one night in a local bar. The events leading up to that meeting and the events that result from it spin the lives of just about everyone completely out of control. As Alvtegen tells the story of what happens, we see many of the same incidents from different perspectives. For instance, we learn about Jonas’ meeting with Eva from each of their points of view. That strategy allows us to get to know the characters involved and see what their motivations are.

That’s also true in Y.A. Eskine’s The Brotherhood. That novel uses a wide variety of perspectives to tell about the murder of Tasmania Police Sergeant John White. White and probationer Lucy Howard are called to the scene of a break-in one morning. Tragically, White is stabbed while they’re there. The murder itself is told from the perspective of Howard and the perspective of seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, the prime suspect in the murder. The investigation that follows is also told from different perspectives including those of some of White’s co-workers, his boss, a local journalist and Darren Rowley’s attorney. Erskine takes this approach in The Betrayal too, which focuses on the date rape of one of the Tasmania Police officers. It’s a very effective strategy for letting readers get to know the various characters involved.

And then there’s Roger Smith’s Dust Devils. That’s in part the story of the murder of former journalist Robert Dell’s wife Rosie and their two children. They’re killed in an ambush when their car is forced off the road and into a gorge. That particular incident is told from Dell’s perspective and from the perspective of the murderer Inja Mazibuko. Mazibuko is a locally very powerful Zulu leader who’s ‘in the pocket’ of the minister of justice. Dell is framed for the murder and it’s not until his father Bobby Goodbread engineers his escape from prison that Dell gets the chance to go after Mazibuko. Goodbread has his own reasons for targeting Mazibuko so the two travel to Zululand together. The story of the journey is told from both men’s perspectives and the events that happen in Zululand are told from Mazibuko’s perspective as well as those of Robert Dell and of Mazibuko’s intended bride Sonto. There are other parts of the novel too where exactly the same event is told from at least two different perspectives. That strategy lends depth and suspense to this novel.

It does to Angela Savage’s Behind the Night Bazaar too. PI Jayne Keeney, who lives and works in Bangkok, travels north to Chiang Mai to visit her friend Didier ‘Didi’ de Montpasse. While she’s there, Didi’s partner Nou is brutally murdered. Then Didi himself is murdered. The official police explanation is that he killed his partner and then resisted arrest when the police went to interview him. But Keeney knows that isn’t true. So she decides to do her own investigation. Her search leads her to some ugly truths about child trafficking and the Thai sex trade. Several incidents in this novel are told from more than one perspective. For instance, Keeney’s arrival at Chiang Mai is told from her own perspective and that of Nou. Later, when Didi is killed, Keeney decides to go into his home and search through it for clues. That part of the story is told from her perspective and from that of the police officer who’s been ordered to keep watch. That strategy – describing exactly the same incident from a few perspectives – is a very effective way to develop the characters and to tell the story.

Sylvie Granotier’s The Paris Lawyer is the story of beginning attorney Catherine Monsigny. As the story begins, Monsigny has just successfully defended Cedric Devers in an assault case. That event is told from her point of view as well as Devers’. With that success behind her, Monsigny gets an even bigger chance to make good when she is asked to defend Myriam Villetreix against the charge of murdering her husband Gaston. More than once she goes to the prison in which the defendant is being held to interview her. Those meetings are described from both women’s perspectives. As the investigation continues, Monsigny finds that she has to decide who exactly is telling the truth about the murder: her client or the victim’s cousins, who insist that she is guilty. In the meantime Monsigny is facing her own personal demon. When she was a toddler, her mother Violet was murdered. Monsigny was present at the murder, but remembers little about it. When it turns out that the Villetreix trial is to be held not far from the place where Violet was murdered, her daughter decides to find out the truth about that killing too. The actual incident – Violet’s murder – is told from several perspectives. There’s Monsigny’s own sketchy memory, there’s the perspective of the murderer and there’s another perspective too. It’s a fascinating way to look back on the incident.

But not everybody feels that way. What about you? Do you enjoy looking at the same incident through more than one pair of eyes? Or do you find that too distracting? If you’re a writer, what do you think of it as a strategy?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop.

How Do You Measure, Measure a Year?*

It’s interesting how the end of the year often gets us into a reflective mood, whether or not we make and keep New Year’s resolutions. It’s often a time for taking stock of oneself – well, it is for me anyway. And no, I promise this isn’t going to be one of those ‘Best of 2012’s Reading’ posts. You’ll be reading enough of those as the next weeks go by. Besides, I don’t like to ‘stay within the lines’ like that. But here are a few things I’ve noticed about my crime fiction reading this year. If they help you make some reading choices, then I’m glad to have been of service.

 

 

Book That Has Caused Me to Re-Think My Assumptions

 

Angela Savage – Behind the Night Bazaar

Y.A. Erskine – The Brotherhood

Roger Smith – Dust Devils

Martin Edwards – All the Lonely People

 

Most of us, myself included, have a set of assumptions about, well, everything. About people from other groups, about how to make the world better, about how to solve the world’s problems. But those assumptions can blind us to the fact that very few of life’s problems and inequities have an easy solution. All of these books present difficult issues (e.g. poverty, human trafficking, questions of racial equity) that do not have an easy solution. And these authors are all to be commended for not offering pat solutions. All of these novels have caused me to question what I always believed, and that’s a good thing. The book that has most caused me to really question myself though is Angela Savage’s Behind the Night Bazaar. In that novel, PI Jayne Keeney investigates the murders of her friend Didier ‘Didi’ de Montpasse and his partner Nou. The trail leads Keeney to some ugly truths about child trafficking and the sex trade. I think we’d all agree that something has to be done to keep children safe and to stop human trafficking. But Savage shows us, without preaching, that there isn’t a simple solution. Not until we question what we assume to be true can we look at the source of these problems and try to solve them. This isn’t an easy, light book, but it stays with me in part because it has invited me to stop and re-think everything I always ‘knew’ about human trafficking.

 

 

Book I Am Very Annoyed at Myself For Not Reading Yet

 

Michael Connelly – The Black Box

Ben Winters – The Last Policeman

Deon Meyer – Seven Days

Vanda Symon – The Faceless 

 

Here’s the thing. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and seven days in a week. And one has to eat and sleep and pay bills, etc…   So there simply isn’t enough time to read it all. I am a fan of all four of these highly talented authors, so it has nothing to do with my interest in their books. It really doesn’t.  I will read all of these books. However, I am most angry with myself for not yet reading Vanda Symon’s The Faceless. Symon is the highly talented author of the Sam Shephard series, and I was very much looking forward to this standalone release. I still am. I promise, Vanda, I will read it. Very soon. Folks, if you haven’t yet read it, give it a try. Symon will not disappoint you.

 

 

Pattern in My Reading That I Didn’t Even Notice

 

I Have Read More Canadian Crime Fiction This Year.

I Have Read More French Crime Fiction This Year.

I Have Read More Australian Crime Fiction This Year, Mostly Written by Women.

I Have Read More Thrillers This Year.

 

Did you ever catch yourself in a new pattern that you weren’t even aware of? Well, this year I found myself, and I promise it was unplanned, branching out in all sorts of different reading directions. I’m glad for that, as I am a better informed crime fiction fan for it. I’m all for ‘stretching oneself’ as a reader. And I am truly grateful for those who’ve helped me do that this year. The pattern that I’ve most noticed – that seems the strongest – without me even being aware of it is that I’ve read a whole lot more crime fiction by Australian women writers than I had before. This year I’ve read some terrific work by Sandy Curtis, Virginia Duigan, Y.A. Erskine,  Kerry Greenwood, Wendy James and Angela Savage, among others. I’m so glad I ‘met’ these wonderful ladies from down under. To all of you, thanks for sharing your work with us, and it is my great pleasure to mention it on my blog. Want to read some terrific crime fiction by Aussie women writers? Sure ya do! Check out Fair Dinkum Crime, which is the source for all Australian crime fiction. And check out the Australian Women Writers challenge. Go ‘head. You’re in for a real treat!

 

 

New Character I’ve Met This Year That I’d Love to Have a Drink With

 

Anthony Bidulka’s Russell Quant

Angela Savage’s Jayne Keeney

Donna Malane’s Diane Rowe

Alan Orloff’s Channing Hayes

 

All of these sleuths are absolutely terrific characters whom I’m really happy that I met. They’re all smart, interesting and I’m sure they’d be a lot of fun to know in person. My vote, by a slim margin (‘cause they’re all great characters) is Anthony Bidulka’s Russell Quant. Quant’s smart, thoughtful, interesting, and knows lots of cool places to eat and drink. I could truly enjoy sharing a bottle of good wine and swapping stories with him. His would probably trump mine by a long shot. Check out all of these protagonists, folks – they’re all worth getting to know.

 

 

Author Whose Next Release I Am Most Eager For (Fingers are Drumming and I’m Waiting……Still Waiting…)

 

Paddy Richardson

Adrian Hyland

William Ryan

James Craig

 

All of these authors have wowed me with their novels. And now that I’ve gotten hooked it’s really very unfair to keep me waiting. Come on, you folks!! Next novel, please!!!!!!  There are a few other authors who’ve gotten me hooked (e.g. Elizabeth Spann Craig and Donna Malane), but I know when their next books are coming out, so I’ll be patient. But I am especially eager to read the next book by… Adrian Hyland. Hyland’s Emily Tempest series is one of the finest series I’ve read, and I really truly hope there’ll be a new one soon. A-a-a-hem, Mr. Hyland!!!

So there you have it. A few reflections on my own reading as we face the last few weeks of 2012. Now, please don’t ask me which book I’ve liked most of all I’ve read this year. First of all, the year isn’t over yet. Secondly, I couldn’t narrow it down.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jonathan Larson’s Seasons of Love.

Do I Measure Up to What You Want?*

There’s often a lot of pressure on people to ‘measure up’ and fulfill others’ expectations. Sometimes that pressure puts a great deal of stress on a person; if you’ve ever felt yourself struggling to live up to what you thought you ‘ought to’ be, you know exactly what I mean. We all find ways to balance being responsible to others with being true to ourselves but it’s not always easy. Of course anything that challenging is also a really interesting source of tension and conflict, so it’s not surprising that we see that issue come up a lot in crime fiction.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Hercule Poirot travels to the small village of Broadhinny to investigate the murder of a charwoman who cleaned houses in the village. The most likely suspect (in fact, he’s already been arrested and convicted) is her lodger James Bentley. But he claims he’s innocent and Superintendent Spence, who investigated the case originally, is inclined to agree. While Poirot is there he meets Deirdre Henderson, who lives with her mother and stepfather. It turns out that Mrs. McGinty was killed because she’d found out something one of the residents wants to keep secret, so all of the members of Deirdre Henderson’s family come under suspicion. As we learn about that family, we learn that Deirdre is a very unhappy person. One of the reasons is that both her mother and her father have expectations for her that she can’t meet. Her mother wanted her to be beautiful, graceful and ‘a good catch,’ and she isn’t. Her stepfather wants her to be perfectly efficient at running the household and let’s face it; no-one can do that. Deirdre has a great deal of resentment in part because of the way she’s treated and that plus the family dysfunction add an interesting layer of tension to the story.

Lawrence Block’s The Sins of the Fathers is the story of the murder of Wendy Hanniford. Her father Cale engages former cop Matthew Scudder to look into what happened and find out why Wendy was killed. The question of ‘whodunit’ seems to be answered unequivocally. Her room-mate Richard Vanderpoel was seen going down the street with her blood on his clothes and he can’t really account for what happened. When he commits suicide a few days later it seems that the case is finished. But Scudder continues to look into the matter to find out what led to the killing. He finds that first of all, the case is not as clear-cut as it seems. Second, he finds that part of the reason for Richard Vanderpoel’s behaviour – and really, the reason he ended up moving in with Wendy in the first place – has to do with the pressure put on him by his family to live up to expectations. That’s not the reason for the murder, but it is an important part of Vanderpoel’s personality.

Ted Jasper feels a similar kind of pressure in Margaret Millar’s Mermaid. He is the only son of Hilton and Frieda Jasper and he feels a great deal of pressure to be successful in the way that his father is. But Ted is rather at loose ends, and not sure what his path in life will be. That in itself makes for a conflict within the family but it’s hardly the only one. Hilton Jasper’s much-younger sister Cleo lives with the family and attends an exclusive special school. Her presence causes conflict too because of the attention her older brother lavishes on her. Then one day Cleo disappears. Hilton hires attorney Tom Aragon to find the young woman and Aragon starts to ask questions. One thing he finds is that Ted may have something to do with the reason Cleo left. That becomes even more possible after Ted himself leaves.  As Aragon pieces together the days and weeks before Cleo disappeared he finds out the extent of the dysfunction in this family. He also finds out what really happened to Cleo and Ted Jasper. While the high pressure of expectations is not exactly the reason for the events in this novel, it does play an important role in the Jasper family dynamics.

We also see the pressure of family expectations in Donna Malane’s Surrender. Missing person’s expert Diane Rowe finds out from her cop ex-husband Sean Callum about the murder of James Patrick ‘Snow’ Wilson. Rowe has a special interest in this murder because she believes that Wilson murdered her younger sister Niki a year earlier. Then she finds out that Wilson confessed the murder – even bragged about it. It turns out that he was hired to kill Niki and Rowe wants to find out who his employer was. So she looks more deeply into her sister’s life to find out who would have wanted her dead. As she does, Rowe finds out some surprising truths about Niki, who was an exotic dancer with a ‘side business’ in all sorts of ‘customer service.’  Rowe and her sister hadn’t been very close lately because Rowe kept trying to get Niki to straighten her life out and make changes. As she learns about Niki’s life, Rowe learns that Niki looked up to her and felt a great deal of pressure to live up to her sister’s expectations. In the end, Rowe finds out the truth about both Niki’s death and Wilson’s and begins to come to terms with what happened to her sister.

Of course, it’s not just family expectations that can put pressure on a person. The expectations caused by peer pressure can also be very stressful. That’s what Sivert ‘Zipp’ Skorpe discovers in Karin Fossum’s When the Devil Holds the Candle. In that novel Inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jakob Skarre are contacted by Runi Winther about the disappearance of her son Andreas. At first Sejer doesn’t worry too much about it. Young men often go off on their own for a few days without it meaning anything is wrong. But as time goes by and Andreas doesn’t return, Sejer begins to take more notice and he and Skarre undertake an investigation. Zipp is Andreas’ best friend and is in the best position to know what happened to him. But Zipp claims he doesn’t know what happened to his friend after they parted company on the day Andreas disappeared. It takes all of Sejer’s skill to discover what happened to Andreas and as he does so, we learn about the friendship between Andreas and Zipp. We also learn how the pressure of living up to a peer’s expectations affects this friendship.

The pressure of living up to work expectations can also put stress on a person and add to a novel too. For instance in Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood we are introduced to probationer Lucy Howard, who has just recently joined the Tasmania police. She wants more than anything else to do a good job and to live up to everyone’s expectations. She’s determined to do everything right but one morning everything goes disastrously wrong. She and her mentor Sergeant John White are sent to the scene of a burglary in progress. Lucy stays in the front of the house while her boss goes round the back. Before anyone really knows what’s going on White has been murdered and his killer has fled. Lucy blames herself for not doing something to prevent the murder or at least catch the killer and part of the reason for that is that she’s put herself under a great deal of pressure to ‘do it all right.’ She and her colleagues are determined to catch the murderer and it looks as though that person is seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, a part-Aborginal teen who’s been in and out of trouble most of his life. This case is a political ‘hot potato’ because of the delicate nature of race relations in the area. Any hint of police brutality or not following policy will bring on much more than just angry letters to newspaper editors. So the police have to tread very carefully as they look through the evidence to see whether Rowley really did commit the murder and if so how they can get incontrovertible evidence of that.The pressure that Lucy feels to live up to what she sees as expectations adds to the tension in this novel.

We all face the pressure of expectations at work, at home and even among friends. Sometimes that pressure can be a real source of stress – and make for a really interesting layer of tension in a novel.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Tom Jones’ Fool For Rock ‘n’ Roll.