Tell Me That You Want the Kind of Things That Money Just Can’t Buy*

If you’ve ever thought, ‘If I only had some money, everything would be so much better,’ you’re not alone.  It’s easy to see why people think that way. Money represents security, especially if you don’t have much of it. To other people it represents status and prestige. But does having a lot of money really make everything good? Well, yes in the sense that you don’t have to worry about whether the electric bill is paid and the car is in good working order. We need money for survival in today’s world. But having a lot of money brings with it its own stresses and trouble. Just a quick look at crime fiction should show you what I mean.

Several of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories touch on this theme of money, what it can do to people and the fact that having a lot of it isn’t necessarily a cure-all. In The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, for instance, Holmes gets a visit from Violet Hunter. She’s a governess who’s just had an extremely lucrative offer from Jephro Rucastle, who wants to hire her to teach and look after his six-year-old son. Violet isn’t sure she wants the job and Holmes has serious doubts too. The offer seems too good to be true and what’s more, Rucastle has made some seemingly inconsequential but odd requests of Violet.  In fact, Holmes urges Violet not to take the position. But then, Rucastle increases his offer to the point where Violet can’t really resist it. So she takes the job and moves into the Rucastle home.  Holmes has told Violet that if she needs him, she should contact him, and it’s not long before she does. Some strange and dark things are going on in the home and Violet soon sees that she’s in real danger. She writes to Holmes and he goes to the Rucastle home – just in time to save Violet’s life. This case turns out to be all about money.

In Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile we meet Linnet Ridgeway, who’s not only beautiful, but has had money – a lot of it – all her life. And yet, her wealth can’t protect Linnet from everything. When she marries Simon Doyle and plans a honeymoon cruise of the Nile with him, she’s hoping all will go well. But she and Simon soon find that there’s a very unwelcome fellow passenger on the cruise: Simon’s ex-fiancée and Linnet’s former friend Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ de Bellefort. Jackie’s managed to follow the couple everywhere they go and Linnet is, quite simply, frightened and vulnerable despite the security you would think her money would provide. When she is shot on the second night of the cruise, Jackie becomes the first suspect. But it’s soon proven that she couldn’t have committed the crime. So Hercule Poirot, who’s on the same cruise, works with Colonel Race to find out who the killer is. It turns out that Linnet’s wealth made her a very attractive target for a number of people.

Ross Macdonald addresses the whole issue of money and its effects on people in The Far Side of the Dollar. Ralph and Elaine Hillman are rich and successful. They have a life that most people would like. But all is not exactly well. They’ve been having difficulties with their seventeen-year-old son Tom, to the point where they’ve placed him in Laguna Perdida, an exclusive school for ‘troubled’ young people. Dr. Sponti, head of the school, is well aware of the Hillmans’ power and wealth, so he’s distraught when Tom disappears from the school. It’s not that he’s coldhearted about Tom, but he’s particularly concerned about the consequences for him if the Hillmans find out that Tom is gone. So he hires PI Lew Archer to find Tom and bring him back to the school. Before Archer even leaves Sponti’s office though, Ralph Hillman bursts in saying that Tom’s been kidnapped. Archer goes back to the Hillman’s home with Ralph, and agrees to work to find out who has Tom. It’s not long though before Archer realises that something isn’t what it seems in this case. For one thing, it soon appears that Tom may not be a kidnap victim at all, but may have voluntarily gone with his abductors. What’s more, neither Ralph nor Elaine is very helpful in finding their son. Then, one of the people Tom is with is killed. Then there’s another death. Little by little, Archer learns about the Hillman family dynamics, and the role that money has played in them. He also learns about the events in the family’s past that have led to Tom’s disappearance.

Vicki Delany’s Winter of Secrets introduces us to the Wyatt-Yarmouth family. Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, his sister Wendy and a group of their wealthy university friends have planned a skiing holiday in the British Columbia town of Trafalger over the Christmas break. Tragedy strikes when the SUV that the group has rented plunges into the Upper Kootenay River. Inside the police find Jason’s body and that of his friend Ewan Williams. Forensic evidence shows that Jason died as a result of the accident, but Ewan had been dead for several hours at the time the SUV went into the river. In fact, he died of blunt force trauma. So Constable Moonlight ‘Molly’ Smith and Sergeant John Winters look more closely into the matter. They find that despite (maybe in part because of) the Wyatt-Yarmouth family’s wealth, they aren’t particularly happy. There’s a great deal of dysfunction in the family. When Drs. Jack and Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth arrive in town to claim their son’s body, it’s even more apparent that their wealth has helped to skew their perceptions. I can say without spoiling the story that money is not the reason Ewan Williams has been killed. But it plays an important role in many of the characters’ views, assumptions and treatment of others.

We also see how being really wealthy has its own stresses in Perri O’Shaughnessy’s Breach of Promise. Mike and Lindy Markov have been together for over twenty years, and have built up a very lucrative business together. In fact, they’re one of Tahoe, California’s most powerful couples, with lots of prestige and influence. But that money soon becomes a weapon and a real source of strife when Mike falls in love with his vice president for financial services Rachel Pembroke. In short order, Lindy gets a court order to leave their home and loses her position in the company. Desperate to get Mike back, and candidly, afraid of losing the money she’s gotten accustomed to, Lindy hires Nina Reilly to sue Mike. The case is complicated by the fact that Lindy and Mike were never legally married. So Mike has a very good legal argument that he owes nothing to Lindy. But Lindy was responsible for a lot of the business’ success. What’s more, she stayed faithfully with Mike for twenty years, living and being introduced as his wife. There are other arguments too that support Lindy’s claim, so Nina thinks she may have a case. The trial goes on and both sides of the case are heard. The jurors deliberate and a verdict is planned. That’s when there’s a shocking event that changes everything and ends up putting Nina in real danger. Throughout this novel, we see how money, rather than make everything all right, turns into a tool/weapon and an object of greed, and skews everyone’s perceptions.

I know there are a lot of other examples in crime fiction that show that money isn’t really the panacea people often believe it is. I think that if you asked most people whether they’d like a lot of money, quite a few would say, ‘Of course!’ But sometimes it’s good to remember that it can be a lot less stressful not to have extreme wealth, as fun as the prospect seems. Of course, that’s not going to stop people from wanting a lot of money. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the US Powerball Lottery jackpot is up to US$475 million. I’m off to buy a ticket for Saturday’s drawing; you never know…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love. Dare ya to try to get that song out of your head now. You’re welcome.

Where Did You Come From? ;-)

You may be getting ready for your summer holiday, or you may be planning  that winter getaway. Either way, it’s a good time for…

…a quiz! Oh, please! Did I force you to visit my blog today? I don’t think so.

 

Crime fiction is really quite international and crime fiction authors come from all over the world. As a dedicated crime fiction fan, you know where all of your favourite authors come from, don’t you? Or do you? Take this handy quiz and find out. Read each question and choose the correct answer. When you’ve finished the quiz, check your answers and then submit your quiz. I’ll send you an email right away with your score. Ready? Spin the globe…if you dare

 

There Ain’t Nobody That Spies Like Us*

Not long ago I got a request to take a look at spy/espionage crime fiction and I can see why there’s such an interest in it.  Well-written spy thrillers have lots of suspense and tension, and there’s plenty of room for the author to add in plot twists. Some spy novels sacrifice rich and well-developed characters for the sake of a fast-moving plot and plenty of action. But the best espionage fiction shows us the human side of the characters involved. And it’s interesting how even novels that aren’t generally thought of as ‘spy fiction’ actually could be labelled that way, and several authors who aren’t usually thought of as ‘spy novel’ authors have written novels like that.

Spy fiction has been around for quite a long time. Arthur Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes story His Last Bow features an espionage plot. In that story, which takes place just before World War I, Holmes and Watson investigate a German émigré named Van Bork. Van Bork has quietly been gathering information on the British government for a few years and plans to turn over what he has gotten to his own government. Holmes and Watson come up with a brilliant plan to stop Van Bork before he can do any damage and the end of this story is really (in my opinion) quite effective.

Agatha Christie mentions spies and spying quite frequently in her stories, even those that don’t focus on espionage. And fans of her Tommy and Tuppence Beresford novels will know that they’ve dabbled in espionage more than once. In N or M? for instance, the Beresfords are middle-aged and considered too old for regular active espionage duty. But then, Tommy gets a new mission. A British agent has discovered that a pair of German spies has landed in England and that one of them is likely staying at the Sans Souci, a hotel/guest residence in Leahampton. Tommy is asked to go to the Sans Souci and find out whether one of the other guests is the spy. This mission doesn’t include Tuppence, but of course, that doesn’t stop her. When Tommy arrives at the Sans Souci, she’s already there under the name of Mrs. Blenkensop. The Beresfords work to find out who the spy is and soon find that they’re in quite a bit of danger themselves. In the end, a chance discovery in an unexpected (and therefore, quite effective) hiding place puts the Beresfords on the right trail.

The Cold War between the US, the UK and their allies, and the USSR and its allies lasted for decades and gave rise to some of the best-known spy/espionage thrillers. Authors such as Robert Ludlum have created memorable spy novels that have the Cold War as their backdrop. Perhaps the best-known (and in my opinion, one of the most talented) of these authors is John le Carré. He’s written (among others) several novels featuring British agent George Smiley. Two that stand out (at least for me; your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary) are Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Tinker, Tailor… is the first of the Smiley novels. In it, George Smiley has been forced into early retirement and a new crop of agents has gotten into power. Everything changes though when it’s learned that a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest levels of British Intelligence. It’s soon clear to Smiley that his old nemesis Karla, a mysterious Soviet spy leader, is behind this breach of British security and he goes back on the job to catch the mole and stop Karla. Smiley plays a smaller role in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. In that story British agent Alec Leamas is recalled from East Germany when several of his team members are killed on his watch. Then, when his best agent is killed, he’s asked to take on one last assignment: the murder of Hans Dieter Mundt, who’s responsible for the killings. Want to know more about le Carré? Sure you do. Check out a superb post on his work at Mrs. Peabody Investigates, an excellent crime fiction review-and-news blog that richly deserves a place on any crime fiction fan’s blog roll.

The Cold War isn’t the only backdrop for spy thrillers. After the end of World War II, there was a great deal of speculation about Nazi plots to re-establish themselves as a world power, and plenty of spy fiction deals with that prospect. For instance, there’s Ira Levin’s The Boys From Brazil, in which Yakov Liebermann, a Nazi-hunter, discovers a frightening plan to re-create the Third Reich. And there’s Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File in which journalist Peter Miller happens to be covering the suicide of Holocaust survivor Solomon Tauber. A diary he finds eventually leads to a top-secret worldwide organisation dedicated to re-establishing a Nazi regime.

There are also plenty of spy/secret agent stories in which the ‘targets’ aren’t just Cold War or Nazi enemies but different sorts of international criminals and crime rings. For instance, Victor Banis’ The Man From C.A.M.P. introduces us to LA secret agent Jackie Holmes. In the first of those stories, Holmes works with an agent from the US Department of the Treasury to catch a gang of counterfeiters. And there’s Len Deighton’s ‘Harry Palmer,’ whom we meet in The Ipcress File. In that novel, ‘Palmer’ and his colleagues in a special department known as WOOC(P) investigate the case of several scientists who’ve disappeared. There’s also Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, who works for a special Israeli Intelligence department called The Office. He’s gone after international arms traffickers, terrorists, and other groups as well.

Spies and spy novels come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as the saying goes. For instance, there’s Dorothy Gilman’s Emily Pollifax, who in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax decides to give up her middle-class suburban widhowhood and become a CIA agent. As an elderly ‘grandmotherly’ type, she hardly looks like a spy, but she’s quite resourceful and gets quite good at her job.

And of course, no discussion of spy thrillers or espionage stories would be complete without a mention of Ian Fleming’s Bond. James Bond. Dashing and ever-resourceful, Bond epitomises the fantasy intelligence agent. The Bond novels and films were many people’s first introduction to spy fiction.

Feel free to differ with me if you do, but in my opinion, the best espionage thrillers are those that develop the characters of the people involved. They do have action and suspense. There might even be a gun battle or explosion or two. And there’s that little matter of the escapism they offer. But they are also stories about believable people. What do you think? Do you read spy fiction? What about it appeals to you? If you dislike it, what about it puts you off? I promise; I won’t blow your cover…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul McCartney’s Spies Like Us.

In The Spotlight: Perri O’Shaughnessy’s Breach of Promise

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. By its nature, the process of a trial is adversarial, so there’s always a lot of tension in a legal case, whether it’s a civil or a criminal case. So it’s no wonder at all that the courtroom has been the focus of a lot of crime novels. Today let’s focus on one of these courtroom-based novels and turn the spotlight on Perri O’Shaughnessy’s Breach of Promise, the fourth in sisters Mary and Pamela O’Shaughnessy’s Nina Reilly series.

Reilly is a Tahoe, California-based attorney with a small practice that she’s trying to build up. She gets the chance to mingle with the rich and powerful when she’s invited to a posh cruise-boat party hosted by Lindy Markov in honour of her husband Mike’s birthday.  The Markovs own a very successful business and are powerful community leaders, so Reilly’s assistant Sandy (an interesting character in her own right) persuades her that she should go. She reluctantly accepts the invitation and goes to the party with her sometimes-lover, investigator Paul van Wagoner. That’s how she witnesses a dramatic scene when Lindy discovers that Mike is having an affair with his company’s vice president of financial services Rachel Pembroke. The whole scene is embarrassing and awkward and the party doesn’t exactly end happily.

A few days later Reilly gets a surprise visit from Lindy, who’s been served some shocking legal papers. She is being ordered to vacate the home she’s shared with Mike for twenty years, and is being removed from her position as executive vice-president of the business she and Mike built up together. What’s more, she’s being left with no financial compensation. Devastated by the breakup of her relationship with Mike, and frightened of the prospect of being left with nothing, Lindy wants to get Mike back, keep her place in the business and of course, keep her home. She knows that a civil suit will not make Mike fall in love with her again, but she believes his affair will end and Mike will ‘come to his senses.’ And Reilly believes that she can help keep Lindy financially safe whether or not that ever happens.

Reilly soon finds out that she is up against considerable challenges. First, Mike is being represented by the formidable Jeffrey Riesner, a ‘courtroom tiger’ who is skilled and spiteful. Second, and much more importantly, Reilly discovers that the Markovs were never legally married. So Lindy doesn’t have the legal protection (or court precedent) to support her claim. Still, Reilly believes she may have a case. The first step she takes is to get the help of Winston Reynolds, a powerful Hollywood lawyer who’s worked on another similar case. Together with jury consultant Genevieve Suchat, Reilly and Reynolds plan their strategy.

A jury is seated and the trial begins. There is testimony from both sides of course and there are arguments made. The jury prepares to render its verdict and the case seems settled. I know I’m glossing over this part but honestly, saying much more will spoil the story. Then there’s a shocking event that changes everything. Now, Reilly will have to decide how she’ll respond to what happens. Her decision ends up getting her in more danger than she could have imagined and has real consequences for her.

Breach of Promise is more than anything else a courtroom novel. So readers get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what it’s like to prepare for a trial as well as the process of jury selection, planning arguments, contacting opposing counsel and so on. Readers also follow the jury’s deliberation, so there’s an ‘inside look’ at what the jurors are like and how they interact, form conclusions and negotiate a verdict. It’s to the authors’ credit too that this is a realistic look at what it takes to prepare for a trial. The events in the novel take place over the course of more than seven months, and sap the energy of just about everyone involved.

Another element running through this novel is the set of legal and ethical issues involved. Is someone entitled to the financial profits from a company that person helped to build up if there was no written contract or legal marriage? It’s really not an easy issue and this novel explores the various angles of it. And what about community property? Is there such a thing if there was never a marriage? If there is, how is it to be divided if there’s a breakup of the relationship? These are just a few of the issues that are debated in the story.

There’s also a very strong element in the novel of what the lure of money can do to people. There’s a lot of money involved in this case. The business that Mike and Lindy built up is worth well in excess of two hundred million (US) dollars. If Lindy wins her case, the judgement awarded to her will mean several million dollars in fees for her legal team and each one of them, Nina Reilly included, is all too well aware of that fact. That’s to say nothing of the money Lindy herself will have. Mike and his team are just as interested in the financial outcome of this trial. The amount of money involved affects everyone’s judgement and plays a major role in what happens in the story.

Another important element in this novel is the set of characters. Neither Lindy nor Mike Markov is depicted as ‘all right’ or ‘all wrong.’ Mike is hard-working and dedicated to the business. He cares for Lindy too. He’s not an abusive partner and he’s not engaged in illegal business practices. And yet, he’s unfaithful and he’s willing to evict Lindy from their house, fire her and deny her any access to the profits of the business she helped build. For her part, Lindy is a philanthropist who has stayed faithful to Mike, helped him build up a multimillion-dollar business and been dedicated to the couple’s success for decades. And yet, she isn’t entirely honest about her past life as we find out – not even with her lawyer. And she is very much accustomed to the comfortable life she leads. It’s clear as the story goes on that they are much better as a team, at least professionally, than they are separately.

There’s also the character of Nina Reilly. She’s a struggling attorney who’s trying to build up her business, raise her teenage son Bob alone, and carve out a life for herself in Tahoe. She’s very much dedicated to her work and takes pride in what she does. This means that her personal life gets complicated as she tries to sort out what her relationship with Paul van Wagoner will really be.

Breach of Promise is the story of well-intentioned people who end up in a legal battle, and the legal teams that support each of them. It deals with tough legal, moral and ethical issues and features an authentic look at a civil trial and what it does to the people involved. The climax of the story may disappoint readers who are not fond of the ‘sudden shock’ plot point or of action sequences. But when we know the motive behind what happens, it fits in with the story. But what’s your view? Have you read Breach of Promise? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 

ps. Want to know more about fictional female attorneys? You’ll want to check Bill Selnes’ excellent post on just that topic. While you’re there, why not follow his blog, Mysteries and More From Saskatchewan? It’s a terrific resource for Canadian crime fiction as well as interesting reviews of crime fiction from around the world.

 
 
 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight
 

Monday 20 May/Tuesday 21 May – When the Bough Breaks – Jonathan Kellerman

Monday 27 May/Tuesday 28 May – The 7th Woman – Frédérique Molay

Monday 3 June/Tuesday 4 June -  Crooked Lake – Nelson Brunanski

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Falls

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme has gotten through the first five stops on our treacherous tour and now we’re heading to our sixth destination, the historic F Falls. Our tour guide Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise has been doing a fantastic job keeping us all together and safe; thanks, Kerrie. It’s rather opportune that we’re visiting the Falls today actually because, well, that’s my contribution for this stop: falls.

Falls from heights (buildings, cliffs, etc.) can be very dangerous. In fact they’re often fatal. In a mystery novel they’re extremely useful though. A fall can look like an accident or a suicide, so it’s relatively easy to ‘cover up’ the fact of murder. And given the right circumstances, nearly anyone can arrange for someone to have a tragic fall. A good hard push in the right place is all it takes. So it’s really no wonder we see this plot point so often in crime fiction.

One of the most famous falls in crime fiction occurs in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Final Problem. Sherlock Holmes is about to get hold of the evidence he needs to put his nemesis Professor Moriarty and Moriarty’s criminal gang into jail for a long time. But Moriarty finds out and Holmes and Watson are forced to flee England. They end up in Switzerland where Morarity manages to track Holmes to the Reichenbach Falls. In a dramatic scene, the two enemies grapple and both go over the falls. Of course, as Holmes fans know, that’s hardly the end of the great detective’s story…

There’s a tragic fall in Agatha Christie’s short story The Edge. Clare Halliwell is one of the ‘pillars of the community’ of Daymer’s End. She’s a parish worker with a reputation for being a ‘very good sort.’ Clare and Gerald Lee have been friends for a long time, and in fact, Clare thinks their relationship is more than friendly. But then Gerald shocks her by marrying Viven Harper. Viven isn’t much liked in the village but at first Clare tries to get along with her. It’s not a successful attempt though and as time goes by, Clare dislikes Vivien more and more. Then she accidentally discovers that Vivien has been having an affair. Now Clare is faced with a decision: should she tell Gerald what she knows? Vivien begs her not to, and Clare soon finds that she rather enjoys having Vivien in her power so to speak. The tension between the two women mounts, and it results in a tragic fall from a cliff. An interesting question this story raises is: what really caused the fall?

In Anthony Berkeley’s Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (AKA The Mystery at Lover’s Cave), writer and newspaper correspondent Roger Sheringham is preparing for a holiday with his cousin Anthony Walton when business changes his plans. Sheringham’s employer The Daily Courier wants him to go to Ludmouth Bay in Hampshire to report on the investigation into the death of Elise Vane, whose body has been found at the bottom of a cliff. There are now clues that her death was neither an accident nor suicide, so Sheringham is assigned to follow the story. That’s how he meets Inspector Moresby, who’s staying at the same inn and who is in charge of the investigation. Bit by bit, and each in a different way, the two men get to know the various people in the victim’s life, and they find that more than one of those people may have had a good motive for murder. Elise Vane was an unpleasant person with a large fortune to leave. In the end, Sheringham and Moresby find out who wanted the victim dead badly enough to actually murder her.

Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow (AKA Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow) begins with the funeral of Isaiah Christiansen, a ten-year-old Greenlander who fell from the roof of the Copenhagen apartment building where he lived. His death has been ruled an accident and most people are quite satisfied with that. But Smilla Jaspersen, who also lives in the building and has befriended Isaiah, is not. As a half-Inuit who grew up in Greenland, she has a strong sense of snow, and she can see by the snow on the roof that someone else was involved in Isaiah’s death. So she begins to ask questions. The trail leads to an expedition that Isaiah made to Greenland with his father and the events that happened there, so Jaspersen travels to Greenland to search for answers. That’s where she finds the connection between a little-known piece of scientific research, the glaciers of Greenland, and the boy’s death.

In Helene Tursten’s Detective Inspector Huss, wealthy and powerful Swedish financier Richard von Knecht dies after a fall from the balcony of his posh penthouse. Göteborg police inspector Irene Huss and her team are called to the scene for what is supposed to be a ‘rubber stamp’ determination that von Knecht committed suicide. However there are two problems with this theory. First, as the team learns, von Knecht was not the kind of person who would have done such a drastic thing. And there had been no signs that he was unhappy enough to take his own life – and certainly not in this manner, as he was very much afraid of heights. What’s more, the forensic evidence suggests that someone else might have been present on the balcony and could have pushed von Knecht over the edge of it. As the team gets to know von Knecht’s widow, son, daughter-in-law and friends/business associates, we learn that there are several people who might very well have wanted von Knecht dead.

Maryanne Delbeck learns how dangerous falling from heights can be in Angela Savage’s The Half Child. She came to Thailand from Australia to volunteer at the New Life Children’s Centre in Pattaya. One night she is pushed, or jumps, or falls to her death from the roof of the hotel where she’s living.  The official police report is that Maryanne committed suicide but her father Jim doesn’t believe it. So he hires Bangkok PI Jayne Keeney to find out the truth about his daughter’s death. Keeney travels to Pattaya and goes undercover at the children’s centre to find out everything she can about Maryanne’s life and work. She discovers that the centre has its own secrets and that Maryanne may have known about them. What’s more, she learns that Maryanne’s life was more complicated than it seems on the surface. In the end Keeney and her partner Rajiv Patel find out what really happened to Maryanne Delbeck.

 

See what I mean? Falls from high places aren’t always very easy to prove as murder, even if they are. And sometimes what looks like murder ends up having been an accident. Or suicide. No wonder there are so many of these unfortunate run-ins with high places in crime fiction. Now, what do you say we take a nice walk to the top of that lovely cliff to see the falls? It’s a beautiful view…