I Won’t Back Down*

Most of us don’t want to appear weak in front of others. That’s arguably why people often don’t tell their troubles to a lot of people or admit their mistakes. That desire to appear strong and brave is also part of the reason people take dares and bets. Backing out of a dare or challenge can be seen as cowardly, so people go through with sometimes foolish and dangerous dares and bets to avoid that label. I’m sure you’ve seen it in real life, and that plot point runs through crime fiction too.

For example, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, we are introduced to Violet Smith, who’s taken a position as piano teacher/governness at Chiltern Grange. During the week, she stays there. At the weekend, she goes to London to visit her mother. Lately, she’s noticed that a strange man on a bicycle has been following her on the way to and from the train station. He’s never threatened her or even spoken to her. But she’s beginning to worry for her safety. She’s also curious about who the man is and what he wants. So she engages Sherlock Holmes to get to the bottom of the mystery. He and Dr. Watson investigate, and they soon find that Violet Smith is in great danger. Unbeknownst to her, she’s a pawn in a very high-stakes game, as the saying goes. And it all started because of the need to appear strong and not back down from a challenge, in this case, a card game.

John Dickson Carr’s Hag’s Nook is the first in his Gideon Fell series. In this novel, Tad Rampole has recently been graduated from university, and has come to England at the suggestion of his mentor, who knows Fell. Rampole is on the way to Chatterham, where Fell lives, when he meets Dorothy Starberth. He’s smitten with her, so he takes a special interest when Fell tells him about the mysterious history of the Starberth family. For two generations, the Starberths were Governers of the now-disused Chatterham Prison. Even though the prison has been abandoned for a hundred years, the Starberths are still associated with it through a family ritual. Each Starberth heir spends the night of his twenty-fifth birthday in the old Governor’s Room at the prison. During the evening, the heir opens the safe in the room and follows the instructions inside it. Now it’s the turn of Dorothy’s brother Martin. He’s not particularly eager to take on this challenge; the Starberth heirs have a habit of dying suddenly and violently. But he doesn’t want to back down and appear a coward. So he goes along with the ritual. During the night he stays in the prison, Martin Starberth dies of what looks like a tragic accident. But Fell is able to prove that the death was quite purposeful.

Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death) features a group of residents who live in a hostel for students. The hostel is managed by Mrs. Hubbard, whose sister Felicity Lemon is, as fans will know, Hercule Poirot’s frighteningly competent secretary. Mrs. Hubbard’s concerned about a series of odd and seemingly meaningless petty thefts going on at the hostel, so Miss Lemon asks her employer to look into the matter. This he agrees to do, and he pays a visit to the hostel. That evening, one of the residents Celia Austin confesses to the thefts, so it seems that the matter is settled. But when she dies two nights later, it’s clear that there’s more going on here than thievery. Poirot and Inspector Sharpe establish that Celia was murdered, and begin to investigate. As they do, they discover that just about everyone in the hostel is hiding something. One of the things they find out, for instance, is that a few of the residents got involved in what seemed like a harmless bet. They were joking around about being able to commit murder without being caught. Jokes led to a bet, which led to poisons being in the hostel at the time of Celia Austin’s death. And no, that’s not a spoiler, ‘though it may seem to be…

Catherine Aird’s The Religious Body is the story of the murder of Sister Mary St. Anne, who was a part of the community at the Convent of St. Anselm. When her body is discovered at the foot of the convent’s basement stairs, Berebury Police Inspector C.D. Sloan and his assistant Constable William Crosby investigate. Their first interest is of course, the network of relationshps at the convent, and they interview all of the people who live and work there. But they don’t neglect other possibilities. For example, there’s Sister Anne’s family. Also, close to the convent is an Agricultural Institute. It wouldn’t seem that anyone there would have a reason to kill Sister Anne, but on Guy Fawkes day, some of the students follow the college’s tradition of burning a guy. This time, though, the guy is dressed in a nun’s habit and what turn out to be Sister Anne’s spectacles. So it’s very clear that someone at the school was at the convent. Sloan and Crosby find that that element of the mystery has to do with a prank and some students’ desire to take on a challenge.

And then there’s Ann Cleeves’ Raven Black. On New Year’s Eve, Sally Henry and Catherine Ross are on their way home from a party when they pass by the house of Magnus Tait, who’s generally regarded as a misfit and a strange person. Catherine dares her friend to knock on the door and although she’s reluctant, Sally doesn’t want to appear cowardly. So she agrees and the two go to the house. Tait invites them in, and finds himself accused of murder when Catherine is killed a few days later. Inspector Jimmy Perez is assigned to the case and interviews the people in Catherine’s life, including Tait. There is evidence against him, but Tait claims that he’s innocent, and Perez comes to believe him. It’s interesting in this novel to see how that simple dare gets Tait mixed up in the girls’ lives.

Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen’s short story Trick or Treat begins as a young boy goes up to the door of Crow House, which has a creepy reputation. He’s been dared to knock on the door and of course, he doesn’t want to back down, so he knocks. When he’s admitted, he finds a trick he couldn’t have imagined…

Most of don’t want to seem weak, so it’s only natural not to want to back down from dares, bets and challenges. But as crime fiction shows us, it might just be safer all round to risk that…

ps. Oh, the ‘photo? Go ahead, pick a card. Dare ya! You’re not afraid, are you???
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of song by Tom Petty.

It’s a Light and Tumble Journey*

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit animal preserves and sanctuaries on three different continents. They can be breathtakingly beautiful places, and certainly give one a perspective on a lot of things. At least they do me. And it is fascinating to see all sorts of animals that you can’t see anywhere else.

But animal preserves and sanctuaries have a dangerous side to them too. There are all sorts of political and economic issues around them, and that’s to say nothing of the animals themselves. So it’s no wonder that this setting comes up in crime fiction. Here are just a few examples; I know you can think of lots more than I could.

Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon is a US National Park Service Ranger. In that capacity, she is sent to a variety of different US parks and preserves, and she knows first-hand how dangerous those places can be. For instance, in Track of the Cat, she’s been assigned to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. There she discovers the body of a fellow ranger Sheila Drury one morning. At first, it looks as though Drury was killed by a mountain lion, and there’s the local outcry about it that you’d expect. It doesn’t help matters that the locals have never liked the fact that mountain lions living within the boundaries of the national park are off limits to hunters. They resent what they see as the damage caused by the animals and the government’s unwillingness to protect their land. Pigeon isn’t so sure that the culprit was a lion though, and she certainly doesn’t want mountain lions to become the targets of hunters. So she begins to ask questions. In the process she discovers that the victim’s death had a very human cause…

Banff National Park, Canada’s oldest national park, features in Vicki Delany’s Under Cold Stone. In that novel, Lucy ‘Lucky’ Smith and her partner Paul Keller (Trafalgar, British Columbia’s Chief Constable of Police) have decided to take a trip to Banff, in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. Their plan is for some relaxing ‘just the two of us’ time. But that’s not how it works out. Keller’s estranged son Matt disappears. And since he’s experienced at camping and living in the outdoors, he could be anywhere and it would be very hard to find him. What’s more, he may very well be guilty of murder. Banff isn’t within the jurisdiction of Lucky’s daughter, Trafalgar Police Constable Moonlight ‘Molly’ Smith. But she travels there to be of whatever support she can to her mother. Then Matt’s girlfriend begs her to clear his name, claiming that he’s innocent. So Molly begins to ask some questions. And you thought bears, cougars and wolverines were the biggest living threats in the park…

In Michael Sears’ and Stanley Trollip’s (AKA Michael Stanley) A Carrion Death, Professor of Ecology Benani Sibisi has taken a trip to Dale’s Camp, on the verge of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve. He’s out in the field one day when he discovers the body of an unknown man. At first it looks as though the man was killed by wild animals; certainly hyenas have already paid the body a visit. Botswana CID Assistant Superintendent David ‘Kubu’ Bengu is called to the scene and supervises sending the remains for forensics testing, mostly to try to identify the victim. Results of that testing suggest that the man was murdered. Now it’s even more important to find out who he was and what he was doing at the Reserve. So Kubu and his team begin to look more closely into the case. They find a connection between the dead man and the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company (BCMC), a powerful voice in the country’s economic and political arenas. That connection makes this case delicate, since the Botswana government has a major interest in making sure that the company remains a going concern. In the end, though, Kubu is able to find out who the dead man was and how his murder is related to events and interactions at BCMC.

Much of Michael Allan Mallory and Marilyn Victor’s Killer Instinct takes place at the Minnesota Wolf Institute (MWI), which in part functions as a preserve for wolves. Zookeeper Lavender ‘Snake’ Jones is invited to the MWI to film an episode of her television documentary series Zoofari. When she arrives, she finds herself in the middle of a dangerous controversy. Her friend Gina Brown, a biologist associated with the MWI, is a passionate defender of wolves and their preservation. That pits Brown against several locals, led by Ivar Bjorkland, who want to see the wolves exterminated. In fact, they have a very public dispute about the matter when four wolves are illegally killed. Then, Bjorkland is found murdered. Jones is worried that her friend might have been involved in the killing, although she doesn’t want to think so. Then there’s another murder. And another. Now Jones has to help clear her friend’s name and stop the killer before there’s another death. Wolves are by no means the most dangerous species in this novel…

In Deon Meyer’s Blood Safari, Emma le Roux hires professional bodyguard Martin Lemmer to accompany her from Cape Town to the Lowveld to find out the truth about her missing brother Jacobus. He disappeared twenty-five years earlier in what everyone thought was a skirmish with poachers. But now Emma thinks he’s still alive. So she wants to trace his history from Kruger National Park, his last known whereabouts. She and Lemmer arrive in the area only to find out that this is much more than the case of a man who was killed by dangerous poachers. In the end, they find out that the truth about Jacobus le Roux is related to coverups, corruption and ugly realities about politics and environmentalism. Along the way, they visit more than one animal preserve, and it’s interesting to read the different perspectives and views on taking care of South Africa’s unique ecosytems while at the same time nurturing the economy.

New Zealand’s Rimutaka State Forest is the scene of some of the action in Donna Malane’s Surrender. Wellington missing person expert Diane Rowe is hired by Inspector Frank McFay to trace the identity of a ‘John Doe’ whose body has been found in the forest. There isn’t much to go on at first, but with the help of pathologist Grant ‘Smithy’ Smith, Rowe slowly learns that the man was in his twenties when he died, and that he died sometime during the early1970s. Bit by bit, Rowe puts the pieces together and finds out who the man was. At the same time, she’s on another case of her own choosing. Her sister Niki was murdered a year ago. Now, the man who claims he was paid to kill Niki has himself been murdered in the same way. Rowe believes that if she can find out who killed the ‘hit man,’ she’ll find out who’s responsible for her sister’s murder. Although the wildlife in the forest doesn’t hold the key to Niki’s death, the forest does have its role to play in the events in the story.

And that’s thing about animal preserves and sanctuaries. They can seem like peaceful places, and their natural beauty is practically unmatched. But safe? Erm – possibly not. I’ve only had space here to mention a few examples (I know, I know, fans of Ann Cleeves’ The Crow Trap and Blue Lightning). Which stories with this context have stayed in your mind?
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul Simon’s At the Zoo.

Better the Pride That Resides in a Citizen of the World*

Some fictional sleuths are very closely associated with a particular place. It’s not at all that they’re insular or ignorant; rather, their real appeal comes from the way that setting is reflected in the sleuth. I’m thinking for instance of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire or Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope. Other sleuths though are what you might call global citizens. Even if they more or less live in one place, they’ve done a lot of travelling and they’re as comfortable in one part of the world as in another. It’s not that they’re unhappy with their cultural identities; rather, they see themselves as citizens of the world as well as members of a particular national/cultural group. Here are just a few examples; I’m sure you can think of many more than I can.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is Belgian. Christie/Poirot fans will know that he’s quick to remind people of that when they make the mistake of thinking that he’s French. He’s maintained many of his cultural views, customs and the like. But at the same time, he’s been to many different places, and he’s assured and comfortable no matter where he happens to be. He doesn’t care for dirt, bad cooking or clutter, but that’s his passion for order and neatness, not insularity. Poirot’s multilingual too, and that helps him quite a lot. We see that for instance in Murder on the Orient Express and Black Coffee, where he uses witnesses’ and suspects’ own languages to help put them at their ease. Poirot is proud of being Belgian (well, he’s proud in general), but he’s very much aware that there’s a big world out there and he’s seen quite a bit of it and negotiates it quite effectively.

So does Aaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver. Oliver is a physical anthropologist whose ‘home base’ is Northern California. He is in many ways unmistakeably American. And yet he’s also very much a citizen of the world. He’s gone to lots of different places as his services have been needed. He’s also done a fair amount of travel for pleasure and for research purposes. That’s what takes him for instance to the Amazon rainforest in Little Tiny Teeth.  In that novel, Oliver is on what he thinks will be a getaway adventure trip where he can also learn some things to enhance his professional knowledge. Instead, he gets mixed up in a murder case when a fellow passenger ethnobiologist Arden Scofield is murdered. Oliver belongs to the global community of scholars in general and physical anthropologists in particular. So in that sense, he doesn’t belong to just one cultural group. What’s more, both his education and his travel experiences have given him a global perspective. So although he’s distinctly American, he’s a lot more too.

You could say a similar thing about Anthony Bidulka’s Russell Quant. He is a Saskatoon-based PI who has strong Saskatchewan roots and connections. But Quant has a very global outlook on life. He’s been to many different places in the world, including France, Spain, the Middle East and Mexico. He enjoys travel and my guess is that he would feel restless if he stayed in Saskatoon for too long without taking a trip somewhere. Fortunately for him, his work gives him lots of opportunity to travel and he’s developed a global sort of outlook on life. At the same time though, Quant loves his home town too. He’s comfortable among his friends and in familiar places. And he’s learned that going home can be just as good an experience as packing up can be.

Bidulka’s other protagonist Adam Saint is also a global citizen. Saint is a member of the Canadian Disaster Recovery Agency (CDRA). As a CDRA disaster recovery specialist, Saint travels to any place where a disaster of any kind affects Canada, Canadians or Canadian interests. His home is Saskatchewan, although in When the Saints Go Marching In, we learn that he lives in Toronto. He’s Canadian and of course his job is to protect Canadian interests. And yet, he is as comfortable on a flight somewhere as he is in his Toronto apartment. He settles in wherever he happens to be and he has a very cosmopolitan, global outlook on life. I hope we’ll see more of him.

Ian Hamilton’s Toronto-based forensic accountant Ava Lee is another example of a sleuth who’s just as comfortable in one part of the world as in another. She’s got a life, friends, and so on in Toronto and she’s happy there. She considers herself Canadian in that sense. She is also Chinese, with roots in Hong Kong. In fact, the company she works for, and that’s run by a man Lee refers to as Uncle, is based there. Lee travels all over the world in the course of her work, which is finding stolen money. When people feel that they’ve been bilked out of a great deal of money, they hire her company and it’s Lee’s job to use her accountancy skills to track the stolen funds. She’s multilingual and very good at what she does, so she’s in great demand. Her travels, her multicultural background and her work have given her a very global perspective.

Angela Savage’s PI sleuth Jayne Keeney is Australian. That’s where she’s from and it’s how she identifies herself culturally. She’s happy with that and there are scenes in this series where the reader can see it. And yet, she’s got a very global perspective. She lives and works in Thailand and has learned to appreciate the Thai culture and language. She’s been to other places in the world too, and speaks a few different languages. What’s more important than her multilingualism though is that Keeney doesn’t just see herself as ‘an Australian who happens to live in Thailand.’ She loves living in Thailand, although she’s not blind to the problems and challenges the country faces. She identifies herself as an Australian, but she has no great burning desire to live there. She’s comfortable wherever she goes, and doesn’t feel particularly bound to one place.

On the one hand, there’s something to the sleuth who truly enjoys ‘the comforts of home’ and strongly identifies with a particular place or culture. Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano is like that for instance and it works very well in that series. On the other hand, today’s world is smaller than ever, figuratively and culturally speaking. So it makes sense that there are also plenty of sleuths who think of themselves as citizens of the world and are able to be comfortable no matter where in it they happen to be.

 

 
 

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

Might as Well Jump*

It seems to be human nature, at least for a lot of people, to want that jolt that comes from being a little scared. I don’t mean of course truly terrified; that’s traumatic. But a lot of people like a little shot of adrenaline. That’s part of why people ride roller coasters, go through ‘haunted houses,’ watch suspense movies and read certain kinds of crime fiction. It’s part of why people allow themselves to be dared to do things, too. It’s little wonder then that we also see a lot of characters like that in crime fiction novels. Not only does that make sense from a human perspective but also, it can be a very effective context for a story.

In Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links, Captain Arthur Hastings is returning to London after a business trip. In the same carriage is a young woman who calls herself Cinderella. The two get to talking and it comes out that Cinderella loves reading detective stories and following news of real-life murders. Hastings isn’t exactly thrilled by this aspect of Cinderella’s personality, and is even less so a bit later in the novel when he meets her again. He and Hercule Poirot go to France after Poirot receives a letter from Paul Renauld asking for his help. When they arrive at the Renauld home, they find that he’s been murdered. Hastings is walking around the Renauld property with the aim of having another look at the crime scene when he quite literally bumps into Cinderella. She says that she’s fascinated by the whole thing and wants him to show her round:

 

‘Me for the horrors…’

 

Hastings does so, mostly to impress her with the fact that he’s in on the investigation. It’s interesting to see the contrast between his almost-Victorian sense of what ‘should’ interest a young lady, and his companion’s enjoyment of that rush of adrenaline.

In Margery Allingham’s The Crime at Black Dudley, a house party gathers at Black Dudley, the home of academician Wyatt Petrie. Petrie’s just taken over the place from his uncle Gordon Coombe, and is looking forward to having some of his friends there. After dinner on the first night of the party, the guests move to the drawing room, where they notice a dagger hanging over the fireplace. Wyatt is persuaded to tell the story of the dagger. According to him, the family legend was that the dagger would take on a red glow if it was touched by anyone who’d committed murder. The family later developed a sort of ritual about the dagger. The lights would be turned off and everyone would pass the dagger round in the dark. The object of the ritual was to avoid being the last one caught with the dagger. The hint of danger involved in passing a dagger round in the dark in a spooky old house (it is an eerie place) appeals to just about everyone, so the group decides to play the game. It turns all too deadly the next morning when it’s found that Coombe has died.  Dr. George Abbershaw, one of the guests, is asked to sign the death certificate but he soon finds that the victim was likely stabbed in the back with the dagger. With help from Albert Campion, who’s also a member of the house party, Abbershaw finds out who killed Gordon Coombe and why.

In Ann Cleeves’ Raven Black, school friends Sally Henry and Catherine Ross are coming home from a Hogmanay party. They’ve gotten a lift most of the way but are walking for the last bit of the trip. Then they spot the home of Magnus Tait, an eccentric misfit who lives by himself. Catherine wants to wish Tait a happy new year, but Sally doesn’t. Catherine dares her though, and the two knock on the door. For Catherine it’s a bit of an adrenaline rush, and she rather likes the thrill of being just a little scared. Tait invites the girls in and they toast the New Year. Not many days later, Catherine Ross is found strangled in a field not far from Tait’s home. Because Tait was the last person known to see the victim, he becomes the most likely suspect. It doesn’t help his case that he’s already suspected of having killed another young girl Catriona Bruce, who disappeared some years before. But Tait claims he is innocent, and there is no definite physical evidence that connects him with Catherine Ross’ murder. So Inspector Jimmy Perez has to look elsewhere for the murderer.

Karin Fossum’s When The Devil Holds the Candle introduces us to Andreas Winther. He’s a young man who’s easily bored and enjoys taking risks. He savours the adrenaline rush that goes with risk-taking. His best friend is Sivert ‘Zipp’ Skorpe. Zipp doesn’t share his friend’s love for a bit of adrenaline, but he does value the friendship. So he and Winther do everything together. They get in a little trouble now and again, but thus far it hasn’t been anything really serious. Then one day, Andreas’ love of that ‘jolt’ gets him and Zipp involved in much more than either of them intended. After they part ways at the end of the day, Andreas disappears. His mother Runi wants to make a report to the police but at first, Inspector Konrad Sejer isn’t overly concerned. After all, there’s nothing necessarily ominous about a young man going off for a few days. But when more time goes by and Andreas doesn’t return, Sejer takes the case more seriously. His best source of information on what happened is Zipp, but Zipp is completely unwilling to give Sejer any information at all. Little by little though, Sejer breaks down Zipp’s composure and finds out what happened on the day of Andreas’ disappearance.

In William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace, we ‘meet’ thirteen-year-old Frank Drum. He and his family live in the small town of New Bremen, Minnesota. In the summer of 1961, a boy Frank knows from school is killed on the railroad tracks near the town. Frank knows he isn’t supposed to be down by the tracks, but he can’t resist the chance to go there and try to make sense of what happened. So he and his younger brother Jake walk along the tracks. Jake’s very reluctant but Frank enjoys the adrenaline jolt. While they’re on the tracks they find a dead man. Near him is a stranger, a South Dakota Sioux they’ve never seen before. When the man invites them down to see the dead man, Jake wants no part of it. But Frank is overwhelmingly curious. After all, as he rationalises it, you don’t see a dead man every day. So the two boys go down to see the body. Tragically, those are not the only two deaths they’ll encounter that summer and Frank has to learn some unpleasant truths about life. He also learns that that jolt you get sometimes from being a little scared doesn’t seem as much fun when you’ve been really frightened.

Everyone’s different of course. Some people love the jolt they get from roller coasters, thriller novels and so on. Others don’t think it’s much fun at all. But either way, it’s an important part of the human experience. Now, want to see what’s inside that old storage shed in the ‘photo?  Dare ya! Erm  – mind I’ve been known to write crime fiction… ;-)

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Van Halen’s Jump.

Now I Act Like I Don’t Remember*

Not very long ago, I did a post on nostalgia and the role that it plays in the way we think and in crime fiction too of course. One of the things that came up in the discussion about that post (thanks, folks!!) is that some memories have exactly the opposite effect to nostalgia. We all have sadness and pain in our past – it’s unavoidable really – and those are often memories we don’t want raked up. I’m sure we could all give examples from real life, and it’s quite true in crime fiction as well.

Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (AKA Murder in Retrospect) is all about terrible memories that people want to avoid. Famous artist Amyas Crale has been working on a new painting. He’s invited the subject, his mistress Elsa Greer, to his home Alderbury to take advantage of what he thinks will be the perfect setting. Needless to say, Crale’s wife Caroline is not best pleased about it and she’s even overheard threatening her husband. One afternoon, Crale is poisoned. His widow is the most likely suspect for a number of reasons and in fact she is arrested, tried and convicted. She dies a year later in prison and life goes on for the people in the Crales’ lives. Sixteen years later, Amyas and Caroline’s daughter Carla visits Hercule Poirot. She is convinced that her mother was innocent and now that she’s on the point of getting married, she wants her mother’s name cleared. Poirot agrees and contacts the five people who were ‘on the scene’ when the murder occurred. He also gets written accounts from each one, and talks to some other, less directly involved people. In the end that information gives him the truth about the case. One of the interesting things that keep coming up in this novel is that many people ask why Poirot is raking up the whole painful business again. Only a few people are willing, right from the start, to tell their stories. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch is not exactly nostalgic about his past either. As we learn in The Last Coyote, Bosch is the son of Marjorie Lowes, a prostitute who was murdered when her son was eleven years old. The case wasn’t exactly high-priority, so the killer was never found. Thirty years later, Bosch is suspended from duty because of a violent encounter with a supervisor. He’s ordered to undergo psychological treatment and is asked to work with Dr. Carmen Hinojos. While he’s ‘sidelined,’ Bosch begins to look into the case and to face some of his own past. One of the things we learn for instance is that Bosch was placed in the McLaren Youth Facility.  It wasn’t exactly the kind of place one looks back to with nostalgia. Bosch has survived all of these things along with a stint in Vietnam, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys taking the time to savour the memories.

School memories aren’t very nostalgic for Ann Cleeves’ Jimmy Perez either. He was born and raised in Fair Isle in the Shetlands, and went to school in Lerwick. The weather and the difficulty of getting back and forth between his home and the school forced Perez to stay at the school during the week. He visited his family home on weekends when the weather co-operated, and on holidays. For several reasons school in Lerwick was not an enjoyable experience for Perez. He was homesick and couldn’t accustom himself easily to life on Lerwick. What’s more, there were two bullies who made his life miserable. Everything changed when he met and befriended Duncan Hunter. Hunter made his life bearable and that’s part of what makes it so awkward in Raven Black when Hunter becomes a suspect in the murder of seventeen-year-old Catherine Ross. As it is, Perez does not want to be reminded of his awful school days. For another, he feels a gulf between him and Hunter now that several years have gone by. That unpleasant past adds an interesting layer to this story.

In Elizabeth George’s A Traitor to Memory, the Davies family has to face some terrible memories from the past. Twenty years before the events in the story, two-year-old Sonia Davies was drowned. Her nanny Katja Wolff was arrested in connection with the death. She’s recently been released from prison and that alone rakes up the past. Then one night, Sonia’s mother Eugenie is killed in what looks at first like an accidental hit-and-run incident. Then her son twenty-eight-year-old Gideon Davies faces a different kind of crisis. He is a world-class violinist who suddenly finds himself unable to play. He decides to seek psychological help to find out what is at the root of his block. Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers investigate Eugenie Davies’ death and find that all of these plot threads are related, and all are tied to the Davies’ family’s traumatic past.

Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything deals with painful memories too. Thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hood and her best friend Evie Verver are inseparable. They share all of their secrets and Lizzie can’t really imagine life without Evie. Then one terrible day, Evie doesn’t come home from school. No-one is overly worried at first, but as the evening wears on and she doesn’t come home, her family becomes concerned. They, and later the police, ask Lizzie to tell them anything she may know that will help them find Evie. Lizzie doesn’t know very much about what happened to Evie though, and she can’t be of much assistance. But she does want to know what happened to her best friend. So in her own way, Lizzie starts to ask questions and investigate. She finds that the memories she thought she had of her and Evie might not be accurate. She also learns that she’d built up a lot of assumptions about herself, Evie, and life that covered up some extremely painful truths. Interestingly, Abbott addresses the issue of painful memories in a few ways. At one level, Lizzie has to confront memories that are not as pleasant as she had thought. At another, the story begins as the adult Lizzie looks back on the terrible time of Evie’s disappearance.

Most of us have fond memories that we think about with great pleasure. But there are usually some sad ones, too, that we’d just as soon forget. There are far too man examples of this in crime fiction for me to list them all, but I’ve no doubt you already get my point…

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from Bruce Springsteen’s The River.