Areas of Unrest

15 October 2000 - A Matter of Mystery

QOTD: "Where mediocrity is the norm, it is not long before mediocrity becomes the ideal." - A. N. Wilson

Reading: just finished Jane Langton, The Thief of Venice

Listening to: Tom Ze, Brazil 5: The Hips of Tradition

Chaos in the Middle East, continuing instability despite faint signs of hope in Yugoslavia, the death of Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the first female prime minister in the world and generally regarded as the matriarch of Sri Lankan politics), Robert Mugabe's pardon of offenders who committed what he called "politically motivated crimes." I once read that there has never been a time in history when there has not been a war within three hours of Heathrow Airport. I'm tired of the world news, even tired of explaining how all the bad things are the fault of the New York Yankees. Instead of watching the news, I've retreated into a major book binge, mainlining mysteries.

Along the way, I did go to Boulder so let me get the obligatory food pornography out of the way quickly. Zolo. Ahi. Need I say more?

That out of the way, I can talk about mysteries. I need to explain that I grew up on Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, and Trixie Belden. Then, while a few of my friends devoured each Agatha Christie that came along, I detoured into other directions - mostly fantasy and science fiction. My senior year of college, I picked up a copy of Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers for nineteen cents in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble and I rediscovered detection. I devoured all of Sayers, all of Nicholas Blake, all of Rex Stout, and even Christie.

The straightforward puzzles of Christie and Ngaio Marsh were never entirely satisfying, but they were diverting for an afternoon or so. I claimed to prefer my crimes to be genteel, but Rex Stout could get me to read anything, no matter how bloody. The rapid pace of Ed McBain, the wit of Edmund Crispin, the logic of G. K. Chesterton - all very different styles, but all were fair game. I'd find an author I liked and read all of his or her work. If I liked them enough and they were still alive, this sometimes even led to the expense of hardcover editions.

I believe it was Sayers who considered the mystery to be the modern morality play, the one place left where it was acceptable to talk about good and evil. At any rate, mysteries were a genre where plot was still important, where something had to happen. Of course, the plot could be an excuse, giving characters something to do while other issues were explored. The best example I can think of is the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. In the ten books they trace the changes in Beck as he reacts to the changes in Swedish society. But Sjowall and Wahloo never forgot that they were writing police procedurals and the stories work even if you ignore Beck's evolution.

I've gotten less and less satisfied with the mysteries I've been reading and my recent binge on them has helped me understand why. Each time I found myself complaining about something in one book, I'd go on to find another book that did similar things but that I didn't mind them in. So I thought I'd list a few points, mostly as a way of crystalizing my thinking.

1. It's virtually impossible to have a mystery that features amateur detectives and is still plausible. The trick is to use the implausibility to create either humor or suspense. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief but you have to give me something in exchange.

2. Criminals in real life do not give their victims time to be rescued by answering question after question. If you're going to pull this off, you have to have a very good reason for the criminal to refrain from a quick bullet to the head.

3. Dick Francis can get away with writing stories in which the detective survives more murder attempts than Rasputin. You probably can't. In real life, it takes people more than an hour to recover from head injuries, near drowning or hypothermia.

4. Coincidences do happen in real life, but try to limit them. If a suspect has a villa, the yard of which is plainly visible from the detective's best friend's apartment balcony, said suspect should not also have an identical twin.

5. Drop the body earlier, rather than later. If I get to page 100 and everybody is still alive, I am likely to be disappointed.

6. A certain amount of witty banter amongst characters is acceptable, but if that's all there is, the book is no longer a mystery. I mentioned above that it was impossible to write a mystery without a plot. But somehow or other Amanda Cross manages to get her more recent novels, which are little more than excuses for feminist polemics and conversations that consist largely of clever quotations, into the mystery section. This is inexcusable.

7. The police are not total idiots. They can, for example, run tests that prove that the gun found next to the body is not the one that was used in the murder. If you're going to get away with the inept police as a plot twist, you are advised to set your story in a place known for that ineptitude. Los Angeles would work.

8. Do your homework. For example, if you set a story in a real city, you should probably use a city you are somewhat familiar with. Even so, buy a good map. It is particularly irritating if I know that you live three miles from a neighborhood you use in a plot but don't know things like which high school serves that neighborhood. If you have a really bad sense of direction, consider setting your story in a city where everybody is lost all the time. Rome would be a good option (nobody has ever learned the names of any of the streets that connect the major piazzas), but Boston would do.

9. Most books are too long. I realize that this is partly the fault of publishers who seem to be convinced that they can charge an extra dollar or so for every fifty paperback pages. There may no longer be markets for the novella (more or less the ideal length for a mystery, as Rex Stout proved so ably), but I've read far too many books which seem padded, taking 400 pages to tell a 200 page story.

10. I will forgive pretty much any of the above if you give me something to think about. This goes back to Sayers and her idea of the detective novel as a morality play. Jane Langton does this better than pretty much any other living mystery writer, between the reflections on affluence in The Shortest Day and the musings about religion in The Thief of Venice. It isn't as if I don't notice the flaws (the latter novel has an awful lot of coincidence, for example) but I don't mind them.

Of course, it's easy for me to say all this, since I have no intention of writing a mystery of my own.

Special Offer:

Ever wonder about the music I say I'm listening to? Can't hear Snakefarm or Old Blind Dogs or Pierre Bensusan on your local radio station? Well, here's your chance. In the spirit of musical evangelism I've made a mix tape of music I referred to in my margin notes over the past year. I also happen to have another mix tape handy, mostly of World Beat stuff, that I'd made for another purpose. All you have to do is send me email with your address, telling me if you want the AOU41 tape or the Worlds of Unrest tape (or both) before the end of October 2000. (The links are to playlists.) Nothing is required in return, beyond your willingness to listen. If I decide this was a successful experiment, I'll make it an annual event.