“Murder English Style ” The Occasional Reader Vol. 4
I have not posted on this blog for nearly 2 years. I fear this was the unintended consequence of pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Seattle Pacific University. Now, that project is drawing to a conclusion; I intend to be a more faithful writer for my readers. This installment is taken from a regular column I write for the College of Mohs Surgery Newsletter. Because access to the newsletter is restricted to physician members, I have reprinted this column here. Hope you enjoy DPC
“Murder English Style”
By David P. Clark, M.D.
I must confess, I’ve been addicted to the “English Detective Novel” since age ten. Although I labor creating my “literary persona,”—persisting through a plethora of the “World’s Best Books”—when I really need a book fix, those moments when the inner doctor needs to inhale the vapors of escape, consume a prose hit essential for expunging life’s irritations, I revert to my base reading instincts and read a Crime Novel—embarrassing perhaps, but a particular delight. Like all unrepentant book addicts, I connive ways to hook my friends with my habits. In this case, I want to seduce you on the delights of English Detective Fiction, the old fashioned classics and the newer hip versions.
For many people, their encounter with English detectives consists of viewing public television’s long-standing Mystery series. These adaptations of classic crime novels by P.D. James, Colin Dexter, Dorothy Sayers and others have introduced Americans to this distinctively English genre. These author’s books have been faithful to the nearly one hundred year old formula of the classic English Detective. Adam Dalgliesh, Lord Peter Whimsy, and even Sherlock Holmes solve heinous crimes by force of their considerable intellectual function. Even the more modern English detective formulations continue the genre’s distinctive attributes formalized in the 1920’s: English class consciousness infused with good taste and wit combined with the sure sense that with strength, perseverance, and intelligence good will triumph over evil.
The prime detective is nearly always from the upper class or exceptionally well educated—in the case of Sayer’s Peter Whimsy, nobility—but to keep the detective honest he (always he you note) also has a foil, a partner from a distinctively different social strata. For Americans weaned on the gritty violence found in the detectives say in, The Shield’s Vic Mackey or The Wire’s Jimmy McNulty, the detached English sleuths like poet/detective Dagliesh or the Opera loving Inspector Morse seem derived from a foreign world. And while American detectives stun and repulse us with a plethora of crime gore and the reader/viewer is often unable to separate the policeman’s thoughts, methods, and behaviors from the perps, their English counterparts often take a far more detached look at crime. English novels, far more than their TV adaptations, allow for a slower more considered examination, horrible crimes to be sure, but crimes containing dimensions beyond blood spatter analysis and cops on the take.
For those just getting started in the genre you could do far worse than starting with the complexly drawn characters and intricate plots of Dame P.D. James’s “A Taste for Death” or Colin Dextor’s “The Wench is Dead.” But there are new authors toiling in this genre, writer’s whose intriguing work can’t be found on Masterpiece Mystery, novels that challenge the traditional crime novel formula. What follows are my short takes (hopefully without spoilers) for three entertaining but quite different “new” English crime novels. Hopefully, within these choices I can tempt you to come away with me—put away your scalpel, get on a plane to London, and solve a murder.
“The Falls” by Ian Rankin p.459
To join Inspector Rebus we must travel north to Scotland—Edinburgh to be specific. I start with the longest novel in part because Rebus will be the most recognizable detective for American readers: he is a smart loner—think Bogey as Sam Spade. Rebus is intuitive and has a strong sense of the human condition. He also has a drinking problem, difficulties with his female boss, and mostly ignores police protocol. For many Stateside readers, Edinburgh remains a tourist destination, a famous castle with a nearby wool shop or pub. Rankin’s prose allows us to see a much thicker city, an intersection of old and new, cobblestone streets also home to a vibrant educated culture living in an Internet present but mindful of their history.
The multifaceted plot twists unexpectedly like a piece of modern sculpture and held me in suspense right to the end.
“The Art of Deception” by Elizabeth Ironside pp. 379
Elizabeth Ironside has written a modern English crime novel—one might even call it post-modern. Written with a contemporary persona, Ironside’s characters demonstrate considerable confusion about values and operate in the fuzzy grey region of the truth. Rather than a clear-cut plot matching the criminal against a smart but distant detective, Ironside has fashioned a complex plot that positions her protagonist, art historian Nicholas Ochterlonie as investigator and victim, and convicted perpetrator of the crime. Circumventing the usual narrative arc, the author starts with what appears to be the novel’s conclusion—that fact alone should have been a sufficient clue for me to know that this story is not your standard detective novel. A distinctive read both entertaining and thought provoking.
“Dissolution” by C.J. Sansom pp. 387
The author of “Dissolution,” C.J. Sansom holds a Ph.D. in history and it shows. This historical crime novel is set in 1537, the England of King Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, and religious strife. Sansom’s lawyer/detective, Matthew Shardlake, is sent to investigate a particularly vicious murder in a monastery and shows vividly that desire, hate, envy, and pride remain a constant part of the human condition,. The author’s protagonist, remarkably like his 20th century English colleagues, untangles this serpentine web relying upon his intimate knowledge of the human condition and unique ability to discern opaque connections, often relationships between minuscule and unrelated details—the stuff of a prepared and imaginative mind.
What makes “Dissolution” a special treat is the excellent historical writing. In the manner of Alan Furst’s detailed and accurate descriptions of Eastern Europe in his World War II spy novels, Sansom’s historical expertise provides beautiful images, prose portraits of life for 16th century English commoners. Rather than concentrating upon the King Henry’s sex life or the theological machinations of the church doctors, Sansom’s details and descriptions gives the reader the sight and smells of 16th century life, for what it might have felt like in those combustible and violent last years of Henry’s struggle for an heir and independence from Rome.
Three great reads—take a break, you deserve to get away and develop a, “taste for murder,” English style.