Detective Fashion for Dummies

Today’s the day! FASHIONABLY LATE, my latest Ladies Smythe & Westin mystery, has hit the catwalk. My fellow Not Your Usual Suspects bloggers may not realize this, but I am now quite the fashion expert—in the realm of fictional detectives, anyway. (No snickering, please.) And I have to point out that some of our favorite sleuths are on trend and others are—how can I put this delicately?—in rather serious need of a stylist. So I’ve put together a quick run-down of a few sleuths who really stand out on the Hot list—for better or for worse.

Unlike most hardworking, real-life detectives who dress for the job, many of their book and TV counterparts spend a lot of time in the public eye, running around chasing suspects in expensive leather jackets and killer heels. And then there are others, including my odd-couple sleuths Summer Smythe, an impulsive twenty-something, and Dorothy Westin, a practical seventy-something, who might consider upping their fashion games. (Truth: the most fashionable character in FASHIONABLY LATE is a 6-year-old with a subscription to Vogue.) With that said, here we go:

Those Seventies Guys: Okay, so maybe the 70s weren’t known for fabulous male fashion. Kojak with the lollipops, Columbo with his rumpled trenchcoat, and Jim Rockford with the crazy-plaid sportcoats (you rocked anyway, Jimbo!). But the real-life Columbo cleaned up rather well for the Academy Awards with costume designer Edith Head:

(via Pinterest)

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy: Let’s get this hem straight: No one puts the teen queen detective in a fashion corner. She dressed impeccably and appropriately for every occasion, from speeding after crooks in that cute roadster to her equestrienne pursuits to being trapped in attics. But sometimes, well…her tastes ran a little on the boring side:

(via Pinterest)

Luckily, French illustrator Albert Chazelle had a different take on Nancy and her friends. Très chic, n’est-ce pas?

(via Pinterest)

Lob-stah Bibs and Liberty Scahves: Like Nancy, mystery writer and amateur sleuth extraordinaire Jessica (“J.B”) Fletcher’s style was also well-suited to every activity. Plus, she managed to look stylish and keep her cool as a female TV star in the 80s, so she gets extra points. Oh, and Angela Lansbury. Super-bonus points.

(via Pinterest)

V is for Velma, Veronica, and Va-va-voom: Velma, honey, we admired your colorfully-groovy choices in Scooby Doo. But may we suggest taking a few fashion notes from equally-unique fellow V-girl Veronica Mars?

(via Pinterest)

Nick and Nora Charles: No question, these two were always in high style, especially with cocktails in hand. Maybe substituting a few higher-energy outfits for those chic dressing gowns and smart PJ sets would be…Oh, never mind. 

(via Pinterest) 

Plain Jane: Yes, Miss Marple, we know those tweeds and Wellies are all the rage for kickin' it in St. Mary Mead. And you may give Jessica and Nancy a run for the roses in the practicality department. But with all those house parties, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to live a little:

(via Pinterest)

Summer Smythe and Dorothy Westin: This odd-couple sleuth team recently hit the holiday fashion show circuit in glitzy Milano, Florida—and picked up a few game-changing (and lifesaving) style tips. Reindeer sweaters, awkward fishtails, and merry widow ensembles aside (don’t ask), there may be hope for these two yet!

About Lisa:

Lisa Q. Mathews lives in New England but sets her series The Ladies Smythe & Westin in sunny Florida. Her closet most closely resembles Jessica Fletcher’s, with a handy yellow slicker, an all-season trench, Bean boots and plenty of scarves. Her titles include CARDIAC ARREST, PERMANENTLY BOOKED, and the very latest, FASHIONABLY LATE. 

Do you agree with our Detective Fashion Police—or have any other sleuths you’d like to nominate for a fashion intervention? (Remember, we’re talking fictional characters here, not (ahem) writers!)

Dumb Witnesses

No, I'm not being politically incorrect! 

By Daryl Anderson

I'm using the word dumb in its original meaning, as in being unable to speak. In mysteries, a dumb witness is one that has witnessed a crime, but is powerless to tell its story.

At least not in the conventional manner.

Perhaps the most beloved dumb witness is Bob the Jack Russell Terrier from Agatha Christie's novel Dumb Witness. As Bob was with his mistress on the night she was murdered, Poirot is certain the little fellow knows the truth and eventually the great detective "hears" what the dog has to say. 

However, a good dumb witness is more than a plot point. As with any other element of the story, it can be used to develop character, inject pathos or even add a little humor. It's also part of a long and revered tradition in Western literature as the first dumb witness appeared way back in Homer's Odyssey.

I'm speaking of Argo, Odysseus' faithful dog.

When Odysseus returns home in disguise only Argo recognizes him. The faithful dog wags his tail, but lacks the strength to go to his master. Fearful of betraying his identity, Odysseus dares not acknowledge Argos. 

Odysseus and Argo

 Odysseus entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years.

There is something so very human and heartfelt in this passage. Through Argo, Odysseus is more human.

A recent impressive use of the dumb witness is found in Donna Leon's The Waters of Eternal Youth. In the novel Commissario Guido Brunetti is asked to investigate a cold case from fifteen years earlier in which a young girl is attacked and subsequently brain damaged. Before her injury, the girl was an avid equestrian whose greatest joy was her beloved horse Petunia. In the novel's poignant conclusion, the girl is brought to the farm when Petunia now lives. 

In an almost transcendent scene, the old horse and damaged girl recognize one another.

Now, we move from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I'm a dog person and so when I sat down to write my first mystery Murder in Mystic Cove, I knew a dog was going to play a crucial role in the plot. Sure enough, the victim's elderly pug Jinks witnesses his master's murder. Because the victim was such a nasty piece of work I originally pictured Jinks as an extension of his master in order to emphasize the victim's loathsome nature. Anyhow, I pictured Jinks as something like this--

Jinks, first draft

It didn't take long for me to switch tracks and soften some of Jinks' rough edges. Though the elderly pug didn't exactly became lovable, what with his chronic halitosis and excessive gas, he did become a pitiable creature, which helped humanize my very unlikable victim and add a bit of pathos to the tale.

Jinks, final draft

I hope I've proven that dumb witnesses aren't dumb at all but very smart. 

Oh, and I'd love to hear about some of your favorite dummies.

The Rules of Murder

As such things go, detective fiction is the new kid on the literary block. Unlike romance, which can trace its roots back to the middle ages, the detective story burst on the scene in 1841 with Edgar Allen

Edgar Allen Poe

Poe's brilliant  detective Auguste Dupin. Several decades later, Sherlock burst on the scene in  A Study in Scarlet and the game was really afoot. By the twenties and thirties the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction arrived, when the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers plied their trade. As many of these writers were based in London, it was perhaps inevitable that they formed their own society--the Detection Club.

Like any club worth its salt, there was an elaborate initiation ceremony including a sacred oath:

Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on or making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?

Members of The Detection Club, detecting the Sunday Times

Personally, I have no problem with most of the oath, though I confess to enjoying  a little jiggery-pokery now and again. In addition to the blood oath, members were also expected to follow ten commandments in writing a mystery. The rules were set down in stone by Ronald Knox in 1928. Let's take a look at some of Ronnie's rules and see how they've stood the test of time:

The criminal must be named in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. I have no problem with the first part as it's just a question of playing fair with the reader. Also, the interplay between the sleuth and killer is a big part of the fun in any murder mystery. However, I'm no so sure about about that last bit. If Agatha Christie had taken this rule to heart, she'd have never written the classic The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where--spoiler alert--the killer narrates the tale. In fact, some  contemporary reviewers were so upset, they  actually called

Agatha Christie
"I don't need no stinkin' rules!"

the Grand Dame of Mystery a cheat! 

Not more than one secret room or passage. I guess Dan Brown didn't get the memo.


No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. A good rule as the real deal--or poison--is almost always preferable to some made-up concoction. I added "almost" because this was another rule Christie broke, most notably with the fictitious hypertensive drug Serenite in A Caribbean Mystery and equally fake sedative Calmo in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. 

No Chinaman must figure in the story. Huh? When I first read this, I winced at the  racist terminology and had no idea what was meant. Digging deeper,  I discovered that in the 1930s a lot of pulpy mysteries featured characters of Chinese descent. In other words, this is a warning to steer clear of cliches, which is always good advice. I just wish it had been expressed better.

No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right. This depends upon how  you define intuition. A gut feeling or sudden insight is valid only when the insight is based on information that the sleuth has gathered. 

 The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader. In other words, play fair with your readers, or else you won't have them for very long! In the opening chapter of Death at China Rose, I slipped in a little fact that virtually identifies the killer. Of course neither my sleuth nor the reader has the context to use that information at that early date--sneaky, but fair.

Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. I've always found the twin thing boring and done to death, though a recent episode of Endeavour which involved  twins kept my interest. My advice: if a writer wants to go there, be careful--be very careful.

So, are the rules still viable? Before I get to my final verdict, here's  a quick cautionary tale. 

When I attended the University of Florida, postmodernism was the big thing. In one of my classes the professor instructed us to write an paper without any rules.

Elvis Presley, rocking his moneymaker in jail

I took him at his word and constructed a frenetic paper that incorporated everything from Derrida to Moby Dick to Elvis's phallus. (Trust me, you don't want to know.)

Writing the paper was a liberating experience. I jumped from topic to topic in a steam of consciousness that would have done Joyce proud. It was fun and I even got an A!

A year of so after the fact, I was going through some old papers and came across my forgotten masterpiece. A sappy smile on my face, I started reading. Pretty soon, my smile twisted into a grimace. The damn essay made no sense. It was just a bunch of random thoughts tied together with string and spit, signifying nothing. (Sorry, Elvis.)

The fact is that rules exist for a reason. If you're going to break them, you too need a reason--a good one

My rule is that rules are useful, unless they're not!

The Art of Not Cooking

My name is Lisa Q. Mathews and I’d like to kick off my very first post here on Not Your Usual Suspects by saying hello. I write about sunny Florida but live in soon-to-be-snowy New Hampshire. I used to be an editor of Nancy Drew mysteries, among other things. And I’m thrilled to be not only the newest member of this amazing group, but—a brand new author!

My debut mystery, CARDIAC ARREST—Book One in an odd-couple female sleuth series called The Ladies Smythe & Westin—was published by Carina Press earlier this month. I am, of course, still on Cloud One Hundred-Nine.

The series features a semi-reformed, twenty-something party girl, Summer Smythe, and a feisty, seventy-something widow, Dorothy Westin, who team up to solve murders in glitzy SW Florida. Base of operations: The Hibiscus Pointe Senior Living Community. (Summer is camping out there in her late grandma’s condo.)

Technically, the Ladies’ adventures can be classified as “cozy” (not to be confused with “cuddly”) —traditional puzzle mysteries à la Christie, with an off-screen murder (often involving a victim who was not particularly beloved), amateur sleuths, no graphic violence or onscreen sex, a community of recurring characters, and a satisfying ending where the villain is unmasked, justice is served, and order is restored to the characters’ world.

There is a very popular sub-genre of cozy mysteries, often called “culinary cozies,” which contain delicious recipes in the back, and food adds to the ambiance of the book. Well, I can assure you that the Ladies do plenty of eating and, yes, a bit of drinking. They frequently dine out in fancy restaurants, and Dorothy also takes advantage of the formal 5 pm dinners included in her hefty monthly residents fee. Both love sweets and neither is above sneaking a snack from the free welcome buffets Hibiscus Pointe offers to lure prospective residents.

The Ladies can do a lot of things. But one thing neither of them does is...cook. And they’re not terribly apologetic about that. But you can blame me, and I’ll blame Peg Bracken, because I grew up with her I Hate to Cook Book. (Ms. Bracken was apparently quite a mystery fan herself. Her recipe for Stayabed Stew, she claimed, was ideal “for those days when you are en négligée, en bed, with a murder story and box of bonbons…”).

I hope you enjoy the crime-solving capers of the Ladies Smythe & Westin. And really, you’re much better off without their (or my) recipe suggestions. Trust me.

When a man falls at your feet, you'd better hope he's not dead.

Twenty-something party girl Summer Smythe is starting over in the unlikeliest of places: Hibiscus Pointe, a kitschy retirement community in upscale Milano, Florida. Her new gig? Working for Dr. A, Milano’s much-loved cardiologist. But being in over her head is the least of Summer’s worries when her new boss drops dead…right in front of her.

Long-time resident Dorothy Westin prefers to mind her own business. But when the young blonde already causing ripples throughout Hibiscus Pointe becomes a person of interest in Dr. A’s murder, Dorothy springs into action. Not only because the real killer is still on the loose, but because there’s simply no way her clueless-but-kind new friend could have poisoned someone.

Dorothy and Summer soon discover that despite his chosen specialty, Dr. A had quite a reputation for breaking hearts. And if the Ladies Smythe and Westin don’t identify the guilty party fast, Summer will end up in handcuffs…and Dorothy in a body bag.

Join The Ladies Smythe & Westin on their next case, PERMANENTLY BOOKED, coming April 2016!

Available from Amazon, Nook, iBooks, kobo, and GooglePlay.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

 THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

         

This past month I reread Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (also published as Ten Little Indians).  My purpose was to see how Christie handled a cyanide poisoning.  Lightly, I’d say—the poison is slipped into the victim’s drink, he chokes, turns purple, dies and that’s that.

In rereading this book, often cited as the most popular mystery novel ever written with over 100 million copies sold, I discovered something far more interesting than the poisoning scene.  As writers, we’re told that certain rules exist and to break them is to sound a death knell to our publishing hopes.  One of these “rules” is don’t have too many characters at the story’s beginning, or you’ll confuse the reader.

In Indians, by page twenty, the reader has met eleven characters—count ‘em, eleven--and these are not flat characters with walk-on parts.  They’re major players, the ten victims and the skipper of the boat who brings them to the island where they will be killed.  Even this boatman, in his cameo appearance as a symbolic Charon ferrying the doomed across the River Styx, has a passage of chilling interior monologue.

Now have you, in your WIP, introduced eleven characters in the first twenty pages?  Probably not.  I haven’t dared to either.  But Christie did, in a world-famous book that has been translated into multiple languages, produced as a stage play and made into a movie.  If you’re tempted to say, “Well, a famous author can get away with breaking the rules, Indians was first published in 1939 when Christie was a relative unknown.  And today, seventy some years later, it has morphed into an e-book currently selling for $6.99 on Kindle.

Wait . . . there’s more.  Backstory.  The plot of Indians is based on isolating ten people so they can be murdered in punishment for crimes they committed in their pasts.  So as each character is introduced into the story, the nature and circumstances of his crime have to be revealed to the reader.  Backstory, backstory, backstory. 

On page two, we meet one of the victims, Vera Claythorne, as she touches on her past:  She was indicted in the accidental drowning of a child in her care.  She swam out to save him but didn’t reach him in time.  As she thinks of this, she remembers a Hugo who loved her.

That’s all.  So though the possibility of something having gone wrong is dropped into the plot, we’re only given a teaser.  There is no information dump, nor are there any in the tales of the other nine characters.  All is anticipation, from scene to scene, as past transgressions are revealed a little at a time, luring us on like the proverbial rabbit with the carrot.

Twenty pages later, for example, the second time we meet Vera she murmurs to herself:  “Drowned . . . Found drowned . . . Drowned at sea . . . Drowned . . . drowned . . . drowned . . . No, she wouldn’t remember . . . She would not think of it!  All that was over.”

Now reading that passage, aren’t you intrigued?  Don’t you wonder what happened?  Why won’t she think of the drowning?  Was she responsible?   As in this instance, Christie handles the backstory of each victim so masterfully, clue by clue, that she keeps the reader panting for more until finally, at last, all secrets are revealed.

The point here is that you can introduce a plethora of characters up front and get away with doing so.  You can write a book larded with backstory and succeed in that as well.   This is your world, and in it you can do anything you like. 

Success, however, lies in how you handle your material.  Handle it well and you’ll get away with literary murder.  In fact you might not even have to explain

a)   where a character obtained the cyanide,

a)       if he hid it in his luggage or on his person,

b)      or how he disposed of the poison vial after he bumped off his victim.

But don’t take my word for it.  Look to Agatha!

(This blog first appeared on the Barnes & Nobles Mystery Forum.  Jean Harrington is the author of the Murders by Design Mystery Series—her latest release is Rooms To Die For.  All books in the series are available on Amazon.com.)

CRIME PAYS

     Crime writers who bring flamboyant characters and complex stories to life often find their stories born again in another medium. Agatha Christie who published her first novel in 1920 became one of the most famed authors in history with billions of copies of her work sold to avid readers. Christie was also a playwright and romance writer. Her play, The Mousetrap, is the world’s longest running play—opening on April 12, 1958—having its Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and is still on the boards today. She also penned the plays The Hollow, and Verdict plus Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile—both adapted into films. Writing over 70 detective novels earned her the title “Queen of Mystery.” Included in her repertoire were short fiction, and romantic narratives. Christie was made a dame in 1971 and we all know, “There is Nothing Like a Dame.”

     Among the first mystery novels is Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White published in 1859 and appearing in serial form in Charles Dickens “All Year Round Magazine” and in the United States in “Harper’s Weekly”. It was staged as a melodrama in 1975 and titled Egad, The Woman in White, became a stage play in 2005 and a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel in 2004. Silent films of Wilkie’s play were made in America in 1912 and 1917 and in Great Britain in 1929 and in America in 1940, and 1948 and Russia in 1982. Two TV Miniseries produced by the BBC and one in Germany and a computer game created in 2010 titled Victorian Mysteries: Woman in White.

     A British Horror film titled The Woman in Black was adapted from a novel by Susan Hill in 1983 and became a play in 1987. I remember seeing the play on a visit to London, clutching my husband and screaming. A first for me—fortunately I wasn’t the only one in the audience who had the shudders.

       Attracted to ghost stories, Henry James wrote the The Turn of the Screw. Published in 1898 the story has had multiple interpretations—made into an opera, television play, motion picture, and radio and theatre productions.

     William Gillette, the actor, playwright and inventor began a correspondence with Arthur Conan Doyle in 1898. At their first meeting he arrived at Doyle’s home wearing a long, gray cape and wearing a deerstalker cap. Sherlock Holmes incarnate—he appeared to have stepped out of the pages of Doyle’s book. He gave the breath of life to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes extensively rewriting a five-act play that Doyle had written, then cabled Doyle asking to “Marry Holmes.”  Sir Arthur replied that he could marry Holmes or murder him or do anything he liked with him.” Gillette wrote two plays—“Sherlock Holmes,” and “The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes,” and earned over three million dollars, a hefty amount in those days, with his portrayal of the great detective. Doyle said he was “charmed both with the play, the acting and the pecuniary result.”

     W. Somerset Maugham wrote a short story, in 1926, that was included in his collection titled The Casuarina Tree. Based on a true story about a murder that occurred in 1911 when the wife of a headmaster was tried and convicted of murder after shooting a male friend. Maugham turned his story into a play that ran in London, toured the provinces and opened on Broadway with Katherine Cornell. The play has been revived, and made into films in America, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy and three television anthologies, a made for television movie, a musical titled The Bloomers and an opera produced by The Santa Fe Opera.

     In 1984, William March wrote a novel titled The Bad Seed adapted for the stage by Maxwell Anderson. The play opened on Broadway less than a year after its publication. The book was the last of March’s published works because of his untimely death. Both a critical and commercial success, the book was nominated for the 1955 National book Award for Fiction. The premise of the book and the play—which starred Nancy Kelly who won the Tony Award for her performance—was “nature vs. nurture” in explaining deviant behavior. Patty McCormack, the child actress played Rhoda—The Bad Seed. A film was made in 1956 and a television movie in 1985.

     Bram Stoker worked at the Lyceum Theatre—headed by the actor-manager Henry Irving—between 1878 and 1898. His novel Dracula bore many other titles until shortly before publication including The Dead Un-Dead and was not commercially successful at first despite the praise of critics. Stoker modeled Dracula on Sir Henry’s dramatic characteristics and gentlemanly comportment and hoped he would play Dracula in the stage version. Sir Henry never played the part but in 1928 the part was played by Bela Lugosi. It was adapted for the stage by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston in 1977 with the charming and sexy count played by Frank Langella and again made an appearance in 2004 as a musical. 

     Chicago is based on a play by a reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins who covered the 1924 trials of murderesses Beulah Annan and Belva Gartner for the Chicago Tribune. In the twenties, there were many homicides which involved women killing their husbands or lovers. Annan became the starting point for Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly is basis for Gaertner. Watkins pieces were extremely successful with the Tribune’s readers and became the heart of her play. The play appeared on Broadway in 1926 and a silent film version was produced by Cecil b. DeMille in 1927 and remade as Roxie Hart in 1942 starring Ginger Rogers but Ginger was accused of murder but never convicted. Gwen Verdon read the play in the 1960s and asked her husband Bob Fosse about adapting it as a musical. Fosse tried to buy the rights but Watkins had become a born-again Christian and believed her work glorified decadence and rejected his offer. After her death in 1969, her estate sold the rights to the producer Richard Fryer, Fosse and Verdon. The musical opened in 1975 and played 926-performances. Opened on the West End in 1979 and ran for 600 performances then was revived on Broadway in 1996 and is still playing today. Revived on the West End—it is the longest running American musical in history. The musical has played all over the world and won numerous prizes including the Tony. It also became a film starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones and won the Academy Award for that year.

     Do you dream of the play, the musical, television or the motion picture?Sometimes crime pays.