A Community of Writers and Readers

The world of crime fiction offers something special to readers and writers—a community of like-minded people and opportunities to get together and share books and discussion of the genre. The characters in our books seem just as real as the person sitting in the chair beside me, or the mailman who drops mail in the box every morning, and readers care about these characters sometimes just as much. During a conference in the 1990s a reader asked me about Chief Joe Silva’s family in the Mellingham series. That simple question led me to think harder about his family. The result was Last Call for Justice, which takes Joe back for a family reunion, where an old grudge surfaces and an old crime is solved.

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Justice-Mellingham-Mystery/dp/0983600074

Anyone who knows me knows I love talking and writing about India. To date there are four novels in the Anita Ray series, beginning with Under the Eye of Kali. Readers can count on a lot of local color as well as references to Indian food, and one of the most fun things I did was write up a couple of recipes to give away at events. Some writers have bookmarks and business cards; I have recipe cards. And sometimes a member of a panel audience will suggest another Indian dish for me to try.

                 http://www.amazon.com/Under-Eye-Kali-Anita-Mystery/dp/0983600082

Last week, at the Marstons Mills Public Library, I had the pleasure of talking about crime fiction with two other writers to a small but attentive audience. Connie Johnson Hambley, Carolyn Marie Wilkins and I write very different crime novels, but we have similar experiences as writers. We ran out of time to answer all the questions the audience members wanted to ask, so here is an answer to one of the questions. Jill asked what British mysteries do I enjoy reading? I didn’t have enough time to answer, so this blog post is for Jill. Here’s a list of authors I hope to read this year—I have a stack of their books ready and waiting. Now, if I just had more time . . .

Over the coming year, I hope to read books by M.C. Beaton, Frances Brody, Anne Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Peter Lovesey, Charles Todd, Peter Robinson, Ashley Weaver, and Jacqueline Winspear. I also hope to fit in one or two books by Rhys Bowen, Peter Dickinson, Felix Francis, and Anne Perry. I’m sad that Ruth Rendell is no longer with us, but I haven’t yet read all of her books, so I still have some to look forward to.

These authors are only some of those whose books are lined up on a bureau in the upstairs hallway. I’m working my way through them slowly but surely. And if I go to my local library’s fall book sale, I’m sure to find more to add to the list. But these names should be enough to get you, Jill, and others started.

The Artist as Detective

Almost every mystery I pick up these days includes a nugget of information I haven't encountered before, or a window into something that is new to me. I enjoy these aspects of crime fiction, and often pick a book based on the jacket promising me an unusual perspective or discovery. I especially like mysteries featuring artists in any medium, and I always look for those who use their artistic skills to solve the crime. But these mysteries are hard to find.

In most mysteries featuring artists, the description of the detective or suspect as an artist is little more than window-dressing. The skill of the artist doesn't serve the mystery. In Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh, a group of painters at a summer workshop are suspects in a murder that happens right in front of them. But their skills as artists don't influence the investigation or solve the crime. In M.M. Kaye's Death in Kashmir the solution to the mystery depends on one character's artistic talent, which the sleuth has to recognize to solve the crime. 

Two more recent books inform the reader about art forgery but the skill of the artists involved are not essential to solving the crime. In The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, an artist shunned by the art world is drawn into the underground world of art forgery, and describes in detail how a painting is created to pass tests of authenticity. Inspector Diamond also deals with forgery in The Vault by Peter Lovesey. But only standard modes of detection lead to the guilty party.

In the Anita Ray series, one of my goals is to use Anita's talent and life as a photographer to understand and solve crime. Sometimes this means little more than questioning someone who walks into her photography gallery in the resort where she lives and works. In Under the Eye of Kali, a character sees something in the gallery that upsets her, and Anita tracks this down to help solve the crime.

Anita is concerned about art theft in The Wrath of Shiva, and this leads her more deeply into other unexpected circumstances. Her commitment to a life as an artist is part of her zeal to uncover the theft of family art but her eye as a photographer doesn't help solve the crime.

In For the Love of Parvati, Anita visits relatives who live in the hills. During a break in the monsoon, she takes a walk with her camera and discovers a body washed down in a flood. She photographs the corpse to record suspicious marks on his body, and relies on these photographs when the police later tell her that the man died from drowning during the monsoon.

As the series progresses I plan to do more with Anita's way of looking at the world, her eye as a photographer-artist. Her talent and career as an artist give her a freedom not available to other women, and a curiosity that leads her into unusual situations.

Defining Features of a Series

A successful mystery series is a package of several features: recurring characters, vivid setting, titles,

and types of stories. We followed Miss Jane Marple through a number of villages and stately homes while she chatted with the vicar, a spinster, a young married couple, a colonel back from the colonies, and more of the same. Christie’s titles for all her books varied but she did have a series of nursery rhyme titles, most of which featured Poirot.

Peter Lovesey introduced Sergeant Cribb in a series of historical mysteries that introduced the reader to fads and facts of the late nineteenth century, such as indoor pedestrian races, bare-knuckle fighting, and music halls. The world of the contemporary sleuth Superintendent Peter Diamond is different. Lovesey sets the series in and around Bath, and draws in references to Jane Austen and other literary figures, in contrast to his detective Diamond, who alienates just about everybody, drinks too much, and dislikes the way technology is taking over old-fashioned police work.

These are the kinds of mysteries I read avidly and the ones that come to mind when I wanted to start a new series, after the Mellingham series set in New England. I already had some of this material published in short stories and thought a lot about setting, titles, and plots.

I had a recurring character, Anita Ray, an Indian American photographer living in India at her aunt’s hotel, who had already appeared in a number of short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Level Best Books anthologies. The setting would remain South India, along the coast, and the tone would be mostly light with examination of some serious issues along the way.

The setting, in and around Auntie Meena’s hotel, meant some of the recurring characters would be hotel workers with problems of their own, conveniently, and other workers at the resort. But setting also becomes a character in that it becomes a place the readers know well. To help with this part of the series I have two maps, one of the hotel and the rooms on each floor and a second one of the resort area, with lanes and other hotels indicated briefly.

One way to reinforce the boundaries of the series is through titles. The Sherlock Holmes short stories often begin with “The Adventure of . . . ” and the Inspector Ghote mysteries by H.R.F. Keating often have the detective’s name in the title, such as Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock.

For the Anita Ray series I decided to use a phrase with a Hindu name, either of a deity or figure from mythology, in every title.  The first in the series is Under the Eye of Kali, followed by The Wrath of Shiva and For the Love of Parvati. Each title indicates setting and something of the nature of the story. My work in progress is titled When Krishna Calls.

The setting of a hotel and Anita’s photography gallery ensure that a wide variety of people will walk into the series—foreigners and Indians alike. And Anita’s membership in an Indian family means she has a large number of relatives spread throughout the state and the country, if necessary, for the story line.