One Traditional Crime Novel, One International Thriller

"Genre" fiction still has to meet the standards of good writing: strong characters, a sense of place, and in a plot that makes you want to open the next chapter. When you reach the last page, there should be some form of satisfaction -- and if there's frustration too, that's got to fit with an expectation that developed while you were getting acquainted with the author's temperament and motives.

But genre fiction —in this case, crime fiction, mysteries, and thrillers — also has to meet more criteria, because readers understand them as "game rules." For example, the mystery can't be solved by a walk-on character saying "Oh, didn't I tell you, I saw my uncle buying that rifle?" As another example, crime fiction doesn't generally allow ghosts into the picture (unless you are reading Stuart Neville; yes, highly recommended but, as we say in New England, it's wicked dark).

These two books are classic genre fiction, but "deeper, stronger, better," because the authors bring a powerful motivation to shape your experience and have the well-honed skills to do it.

First, consider THE HOLLOW TREE by Philip Miller. Don't judge this by the cover, which looks a bit like a desert cactus in color shades speaking of Arizona ... the actual setting is a small gritty town in north England where crimes can linger unsolved for a generation and memories and resentments can reach even further.

With his second crime novel, Edinburgh author Philip Miller comes into his prime. The first sentence of THE HOLLOW TREE offers a perfect example of this book's engrossing pattern of laying out one truth, then pulling it back: "Shona Sanderson was going to a wedding. The day would end in death."

Sandison is an investigative journalist, now saddled with a permanent disability that forces her to maneuver with a supportive cane ("stick" in British) and leaves her always off balance. So does the case she tumbles into, as she witnesses the gory suicide of a wedding guest. Miller presses Shona into overwhelming conflict when what she witnessses threatens to destroy her valued friendship with the bride-to-be. An as a caustic, insightful, and probing person, Shona's got very few close friends. The more she pushed for answers to a set of hidden crimes, the more she risks devastating consequences to the people she treasures—and herself.

Reading THE HOLLOW TREE parallels eating a globe artichoke, leaf by leaf. Your teeth scrape the sweet richness at the bottom edge of each, but you can't reach the aromatic heart of the 'choke until you complete the disrobing. In a steady accretion of toxic loyalties and occult dangers, Shona exposes how a core of evil has infected the community across time and can shatter strong bonds of love. Shona's body can't always do what the circumstances demand. But her insistence on revelation becomes the core of Miller's demonstration that the texture and questioning of crime fiction create an ideal lens for the dobt, anger, and passion of our time.

Though it's also "genre" fiction and even published by the same firm (Soho Press under its Soho Crime imprint), Andromeda Romano-Lax's THE DEEPEST LAKE couldn't be more different. Revolving around an upscale writing retreat in Guatemala on the shores of Lake Atitlán, complete with a charismatic writing teacher known for unpleasant memoirs, the story quickly establishes a mode of threat, danger, and deceit. Alternating points of view in the present tense, although they may reflect different time periods, challenge readers to stay alert and pin the evidence together around the disappearance of Rose's grown daughter Jules. Rose's ex-husband already funded a conventional search for their daughter at the lake, and concluded she was dead. Rose pretty much believes that too, but can't leave the loose threads alone as she mourns and faces her own despair and helplessness.

Experienced thriller readers may see the fierce psychological darkness that Ruth Rendell instituted in British thrillers under her pen name Barbara Vine. These frightening books (best not read at bedtime) exposed the horrors a twisted psyche can impose on others. Because of how Romano-Lax plays out her various points of view, readers know what's going on and where the threats are coming from, long before Rose does — which can be frustrating. But it's also playing fair with the traditions of thrillers, which pin the reader into a form of helplessness like that of the victim or victims in the book. 

Another parallel to this work, set on the American side of the ocean, is the Maine paranormal mystery series offered by John Connolly, where again it's the wickedness of some human hearts that drives the threats and harsh disasters of the fiction. Hat tip to Romano-Lax for probing a fresh setting at a time when Central America is becoming part of a prevailing US nightmare of difference and greed.

Identity: Nature, Nurture, and Choice

My grown sons are rarely interested in my "family tree" discoveries; I think that's probably healthy! On my mother's side, I'm 75% New England and 25% Philadelphia-centered Quakers, all dating back to America's earliest days; my father's side is European Jews, and one of my second cousins has taken that tree back to the Middle Ages. I've found that interesting, but not necessarily life-changing.

Finding Dave in 2002 (we married a year later) changed my identity in much deeper ways. I reflect on this especially in the Jewish holiday seasons -- Passover is about to start on Monday evening, and I think about how I've shaped my own observance of this important piece of Jewish history and identity. Mostly I'm on the quiet end of that holiday spectrum: I'll prepare a few traditional foods for Passover, and of course keep writing pertinent poems.

When my novel The Darkness Under the Water was published in 2008, it faced some fierce online attacks from three Native American women who assumed that the facts of the story were wrong, because I didn't have a Native American identity myself, and also assumed that I was trying to "make money" off a story that didn't belong to me. Neither of those was true: The facts in the story are particular to this part of Vermont and were thoroughly researched. And I only lost money on the book, including the part of the story that was "mine" in some ways.

But I wanted to write it for two big reasons. The first relates to my mother's Quaker ethos: I'd discovered the terrible injustices (horrors, really) of the Vermont Eugenics Project and wanted to bring attention to those through a "relatable" story -- that's how I often pay attention  to history myself. The second was my entry into Jewish identity as Dave's wife, my father's daughter, and an absolute beginner in absorbing traditions and culture of this venerable faith. I crafted the character of Molly in the novel with a similar position: a bit curious about the Abenaki culture that remained around her, but not well informed. That was also a good way to follow the instructions of esteemed Abenaki author Joseph Bruchac, who had warned me not to try to step inside a culture that I didn't and couldn't grasp.

Now I have indeed formed a full Jewish identity, one that reflects my father's family journeys. I honor the Sabbath, participate in a Jewish congregation, study texts in groups, write related poems, and can prepare a lot of Jewish recipes, including some challenging ones that belong to this Passover season. I know the names of five members of my father's family who perished by murder in the Holocaust. (Far more of Dave's relatives were killed then, too.) I've invested years and passion in this long change, which after Dave's 2019 death became increasingly vital to me. I love what I've learned and how it's forged my identity.

Recently one of my siblings and one of my sons asked about the Native American part of my mother's family history. It dates back to the late 1600s, to the Wampanoag. At my age, and having already committed myself to one cultural path, I still want to know more about this small corner of my birth family. So, watch for details this summer, when I explore this. It didn't play a role in writing The Darkness Under the Water, which feels appropriate -- it's never been a culture that I lived within or chose, and the Wampanoag identity doesn't include Vermont, but instead the New England coast -- but it's time to catch up with another thread of how I came to be this person, in this very American life.