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.

Which of These Did You Read as a Teen?

What makes a book into a good one for "young adults" or "middle graders"? When do adults start reading those same titles? This and more, on Saturday as I take part in "Writing for the Younger Set," a panel at the annual conference of Sisters in Crime New England. Here's what I have in mind ...

Writing for the Younger Set – Notes from Beth Kanell

In the 1800s, “Books for Young Persons” included The Swiss Family Robinson, Waverly (Walter Scott), Oliver Twist (Dickens), The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas), Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Kidnapped (Stevenson), and Kipling’s The Jungle Book. According to a Wikipedia author, these were books that “appealed to young readers, though not necessarily written for them.”

In the 1960s, the market for “adolescents” blossomed – and in 1973 Deathwatch by Robb White won the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery. I’ve heard it said often that the true impetus of the “young adult” genre came from librarians, who saw a need for good books that wouldn’t push young readers into areas that were too mature for them.

But in the 1980s, that taboo was broken by books that dealt with rape, suicide, parental death, and murder – perhaps more at the YA (young adult) level than for middle grades (MG). With this trend came the teen romance novel, wrapped in adventure and with a more frank sexuality, even if the characters “resisted.” Contrast this with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, long a favorite among teens but containing no sexuality at all!

The Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games trilogy broke the barriers down further, making it clear that the important cultural questions, when addressed in fiction, could command a mixed audience of middle graders, young adults/teens, and adults. A book positioned deliberately for such a mix is now called a crossover – especially prominent today are “YA crossover” books, intended for adults as much as for teens.

Some aspects of writing “YA crossover” that intrigue me within the history-hinged mystery area are:

* The protagonist is a teen and thus by definition not very experienced – which leads to an “unreliable narrator” in a good way.

* The emotional value of the book comes with the teen’s confrontation with the world in some form, leading to “coming of age” – maybe not all at once.

* Issues that adults think are obvious or settled become open to new experience for teens: racial injustice, gender walls, technological windows, even illness and death.

I also spend a lot of thought and energy on issues around “who speaks for whom” and the amounts of violence and explicit physical awareness (which includes sexuality) when I write.

Most deeply, I believe the writer for young adults owes the audience three things: integrity, a chance to reach different conclusions than the writer’s, and a sense of hope for the future of each individual.

Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. She writes poems, hikes the back roads and mountains, and digs into Vermont history to frame her “history-hinged” mystery novels: The Long Shadow, The Darkness Under the Water, The Secret Room, and Cold Midnight. Her poems scatter among regional publications and online. She shares her research and writing process at BethKanell.blogspot.com.

(for November 10, 2018)

 
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