Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

is the title of an interesting article Auntie M read recently in the Wall St. Journal. It was an essay written by one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith of the 44 Scotland St series and the Sunday Philosophy Club series, plus two others. (His No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is currently being shown on HBO with Anthony Mingella directing Jill Scott as the protagonist.  Too bad I don’t get HBO–it sounds delightful.)

He described the circumstance of finding himself in Australia at a book signing, and running into a ‘fan’ who thought he’d erred in having one of his main characters become involved with (and have a child with) a man 14 years her junior.  Here’s an excerpt:

I defended Isabel’s choice.  “Why shouldn’t they be together?”

The answer came quickly.  “Because it’s not going to go anywhere.”

“But I thought it was going rather well,” I protested.

Again my reader lost no time in replying.  “No, it isn’t,” she said emphatically.

That was my put in my place.  After all, I was merely the author.

Nonplussed, McCall Smith has pondered on this issue of the novelist’s freedom–and responsibility–and he concludes that the real world is not  quite as separate from the fictional world as he’d originally thought when it comes to reader expectations.

Auden is one of the critics who noticed this pattern of reader expectations, which is one writers of crime or mystery fiction have long understood.  After a peaceful beginning, the peace is shattered by an event, usually a crime or murder, which leads to a search for the evildoer.  His apprehension and punishment provide a return to peace.  Auden  noted the reader needs to see a moral balance restored.

This view is also held by my favorite crime writer, P D James, who feel the traditional detective novel “reassures us that we live in a moral universe” where the detective is the agent of justice.  She suggests that in this respect the detective novel replaces the old-fashioned morality play.

So why is the writer of mysteries or detective fiction, as I am, pressured to deal out justice to the bad guys?  It goes beyond the conventions of the genre to a point where Mc Call says: “. . . fiction is in some sense real, and that what happens to fictional people is, in a curious way, happening in the real world.”  It takes a special writer to NOT have the bad guy apprehended and still maintain an audience.  (McCall Smith mentions Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley as one who gets away with murder and continued to be read.)

There is no question that when I am writing, I am hoping my reader will suspend his disbelief and enter the world I create and treat it as real.   I spend a lot of time creating a fictional world that exists within the boundaries of reality so that it will be recognizable to my readers.  But if I create a character who is a murderer and say, also happens to be a lesbian, does that mean I feel lesbians are more capable of murder than others?  Absolutely not.  As matter of history, in the first draft of the particular novel where that happens, the murderer was someone else entirely!  It was during revision that I realized a different character had a much better, and more interesting, motive to be behind the evil acts.

I do go along with the idea of wanting justice restored.  I am known to hate unfairness of any kind.  I am a Libra, after all, and the scales of justice should be equally aligned for me to be happy.  I just don’t want to meet a reader who objects to a particular viewpoint I give to a character, assuming that to be my own personal belief.

I will have to protest firmly,  as McCall Smith suggests: “Remember, it’s just a story.”

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Not that I have any lately with taking care of Doc, but when we were in the med center for week (which was supposed to be two days) and I’d read the book I’d brought, I amused myself when he was napping with the best the gift shop had to offer.  The book I’d brought with me was Hope McIntyre’s How to Marry a Ghost.

I’d read the first in this series, titled How to Seduce a Ghost and found the characters distinctive and original.   Plus, it was set in England, which I adore.  Her protagonist is a ghost writer who is almost a recluse, with an unusual boyfriend she can’t commit to, and a host of other people sprinkled in.  It was a good read and her debut.  This sequel takes place in the US on Long Island, where I grew up, so I should have loved it.  It also has a host of distinctive people littering it, but I found it to be less enthralling and bit rushed.  Still, I finished it.  And then went on to The Gift Shop Books:

The Death Dealer by Heather Graham.  This mother of five (5! when does she find time to write?) claims to have written over a hundred novels.  This one has mystery, sex, and paranormal events.  A quick, rush of a read.

Mariah Stewart’s Mercy Street follows Cry for Mercy, concerning private investigator Mallory Russo.  There’s romance, missing children, and murder in what the back cover calls “an engaging romantic PI thriller.”  It was.

Last and definitely the steamiest, was Scream for Me by Karen Rose.  This one topped out at 569 pages, unusual for a romantic suspense thriller.  It pairs a nurse trying to find her kidnapped cousin, taking care of said cousin’s little girl who witnessed the brutal beating and kidnap of her mother, and a very muscular Special Agent of the georgia State Bureau of Investigation who is battling demons of his own in the form of his murdering brother.  Or was his brother the murderer?  And how does that tie into this kidnapping and the subsequent bodies that keep turning up?  And the newsman up a tree?  Oh, I could go on and on but this was so silly I had to keep reading to see how she tied up all the loose ends.  In the space of less than a week these two fall in love, and have some of the best sex of their lives on a sofa, against a door, and oh yeah, in a bed, of all places.  What a hoot!  If you want pure brain candy that just keeps on going like the energizer bunny (or this special agent), give this one shout.  Just don’t expect Jane Austen~

What these all had in common was more-than-usual sex. Which, since I bought them all in a hospital, made me grin. And let me live vicariously. . . .yeah, sex, I remember that~

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Tom Hanks has that boy-next-door quality I find so appealing.  I think he’s actually gotten nicer looking as he’s aged.

He’s not classically handsome, but there’s something about him in goofy roles or serious ones that has always struck me.  I like his diversity, that his wife has a career, too, and that they produce some things together.  It looks like a nice marriage from the outside looking in.

So it was a happy note I read in People last week, when some stars were asked about their Kindle machines:

Here is what good ol’ Tom had to say:

“I got a Kindle for newspapers and magazines, not for books.  Quite frankly, I prefer to buy books from my neighborhood bookstore.”

See, I knew I liked him!

(PS For those of you wanting to know: Doc is weight-bearing and today hobbled 300 ft in therapy!)

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Auntie M has been gone: in a physical sense, I was able to get Doc coverage and headed west to Port Townsend, WA for a long weekend celebrating my Screw Iowa writing sister’s MFA graduation.  It was great chance for me to recharge my depleted brain cells, to eat hot meals prepared by someone else, and NOT to deal with daily bed baths, commodes, dogs, sheet changes, exercises, cooking, or physical therapy, not to mention a healthy dose of mental support.  I’d never been to Washington State at all, and would love to go back and explore at my leisure. AND it never rained when I was there!  I stayed in a hotel built in 1898 with 14 ft ceilings over an art gallery and had a great time exploring this neat town.

At home, I’ve been gone in a mental sense: there is not much time to blog, as things are pretty much the same with the added exception of three times a week jaunts to town for the above-mentioned PT.  Since Doc cannot bear weight yet on the bad leg (11 weeks and counting in bed–yikes!) he is working on range of motion to the knee, mostly on his back on a table.  Frank, our great therapist who got me walking again after my bilat knee replacements three years ago, has promised Doc he WILL walk again, although there are some days I know Doc doesn’t believe him.  He is soldiering on, and trying to stay positive, but it’s clearly getting to him.

I’m determined to try to work some time for myself into the daily grind, and to that end, here I am snarking away!  Aren’t you glad I’m back???

Seriously, you need to remember to check out ecowomen.wordpress.com starting next Monday.  The gals are celebrating a YEAR of great eco blogs and there will be giveaways for you to try for, plus neat articles to read.  Yours truly will be blogging next Friday on her eco pet day, too.

On the book end, I’m reading a new one (A Distant Domain, will review when finished) by Val McDermid, that mighty Scot who had the temerity to talk herself into Oxford to read English, and we’re all the better for it.

She was a journalist for 16 years before writing full time, with a range of novel series and stand- alones that are always a great read.  McDermid writes with great craft and a keen eye for characterization, and is a feisty broad who would approve of that tag.  When I interviewed her a few years ago for “Mystery Review” mag, it was just after lunch and she was craving a large toddie to hold her over until tea time!  She and her partner had just had a little boy, and the tough and tumble author found herself humbled and amazed by the experience.  For those of you not familiar with McDermid, she’s the author of several series, including the PI Kate Brannigan novels and a thriller series featuring criminal profiler Tony Hill, televised under the generic name “Wire in the Blood” starring Robson Green.  Here’s McDermid with Robson, he of the seriously sexy green eyes:

Her stand alones are equally brilliant and meticulously researched: A Place of Execution won the Anthony Award for Best Novel, while The Mermaids Singing took the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel.  The Grave Tattoo follows a Wordsworth scholar to the Lake District, my favorite place on our great Earth.

That’s the news from NC, where it was 68 today and supposed to snow Sunday night~

Thanks to Google Images

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