Report for Murder by Val McDermid

Report for Murder (1987) introduces the self-described ‘cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist’ Lindsay Gordon. This description occurs in the first paragraph, making her impossible to dislike. Val McDermid’s debut novel, published under the Paretsky-evoking name V.I. McDermid, is much more in the Agatha Christie tradition than the police procedural model that made its author famous. However, in some ways – not least the detective – it’s more sociologically interesting. The themes are much simpler and more traditional than in McDermid’s Hill and Jordan books: we’re looking here at the class system, lies, and relationships.

As a journalist, Lindsay is commissioned to write a puff piece on a charity fundraiser at an exclusive boarding school for girls. She turns up and walks into various rows between the staff, while trying to reconcile her socialist views with her interest in various posh women. The set-up certainly reminded me of Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons (I see the influence of this book much more than the influence of Nancy Spain’s Poison for Teacher), and the plot is more of a light, straightforward mystery than one might expect from this author.

I understand why McDermid moved away from writing conventional mysteries whose USP is the detective’s sexuality and into more contemporary, commercial – and, notably, straight – blockbuster novels. But I hope that subsequent entries to the Lindsay Gordon canon, which ran up to 2003, don’t lose the lightness of touch that makes Report for Murder a strong, diverting read.

META MATTERS

Lindsay Gordon is an avid reader of detective fiction. We meet her reading a detective novel on a train. As soon as a body is discovered, Lindsay is encouraged to investigate when one character asks, ‘Don’t you ever read any Agatha Christie?’ and another christens the event ‘Murder in the Music Room’.  Later, investigating, and consistently using language like ‘red herring’, Lindsay regrets that ‘It always seems so easy for the Hercule Poirots and the Lord Peter Wimseys’. There are many other meta moments like this.

My favourite such moment occurs roughly midway through, when Lindsay's love interest says that, if Lindsay were Hercule Poirot, she would have solved it by now. The response? 'If I were Hercule Poirot, you wouldn't fancy me.'

Mini reviews #27

A Ladder to the Sky (2018) by John Boyne. I feel awkward liking a novel by John Boyne, given that he’s the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. But A Ladder to the Sky is, quite simply, really, really good. It’s less a novel than a fable for our times. Given some of the hooh-hah in the press about plagiarism in crime fiction and romantic fiction at the moment, its publication in paperback is timely. A beautiful young man with no conscience uses his charms to get a former child-Nazi’s story, which he publishes. He struggles to write a decent second book, so ends up killing people (people who are, noticeably, not straight white men) and stealing their stories. Even after everything’s come out, he’s able to carry on exactly as before and becomes known as a great novelist.

The Chalk Man (2018) by C.J. Tudor. Tudor’s second novel is out now so I wanted to read her debut. It baffles and confuses me that the praise quote being used by publishers is from the Daily Mail, describing the author as ‘Britain’s female Stephen King’. The Chalk Man, narrated by a bloke, is in no way a gendered story and certainly not a ‘female’ one (any more than, in my opinion, Stephen King’s work is ‘male’ in tone). It just seems odd to mention the author’s sex at all. A much better piece of praise comes from King himself: ‘If you like my stuff, you’ll love this.’ Anyway, the novel itself is a great, escapist read. It’s not revolutionary and I don’t think it will change your life, but it’s a good, atmospheric, creepy read.

A Hidden Life (2019) by Mia Emilie. Mia Emilie’s debut is a great read for fans of historical mysteries, blending fact and fiction alongside science and superstition.  The story concerns the murder of Amy Dudley in 1560. Sam Banks, a former spy and death doctor, is asked to look into it. But he starts to suspect he’s been charged with covering something up, and that the web leads all the way to Queen Elizabeth.

The Silent Patient (2019) by Alex Michaelides. This debut has been massively hyped and has met with universal adulation. So, guess who didn’t think it was all that great… A psychotherapist sets out to find the truth from an artist who murdered her husband and will not speak. The whole book feels to me like a sixth former decided to rewrite Atwood’s Alias Grace, the first steps being to get rid of that pesky historical backdrop and to remedy the lack of a plot twist. It just doesn’t work. And the insights into psychoanalysis are inconsistent, outdated truisms. I’d bet good money that the author has no professional experience of that field. Sadly, I can’t recommend this book.

The Suspect (2019) by Fiona Barton. Fiona Barton is on top form in her third psychological thriller. The Suspect has it all. Kate Waters, investigative journalist, is back, and this time she has the first person ‘slot’ because she is the woman at the heart of the story (Barton, like Sophie Hannah, writes the investigation in the third person and the psychological heart in the first person). Kate’s son Jake is a major suspect in the deaths of two British tourists in Thailand. In this case, the plot is labyrinthine and sophisticated. Barton’s writing style has also evolved (no more ‘Bob said’ or ‘Kate said’ breaking up every piece of dialogue) and it’s nice to see Jean Taylor, the narrator of The Widow, make a reappearance.

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce

Harriet Tyce’s debut, Blood Orange (2019) is a visceral, slow-burning stunner of domestic suspense.

Criminal defence barrister Alison is, like most people living a perfect life, barely holding it together. She has a drink problem and she’s having an affair — and she can’t believe her clients, even when they’re confessing to murder. She’s also receiving anonymous messages.

The characters in Blood Orange are not glamorous, or sugar-coated. They are, like the food they eat, oozing, deceptively-dressed-up messes. And they’re very true to life. In fact, and this is a tiny point but something that is very telling, this is the only contemporary London thriller I’ve read in which the central character smokes without it being a huge guilty secret. It’s a fact of life that so many writers ignore, that people in high-pressure environments, especially in cities, smoke.

That’s not to say it’s bleak; it’s not. The realism is tense, the twists compelling, and the characters’ believability makes the first person narrative all the more urgent. You have to read on, just as Alison has to keep making the wrong choices.

I know that Blood Orange has been optioned for a TV series, and I can see it doing really well in that format. As a debut, it’s remarkable and Harriet Tyce is certainly one to watch.

META MATTERS

This is a new feature I’m going to include in every full review, because I’m starting to think that the one thing crime fiction has in common is intertextuality. In this section of all subsequent reviews, I will be highlighting key moments in which the text reflects its own fictional status, or refers to crime fiction in some way.

In happier times, Alison and her husband used to watch The Wire. They try to rekindle some love and trust watching a ‘Scandi Noir’ boxset.

Second Life by SJ Watson

SJ Watson is, as we all know, the author of Before I Go to Sleep, which is impossible to dislike. His third novel is taking a while to surface but, based on the absolutely gripping, page-turning rollercoaster that is Second Life (2015), I reckon it will be worth the wait. Regular readers of this blog (if they exist) will know that I think the demand for one book a year from genre writers is ridiculous, stifling, and bad for everyone except booksellers.

This novel is narrated by middle-aged Julia, a wife and mother whose younger sister, Kate, apparently committed suicide. Convinced there’s more to the story, Julia starts investigating and finds out that Kate was a regular on dating websites. Julia sets up a profile and starts chatting to the men in her sister’s life. Before long, she becomes obsessed by one of them. And, more damagingly, the stranger becomes obsessed with her.

There is no neat solution to this story, which is a masterstroke, making the whole thing immediate and real. Not being a woman, I can’t be sure, but my impression is that Watson does a superb job at writing from a range of women’s perspectives. There’s also a really intriguing subplot, which is totally unexplored. I am 100% certain, based on how the characters speak and behave, that Julia’s teenage son is gay. But it’s never discussed; indeed, the parents (including the narrator) frequently talk about his ‘girlfriend’ (who turns out not to be a girlfriend). I’d love to know the author’s perspective on all of this.

And my sole go-to irk: the novel is written in the present tense, but it’s clear to me that the author wants to be writing in the past tense, betrayed through the use of ‘had been’ instead of ‘was’, and so on. At least 50% of contemporary thriller writers do this, and it barely detracts from a masterful second novel.