I’m probably a mystery writer because my mother was a bookkeeper and my father was an engineer.
They were both logical people with logical professions. For every debit, the bookkeeper records a credit. For every action, the engineer expects an equal reaction. Their work is governed by logical rules.
The mathematical gene needed for these professions skipped me entirely, but the habit of looking for logic was engrained along with my Pablum.
Plus, I was born loving to daydream.
Result: A writer who values storytelling above philosophy and who wants the story to come out “right.”
To me “right” doesn’t mean “happily.” It means “logically.” Or “satisfactorily.” The bad should be punished, and the good, if not rewarded, allowed to rebuild their lives.
Gee! I just described one of the qualities of a traditional mystery.
The mystery novel – like all fiction – may have little to do with reflecting real life. Life isn’t always logical. Inexplicable things happen. Too often the bad get away with it, and the good are left to suffer.
Not in my books. Not in the ones I like to read and definitely not in the ones I write. In my books the villain is ultimately uncovered, and his motives are revealed. All the clues are explained, all the sub-plots tied up.
This does not mean that mysteries don’t have broad themes. After all, mysteries are about good vs. evil in its purest form. But to the fan of the traditional mystery, it all has to make sense.
But wait – every time Jessica Fletcher goes out to dinner, she falls over a body. How can that make sense? If it happened to a real-life person, all her friends would drop her, and the police would keep a very close eye on her.
In the small town in Michigan where my husband’s family has always vacationed, there have been three killings in the past ten years. Yet my protagonist, Lee McKinney Woodyard, lives in a similar town and has solved a dozen murders in less than five fictional years. Have my readers rebelled?
No. They seem to like it.
It’s all part of literary tradition. A western novel needs cattle rustlers. What would a science fiction novel be without an alien, or a romance novel without a sexy hero?
That’s the other thing I like about traditional mysteries – they have rules to follow. As a reader I know that the mystery I read will have a crime, a criminal, a detective.
Does this make mysteries a dull literary form? Absolutely not.
Within that framework there are millions of variations. The crime may be a murder – or the theft of a church tract. The criminal can be a child or an old woman. And so can the detective. The background of the story may be a Neanderthal tribe, a modern city, a medieval monastery, a space station five centuries in the future.
It can even be a chocolate company in a West Michigan resort town.
Do you like your mysteries tied up cleanly?
Editor's Note: JoAnna Carl is the author of the Chocoholic series. Kirkus Reviews said that the recently released Chocolate Cupid Killings "has enough mystery and chocolate trivia to keep fans happily turning pages while munching on bonbons (not supplied)."
