Deborah Crombie and Elizabeth George

Elizabeth Zelvin


I happened to read back to back two new novels by Americans who write long-running mystery series set in England. Both are character-driven police procedurals. Both have a nice balance of nifty plot twists and progress in the series characters’ lives and relationships. The characters involved in the investigation are developed fully enough for the reader to become engaged with them. Both authors are multiple award winners. But I can recommend only one of these books without reservation. While I enjoyed reading the other, I have, well, reservations.


In both Deborah Crombie’s No Mark Upon Her and Elizabeth George’s Believing the Lie, the series protagonist suspects an ulterior motive when his boss asks him to take on a case that is outside his usual routine. Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is sent to Henley, home of the Royal Regatta, to investigate the drowning of an elite rower who was also a high-ranking police detective. A strong hint that settling on the victim’s husband as the murderer would be a satisfactory outcome arouses Kincaid’s determination to look deeper for the solution. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley is also asked to investigate a drowning in the Lake District in Cumbria. At the behest of an influential crony of his boss’s, he is to go undercover and to tell no one, including his own superior and his investigative team.


In the meantime, Kincaid’s wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, is looking forward to handing over the care of their three children—his, hers, and a three-year-old adopted girl of mixed race with separation anxiety and a passion for Alice in Wonderland—to Kincaid so she can get back to the job. Lynley’s partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, is reluctantly becoming friends with the no-longer-runaway wife of her friend and neighbor Taymullah Azhar and mother of his daughter Hadiyya and even more reluctantly trying to obey her boss’s order to get an extreme makeover. Plenty of complications ensue in the investigations and subplots of both books.


Both authors are New York Times bestsellers. Both are considered master storytellers. Both are widely admired for the psychological depth of their characters. So why do I give Crombie’s book a full two thumbs up, while George’s leaves me wiggling ’em around a little? The answer lies in the point I started with: how each of them handles the challenge of being an American writing about contemporary England.


It’s not the authenticity of the settings. Both authors have done their homework thoroughly. But Crombie has an ear, and in my humble opinion, as we say on the Internet, George does not. Crombie’s mastery of British idiom, with its subtleties of class and place, is so smooth that not for a second do we get jerked out of the story by a word or expression that doesn’t fit. The language is authentic, and the reader never has to think about that fact that the author is an American.


I wish I could say the same for George. She has been irritating me since her first novel by throwing in vocabulary that she might have gotten from Agatha Christie or P.G. Wodehouse. It’s not as bad as it used to be. She didn’t commit “chuffed” (from the wrong person) or “innit” (in the wrong sentence) in this book at all. But she keeps using “meant to” for “supposed to,” in dialogue— “You’re meant to be there as soon as possible,” instead of “You’re supposed to be there...” or “He expects you there...” and “It’s meant to be a surprise” instead of “It’s a surprise”—and in narrative—“This seemed to be code for the fact that Lynley was meant to do nothing at all if Nicholas Fairclough turned out to be the killer”—as well. That’s another one, “as well”—sprinkled in to remind us unnecessarily that Brits often use the phrase instead of “too.” I’m no Henry Higgins, but I suspect (“suss out” is another one) that the lower middle class is more likely to use many of the words that George attributes to characters from the titled, Oxford-educated Lynley to laborers and sheep herders.


All of Crombie’s dialogue is believable; to my ear, a lot of George’s is not. Furthermore, all of Crombie’s characters are believable, while some of George’s behave like idiots, if not implausible constructs. I had particular trouble believing in the naiveté to the point of cluelessness of the young tabloid reporter in this book and in the length to which ongoing series character Deborah St. James went in impersonating a police officer. No one who’s ever seen a TV show would make the mistakes she does, with catastrophic results.


In spite of its flaws, Believing the Lie is an entertaining read with a plausible tragedy or two at its heart. But if you want an author you can trust completely, pick Crombie and No Mark Upon Her.

A Winning Partnership: Deborah, Gemma and Duncan

by Sandra Parshall

Leave a comment and you'll be entered in a drawing for an autographed copy of No Mark Upon Her.

When Deborah Crombie was growing up in Texas, she fell in love with the Britain she read about in novels and saw in imported TV shows on PBS. She wasn’t disappointed when she visited the UK for the first time following college graduation. After living in Scotland and England for several years with her first husband, she returned to Texas, but in a real sense she has never left Britain. She began writing about English police detectives Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid and published her first mystery, A Share in Death, in 1993. Since then she has made frequent research trips to Britain a part of her writing life.

Deborah’s series has been nominated for, or has won, every major mystery award. The fourteenth James/Kincaid novel, No Mark Upon Her, has just been published in the U.S. This time out, the pair are dealing with new upheavals in their ever-changing household while Kincaid investigates the death of a young female police officer who had been training for a spot on Britain’s Olympic rowing team. When Kincaid calls on Gemma for help in the case, they discover the answer to the crime lies closer to home and is more deadly than they could have imagined.

Deborah recently chatted with me about the characters who have shared her life for almost twenty years.
 

Q. Some of your books give more space and emphasis to Duncan, and others, like Necessary as Blood, focus on Gemma. Which of them gets the starring role in No Mark Upon Her?

A. I think No Mark Upon Her is definitely more Duncan's book.

Q. Do you alternate the primary focus deliberately, or does it naturally work out that way because of the kind of story you want to tell?

A. It's a combination of the two. The last two books, Where Memories Lie and Necessary as Blood, have given more emphasis to Gemma, both because of the arc of the continuing series story, and because of the plots and subjects of those particular books. But I never intend to permanently emphasize one of my leading characters over the other, and I really enjoyed writing more from Duncan's viewpoint in No Mark.

Q. Your books are as much about Duncan and Gemma’s personal lives as their work. Readers are watching their sons, Kit and Toby, grow up. In Necessary as Blood you introduce another child, a three-year-old orphan named Charlotte who captures the hearts of the whole Kincaid-James family. How does Charlotte figure in the new book, and how will she change the lives of the family members? Is Toby ever jealous because he’s no longer the baby of the family?

A. There are certainly both logistic and emotional issues here. Gemma, Duncan, Kit, and Toby have struggled to find stability as a family, and now, with Charlotte, they've introduced a traumatized child into the mix. Gemma has taken parental leave to help Charlotte adjust to her new home, and it's now Duncan's turn. His case in No Mark Upon Her threatens their carefully made arrangements, and possibly both their jobs. It's hard for the boys, too. Toby is ALWAYS going to want to be the center of attention! Kit, I think, has more empathy with Charlotte, both because of his age and his own history of loss, and because he's more sensitive by nature.

Q. You’ve been writing about Duncan and Gemma for a long time. How have they changed since the first book? Have they ever surprised you with their choices or the direction they’ve taken?

A. Duncan and Gemma have surprised me from day one! I didn't know until I was into the third book that they would have a relationship. I didn't know that Duncan had a son. I certainly had no idea in the beginning of the series that Charlotte would one day come into their lives. I've found, as I've grown into the rhythm of the series, that I'm usually thinking a book or two ahead about the story arcs of the continuing characters, but they don't always do what I want!

Q. What makes these characters so special to you that you can write about them year after year without growing bored (and without boring your readers)?

A. One thing I was very certain of when I wrote the first novel was that I wanted characters who grew and changed and developed, and that's certainly been the case for Duncan and Gemma. (And it was high time they got married, in my opinion. That's what people do, and I think it only makes their lives more complicated and interesting!!!) So there is always a sense of being on a journey with them.

And there are other things that keep me (and I hope readers) from getting bored with the characters. The series doesn't run in real time. Since the first book was published in 1993, only about five years have passed in series time. This requires a certain suspension of disbelief, but it's a decision that I think must be made in series unless it's historical or fantasy/sci fi. Some writers, like Sue Grafton, have chosen to keep their series fixed in time. I took the P.D. James approach. The first Dalgliesh novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. In the most recent, The Private Patient, Dalgliesh is finally contemplating getting married. If the series had run in real time, he'd be doddering off to the nursing home, and what a loss that would be to us readers!

I think that readers understand this device and are willing to go along with the writer if it's done well.

Another thing that keeps ME from getting bored is that I write from multiple viewpoints, and sometimes multiple timelines, so there are always new characters for me to explore. And the stories are very compressed--more like slices of life than a day-to-day narrative. We pop into Duncan and Gemma's lives for a few weeks every few months (their time...).

Q. Your books have beautiful, “literary” titles. How do you go about choosing a book’s name? Do you search for something appropriate each time, or do you have a cache of possible titles you can draw from?

A. Oh, titles are such a struggle! And I can't really get going on a book until I at least have a working title, because the title sets the mood and the tone, and sometimes even the theme of the book. And yes, I always try to find something that relates directly to a particular book. Some titles I've made up from scratch, some are direct quotes, some are slightly... adjusted... quotes. No Mark Upon Her, for instance, is taken from The Tempest, but the actual line is, "No mark upon HIM..." The titles always have multiple meanings or interpretations for me, and I hope they will for readers, too. And I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite.

Q. Have you considered writing a standalone, as many series writers do? Would you like to write something set in the U.S., or does England have your writer’s heart forever?

A. This takes us back to the multiple viewpoints, I think. Because I introduce new viewpoint characters in every book, and often new settings, every book is to a certain extent a standalone. I always hope they can be read and enjoyed by readers not familiar with the series. I haven't yet found a story that I couldn't tell in the context of the series, but it's always possible that someday I will. I very much doubt, however, that I'll ever write a book that isn't centered in Britain. Britain does "have my writer's heart forever." And what a lovely way of putting it!

Visit Deborah’s website at: http://www.deborahcrombie.com

Leave a comment to enter the drawing for an autographed copy of No Mark Upon Her.

Relationships in mystery series: perennial suspense or happily ever after?

Elizabeth Zelvin

Do you believe in “happily ever after”? If you read romance novels, you insist on it. While the classic fairy tales of Andersen and Grimm were often depressing and, well, grim, 20th-century American culture offered its children only tales that turned out well. In literary fiction too, the happy ending has been with us since Jane Austen. Many readers seek the satisfaction of conflict resolved in the personal lives of the characters they read about. Others protest that in reality, that moment of resolution is just the beginning of relationships that are true to life.

Mystery series offer writers, and thus readers, the opportunity to explore the arc of characters and their relationships over what in a prolonged series may amount to thousands of pages. The series format allows writers to give us a variety of relationship scenarios.

Some popular series authors suspend indefinitely their character’s choice of a permanent mate. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum forever hesitates between the reliable if somewhat high-handed Moretti and the mysterious, intensely sexy Ranger. Charlaine Harris has taken Sookie Stackhouse to what at first looked like true love with vampire Bill to a complicated series of relationships with vampire Eric and at least a couple of attractive shapeshifters.

Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone is perennially single with only a few ventures into romance. Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone had a series of failed relationships, none as important as her friendships with both men and women, before she found her soulmate in the unfortunately named Hy Ripinsky. Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski gets periodically involved with a man, but it’s certainly not the focus of her life and sometimes proves a pesky complication.

At least two bestselling authors, Elizabeth George and Dana Stabenow, have taken the radical step of killing off the soulmate: Thomas Lynley’s wife Helen and Kate Shugak’s true love Jack Morgan respectively, to the indignation of many readers. Going by past performance, I think George is going to torture Lynley before she lets him find love again. I found the mating dance between Stabenow’s Kate and her new partner Jim Chopin annoying—with Jim portrayed over the course of several books as a womanizer suddenly struck faithful by the sturdy, practical Kate’s irresistible sexual allure, and both concealing that they have any feelings whatever except for lust—until the most recent book, when they seem finally to be settling down to what I would call a relationship.

Even when authors let their character find a perfect partner, they may choose to postpone the happily ever after indefinitely by throwing one curve ball after another into the couple’s lives. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s ratcheting up of tension and heartache over the series has been masterful as Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne struggle with their feelings for each other. Readers may grind their teeth when Russ’s wife dies, and Clare, instead of falling into his arms, re-ups in the Army to go fly a helicopter in Iraq—but they couldn’t wait for the next book, when Clare came home. (If you haven’t read it, I won’t tell you what cliffhanger that one ends with.) Cynthia Harrod-Eagles put Inspector Bill Slider and the love of his life, Joanna—not to mention the reader—through agonies of frustration involving his awful marriage, her career as a violinist, his procrastination and guilt feelings, and of course the demands of The Job, ending each book with a whammy of a cliffhanger that had this reader groaning—and yes, eager for the next book.

And then there are the couples who, having achieved happily ever after, continue to evolve, whether dealing with further crises in the life cycle (pregnancy and child rearing; parents’ aging, illness, and death; the conflicting demands of career), not unlike what happens in real life. They may also continue to solve mysteries as partners. Deborah Crombie’s British detectives, Lloyd (first name nobody’s business) and Gemma James are doing a good job, as are Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. So are Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Jill Paton Walsh’s recent additions to Dorothy L. Sayers’s classic series. The latest one is a dilly, posing the couple a challenge you don’t often see in mysteries. On the other hand, something similar just happened to another of my favorite couples (not straight mystery, but a cross-genre series with plenty of mystery plotting), Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan and his wife Ekaterin. My prediction is that Walsh will let us see Peter and Harriet coping with their new condition, but the Vorkosigans, alas, may live happily ever after.