"C" is for Corpse, (Conclusion)

Our private-eye’s instincts continue to lead her in the direction of the proof, but it continues to be a daunting task to the end.  It turns out that she was right to seek out Sufi, on track to follow her to the Fraker’s residence, and correct in confronting Nola with what she only suspected as the truth, and only a half-truth at that.  We get the feeling, along with her, that we are getting closer and closer to a solution to the puzzle with each step she takes.  Well, of course, you might say, this is a novel, with a logically constructed plot line which would obviously lead to a satisfactory conclusion.  Yes – but it doesn’t feel that way!  We feel that we have stumbled across the truth along with Kinsey, and therein lies the fun of a well-constructed mystery. 

“It’s never a good idea to leave me in a room by myself.” Kinsey briefly explores her childhood history of poking into other people’s kitchen drawers, bathroom cabinets and living room bookshelves to give us an explanation of how she often unwittingly uncovers a scrap of evidence that might lead to an insight about a case she’s working on.  Finding the name “Costigan” written inside the cover of one of Nola’s books in her collection helps Kinsey to make a connection to an unsolved murder that happened years ago involving Nola.  That’s just the catalyst she needs to start fitting the puzzle pieces together, the spark she’s been waiting for. 

And then we see again her well-honed instinct for psychological manipulation as she verbally attacks her suspect:  “I can’t help it if Bobby Callahan decided he was in love with me.  So the kid had a crush on me.  So what?”  “So the kid had an affair with you, Nola.  That’s what.  You got your t-- in a wringer and the kid was helping you out.  The kid was murdered because of you, ass eyes.  [Ass eyes?!]  Now, shall we quit b.s.-ing each other and get down to business on this or shall I call Lieutenant Dolan down at homicide and let him have a chat with you?”  Such people skills!  Such language!  Actually, by today’s standards this is tame; you can hear worse than this on any of your favorite TV shows.  But it works in this context and we are inwardly cheering our heroine. 

In the midst of all this, we are treated to a sub-plot involving a scam artist working on her landlord/friend, which she solves on the side in an impressive and amusing way.  Could this sub-plot have been left out without damaging the overall work?  Part of me wants to say yes, but I think the answer might realistically be no.  At least some sub-plot action might be necessary just to create a tension-release rhythm in the main plot.  It certainly seems to be a technique that is used in good mystery novels on a regular basis.
 

Speaking of standard techniques:  apparently it’s not enough for a detective to solve a case and find the missing answers in a flashy or dramatic way.  Apparently the detective has to be put in a life-or-death situation in which it looks like there’s no way out.  I’m not really carping here, just drawing attention to what seems to be an all-too-predictable convention of the genre.  In this book, the conclusion occurring in a practically abandoned morgue/autopsy clinic, it gives us a rather surreal and fascinating finale that I found entertaining, if not completely satisfying.  The clever solution to her predicament?  Wait at a crossing of hallways with a two-by-four and bash him in the head as he comes around the corner.  Yep, that’s it.  If I placed a lot of importance on how a book concludes (which, at least in this case, I don’t, really), this would be a disappointment.  It’s like the ending of a Shakespeare play: “And then, everybody died, the end.”  I guess Grafton could do worse than being compared to Shakespeare!




Next month's book; Pink Floyd and Philosophy, ed. by George A. Reisch.  This is one of the newer works from the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series which began with Seinfeld and Philosophy and The Simpsons and Philosophy.  These books take out the “dryness” that can make philosophy hard to read, linking it to topics we love – like Pink Floyd!  The subtitle, Careful with that Axiom, Eugene! gives an example of how lively the writing is.  School is ending, vacations are beginning - we'll start with the first quarter of the book (Numbers 1-6) on June 7th.  See you then!

"C" is for Corpse, (Chapters 15-20)

Kinsey Millhone’s process for solving a case is fascinating to watch.  One gets a strong impression that we’re seeing a very realistic depiction of what it is like to do the kind of work she does.  She doesn’t like to “get behind on her paperwork,” knowing how that can jeopardize her chances of finding a solution.  She follows the strongest leads she has (often very flimsy) without hesitation.  She itemizes expenses so that she can show the client what he’s getting for his money.  She even follows through with what she’s been paid to do after her client dies, which others find strange, but admirable.  Clues do fall in her lap sometimes, but it’s because she puts herself in their way; it wouldn’t happen without her conscientious pursuit of good leads.  One has to think this is how it’s really done in the real private-eye world. 

The psychology of working with people, in particular, is where we see some nice insights:  “You can always push people around, but it’s not a good idea.  Better to let them volunteer information for reasons of their own.  You get more that way.”  On the other hand, playing hardball with Sufi – almost like a cross-examining attorney - was exactly the right play:  “‘I found Bobby’s address book.’ ‘Why tell me?’ ‘I was curious about your relationship with him.’ ‘I didn’t have a relationship with him.’ ‘That’s not what I hear.’ … ‘Why’d you need to meet him down at the beach, then?’ ‘I never “met” Bobby down at the beach,” she snapped.  “Somebody saw you on more than one occasion.’ … I could see her shifting gears, trying another tack.  Some of the huffiness dropped away.  She apparently decided to roll out the charm.  ‘God, I don’t know what’s the matter with me.  I’m sorry if I sounded rude.  As long as you’re here, you might as well sit down.” 

There are numerous such passages showing our heroine’s “people skills” and the reader enjoys the “lessons.”  This is a great example of how reading can make you smarter.  There are authors that irritate me when I make the mistake of reading them.  My theory is that this is largely because I don’t have the patience to read the writings of someone who isn’t as smart as I am. (The fact that there seem to be so few of these does give me pause!)  Ms. Grafton, here, never tests my patience.  Her prose seems to drip with intelligence, and I enjoy that very much.  Are there people who prefer to read books that are written at an intelligence level lower than their own?  That would explain the popularity of…oops, I almost named names! 

“There are times when things begin to break by sheer dint of dumb luck.  I don’t pretend to take credit for what happened next.”  Kinsey could have told us that she went out to her car after her conversation with a suspect and waited to see if she would rush out of the house, or have someone come over.  But no, she was just rummaging in her cluttered back seat for a sweatshirt and the delay caused her to see the suspect backing out just in time to follow her.  Again, I have to think that in any real investigation of this type, cases can turn on precisely these little flukes.

 

We can’t help but love how human Kinsey is.  In her walk down the hall at the psychiatric hospital to see Kitty, she half expects to see “women writhing and babbling to themselves, men imitating ex-Presidents and jungle beasts.”  But they all looked normal.  “I couldn’t see any difference between them and me, which I thought was worrisome.”  The story continues to provide us with subtle humorous quips of this kind; a definite plus, and a trademark of most of the authors I love so much to read.




Next week: Conclusion.

"C" is for Corpse, (Chapters 7-14)

One interesting anomaly about Grafton’s writing, at least in this book, is that it seems that a lot happens in just a few pages, and yet each scene seems to take plenty of time to unfold.  Kinsey covers several “interviewees” in one short chapter, and it doesn’t take long to read, but it’s startling to look back and see that it all happened in about eight pages.  Grafton appears to respect her readers’ time – or, very professionally, realizes that today’s reader is impatient with long-winded paragraphs full of conjecture or description.  By contrast, I very recently read a book by Sir Walter Scott, which I liked very much, but took a lot more patience to get through. 

This book has a copyright date of 1986; to those of us whose college days pre-dated that, it doesn’t seem that long ago, until you do the math and see it was 27 years.  It’s interesting to stumble across a passage that tells us just how dated the story could seem.  Looking for a telephone booth?  Where’s your cell phone?  Oh, yeah.  Even in older movies it can take us a second to wonder why a character doesn’t just whip out their cell phone, or microwave a Hot Pocket and get on with the action.  Another recent read, copyrighted 2004, was also devoid of cell phones, but the first-person-writer heroine explained that on her income, she just couldn’t afford it.  No, she wasn’t on welfare, but we won’t get into that. 

Twice now, our heroine has “flipped off” a machine.  I’m thinking the author probably wouldn’t use that phrase today, even if the machine in question did have an up-down toggle-type switch instead of a push button or pressure sensitive pad.  But this phrase may itself become history before too long; I have heard some of my youngest acquaintances refer to it as “flicked off” which, viewed objectively, might be an improvement.  After all, you “flick” your finger to remove any unwanted…you know…debris, right?  “Flipping” someone off might start to sound to the younger generations like “a broken record.”  A broken what? 

What did the phrase “global warming” mean to anyone in 1986?  Grafton writes:  “The weather in Santa Teresa has been straying from the norm of late.  It used to be that you could count on clear sunny skies and a tamed and temperate sea … The shift is baffling, the sort of climatic alteration associated with the eruption of South Sea volcanoes and rumors about the ozone being penetrated by hair sprays.”  From rumors about the ozone to polar bears stranded on lonely blocks of ice and international summits on carbon footprints we’ve come a long way!  Kinsey does have an answering machine, though, that she listened to after the “tape rewound itself” and hears the last message left by her now-dead client Bobby – a voice from the “grave.”

 

Yes, the client who hired our detective has died (murdered?) in a car crash similar to the one he was mangled in to begin with.  Our narrator had warned us this was going to happen in the very first paragraph in the book, but it didn’t transpire until about a third of the way through.  I’m trying to imagine why this fact was given to us up front, what is accomplished from a story-crafting point of view.  Wouldn’t it have been more of a shock, a major highpoint in the story if we hadn’t been forewarned?  Did Grafton originally plan for it to be a major surprise and then change her mind?  Did her editor feel that readers would just give up on the book and toss it aside in disappointment if such a major character was suddenly removed from the plot at this point?  If the book had been written today, would the same decision have been made?  Am I reading way too much into this?  Probably.



Next week's chapters: 15-20.

"C" is for Corpse, (Chapters 1-6)

Sue Grafton is one of those writers who could take an ordinary story and make it interesting through the strength of her writing alone.  It is easy to take her for granted as being just another fixture in the mystery field, as who hasn’t heard of the series beginning with “A” is for Alibi?  We forget how good you have to be to become one of those fixtures in the first place, that it isn’t just a matter of coming up with a clever and memorable device for your titles.  Her stories aren’t ordinary, although the word “classic” might apply – but that doesn’t make them any less captivating!

A big plus here is the creation of a really unique and likeable hero or heroine.  Kinsey Millhone fills the bill.  When I first read one of these stories, I thought of Sigourney Weaver in the roll, although I knew that she didn’t really fit the part physically.  I just liked that edgy attitude and gutsy-ness that Weaver brings to the screen.  Now I’m thinking Scarlett Johansson, though dressed down to an almost plain jane earthiness.  Too much armchair director playing?  Probably!

 

I like how Kinsey doesn’t have to stumble into an investigation through some quirk of being in the right place at the right (or wrong) time.  A person (Bobby Callahan) who is thinking about getting a private detective finds out she is one, makes contact and they draw up the contract, ho hum, business as usual, just like in the real world, get on with the story.  No dramatic coincidences to get the pace rolling quickly, just solid detective work, which is plenty interesting enough, thank you very much.  This reminds me of the John D. MacDonald stories; just good solid writing.  My impression is that almost any detective story writer wouldn’t mind being compared to him, including Grafton.  I certainly mean it in the most complimentary way. 

The best mystery writers seem to have a knack for cleverly worded quips, often sardonic or cynical, that add just the right touch of humor to the situation.  Example:  “She wore a low-cut cotton sundress, a bright green-and-yellow geometric print on a white background.  Her breasts looked like two five-pound flour sacks from which some of the contents had spilled.”  Or this:  “The air was scented with eau de dope and my guess was she’d smoked so much grass in there, you could bury your nose in the bedcovers and get high.”  I don’t know about anyone else, but these kinds of witty observations really add immensely to my enjoyment of a story, from Grafton to Koontz to Vonnegut. 

The descriptions of the opulent living conditions of Bobby and his wealthy but dysfunctional family keep us enthralled.  It’s a good reminder that the wealthy aren’t necessarily any happier than the rest of us.  There are certain problems that they don’t ever have to deal with, but their lives can be as miserable as ours.  Sure, they create their own problems and miseries; so do we all.  Bobby’s particular misery - his disfigurement and the resulting rehabilitation challenges from his automobile incident – is real enough.  But we get glimpses into his past that tell us that perhaps his life wasn’t destined to be a bed of roses anyway.  The descriptions of his previous self that we get from his mother and his step-father are deeply conflicted and it’s hard for us or for Kinsey to sort out what is accurate and what is not.  Just another layer of mystery in what promises to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience for the reader.

Next week's chapters: 7-14.