Are “Elevated” Mysteries Really Better?

Are “Elevated” Mysteries Really Better?

 

The term “elevated” is bandied about a lot.  One sees it used repeatedly on Gordon Ramsey cooking reality shows.  On those series, a contestant prepares a popular, common dish, and is told that it needs to be “elevated.”  By this, the term means that a hamburger or a taco might be “elevated” by using a more expensive and tricky to prepare cut of meat, or a rarer cheese, a specially made aioli or other sauce, and perhaps the design and look of the meal may be different and fancier than all of the standard versions of the foodstuff.  Sometimes the “elevated” dish looks fantastic, but after hearing about the unusual ingredients, one worries about the taste, and I often find myself thinking I’d prefer the regular, “unelevated” version.

 

Over the last few decades, there’s been a push to “elevate” the mystery genre.  The mystery has generally been seen as a “popular” and “lesser” branch of fiction, so how do writers seek to earn plaudits from critics when writing crime stories?  Often, the crime takes up little of the book, and much of the story is devoted to personal relationships, meandering introspection, and political diatribes.  Sometimes the crime is never solved, or there is no mystery at all to what happened, or justice is deliberately undone.  Sometimes there’s stylized literary prose, though it’s not always very impressive.  Indeed, the classic mystery is supposed to a fun, entertaining, diverting experience.  The “elevated” mystery is more often than not a depressing slog.

 

Ultimately, the so-called improvements to mystery novels often do nothing to make more pleasing in terms of aesthetics, readability, originality, or enjoyability.  They are pretensions for the sake of self-glorification, denigrating perfectly good, even great writing.  The “elevating” is simply putting others down in an attempt to build oneself up undeservedly.  Notably, critics and prize committees may fawn over the “elevated” works, but such creations rarely gain strong tractions with general readers.  

 

And so, I end with a question to readers: who really benefits from the so-called “elevation” of the mystery genre?

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

Did the Mystery Writer Pick the Right Killer?

Did the Mystery Writer Pick the Right Killer?

 

Recently, I was watching a television production, which will remain nameless in order to avoid spoilers.  As I went through the episodes, I realized that there were two ways that the narrative could resolve.  If the show picked one killer, it would fit with the themes of the story and perhaps the political messaging being expressed through the tale.  Done properly, it could have dramatic heft and impact, but it would not be satisfying from a critical perspective, because as a solution to a mystery, it would’ve been, well, just too obvious.

 

Alternatively, there was another suspect, a character whose purpose in the drama wasn’t clear, and who was never the target of suspicion, but if one extrapolated a potential motive from some storylines and the behavior of the victim, one could deduce this character’s motive.  Had the second suspect been identified as the killer, the ending would have been surprising and satisfying. 

 

The show went with the first option, and the end result left a rather hollow, flat feeling to an otherwise fine production. It struck me that picking a killer is a lot harder than a lot of critics think.  When crafting a fair play whodunit, the murderer cannot be too obvious.  One has to consider the person to be a potential murderer, but one also has to be able to feel fine if the suspect is innocent and is allowed to go on living a normal life.  Too often, writers fill a story with characters so foul and unpleasant that you want all of them to go to jail at the end, and when the others walk away free, it just feels wrong.  

 

I once heard a rumor that some writers on Law & Order were divorced women who loved to model the murderers after their ex-husbands.  Maybe it’s cathartic for the writer to unload personal feelings on a fictional character, but the heavy-handed attempts to make a character villainous ruin the mystery aspect, as it’s so clear who the villain is because the whole story gives you reason after reason why the character is a terrible person.  Some characters are supposedly “born to be victims.”  Others are “born to be killers.”  I’ve lost track of the number of times when I realize twenty pages into a book or twenty minutes in a show who the murderer is, because the author hates him so much.

 

Most writers don’t understand that the reveal of a character as a murder has to maintain a level of psychological consistency.  After the denouement, a well-written mystery reveals that the character is exactly the same person you came to know over the course of the novel, only now you know for certain he’s a murderer.  Agatha Christie knew how to make this work.  Weak writers produce a character who’s the world’s nicest guy for ninety-five percent of the book, and then in the climax, his character spins around a hundred eighty degrees and becomes a foaming-at-the-mouth psychopathic violent madman. It doesn’t work, because the capacity for evil comes out of nowhere as opposed to having the character flaws discreetly illustrated over the course of the book.

 

A lot of authors think you can treat a whodunit like a game of Clue, where the villain can be drawn at random from a pool of suspects.  But that doesn’t work.  In a good mystery, the character of the killer has to reflect the themes of the book and the actions taken have to be plausible based on what we know about the character.  It’s tricky, but the best mysteries work because they choose their killers well.

 

When was the last time you read a book or saw a TV program that was marred by a poor selection of killer?

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

When Was the Last Time You Laughed at a Comedy?

 When Was the Last Time You Laughed at a Comedy?

 

There’s a serious problem affecting comedy today.  It just isn’t funny.

 

It’s not just a matter of bad writing.  Sometimes the dialogue, plotting, and characterization are fair to fine.  It’s just that there’s no actual humor.  Instead of jokes, there are wry comments. Or people the writers don’t like are targeted for attacks.  Indeed, a lot of today’s supposed comedy is about making points rather than creating laughs.  On so many late-night talk shows today, the host makes a quip about a political topic.  In response, the audience doesn’t laugh or even chuckle.  They applaud.  They’re not responding as if the line was humorous.  They’re appreciating that their political opinions have been supported.  

 

In contrast, Joyce Porter’s books make me laugh just by reading them.  It’s rare for simply reading to create laughter.  Normally visual media, such as movies, television shows, or plays provoke actual laughs.  People don’t often laugh at a medium without an audio component.

 

Yet Porter succeeds.  Why is this?  Part of this is sheer outrageousness.  It’s fun to see people behaving badly and foibles getting targeted for skewering.  There’s something else about Porter’s style of humor.  At least four or five times a book, there’s a situation where the reader will gasp, laugh, and think, “You couldn’t get away with a joke like that today.”  Why is that, I wonder?

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

Joyce Porter and the Joy of Failure

 Joyce Porter and the Joy of Failure

 

Many detectives move from success to success.  Perry Mason keeps getting his innocent clients exonerated, and in one famous instance, the one time a verdict doesn’t go his way, he manages to fix it within a few pages.  Even Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot had cases that didn’t go as they might have hoped, leading the great detectives to tell their best friends to say “Norbury” and “Chocolate Box” to temper their egos.  Even Columbo had one case where he’s compelled to arrest an innocent person at the end when that party confesses to save the last days of the real perpetrator, who is terminally ill and will face an unearthly justice very soon.

 

But for Joyce Porter, her detectives routinely fail to various extents.  DCI Dover never solves a case entirely successfully.  Sometimes he accuses the wrong person, only for the truth to be revealed by some other means.  Often, his solution is only partly correct, and he gets the motive or a guilty party wrong.  On occasion, the case is solved by a colleague or the guilty party’s spontaneous confession.

 

Likewise, reluctant spy Eddie Brown never pulls off an assignment exactly as it’s meant to be completed.  There’s always something that goes sideways, or some slip-up that ruins all of his plans.  Unlike the James Bond archetype, Eddie Brown is never really in control of a situation. 

 

Perhaps the Hon Con has it worst, as she invariably solves the case, but she never gets the recognition and acclaim that she deserves.  One way or another, she’s shamed when she ought to be praised, or at least thanked.  Yet she keeps on going, perhaps because she has a desire for justice, maybe because she keeps thinking that eventually she’ll get the applause she craves.

 

Porter’s protagonists are never totally satisfied in the results of their cases, but the readers are invariably pleased by the satisfactory nature of the books’ endings, thematically speaking.  Porter loves to see her characters humbled, possibly because the permanently dignified and successful are rarely very funny.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

Happy First Birthday to the Blog!

Happy First Birthday to the Blog!

 

 

This blog was started one year ago today!  Not to boast, but I’ve managed one post a week minimum over the past year.  This year, I’ve talked about my various projects, such as Sherlock & Irene, numerous short stories, the rationale behind the Funderburke mysteries, and the upcoming book Murder Most Grotesque!  I’ve enjoyed talking about my work and my thoughts on the mystery genre, and I’m looking forward to more over the coming year!

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.