I enjoyed these!

 From the New Yorker Magazine

WHO’S ON FIRST

There are  many mysteries that have been widely imitated.  I could rephrase this as writers  enlarging on a good idea. These are the seeds that I think germinated well in the past years. I thought it would be interesting to see who actually came first. One of the first mystery stories was THE WOMAN IN WHITE but I am focusing on those stories that have served as a springboard to others in the same vein.

I can’t tell you how many book covers mention that the hero within is the next Philip Marlow. He is a staple on the back of the book blurbs and is held up as a paragon of the lone detective. Who was Philip Marlow?  A detective on the mean streets of LA written by Raymond Chandler in 1939 but this was preceded by THE MALTESE FALCON written by Dashiell Hammet in 1930 who made Sam Spade a synonym for tough and the followers in his footsteps were Mike Hammer, by Mickey Spillane ’47, Robert Parker's Spencer 1973, and PI’s by the handful that we all grew to know and love.

Another one of the most cloned writers  was Tony Hillerman, who started the western Native American mystery from the southwest in 1970. Peter Bowen has a series that he started in ‘94  in the North West, Margaret Coel one in ’95 and there have been threads  on Amazon dedicated to this very classification of mystery because there are so many authors in this genre.

Another subtype that spawned a few in the same vein is the intrepid young woman who was an ambulance driver or similar in WWI and never looked back We have Kerry Greenwood in 1989 with Phryne Fisher in COCAINE BLUES, a series about a typewriter in San Francisco Fremont Jones, written by Dianne Day in 1995 Jacqueline Winspear in 2003 with MAISIE DOBBS, Suzanne Arruda in 2006 with MARK OF THE LION, and Barbara Cleverly’s Leatitia Talbot series in 2007.

The Gentleman Detective Class is heavily populated , but the first may have been  Sherlock Holmes that well known character of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who entered the world in A STUDY IN SCARLET in 1887. Jaques Futrelle's The Thinking Man S.F.X. Van Dusen who fist came to life is 1906 followed by R. Austin Freeman first story THE   RED THUMB MARK in 1907.  Hercule Poirot was introduced in 1920, Peter Wimsey followed the prototype in 1923 as he was witten by Dorothy Sayers. Ngaio Marsh joined the parade in 1934 with Roderick Alleyn, P. D. James was writing aboutAdam Dalgliesh, the poet in ’62, , Elizabeth George in 1988 with Lord Lindley, Cassandra Chan in 2005 with Betancourt, Dolores Gordon Smith and Jack Haldean in 2007.

Jane Marple and the Cozy. She needs no explanation. Cozies abound. MURDER AT THE VICARAGE was written in 1930 by Agatha Christie but I don't know if she was the first but she is the alpha and the omega to many.

Exotic Location policing is a great category. I don’t know where it really began, but it got a good start for me with Graham Greene with his book ORIENT EXPRESS of 1932 and my favorite followers include Martin Cruz Smith ’and Stuart Kaminskyboth writing about Russia in 1981 and Batya Gur about Israel in 1988, Eliot Pattison  about Tibet in ‘99, and Leighton Gage’s Series in Brazil of 2007.

Nordic Nastiness:  Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish mysteries are being translated at an ever rapid rate and Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were first translated in ‘67 then  Mankell ’99, Jo Nesbø’97, Håkan Nesser 1993, Åke Edwardson 2005 with SUN AND SHADOW, and last but not least the Stieg Larsson trilogy starting with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO in 2008.

Female Police is a good category, and perhaps there should be a category of ex-police as well. Margaret Maron’s Sigrid Harald was written in ’81, Laurie King’s Kate Martinelli series started 1993, Carol O’Connell ‘s Mallory in ’94, Steven Havill with Estelle Reyes- Gusman as the Under sheriff of Posadas County In SCAVENGERS in 2002.

 Female PI Series are an ever expanding genre. My first was Sharon McCone by Marcia Muller in ’77,  then Liza Cody ’80, Sue Grafton’s A in ’82 and Sara Paretsky’s V.I Warshawski in ’82 and on to the many female PI’s of today, Kat Colorado, Carlotta Carlisle, The Spellman family etc, not forgetting Rachel Cord by R.E. Conary 2008.

Historic Detectives abound these days but I started with Peter Lovesy’s WOBBLE TO DEATH in 1970 with Victorian policemen, Elizabeth Peters wrote her CROCODILE ON THE SANDBANK in 1975, Ellis Peters was writing in 1977, Anne Perry Pitt Series was in 1979, Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club was written 2003, Charles Finch with The Beautiful Blue Death 2007.

Everybody is CSIing it these days but Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta Forensic series is one of the first of that type done in 1990, Kathy Reichs wrote her first in’97, Simon Beck began his series set in England in 2006 and many, many more have followed. The one I read most recently was Erin Hart’s HAUNTED GROUND  ’03.

Another main genre that is one of my favorites is the police-procedural. Whether the detective be from the  inner city,or small town British or hailing from Ulan Bator as in Martin Walker's series they were following the path of perhaps Inspectoor French in Freeman Willis Crofts' 1925 INSPECTOR FRENCH'S GREATEST CASE, or John Creasey's 1948 THE INSPECTOR TAKES THE CASE. One of the best known is the 87th precinct series by Ed McBain which began in 1956 with COP HATER. 


 There are other sub-genres I have not mentioned, such as unusual avocations, religion themed mysteries, everything from socialists to scientists getting  in on the sleuthing game, but the more I read I find that these books mentioned here are most likely not the first, but are certainly pioneers.

Lost Horizon


James Hilton










In those post war days of the early part of the twentieth Century, when bad times were the norm,James Hilton published this novel about an imaginary place hidden deep in the Himalaya's. A group of four people are aboard an airplane that is hi jacked as it takes off from war torn Northern India and heads to an unknown location. It  is evident from what they can see from the windows that they are crossing almost a thousand miles of mighty peaks that are covered for the most part with snow. When they finally touch down it is with a crash and the pilot is killed before he can tell them the reasons for this voyage.

After landing a trekking group of Tibetans lead by an ancient Chinese gentleman called Chang encourages them to come to a nearby Lamasery for recuperation. They have no real choice because if they stayed with the downed craft they would surely die. Their destination is in a nearby valley where the weather is quite clement and the people are friendly. This place is called Shangri-la. This is in the valley of the Blue Moon.

The party consists of a British diplomat Conway, his subordinate, young man in his mid twenties who is quick to anger, a middle-aged  female missionary and an American who is unknown to the rest of the group. As this quartet settles in at Shangri-la, they find it very beautiful with wonderful vistas and all the modern amenities which seem so unlikely in this desolate spot. After that they at first begin to try to make plans for rescue only to be met with a lot of reasons why leaving is not reasonable at present.


Chang explains that this is a lamasery with no particular religion ascendant and that it is based on a combination of philosophies the most important of which is moderation in all things. He urges the group to forget their woes for a while and wait for a possible rescue as new porters bringing goods will be there to escort them through the very dangerous passages that most people never survive. The only newcomers to the Valley of the Blue Moon are like themselves, lost on their way and usually at death's door. Many have stayed relishing the tranquility away from a doomed world.

The question is what would you do, would you stay or would you risk your life to leave?

Yesterday I ran into a man  who late in his life has finally gotten to fulfill a dream of his - to go to China. He believes that in the next several hundred years China will continue to be dominant in world affairs. After all the Chinese hold our debt that we may never get out from under. 


In preparation for his trip he has read China: A History by John Keay  and On China by Henry Kissinger.


 
 I had to recommend Qiu Xiaolong for his subtle way of gently teaching Chinese customs, cuisine and history mixed with a great mystery.





In this story  a young woman has been found on the safety island in the middle of a busy Shanghai road. She was wearing a red mandarin dress made a few decades past. Inspector Cao Chen is engaged on a case of real estate corruption and at the same time he is trying to pursue his literature studies.  The case is turned over to Detective Yu Guangming who is Chen’s partner. Everybody is startled when a second young woman is found dumped and displayed in a similar fashion. A serial killer is the first one of his kind in Shanghai and the public is stirred by the loss of two women in their flowering age.


This is the best of the Inspector Chen series so far. Chen's approach to solving this case has less to do with forensics and more with history. 

The Man Who Loved Slow Tomatoes 


by Michael Constantine

Mario Balzic is the police chief in one of those small coal-mining towns in Pennsylvania where the mines have all but closed and the people are leading hardscrabble lives in a changed economy. This is a tale for any time. Balzic feels he knows the people on his turf like the back of his hand. So he is a little surprised when a woman he knew as a child begins to repeatedly call the police station because her husband is missing. He recognizes that she has problems and he feels a little guilty because he has not seen her for so long.




The story begins with a gift of out of season tomatoes and progresses to a heart rending losing situation because of the hidebound attitudes that are built into a way of life.This case turns out to be a little like one of Balzic’s Pittsburgh Pirate’s baseball games, sometimes you do everything you are supposed to do and things still go against you. Baseball is the only game where the keep a record of the errors. This is a wonderful series and Balzic is a low-key but very astute sleuth who loves his family, his wine and his town. 




The first in the series, written in 1972 is the The Rocksburg Railroad Murders named after the town in which Balzic lives. In this debut Mario who is half Czech and half Italian and understands subtlety suspects immediately who the killer is, but knows that unless this case is handled with delicacy it will blow up in his face like TNT.

In these books there is a psychological aspect that is very basic. Mario Balzic uses psychology in one way or another all day long.  He counsels a young policeman on the way to go into a stranger's home who is afraid and also resistant to the police presence. Make yourself handicapped is how he puts it. If you show a person that you have human weaknesses and frailties like any other person, rather than barging in like powerful tank, they will open up to you. In one interview he asks for an aspirin for an imaginary ache and this eases the interviewee's concerns.


This book may be one of Constantine's best, but the series is well worth reading.

SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW

 Peter Høeg 

In Copenhagen one day during a cold December Smilla Jaspersen was on her way home. She comes upon the scene of the death of her young neighbor and friend six year old Isaiah. Like herself, this young boy is of mixed heritage, a combination of Dane and Greenlander. Isaiah’s mother is an alcoholic who leaves Isaiah to fend for himself most of the time so he has struck up some friendships in his apartment building and had become close to Smilla.

 Apparently he was on the roof of a nearby warehouse and fell to his death. Smilla is aware that the boy is afraid of heights and she inspects the roof, which has no footprints other than Isaiah’s, which at one point lead from the center right over edge. Smilla who can read snow knows that Isaiah was frightened and ran off of the roof.  She asks for a investigation and sets in motion a set of events that will take her to the edge of the world and to her own near extinction.

She begins to get some intimations of the complexities involved when she finds out that a deep muscle biopsy was done on Isaiah’s thigh and when she begins to learn more about Isaiah who was being tracked by high powered lawyers and others. This seems to be related to the death of the boy’s father several years before on a Greenland exploration.

Smilla grew up in Greenland living the nomadic outdoor life of her mother, a great hunter. Much of her personality developed in these free circumstances, which had their own set of survival rules. One of which was no whining. It would drive the prey away. Her father was a noted famous and wealthy anesthesiologist. Smilla lost her mother to the sea when she was young and she began to feel alienation toward nature. She began then to want to understand the ice in an attempt to recapture what she had lost. She subsequently learned all there was to know about snow and ice.

Her father brought her to Denmark to be educated and she kept running back to Greenland until she realized her father was all she had, but they were never very close no matter how hard he tried. Along with Smilla’s ability to understand ice and snow she had an extraordinary sense of orientation. She could locate her self and her party anywhere along the coast of Greenland and was taken along even as a child often as a safeguard to getting lost.

Smilla lost her mother to the sea when she was young and she began to feel an alienation toward nature. She began then to want to understand the ice in an attempt to recapture what she had lost.

The author did a good job in trying to educate the reader as well. There is so much more to ice than I ever imagined. Particularly the ice and it's interface with the sea. When the temperature starts to drop the surfaces of the sea reaches 29ºF and the first ice crystals form. This is a temporary membrane that the winds and waves break up into frazel ice. This is kneaded together into a mash called grease ice, and gradually forms free floating plates, pancake ice, which on a cold day freezes into one solid sheet. When the grease ice disintegrates it is called “rotten ‘ ice.

At first the snow is a six-sided newly formed flake. After 48 hours, the flakes break down and their outlines blur. By the tenth day, the snow is a grainy crystal that becomes compacted after two months. After two years it enters a transitional phase between snow and firn. After three years it becomes névé. After four years it is transformed into large blocky glacial crystal. There are names for all the different kinds of snow from powder snow, to big snow qanik.

When Smilla tries to explain about what she sees on the roof with those seemingly self-explanatory footprints the authorities as well as her father look at her skeptically. Her father put it into words: Reading the snow is like listening to music, to describe what you have read is like explaining music in writing. But Smilla is one thing most of all. She is tenacious and she pursues every clue until it leads her from the thirties, to the sixties to the present day.  There are several threads that pass through all these eras and the most common of these is greed. This is what colonization is about usually.

Smilla is constantly amazed at how poorly Danes and Greenlanders understand each other. Of course in her opinion it is worse for the Greenlanders because it is not a good thing for the tightrope walker to be misunderstood by the person holding the tightrope. In the sixties though it was politically correct to call Greenland Denmark’s most Northern county with all the same rights as the other Danes, providing of course they spoke Danish and got educated in Denmark. All the money in Greenland is attached to Danish language and culture. Those who master these prerequisites get the good jobs, the rest can filet fish in the factories.

Nonetheless no matter what one may detest about the colonization of Greenland it did improve the material needs of an existence that was one of the most difficult in the world. The Inuit very rarely died of hunger any more. That they murdered each other an exceedingly high rate these days was not factored in.

Smilla understands better now that she is older that freedom of choice is an illusion, that life leads us through a series of bitter, involuntary repetitive confrontations with problems that we haven’t resolved. The mystery is why was the death of one small boy so important to important people who tentacles reach back into Greenland’s exploration of the past 60 years.

She is facing death every day in order to figure this out. When she does she has to think about what her role will then be.

Peter Høeg says

“We all live our lives blindly believing in the people who make the decisions. Believing in Science. We accept the existence of a round globe, of an atom’s nucleus that sticks together like drops, of a shrinking universe, - and the necessity of interfering with genetic material. Not because we think these things are true, but because we believe the people who tell us so."

Smilla hardly ever believed anybody and she felt that was important. She considers her main strength to be the ability to distance herself from emotions and belief in people. Actually her strength was that people could really believe in her.

This is a beautiful book, one in which you might underline significant and moving passages, keep more than one copy in case you lose one, and read over and again.