Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

When police are investigating a crime that has links to the past, it’s often helpful if they talk to those who’ve been in a place for a long time, and who can remember the people involved in the crime. Many (not all) of those people are getting on in years, and it can take time and tact to learn their stories. But hearing those stories can give detectives valuable information. And those people are sometimes very interesting people in themselves. So, it’s little wonder that we see those sorts of characters in crime fiction.

Agatha Christie used that sort of character in several of her stories. For example, in Hallowe’en Party, Hercule Poirot investigates the death of twelve-year-old Joyce Reynolds. On the afternoon she was killed, she was overheard boasting that she’d once seen a murder. At first, no-one believed her, especially since she had a reputation for making up stories. But once her body is discovered, her comment is taken more seriously. Poirot begins the work of finding out what, if any, murder Joyce might have witnessed. For that, he’ll need the help of some long-time residents. One of them is Elspeth McKay, who’s lived in the area for a long time. She is the sister of Poirot’s friend, Superintendent (Ret’d) Bert Spence, and she’s happy to give Poirot background information on several of the people in town. Poirot also gets help from Mrs. Goodbody, a local cleaning woman who knows everyone and has a solid knowledge of the town’s history. Both women give Poirot valuable information as he puts the pieces of the puzzle together. I see you, fans of Five Little Pigs.

Tony Hillerman’s Hunting Badger sees Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee investigating a robbery at a Ute Nation casino. A Native American security guard, Teddy Bai, is suspected of being part of the conspiracy and has become a target of the FBI. But Navajo Tribal (now Nation) Police officer Bernadette Manuelito doesn’t believe that Bai is guilty. She wants Chee to find out what really happened. As it t urns out, this case is linked to a Ute legend, so Leaphorn and his friend Professor Louisa Bourebonette visit an old Ute woman who knows Ute Nation’s history and stories. She tells them of a man called the Badger who was able to steal from the Navajos, who were no friends of the Utes. The story is that Badger was able to fool the Navajos by disappearing and re-appearing. This legend helps Chee, Leaphorn, and Manuelito find out who was responsible for the theft, and what happened to the loot.

Cara Black’s Murder in the Marais introduces readers to Aimée Leduc, a Paris-based private investigator whose specialty is computer and information safety. One day, she is approached by Soli Hecht, who is acting on behalf of a local synagogue. He wants Leduc to decrypt a particular code, and then take the results to Lili Stein, who is a member of the congregation. Aimée agrees and gets to work with the code. When she finishes the decryption, she takes the results to Lili Stein’s apartment, only to find that Lili has been murdered, and a Nazi swastika carved into her forehead. Although Aimée is a ‘person of interest,’ the police don’t think she’s guilty, and they see that she could be helpful to them. So, she and the police start to work together. It turns out that this crime is linked to the Nazi occupation of France during WW II, so Aimée will need to find someone who remembers Lili from that time. That person turns out to be Rachel Blum, Lili’s best friend since childhood. Rachel has her own past, but what she says is of great help.

In Alonso Cueto’s The Blue Hour, we meet successful Lima attorney Adrián Ormache. His otherwise contented life is upended when his mother dies. As he’s going through her things, he finds a letter from a woman named Vilma Agurto. She claims that Adrián’s father was responsible for several atrocities, including the rape of her niece, during the late 1980s/early 1990s war between the government and the Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso guerillas. This is consistent with something Adrián’s’ father had said before he died. At that time, he asked Adrián to find a girl from the Peruvian village of Huanta. Now Adrián decides to respect his father’s wishes and answer his own questions about what really happened. One of the first places he turns is to his father’s soldier friends, including Chacho Osorio. As it turns out, Chacho knows important things about Adrián’s father, and is able to help him get a perspective on the past. And in the end, Adrián finds out the truth about the girl from Huanta.

And then there’s Tove Alsterdal’s We Know You Remember, which takes place in the Swedish town of Krafmors. Olof Hagström returns to Kramfors, his hometown, to visit his father Sven. When he arrives, though, he discovers that his father has been murdered. Police detective Eira Sjödin is also from Kramfors, although she spent some time in Stockholm, and she remembers why Olof Hagström left Kramfors in the first place. Years earlier, he was suspected of abducting and murdering Lina Stavred. He spent some time in youth placement, but then left the area. Now that his father has been found dead, the older case is brought up again. Could Sven Hagström’s death be linked to the older case? If it is, how do the pieces fit together? Eira remembers the earlier case, but she was a child at the time, so she talks to several people who’ve been in the area for a long time. She uses what she learns to help find out the truth about both cases.

It can be very helpful to a case when the sleuth takes the time to connect with people who’ve been in the area for a long time. They often know people who are linked to the crime(s) and have a perspective that sheds a lot of light on the history of an area. These are only a few examples. I know you can think of others (right, fans of Anthony Bidulka’s Going to Beautiful? Hey, you’re right, too, fans of Craig Johnson’s Lucian Connally!)

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).