Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

In 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published. As you’ll know, his work has had a tremendous impact, and influenced many, many other writers. Many people think of Tolkien’s books as fantasy novels, and of course, they are. At the same time, though, there are arguably elements of the crime novel in them. There are plenty of murders, along with other crimes like theft. Admittedly, those crimes aren’t always the main focus of the novels. But they’re certainly there.

Tolkien wasn’t the only one to combine crime and fantasy fiction. There are plenty of novels and series (some intended for the YA audience, and some not) that straddle the line between fantasy and crime fiction. Space only permits me to mention a few.

Ben Aaronovitch has created a series featuring Peter Grant. As the series begins, Grant works for the Met. But after he has an odd encounter with a ghost, he’s recruited to work in a special Met branch that’s dedicated to dealing with cases involving wizardry and ghosts. As the series goes on, he actually becomes an apprentice wizard himself. In this series, it’s interesting to see how the plots weave fantasy elements (magic, witchcraft, warring gods, and lots more) into more prosaic plot lines (police investigations, for instance). And as the novels go on, we also see how Peter develops as a wizard, a police detective, and a parent.

Of course, not all fantasy novels involve wizardry and magic. For example, in Angelique Kasmara’s Isobar Precinct, we meet Lestari Cassidy. She owns an Auckland tattoo parlor that’s just barely getting by. One day, she and her business partner witness a murder. She goes to the police, but when they investigate, there’s nothing there. There’s no body, no blood, no evidence of the crime she said she witnessed. Then, she begins to have encounters with people she doesn’t know, but who seem to be linked to her in ways she doesn’t understand. Gradually, as the novel goes on, we learn how each person is connected with Lestari, and what it all has to do with a string of burglaries at her tattoo studio and a shadowy company that’s testing a new drug. In fact, the people Lestari encounters help her to anchor herself as she starts to put the pieces of this puzzle together. The fantasy element here is the concept of time and how we think about it. How does time actually move, and can you be in the same place at two different times? Is there such a thing as an alternate reality? If there is, and if you could go back in time, could/would you do things differently?

Adam Simcox’s The Dying Squad is the first of his series featuring Lincolnshire Detective Inspector (DI) Joe Lazarus. He’s staking out a drug safe house one day with the idea of raiding it. While he’s waiting his chance, he meets a girl named Daisy-May Braithwaite. Inexplicably, she insists on joining him on the raid. When he gets into the house, Lazarus is stunned to find a dead man, and even more shocked to find that the dead man is himself. Daisy-May seems much less surprised, and it’s not long before she helps him to understand that he is now dead. He’s then recruited to join the Dying Squad, a group of dead people who solve murders. Now, Lazarus and Daisy-May embark on a mission to find his killer and, eventually her killer as well. For Lazarus, it’s a chance to make up for being corrupt during his lifetime. It takes adjustment and time, but he settles into his role. As the novel goes on, we meet the other members of the squad, and we see how they pass between the world of the dead and the living world.

Then, there are novels such as Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers. One day, legendary cartographer Dr. Daniel Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, where he headed the Rare Maps department. His office has been ransacked as though someone was looking for something. As the police investigate, their attention falls on Young’s daughter Helen ‘Nell.’ They’d had a falling out seven years earlier, and she’s a gifted cartographer herself. So, it’s possible she had a motive for murder. Nell is innocent, and wants to clear her name, so she starts working to find out what the murderer would have wanted and why her father was killed. Along the way, she discovers that someone has been collecting and destroying all copies of a particular map. The only thing is, that map has almost no intrinsic value; it’s the sort of cheap road map that rest stops used to carry. And yet, it seems to be very important to someone. As Nell keeps searching for answers, she finds out things she never knew about both of her parents. She also discovers the power of maps. This novel is primarily a crime novel, but it’s also got elements of fantasy in it that are woven into the main plot.

There are also several series like Juliet Blackwell’s witchcraft mysteries that feature sleuths who are witches, wizards, and so on. And it’s not really surprising. Fantasy elements can add an interesting level to a crime novel, especially for readers who don’t mind setting aside their disbelief. Fantasy can take readers all sorts of places that realistic novels don’t always go.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride.