Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Chess is, as much as anything else, a game of wits. Anticipating your opponent’s move, keeping your own strategy to yourself, and of course, checkmating your opponent, are all aspects of staying one step ahead. Even if you don’t play chess and aren’t a fan, it’s hard to deny the tension that can be created during a chess match. Little wonder ‘chess match’ is a metaphor for battles of wits, and it’s equally not surprising that chess shows up in crime fiction. There’s a similarity between trying to outwit a chess opponent, and criminals and police trying to outwit each other.

In Agatha Christie’s The Big Four, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings find themselves drawn into a deadly international conspiracy among four brilliant and ruthless criminals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. That ‘nothing’ includes murder. One of the victims is chess grandmaster Gilmour Wilson, who collapses and dies during a chess match. It’s thought that he died from poison, but the medical evidence doesn’t explain how he could have been poisoned in plain view of everyone who was watching the match. As Poirot investigates, he works out that it must have been something about the chessboard. If so, the questions become: who had access to the chessboard, why didn’t Wilson’s opponent die, and of course, what’s the motive?

Rex Stout’s Gambit takes readers inside the exclusive Gambit Chess Club, where all of the members are champion chess players. Magician and party stunt expert Paul Jerrin has been invited to the club to take part in a club competition. Jerrin will sit in one room, blindfolded, and play twelve simultaneous matches against club members, each of whom is in a separate room. Moves in the game will be communicated by messenger, so that there can be no direct contact among the players. All goes well enough at first, but then Jerrin dies of what seems to be poisoned hot chocolate. Suspicion falls on Matthew Blount, the club member who invited Jerrin, and who brought him the chocolate. But Blunt’s daughter Sally is sure he’s not guilty, and she hires Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin to find out the truth.

Hugh Pentecost’s The Fourteen Dilemma takes place in New York’s exclusive Hotel Beaumont, where Pierre Chambrun reigns as hotel manager. George Watson, his wife Helen, and their daughter Marilyn are the lucky winners of an all-expenses-paid visit to the Beaumont. During their stay, they’ll be treated to shopping sprees, professional-league sports events, and lots more. What’s more, they’ll be staying on the fourteenth floor, where the most luxurious suites are located. The Watsons aren’t the easiest guests, but Chambrun is determined to pamper them as much as possible. Then one day, Marilyn goes missing. There’s a major search for her, which won’t be easy because she has deafness. When her body is found in a trash bin, the police are called in and an investigation starts. The most likely suspects are the other denizens of the fourteenth floor, which include a group of chess champions preparing for an important set of matches. As Chambrun and the police look into the matter, we learn a little about each of the floor’s occupants, and we see a little of what it’s like to be on the international chess circuit.

Daniel Blake’s White Death introduces Kwasi King, a world champion chess player – chess’ answer to Muhammad Ali. He’s eccentric, even unstable, but he is brilliant. Two weeks before he’s scheduled to defend his world title, his mother is found murdered near the Yale campus. Near her body is a tarot card. King has no idea why his mother would’ve been near the campus, nor what the tarot card might mean. Then, there are other murders at other Ivy League schools in New York and Connecticut. FBI agent Franco Patrese investigates the murders, and soon finds himself up against a vicious killer. Chess is an important part of this novel, and an AI chess computer is a major player (no pun intended) in the battle of wits between Patrese and a killer.

There are other crime stories, too, that feature chess. There are even some fictional sleuths who play. For instance, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is a Los Angeles-based PI. He is also a very skilled chess player. In fact, sometimes he even plays against himself. It’s an important part of his character and it’s interesting to see how Chandler weaves that into the stories.

Chess is an intense game of strategy, especially at the international level. Those who play it well have to be not just intelligent, but quick-thinking and resourceful. It’s a fascinating game, and it’s not surprising to see it in crime fiction.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Murray Head’s One Night in Bangkok.