Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Some people, no matter how kind or intelligent or skilled they are, are awkward around other people. Awkwardness can make it hard to get to know a person, and for the awkward person, it’s very hard to fit in.  In crime fiction, though, awkward characters can be endearing in their way, and even when they’re not, they can add a layer to a story. They can even be interesting as witnesses and suspects.

Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead takes place mostly in the village of Broadhinny, where a local charwoman has been murdered. Everyone believes her lodger, James Bentley, is the culprit. In fact, he was arrested, tried, and convicted in the matter and is set to be executed. One reason he’s assumed guilty is that he’s socially awkward and doesn’t get on well with the residents of the village. Hercule Poirot is persuaded to investigate the case, and he finds plenty of other people who might have had a motive for murder. One of them is Deirdre Henderson, who also lives in the village with her mother and stepfather. She, too, is socially awkward, and it’s not spoiling the story to say that she and James Bentley have seen beneath each other’s awkward exteriors and enjoyed each other’s company. You’re absolutely right, fans of The Moving Finger!

Harry Bingham’s Fiona Griffiths is a member of the Cardiff police. When we first meet her in Talking to the Dead, she’s a detective constable who’s trying to do her job well and fit in with her new colleagues. She finds it difficult, though. As a teen, she battled mental illness, which left its mark on her. It’s hard for her to form friendships, manage interactions and emotions, and otherwise work with other people. She does her best, though, and she does have a solid relationship with the members of her family. For her, too, there’s the question of how much to tell her colleagues about her mental health struggles. There are obvious advantages in keeping it all to herself, but there are also advantages to letting them know, so that they can work more effectively with her.

In Killer Routine, Alan Orloff introduces readers to Channing Hayes, a Northern Virginia comedian. He was injured in a tragic accident that killed his fiancée, Laura. While he’s physically able to work again, he hasn’t been back on stage since the accident; instead, he co-owns The Last Laff comedy club. He’s not oafish or clumsy, but he is self- conscious, and finds it hard to interact with people, mostly because he’s still left with physical reminders of the accident. And he has no plans to try out any new routines. Still, he agrees to help when Laura’s sister Heather tells him she wants to break into the comedy world. He teaches her some things about comic timing and other stage skills and arranges for her comedy debut. When she doesn’t show up at the club, it seems at first as though she just got nervous. But when she doesn’t show up at home and doesn’t answer her phone, Hayes knows there’s a problem. He’s going to have to find Heather if he’s going to save her life.

One of the main characters in Paul Cleave’s A Killer Harvest is sixteen-year-old Joshua Logan. He’s been blind since birth, so blindness is natural to him. He attends a school for blind students and is doing well. Then, tragically, his father, Matthew, is killed in the line of (police) duty. As horrible as the death is, it opens one intriguing possibility: a pair of working eyes for Joshua. Dr. Toni Coleman has developed a procedure for transplanting eyes, and she thinks she can help Joshua. His mother agrees, and the surgery goes on as planned. It’s successful, too. Little by little, Josh is able to see. On the one hand, it’s an amazing experience, and he loves being able to see things he was only able to imagine before. But he’s awkward as a newly sighted person. He’s not good at things like judging distances, and there are other challenges he faces. What’s more, his blind friends don’t feel the connection that they did. It’s not that they don’t like him, or that he’s stopped being friends with them, but there is a lot of awkwardness between them that Josh feels, too. Worse, some dark things begin to happen as it’s revealed that only one of his new eyes comes from his father. As the story goes on, Cleave explores this new arena of transplants and what it might mean.

There’s also Matthew Sullivan’s Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. Lydia Smith works at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, a quirky Denver shop. Her co-workers are offbeat, and so, in her way, is Lydia. The regular customers are just as odd in their ways. In fact, you could say all of them have a certain awkwardness about them when they try to move in the ‘regular’ world. They all find their place at the bookshop, though, and look out for each other. Then one day, Joey Moline, one of the regulars, hangs himself. Lydia finds his body on the shop’s third floor, and everyone is completely shaken. What’s more, Joey has left a note directed at Lydia. What could she have to do with his past? As Lydia tries to work out what Joey’s message was, and why he took his own life, the police look into the matter, too. It turns out that there’s more to both of their pasts than they knew. Many of the characters in this novel are socially awkward, at least with people who live ‘normal’ (if there is such a thing) lives. It’s interesting to see how they adjust, and it’s interesting to see their depths when they are able to relax and be who they are.

And that’s the thing about socially awkward people. They often have experiences and depths that we don’t know, because it can be hard for them to interact with others. Perhaps that’s part of what makes them interesting in crime fiction.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Janis Ian’s At Seventeen.