Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

In many large communities, there’s a smaller group that seems to run things socially. Sometimes that smaller social group is also in charge of the larger group – the inner circle, if you will. Membership in that inner circle is valuable, and sometimes coveted. In fact, some people will do a lot to join the group. And sometimes, at least in crime fiction, the inner circle isn’t nearly as benign as it seems on the surface.

In Agatha Christie’s The Hollow, we are introduced to Gerda Christow. She’s the devoted wife of Harley Street specialist John Christow and loving mother of their two children. One weekend, the Christows are invited to the country home of Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell. John Christow is a friend of the family and accepted as ‘one of us.’ Gerda, on the other hand, has never belonged. She’s awkward, doesn’t feel comfortable among the Angkatells, and only endures the visit for her husband’s sake. For their part, the Angkatells try to include Gerda, but it’s more condescension than anything else. Hercule Poirot has taken a cottage near the Angkatells’ home, and he’s invited for lunch on the Sunday afternoon. When he arrives, though, he finds that John Christow has been shot. Poirot works with Inspector Grange to find out who the killer is, and it turns out that little is what it seems.

For most young attorneys, becoming a partner is a membership card to the inner circle of the firm, and many attorneys work very hard to get there. We see that, for instance, in John Grisham’s The Firm. In the novel, Mitchell ‘Mitch’ McDeere has recently graduated Harvard Law School. He’s young, ambitious, and good at his job – in short, just the sort of lawyer a firm wants. He gets plenty of offers from prestigious firms, but accepts just one, from Memphis-based Brendini, Lambert, & Locke. The partners welcome McDeere warmly, even helping him prepare for the Tennessee Bar Exam, which he will need to pass before providing any legal service. He wants very much to join the inner circle at the firm, and it looks as though he will. But then, McDeere discovers that several former members of the firm have died. He wants to know why, and starts asking questions, and that’s the last thing the firm’s partners want him to do. The more questions he asks, the more dangerous things become for him.

Claudia Piñeiro’s Thursday Night Widows takes place in the late 1990s in an ultra-exclusive community called Cascade Heights Country Club. About thirty miles from Buenos Aires, it’s the sort of place that only the wealthiest people can afford. Every new resident is thoroughly vetted, and non-residents are not allowed to enter the community unless they are on a resident’s approved guest list. The people who live in the Heights, as it’s called, are the ones who run everything socially and often financially as well. Permission to live there is coveted, although very few people can afford it. When the financial problems of the late 1990s begin to take their toll, the people in the Heights try at first to ignore them. There’s a certain lifestyle that’s expected and no-one wants to appear unable to manage it. But when things continue to deteriorate financially, there are some residents who can’t pretend anymore, and that leads to real tragedy.

If you’ve ever had much to do with schools, then you’ll know that parent-teacher groups can wield a lot of power. Sometimes they can also have a lot of social influence. That’s what we see in Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies. The story takes place on the Piriwee Peninsula, near Sydney, where everyone’s proud of the Piriwee Public School. Renata Klein is the undisputed social leader of the parent/teacher community, and membership in her inner circle guarantees social clout. One day, Renata’s daughter Amabella claims that a classmate, Ziggy Chapman, bullied her. Ziggy says that he is innocent, but Renata and her inner circle refuse to believe it. Very soon, Ziggy and his mother Jane are ostracized. Only two other families remain friends with them. The community is soon split. As if that’s not enough, the school is trying to put together a Trivia Night as a fundraiser. On the night of the event, all sorts of hidden things come to light, and the night ends in tragedy. Among other things, this novel explores the way school communities can be dominated by a small inner circle of parent-teacher group leaders.

Dwayne Alexander Smith’s 40 Acres depicts an inner circle among business leaders. Martin Grey is an attorney who’s just won a major class-action lawsuit case against Autostone Industries. The opposing counsel in the case was Damon Darrell, one of the most successful lawyers in the Washington, DC area. Grey is surprised when Darrell approaches him with an invitation to dinner, but Darrell has a great deal of clout, so Grey and his wife Anna accept. When they arrive, they learn that Martin is being vetted for membership in a very exclusive social group of influential Black entrepreneurs, lawyers, and business executives. Anna isn’t so sure about this group, but her husband can use the career boost and they are both treated very well. So, Martin joins the group. When he’s invited for a weekend of whitewater rafting, he discovers that the group he’s joined is not what it seems on the surface, and that he is going to have to make some wrenching decisions.

Inner circles often do have a lot of social clout and joining them can get a person on the ‘A-list’ for a lot of things. But the price is sometimes very high. And the groups are sometimes not the benign associations they seem to be.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Page’s The ‘In’ Crowd, made famous by Dobie Gray.