Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

In most countries (at least to my knowledge), there is no statute of limitations for murder. That means that a person can be prosecuted for murder no matter how much time has passed since the crime. And in real life, we read about cases in which, for example, DNA testing links someone to a crime from decades earlier. That plot point – finding the killer in a long-ago murder case – can work very well in crime fiction. It can link two timelines, make for an absorbing mystery, and add character layers as well.

In Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs, for instance, Carla Lemarchant hires Hercule Poirot to investigate the sixteen-year-old murder of her father, famous painter Amyas Crale. At the time, Crale’s wife Caroline was arrested, tried, and convicted in connection with the case. A year later, she died in prison. All the evidence was against her, and she had motive too, as Crale was having an affair. But Carla has always believed in her mother’s innocence. Poirot visits the five people who were present in the days leading up to the murder. He also gets a written account from each of those witnesses. From that information, he works out who really killed Amyas Crale and why.

Belinda Bauer’s Blacklands is the story of Stephen Lamb, who lives with his mother, brother, and grandmother in a working-class town on Exmoor. It’s not a happy family, as everyone is haunted by the twenty-five-year-old disappearance (and presumed murder) of Stephen’s Uncle Billy. At the time, it was assumed that a murderer named Arnold Avery was responsible (he had killed other children), but there wasn’t enough proof to convict him. Still, Stephen believes Avery is guilty, and he wants to help his family heal. So, he writes to Avery, who’s in prison for another murder. He hopes that Avery will tell him what really happened to Uncle Billy. Avery responds, and before long, the two are engaged in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that could spell disaster for Stephen.

The main focus of Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four is the fourteen-year-old murder of Amamiya Shoko. Ordinarily, the police department’s Media Relations office wouldn’t get involved in investigating crime, especially not an older crime. But the police commissioner has just announced he’s coming from Tokyo to pay respects to Shoko’s family and push for a solution to the still-open case. Mikami Yoshinobu who works for the Media Relations office, used to be a police officer. In fact, he was tangentially connected to the Amamiya murder investigation, although he wasn’t a team member. Now, he and his team are told to do everything they can to prepare the way for the commissioner’s visit, and that includes visiting the Amiyama family and setting the agenda for the visit. As the media team prepares, Mikami finds something that doesn’t quite add up for him, so he starts asking questions. He soon finds that plenty of people, including those at the top, do not want his case re-opened. And people who were witnesses at the time are suddenly unwilling to talk to him.

Graham Norton’s Holding takes place in the small Irish town of Duneen, where Sergeant P.J. Collins is the local copper. One day, human remains are found on an old local farm, and Collins gets to work on an investigation. Soon enough, the remains are tentatively identified as belonging to Tommy Burke, who everyone had thought left town years earlier. Now, Collins tries to find out who might have wanted to kill Burke. It’s not going to be easy for him. For one thing, the locals haven’t exactly embraced him, although they do respect that he’s just doing his job. For another, it’s a small town. Everyone knew Tommy Burke, and anyone might have had a reason to want to kill him. Collins has to dig up the town’s past and uncover some long-kept secrets to find out who the murderer is.

The murder in Peter May’s Runaway is even older. In 1965, Jack Mackay and some friends leave their homes in Glasgow and run off to London, where they’re hoping to make it big as famous musicians. Things don’t go as planned, and the trip to London, and all the big plans, end in murder. Fifty years later, one of the band members claims that he knows who the real killer is. He wants the rest of the band to go back to London and try to set things right. Fifty years is a long time, but there’s still a chance that the murder could be solved.

Because there’s no statute of limitations for murder, some police departments even have teams dedicated to solving ‘cold’ cases. Martin Edwards’ Lake District mysteries tells the story of one such team: the Cumbria Constabulary’s Cold Case Review Team. The team leader is Hannah Scarlett, who was originally posted to the team as a sort of demotion. But in the course of the series, she and her team have solved a number of older cases. Among other things the series shows that when it comes to murder, cases don’t just go away.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Foreigner’s Cold as Ice.