Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Many fictional crimes are committed by just one person, and that makes sense. The fewer people who know about a crime, the less likely it is that someone will ‘turn’ and start working with the police. But there are some cases where the criminal needs help from a friend or a few friends. That can add complexity to a crime, even if it makes the crime easier to commit. It can also add interesting plot and character layers to a crime novel.

In Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, for example, a group of people take a scenic cruise of the Nile. Among them are newlyweds Simon and Linnet Doyle. On the second night of the trip, Linnet is shot. The most likely suspect is her former friend Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ de Bellefort, whose fiancé Simon was (hence the end of their friendship). But it is soon proved that Jackie could not have committed the crime. Hercule Poirot is also on the cruise, and he works with Colonel Race to find out who the killer is. As he does so, Poirot gets to know the other passengers, and finds out some of their secrets. It turns out that one of them has been involved in other crimes with the help of a distant cousin. The pair are good at what they do, too, and haven’t been caught – until Poirot finds them out.

As Beryl Bainbridge’s Harriet Said begins, the unnamed thirteen-year-old narrator is waiting for her friend Harriet to return from a holiday in Wales. There’s not much to do, so the narrator strikes up a sort of friendship with an unhappily married middle-aged man named Peter Biggs. She feels the first stirring of hormones, but she doesn’t want to do anything about it until Harriet returns. When Harriet is back from Wales, she says that Biggs should be observed and the friendship treated as an objective ‘experience’ to be written up, almost like a laboratory experiment. The first step is for the two girls to spy on Biggs and humble him. So, Harriet and the narrator go together to Biggs’ house. While they’re spying on him, they see something they weren’t meant to see. That’s when everything begins to spiral out of control, and the whole thing ends in tragedy.

In Rob Kitchin’s Stiffed, we are introduced to Tadh Maguire, an Irish ex-pat who’s now living in the US. One morning, he wakes up after a long night of drinking to find that there’s a dead man in his bed. What’s more, the dead man is Tony Marino, second-in-command to local crime boss Aldo Pirelli. Maguire knows what’s likely to happen if word gets around the criminal community that he’s possibly killed Marino. And that’s not to mention what will likely happen if the police find out about the body. So, Maguire decides that hiding the body will be the best way to deal with the problem, at least for now. Moving a body is hard work, so he calls his friend Jason Choi to help him. Choi and Maguire make their plans and move the body, but that has all sorts of unexpected consequences, including abduction and some gangsters who think Maguire has their money.

Patricia Melo’s The Body Snatcher features an unnamed narrator who’s recently moved from São Paulo to the town of Corumbá, not far from the Bolivian border. One day, the narrator happens to see a small plane crash. He rushes to the site to see if he can be of help, but by the time he gets there, it’s too late. The pilot has been killed. Then, the narrator spots a backpack. He gives in to curiosity and greed and takes the backpack. When he gets home, he opens it and finds that it’s full of cocaine. He decides that he’ll sell the cocaine – just this once – and use the money to solve some financial problems he’s having, and to start a new life with his girlfriend. The narrator doesn’t know anyone in the drug world, but he thinks his friend Moacir does. So, he lets Moacir in on his plan and asks for his help finding the right connection. The two men get started and duly sell the cocaine. Then, they find out that it belonged to a Bolivian drug lord who is not happy that someone’s stolen his drugs. Things spiral out of control and it’s hardly the peaceful outcome the narrator imagined.

And then there’s Kevin Wilson’s Now is Not the Time to Panic. It’s 1996 in Coalfield, Tennessee, and Frances ‘Frankie’ Budge is a bored teenager, who’s a bit at loose ends. One day, she meets Zeke Brown, a gifted artist who’s staying in Coalfield for the summer. The two of them hit it off, and before long, they concoct a plan. Frankie’s a writer and Zeke’s an artist, so they create a unique poster that showcases both of their talents. Then, they secretly begin putting up copies of it in different places in town. People begin to notice the posters and talk begins about them. There’s a lot of speculation about what they mean and who put them there, and some people even suspect something supernatural. There’s anxiety and people start to look at each other with suspicion. It gets so bad that it’s referred to as the Coalfield Panic of 1996. And things get even more complicated when someone else starts putting up duplicates of the poster. By that time, neither Frankie nor Zeke wants to admit they had anything to do with the panic, especially when it has tragic consequences. Years later, Frankie is an accomplished writer. A journalist who’s writing up the story of the panic contacts her, wanting her take on the panic, since she lived in Coalfield at the time. Now, Frankie will have to decide if she is willing to face the past.

Some crimes are just too big, as you might say, for one person to pull them off. That’s where a friend or confederate can be helpful. But that doesn’t mean everything will go well…

*NOTE : The title of this post is a line from Cole Porter’s Friendship.