Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

A lot of people scoff at the idea of conspiracies. ‘It’s all in your head,’ people say. And sometimes it is. But sometimes, there really is a conspiracy – or very well could be. And that makes it hard to know whether that paranoia, if that’s what it is, is well founded. The possibility that someone (or more than one someone) may be conspiring against one can be scary. And that can add some real tension to a novel.

For instance, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, Sherlock Holmes gets a visit from Violet Smith. She and her mother were left poor after the death of her father, so she looked for employment. It seemed her problems would be solved when she was hired by a Mr. Carruthers to serve as music tutor for his daughter. The pay is excellent, and Miss Smith spends the week in the Carruthers home, returning to London on weekends to be with her mother. She’s been getting concerned, though, because someone has been following her on her bicycle trip from the Carruthers home to the train station. She’s even tried to speak to whoever it is, but the other cyclist goes away before she can. Is someone out to get Violet Smith? If so, why? Holmes takes the case, and he and Dr. Watson investigate. In the end, they discover that Violet Smith was in more danger than she’d known.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Hercule Poirot travels from Istanbul to London on the world-famous Orient Express. On the first day, he meets an American businessman, Samuel Ratchett. Ratchett tells Poirot,

‘M. Poirot, I am a rich man, a very rich man. Men in that position have enemies. I have an enemy.’

He wants Poirot to provide security, although he doesn’t specifically say how Poirot would do this. Ratchett says he’s been receiving threatening letters and is concerned for his safety. Poirot refuses the case, which does not best please Ratchett. Late the next night, Ratchett is found murdered in his compartment. It now seems that his fear of a conspiracy against him was well founded. Poirot works with M. Bouc, who is a director of the company that runs the train, to find out who Ratchett’s enemy was.

Ethel Lina White’s The Wheel Spins begins as Iris Carr begins a return journey to England after a Continental holiday. Shortly after the train gets underway, she strikes up an acquaintanceship with Miss Winifred Froy, an English governess who’s on her way home for a holiday. After a while, Iris falls asleep. When she wakes up, Winifred is nowhere to be found. What’s odder is that no-one else in the same compartment even remembers her. Iris walks through the train, asking others if they’ve seen Winifred, but no-one seems to have seen her. What’s worse, people begin to think that Iris may be suffering from some sort of delusion. Now, Iris is worried for Winifred and concerned that she may be held against her will, or even confined to an institution, because of her ‘delusions.’ Is there really a Miss Winifred Froy? If so, where is she? If not, is Iris mentally ill, or is there a conspiracy against her (or both!)? The whole question of conspiracy adds tension to the novel.

Ellery Queen’s The Origin of Evil introduces readers to Crowe ‘Mac’ McGowan. He’s more than a bit eccentric. He lives in a tree on his stepfather’s property and wears as little as he can get away with – often nothing. He is convinced that the world as we know it is ending, and that other countries will destroy the US through nuclear attacks. Ellery Queen meets Mac when he investigates a possible threat to Mac’s stepfather Roger Priam. Priam’s business partner Leander Hill has already died, and Hill’s daughter thinks the death was deliberate. Was it? Is there a conspiracy against the two men? If so, who’s behind it and why? In a way, this novel looks at conspiracy on two levels: Mac’s belief in the nuclear threat, and the question of whether there’s a conspiracy against Hill and Priam.

There’s also Margaret Maron’s One Coffee With, the first of her NYPD Lieutenant Sigrid Harald series. In the novel, Riley Quinn, chair of Vanderlyn College’s Department of Art, is killed by what turns out to be poison. Harald and her assistant, Detective Tilden, are assigned to the case, and begin the investigation. It soon turns out that more than one person had a good motive to kill the professor. One of those people is Harley Harris. He’s a graduate student who is convinced that Quinn has conspired to keep him from graduating from the program. Harris is in a vulnerable position, since he’d had a confrontation with the victim shortly before he died. But he says he’s innocent. It’s an interesting look at the way that the fear of a conspiracy can give a person a motive for murder.

It’s upsetting to say the least to think that there really is a conspiracy against one. It impacts the way a person acts towards others, and the way that person reacts to just about everything. It adds tension to a novel, too.

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by the Boomtown Rats.