Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

If you’ve ever seen Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961) or its follow-on, Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986), you know that pool/billiards halls have an atmosphere that just lends itself to a crime story. There’s sometimes a lot of money at stake, there are grifters and other shady sorts of people, and there’s usually alcohol. Some people even think that such places are disreputable (and some are). But pool/billiards players can be interesting people with stories to tell, and that makes them a real fit for crime novels, too.

Of course, not all pool rooms are seedy. For example, in H.R.F. Keating’s The Body in the Billiard Room, Inspector Ghote is sent to Ootacamund, in South India, where he’s faced with a puzzling case. Surinder Mehta, a former ambassador, has heard of Ghote’s reputation as an excellent detective, and wants him to solve a murder that took place at the exclusive Oota Club. It seems that the club’s billiards marker, a man named Pichu, has been murdered and his body found on the billiards table in the billiard room. According to the local police, the evidence points towards theft as a motive. But Mehta is convinced that Pichu was deliberately murdered. As Ghote investigates, he finds that Pichu was a blackmailer, and that more than one person associated with the club could have had a motive for murder.

As Martha Grimes’ Jerusalem Inn begins, Inspector Richard Jury is on his way to Northumbria to visit a cousin when he meets a young woman named Helen Minton. He finds her appealing and attractive, so when he later learns that she’s been murdered, he wants to know why and by whom. And he’s briefly a person of interest anyway, since he met her shortly before her death.  So, he gets permission to return to Northumbria and help investigate. In the meantime, his friend Melrose Plant is part of a house party at Spinney Abbey, which is not far from where Helen Minton was killed. As you can imagine, Plant and Jury meet up at Jerusalem Inn, the local pub and pool hall. It turns out that one of the house party, Tommy Whittaker, is an avid pool player, so both Plant and Melrose spend their share of time in the pool hall, where they learn some important information about the murder.

Fans of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series will know that Longmire frequents the Red Pony, a tavern owned by his friend Henry Standing Bear. In a few books in the series, one of the Red Pony’s regulars is Dena Many Camps, who’s been linked romantically with Henry Standing Bear. She is an expert pool player, who spends as much time as she can sharpening her skills. In fact, in the course of the series, she makes the decision to turn professional and goes to Las Vegas to try to make her mark on the pool world.

Renée ‘Cash’ Blackbear, the protagonist in one of Marcie R. Rendon’s series, is also an expert pool player. As the series begins, she’s nineteen and living on her own after spending a great deal of her childhood in the care system. She’s a member of the White Earth Ojibwa Nation, and lives near the Minnesota/North Dakota border. Cash does work as a day laborer when she gets work. But she also makes money playing pool at local places. She’s well known in town, and it’s a brave soul who’s willing to go up against her in a game – unless, that is, said brave soul has had a few beers. Cash has a way of hearing things and finding things out, and that comes in very handy as she solves mysteries.

And then there’s Angela Savage’s Jayne Keeney. An ex-pat Australian living in Bangkok, Jayne is a private investigator. She’s been to her share of pool halls and other sometimes dubious places as she works on cases. For example, in The Half Child, she’s hired to find out the truth about the death of Maryanne Delbeck, who jumped (or was pushed, or fell) from the roof of the Pattaya building where she lived. Her father is convinced she was murdered, so he hires Jayne to look into the case. Part of the trail leads to a seedy bar and a group of American soldiers, one of whom has important information Jayne needs. She doesn’t want to be obvious or demand information, so instead, she plays pool with the soldiers, and does very well, too. Once the soldiers respect her as a pool player, they’re more willing to talk.

Pool/billiard halls, pool clubs, and even pool rooms in houses can make for really effective settings in crime novels. They can be fancy or seedy, and they can have a great deal of atmosphere – and danger. Which fictional pool halls have stayed with you?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bob Seger’s Mainstreet.