Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

There’s something unique about the teacher/student relationship. On the one hand, it’s a professional relationship. There’s a certain sort of distance that needs to be kept. On the other, it can be an intellectually intimate relationship, too. And most students look to their teachers as role models. That, too, impacts the relationship. It’s a complex relationship, and it can be very effective as an element in a crime novel. There are many, many examples in the genre; space only allows me to mention a few.

A good deal of Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons takes place at Meadowbank, an exclusive girls school. Honoria Bulstrode is co-founder and head of the school and knows the value of forging relationships with the students and their families. She gets a sense of her pupils through their assignments as much as anything else and appreciates the importance of the uniqueness that each student brings to the school. At the same time, she can be strict, and she has high standards. She’s not the only one who feels that way, either. Eileen Rich, one of the teachers, and a possible successor to Miss Bulstrode, feels the same way. That’s part of why they and their colleagues are so dismayed when the school is rocked first by a murder, and then by a kidnapping. One of the pupils seeks out Hercule Poirot, who knows a friend of her mother, and he travels to the school to investigate what’s been going on.

In Paddy Richardson’s Swimming in the Dark, we are introduced to Ilse Klein. Originally from Leipzig, she and her family moved to New Zealand when she was a girl. Now, she works as a secondary school teacher in the small South Island town of Alexandra. She cares deeply about her students, and feels a special connection to Serena Freeman, one of her most promising pupils. That’s why she’s so concerned when Serena starts skipping school.  When Serena is there, she shows almost no interest in what’s going on, although she used to be deeply engaged. Ilse tries talking to Serena, but it’s not successful. Because she feels a sort of mentorship, Ilse shares her concerns with the school’s social worker, who pays the Freeman family a visit. That doesn’t solve anything, either. But Ilse is still concerned, and still wants to support her pupil. She and her mother Gerda end up getting more drawn in to Serena’s life and situation than either imagined, and that has its own consequences.

Clare Chase’s Murder on the Marshes, is the story of the death of Professor Samantha Seabrooke, who taught at Cambridge. Investigative reporter Tara Thorpe is assigned to do a background human interest article on the victim, so she interviews colleagues, friends, and students. One of her interviewees is Chiara Laurito, Seabrooke’s current Ph.D. student. Chiara is also of interest to Detective Inspector (DI) Garstin Blake, who’s investigating the murder. As the novel goes on, we learn that all was not well among the various students and members of the staff. Relationships among them were certainly not all tranquil. In fact, there was a great deal of friction between Chiara and her mentor, and a lot of resentment based on the assessments she’d gotten. But is that a reason to kill? Between them, Black and Tara Thorpe will have to sort through the network of relationships to find out who the killer is.

Jefferson Bass’ Carved in Bone takes place in part at the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility, otherwise known as the Body Farm. Dr. Bill Brockton is a professor of Anthropology, with a special interest in and skill at forensics. That’s why Deputy Sheriff Leon Williams calls on Brocton when the mummified body of a young woman is found in a cave in rural Cooke County. Brocton and his graduate student assistant, Miranda Lovelady, do a number of tests and they determine that the victim was killed about thirty years earlier. They then set off to find out who the woman was and what killed her. Throughout the novel, we see the relationship between the two. On the one hand, Brockton is the teacher and supervisor. He often poses questions (e.g. ‘What do you notice about…,’ or ‘Tell me what you can about this victim.’). On the other hand, the two have developed a friendship, and Brockton relies on his partner to do her job well. You could even call them friends. The novel shows what a fine line it is between the teacher/student relationship and a friendship.

And then there’s Catherine Chidgey’s Pet, which takes place in 1984 Wellington, where twelve-year-old Justine Crieve attends a Catholic school. Life isn’t easy for her, as she is dealing both with epilepsy and with the recent death of her mother. Still, she tries to find some good in life. Everything changes when she and her class get a new teacher, Mrs. Price, who’s come from Christchurch. Mrs. Price is beautiful, elegant, and self-possessed. All the girls envy her style, and they vie to be among her ‘chosen few,’ who clean the blackboard, take out the trash, and are allowed to visit her home. Justine is among that elite group, and even though her best friend Amy Fong warns her about Mrs. Price, she doesn’t want to listen. Mrs. Price becomes not just a teacher, but a special mentor to her small group of favorites. Then there’s a spate of thefts in the classroom, and Amy becomes the main suspect. But it’s not that simple, and it doesn’t explain some of the other things happening in the classroom. Could there be something wrong about Mrs. Price? Things get more and more unsettling, and it all ends in tragedy. Among other things, the novel shows the almost hypnotic hold that a teacher can have over students.

Teachers can be some of the most influential people in our lives. And that student/teacher relationship is important. But it can also be complicated, and that can add a layer to a crime novel.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Don Black and Mark London’s To Sir With Love.