Healing from a traumatic experience can take a long time. And everyone goes through the process in a slightly different way, so there’s not just one road to recovery. Because of that, it can be difficult to portray the process effectively in a crime novel. Readers don’t want to get bogged down in too much description, and most readers don’t want to feel they’re wallowing in someone’s misery. At the same time, to deny the difficulty of healing can make a story seem less believable (e.g., ‘You expect me to believe she goes back to work a few days after that happened?’). So, it’s a challenge for an author.
Some authors face that challenge by implying, but not detailing, the process of healing. For example, in Agatha Christie’s Sad Cypress, Elinor Carlisle is accused of murdering Mary Gerrard. She had motive, but that doesn’t mean she’s guilty. She is arrested and charged, though, and bound over for trial. The local GP, Dr. Peter Lord, wants her name cleared, because he’s fallen in love with her. So, he asks Hercule Poirot to investigate, and Poirot agrees. The whole process is traumatic for Elinor, as was the death itself. At the end of the novel, Elinor goes to a sanatorium to recover from the experience. Christie doesn’t mention how long she’s there, what treatment she receives, etc., but it’s clear that it will take some time for her to heal.
In some series, a character has traumatic experience in one book, and then in the next book, the character is working through the healing process or returns after some time away. That’s what happens, for instance, in Katheryn Fox’s Anya Crichton series. Anya is a pathologist/forensic physician who lives and works in New South Wales. In the first novel, Malicious Intent, she works with Detective Seargent (DS) Kate Farrar to solve a series of unusual deaths that end up being linked. Catching the killer is difficult, and for Kate, it’s traumatic. Fox doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the healing process, but in the second novel, Without Consent, we are told that Kate returns to active duty after a three-month hiatus. That lends credibility to the series, as one would expect someone to need a lot of time for healing.
We see a similar sort of thing in Cat Connor’s Killerbyte, the first of her novels featuring FBI agent Gabrielle ‘Ellie’ Conway. In the novel, Ellie, her partner Mac, and her FBI teammates solve the bizarre and ugly case of a killer dubbed ‘Son of Shakespeare,’ who leaves notes with poetry near his victims. It’s especially traumatic for Ellie, because the killer leaves the notes and bodies for her, specifically, to find. Even though she and the team solve the case, that doesn’t mean it’s over, so to speak. In Terrorbyte, the next novel in the series, she’s still having flashbacks to that case, and still having some other symptoms of PTSD. She’s a strong character, so she doesn’t completely buckle under, but it still takes time for her to process what happened.
In Håkan Östlundh’s The Intruder, we are introduced to police detective Fredrik Borman, who lives and works in Gotland. In the novel, he’s just returning to active duty after a two-year absence during which he was recovering from a terrible accident. He’s still not completely physically healed, and his work colleagues aren’t exactly sure how to treat him. It’s obvious, too, that his family dynamics have changed. While he was incapacitated, his wife Ninni managed everything. Now that he’s ready to resume his life again, their patterns will have to be renegotiated, and that can be tricky. Even so, he’s well enough now that he and his police partner Sara Oskarsson are able to work the case of a disturbing and later, tragic, series of events that happen to the family of Malin Andersson and her husband Henrik Kjellander.
Anthony Bidulka’s Going to Beautiful is the story of Toronto-based celebrity chef Jake Hardy. He and his husband, fashion designer Eddie Kravetz, have what seems to be a perfect life. They have plenty of money, are well-regarded in their fields, and have a grown son they both love. Then, Eddie dies after a tragic fall from the balcony of their condominium. At first, Jake’s in shock, as anyone would be. Then, it’s determined that Eddie was murdered. The police consider Jake a ‘person of interest,’ but his name is soon cleared. That doesn’t aease the pain though. It takes some time before Jake is able to function at all, let alone move forward in his life, and that’s depicted effectively in the novel. As a way of coming to terms with his loss, and of finding out more about his husband, Jake decides to take a trip to Eddie’s hometown of Beautiful, Saskatchewan. There, he meets Eddie’s family and hometown friends, and learns things about Eddie that he didn’t know. He also finds out who killed Eddie and why. Most importantly, though, he begins to get ready to heal. It’s a long process, and it’s not glossed over in the book.
And that’s the thing about traumatic events. They may happen in a moment or less, but recovering and moving on from them can take a lot longer. It takes skill to depict that in a novel without overburdening the reader.
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Code of Silence.
Crime Writer Margot Kinberg 
Sad Cypress seems unusual for Agatha Christie. I always think her characters take murders quite stoically and get on with their usual lives without much fuss. A ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude, which might have reflected her times.
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You make such an interesting point, RRN! I hadn’t thought about it when I was writing this post, but yes, a lot of Christie’s characters are stoic when it comes to personal trauma. Elinor has a harder time of it, and that makes her interesting as compared to some of the other characters Christie created. Thanks for mentioning that.
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The Intruder seems interesting. Is it the first of a series or a standalone?
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There are definitely some interesting aspects of The Intruder, Neeru. It’s the second of a series (the first is called The Viper.
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Thanks Margot. I shall search for The Viper.
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You’re right, Margot, an author does need to balance the trauma/recovery with the plot so as not to let those events overshadow the mystery. But when done well, it can be a very effective trope!
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You put that very well, KBR; that’s exactly what it is: a balance! It wouldn’t be realistic without some need for recovery. At the same time, too much detail about it can burden the reader. As you say, though, if it’s done well, it really can be effective!
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This is partly why I prefer books where the ‘tec isn’t also a victim, since I don’t like the PTSD/recovery storyline intruding on later books but it would be unrealistic if it didn’t. Val McDermid handles it fairly well, though, in her Karen Pirie series – Karen has a bereavement in one of the early books and we see her slowly deal with her grief over the next one or two. But McDermid doesn’t make her or the reader wallow too much in it – it’s just in the background.
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I know just what you mean, FictionFan. Those trauma/recovery storylines can be difficult, and pull readers out of a story. But as you say, people wouldn’t magically bounce back from a real tragedy. You make a good point about Karen Pirie when it comes to that. Perhaps McDermid’s way of having that story arc just be in the background is an effective way to handle that part of a story.
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I have recently purchased a copy of Going to Beautiful and I will be reading it in 2025. Looking forward to it.
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Oh, you won’t regret it, Tracy. It’s an excellent book, in my opinion, with a very strong sense of small-town Saskatchewan.
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I think it definitely takes a ton of skill to help your characters get through trauma without overburdening the reader as you put it. If done effectively, it can really add depth to the plot and change the pacing in the right way. You’ve provided some great examples here. Just goes to show that I have a lot of reading and so little time to do it!
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I’m the same, OP; I will never have enough time to do all the reading I ought to do and would like to do. And you’re right about integrating healing into a novel. I can make the character richer and fuller, but it does have to be handled effectively.
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I enjoyed the post Margot.
Jake Hardy in Going to Beautiful is a good example of someone who must go back before he can move ahead. We all know that those we have loved and lost want us to remember them but go forward. I see the challenge as not getting stuck in the past. I was worried about Jake but he is moving ahead by the end of the book.
Maisie Dobbs must deal with the loss of two great loves in the series by Jacqueline Winspear. Her WW I love, Dr. Simon Lynch, lingers for years after the war prolonging the grieving. I do not think she was able to move ahead until she met and wed James Compton. When he died she was crushed again. Had she not been able to adopt Anna I am not sure she could have found the will to carry on.
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Thanks, Bill. And you put that very well about people needing to move ahead. As you say, the people we’ve loved and lost wouldn’t want us to remain mired, and it’s possible to remember a loved one, and pay tribute to that person, and still move on. It’s not easy, but people can. And yes, Jake Hardy does have a hard time moving ahead at first, as any newly widowed person might. But he does start by the end of the novel.
I’m also glad you brought Maisie Dobbs. She has, indeed, had much to heal from in the series. Her grief has been a truly terrible burden to bear, and yet, Winspear doesn’t overburden the reader with Maisie’s grief. She acknowledges it, but Maisie picks up the pieces of her life. Still, we’re very much aware that she has gone through a lot.
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