Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

A creepy, eerie setting can add a lot to a crime story (Bates Motel, anyone?). When places have fallen into disrepair, or are not kept up, they can feel almost haunted, and that can make a story that much more suspenseful. There are a lot of examples of this sort of setting in crime fiction; I’ll just mention a few.

Admittedly, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher isn’t, strictly speaking, a crime story. But it does take place in a creepy sort of house. And it’s my blog. In the story, an unnamed narrator visits his friend Roderick Usher, and Usher’s sister Madeleine. Both of the Ushers are suffering from anxiety and other mental/emotional disorders, and that makes the visit unsettling.  What makes it more so is the house itself. It’s foreboding and not kept in good repair. That, too, adds to the suspense in the novel. When unsettling things begin to happen, the house seems to take on an eerie personality of its own. Things build up, and by the time the story ends, tragedy has happened. In this case, Poe used the house to build suspense and tension, and he was successful.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Sherlock Holmes is visited by Helen Stoner, who has a strange story to tell. She lives in a manor called Stoke Moran with her stepfather, Grimesby Roylott. Two years earlier, Helen’s sister Julia died mysteriously, and now Helen is afraid a similar fate awaits her. She’s been hearing the same strange noises that Julia described just before she died, and she’s terrified that she’s about to be killed. Holmes takes the case and travels with Dr. Watson to Stoke Moran to investigate. The house is much in need of repair, and although some work has been done on it, it’s poorly kept, and in some places, decrepit. It’s eerie, too, especially as night falls. Still, Holmes is not a fanciful person, and he and Watson settle in for the night. It’s an unpleasant, worn-out sort of house with an unpleasant personality of its own, but it doesn’t keep Holmes from finding out what threatens Helen Stoner.

One of the more famous examples of a worn-down, falling-apart sort of place is Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn. The story, which takes place in the early Nineteenth Century, features Mary Yellan, who goes to live with her Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss Merlyn after the death of her mother. Mary didn’t particularly want to go, but her mother insisted on it, and Mary doesn’t want to break a ‘deathbed promise.’ Mary’s aunt and uncle own a run-down place called Jamaica Inn, and from the moment Mary gets there, she’s put off by it. It’s old, worn-down, and not at all a friendly, ‘homey’ sort of inn. It’s eerie, too, and Uncle Joss doesn’t do anything to assuage Mary’s fears. As time goes by, Mary begins to be curious about the inn and what goes on there, and she starts asking questions that it’s safer not to ask. She finds herself in great danger as she starts uncovering the inn’s secrets, and we learn that some terrible things have happened there.

Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the story of the Blackwood family. Now, the family consists of eighteen-year-old Katherine Mary ‘Merricat’, her older sister Constance, and their Uncle Julian. We soon learn that the Blackwoods are very much isolated. No-one in town will speak to them, and Constance doesn’t leave the house if she can avoid it. As the story goes on, we learn that six years earlier, three other members of the family were poisoned, and that the town holds Constance responsible. Since then, the members of the family have been pariahs. The house itself is old and falling apart in places. It’s a bit spooky, too, and there is obviously something very, very wrong with the house and its inhabitants. Still, the family manages, until an unexpected visit from a cousin, Charles Blackwood. That visit sets off a chain reaction of events that lead in the end to great tragedy. In this case, the house is an effective physical and psychological setting for the story.

There’s also M.C. Beaton’s Love, Lies, and Liquor. In that novel, James Lacey is feeling nostalgic for seaside holidays he enjoyed as a boy at a town called Snoth-on-Sea. He wants to go back there for a visit, so he persuades his ex-wife Agatha Raisin to go with him. She’s not thrilled about it, and she’s even less enthusiastic when she sees the Palace, the hotel they’ll be in. It’s run-down, seedy-looking, and certainly not the luxury place James wanted to remember. The town itself is starting to fall apart, too; it’s certainly not a place to take a romantic holiday. Not long after Agatha and James settle into the hotel, Agatha has an argument with the unpleasant Geraldine Jankers, who’s there with her family. Only a few hours later, Geraldine is found on the beach, murdered, and Agatha’s scarf is near the body. Agatha knows she’s going to have to clear her name, so she looks into the matter with the help of friends from the PI agency she has.

There’s something about run-down, even decrepit, places. They may not be much fun to visit, but they have a deliciously eerie atmosphere, and they can be an effective backdrop for a crime novel. Which ones have stayed with you?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Roland Orzabal’s Mad World.