Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

I’ve been reading some interesting posts lately about hats. Yes, hats. One was from Moira at Clothes in Books, and the other was from Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More From Saskatchewan. Both posts have got me thinking about how important hats really can be – well, in crime fiction, anyway. As you’ll know, it used to be the custom that no-one left the house or hotel room without a hat. And even though that’s not the custom anymore, there are still plenty of times when a hat is handy (e.g. to keep out sun, to ward off cold or rain). And hats sometimes play an important role in crime fiction.

For example, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, a local police officer brings Sherlock Holmes a hat. Apparently, the hat and a fat Christmas goose had been dropped when the owner of both was attacked by some thugs. Holmes is able to tell quite a bit about the owner just by looking at the hat:

“It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been,” he remarked, “and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,” he continued, disregarding my remonstrance. “He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.” 

All of that information leads Holmes to the owner of the hat – and into a mystery concerning a stolen jewel.

In Stuart Palmer’s The Penguin Pool Murder, we are introduced to Hildegarde Withers, who teaches Grade Three in New York. One day, she takes her class on a field trip to the New York Aquarium. She’s gathering all of the students together when two things happen. First, Miss Wither’s hatpin goes missing. It’s found at the bottom of a set of stairs, but then, one of the students goes missing. Miss Withers finds the student staring into the penguin pool. As everyone watches, the body of a man slowly slides into the pool. As it happens, it’s the same man who attempted to steal Miss Withers’ handbag earlier in the trip.  Miss Withers is now drawn into a case of fraud and murder, and she works with New York Inspector Oscar Piper to find out the truth. It turns out that Miss Withers’ hat and her hatpin play important roles in the story.

Agatha Christie uses hats in several of her stories, most of which I can’t really mention for fear of spoilers. To take just one example, though, in Evil Under the Sun, famous (and notorious) actress Arlena Stuart Marshall is murdered one day while she is taking a holiday at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay off the Devon Coast. Her husband, Captain Kenneth Marshall, is the obvious suspect, but it is proved that he is not guilty. So, Hercule Poirot, who is also at the hotel, has to look elsewhere for the murderer. At one point, he is going through the victim’s closet and personal possessions to see if there are any clues there. Here is what he finds:

On a wide shelf were hats. Two more beach cardboard hats in lacquer red and pale yellow—a Big Hawaiian straw hat—another of drooping dark‐blue linen and three or four little absurdities for which, no doubt, several guineas had been paid apiece—a kind of beret in dark blue—a tuft, no more, of black velvet—a pale grey turban.

It turns out that hats matter in this story.

A hat matters a lot in Steve Hamilton’s Ice Run, too. Alex McKnight is a former Detroit police detective who’s now off the force due to the permanent effects of an injury. Now, he lives in the small town of Paradise, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. One February evening, he makes plans to meet his new love interest, Natalie Reynaud, at the Ojibway Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie (Soo). When he gets to the hotel, McKnight has an odd encounter with an eccentric man who’s wearing a homburg hat. He doesn’t think much of it until he and Raynaud are having dinner. The man in the homburg hat sends a bottle of good champagne to their table. Even more strangely, when McKnight and Reynaud go up their room, the homburg, now filled with snow and ice, is waiting outside the door. Buried in the snow is a note that says, ‘I know who you are.’ To McKnight’s surprise, it turns out that the man, whose name is Simon Grant, has been found dead. Now, McKnight and Reynaud have to unravel the meaning of the note, and the mystery of Simon Grant’s death.

As Nick Davies’ El Flamingo begins, disillusioned Hollywood actor Lou Galloway decides to give up on his acting dreams and head to Mexico to figure out what he’ll do next. He’s sitting in a cheap bar when a man wearing a fedora comes in and strikes up a conversation with him. After a time, the stranger leaves, but doesn’t take his hat. Galloway picks up the hat, thinking at first to return it. But the other man is nowhere in sight, so Galloway puts the hat on. Not long afterwards, he’s stopped by man – obviously a chauffeur – who takes him to an elegant party. Galloway quickly sees that he’s been mistaken for someone else, but he’s afraid for his life if he tells the truth. So, he goes into the party, where he’s met by crime boss Diego Flores. It turns out that Flores thinks that Galloway is an elusive killer for hire called El Flamingo, and Flores has a commission for his guest. He wants ‘El Flamingo’ to go to Colombia to kill a local politician who’s standing in the way of Flores’ business interests. Galloway sees no other option but to agree, so he leaves for Colombia, and ends up drawn into a web of theft, murder, and international intrigue – all because of a hat.

And that’s the thing. Hats really matter, even though not many people wear them on a regular basis. Thanks, Moira and Bill, for the inspiration! Folks, do please read their fine blogs.

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Marvin Gaye, Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield.