Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

As this is posted, it’s 110 years since P.G. Wodhouse’s famous characters Bertie Wooster and Jeeves made their first appearances. They debuted in a short story called Extricating Gussie, published in the Saturday Evening Post. As you’ll know, Bertie Wooster is one of the ‘idle rich’ English aristocrats, and Jeeves is his valet. The emphasis of many of the stories is the comic, sometimes embarrassing situations that occur, and the way Jeeves has of getting out of them. The Bertie Wooster/Jeeves stories are beloved, and for many people, they’re ‘comfort reading’ – the sort of story you (re)read when things aren’t going well, or when you’ve just finished a dark, harrowing story.

The Wodehouse stories are comedies as much as anything else, and not really crime fiction. But there are plenty of crime novels and series that people turn to when they need a break from life, from a dark novel, etc. Different people choose different authors for those times, so your mileage may vary, as the saying goes. Here are a few examples, though.

John Mortimer’s stories about solicitor Horace Rumpole first gained popularity as a television series starring Leo McKern. The show was popular enough that Mortimer wrote some novels and a number of short stories featuring Rumpole. Fans of these stories will know that he doesn’t always win his cases. His clients are not always nice people who’ve been wrongly accused, either. But there’s a great deal of wit in the stories, some memorable characters (e.g. Rumpole’s wife Hilda, ‘She Who Must be Obeyed’), and it’s interesting to see the strategies Rumpole uses to defend his clients, even when those strategies aren’t successful.

Andrea Camilleri created a much-loved series featuring Commissario Salvo Montalbano, who lives and works in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigàta. The cases he investigates are not always light, and they don’t always have happy endings. But many people are devoted to this series because of the regular characters, the setting, and of course, the food. There’s also a solid amount of wit (sometimes dark wit) in the series, and there’s a lot about Sicilian culture. These books have become refuges, as you might say, for many dedicated readers.

Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti lives and works in Venice. The cases he investigates often address larger issues like inequities, the environment, and so on. Fans love this series for the setting, the food, and for the regular characters. For instance, there’s Brunetti’s wife Paola and their children. We get to see how that family grows and changes over time. There’s also Signorina Elettra Zorzi, nominally the secretary of Brunetti’s boss. In reality, though, she runs the questura and finds all sorts of clever ways to get things done, including managing her employer. There are other characters, too, whom fans have gotten to know and love. Even when the mysteries are troubling, many readers find that there’s a warmth to this series that keeps them coming back in stressful times.

The same could be said of Louise Penny’s Three Pines series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. As fans know, Three Pines is a small  Québec town where people know one another and have a history with each other. Over the course of the novels, Penny has developed a series of much-loved characters that have become almost real to fans. For many readers, reading a Three Pines novel is a bit like returning to a town one knows and reuniting with friends one’s made. The mysteries themselves are sometimes dark, but the characters and the small-town setting are welcoming.

Mike Martin’s Winston Windflower series also takes place in a smaller town, this time in Newfoundland and Labrador. Windflower is an RCMP officer who lives and works in Grand Banks. When the series begins, he’s recently moved there and is just getting to know the people. As the novels have gone on, he’s become a part of a community that fans have also come to know. His wife, children, friends, colleagues, and so on have all become familiar to readers. And there is a strong dose of hope in these stories, so that even though some of the mysteries are very sad, fans find that the stories themselves are a welcome respite from dark times and bleak noir novels.

Benoît ‘Bruno’ Courrèges is the protagonist of Martin Walker’s series. He is the Chief of Police in the small Périgord town of St. Denis. He is devoted to the people he serves and loves the town as much as his fellow citizens do. He’s well-liked, too, and respected. Fans of this series are drawn to the characters, the setting, and the food. Did I mention the food? There’s also interesting information about France’s history, as many of the stories link France’s past to the mystery at hand.

Alexander McCall Smith has created a few series that fans find welcoming, even comforting. One of them features Mma Precious Ramotswe, who owns the only female detective agency in Botswana. She and her associate, Mma Grace Makutsi, are well-known, and the agency has a good reputation. They’ve solved all sorts of cases, too, from finding missing people, to helping to select a husband, to vetting beauty pageant contestants. There is some sadness in the stories, and some of the mysteries are a bit dark. But there is also warmth, hope, some wit, and Mma Ramotswe’s particular brand of wisdom. There are also regular characters that fans enjoy.

And that’s the thing about comfort reads. Fans return to them because of appealing characters, an appealing setting, and an underlying sense that there’s hope, if I can put it that way. Different series draw different fans, but it’s probably safe to say that most of us have those refuges. Which are yours?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Diane Eve Warren’s Who Will You Run to?, made popular by Heart.