Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Forbidding or prohibiting things doesn’t seem to stop people from having or doing those things. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any laws, but it does mean that passing laws doesn’t always change what people do. Some laws (like the US’s prohibition law of the 1920s) are so ineffective that they’ve been repealed. Some people say that laws like that shouldn’t be there in the first place. A look at crime fiction shows that laws banning things aren’t necessarily effective.

In the US, the Volstead Act made the possession, sale, import, or transfer of alcohol illegal from 1920 to 1933. While there was a great deal of publicity around the passage of that law, it was hard to enforce. People didn’t like the law, so they came up with all sorts of ways to circumvent it. We see that in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. In the novel, Hercule Poirot is en route to Paris on the famous Orient Express train. On the second night of the journey, a fellow passenger, American businessman Samuel Ratchett, is murdered. The only possible suspects are the other passengers in that particular coach, so Poirot’s focus is on them. At one point, he does a search of everyone’s luggage, including that of American sales representative Cyrus Harding. A large quantity of alcohol is found among his things; here’s his reaction to it:

‘‘You are not a believer in Prohibition, Monsieur Hardman.’….
‘Well,’ said Hardman, ‘I can’t say Prohibition has ever worried me any.’’ 

Hardman’s opinion was shared by so many people that the law was repealed.

But there are people who still believe that alcohol causes so many problems that it should be forbidden. We see that, for instance, in Stan Jones’ White Sky, Black Ice. In that novel, Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active moves from Anchorage to the small town of Chukchi. He hasn’t been there long when the body of George Clinton is found near a local bar. On the surface, it looks like a case of suicide, and, sadly, he wouldn’t be the only one who took that drastic step. But Nathan doesn’t think it’s as clear-cut a case as it seems. So, he starts asking questions. One of the issues that comes up in this novel is the challenge of alcoholism among the people of Chukchi. It’s a serious problem, and there are people who believe that alcohol should be banned in the town. Everyone acknowledges the problem, but there are also people who say that such a law couldn’t be enforced easily, if at all. Others (like bar owners) benefit from the sale of alcohol, and don’t want to lose their livelihoods. It’s a difficult question and reflects the reality of trying to ban certain things and activities.

There’s another sort of ban in Malla Nunn’s A Beautiful Place to Die. That novel takes place in 1952 South Africa, a time when apartheid was fully in place. There were strict laws regarding where one could live, where one could work or go to school, and whom one could marry, among many other things. One day, the body of local police captain Willem Pretorius is found in a local river. Detective Sergeant (DS) Emmanuel Cooper is sent from Johannesburg to aid in the investigation. The first and easiest explanation is that Pretorius was shot by poachers. That’s the account that Cooper’s supervisors want him to ‘rubber stamp.’ But he’s not sure that’s the truth. So, he investigates more deeply. It’s very hard, though. Because of the strict laws, there are strong barriers between the races. Non-whites will not trust Cooper because he is white. Whites won’t trust him if they think he engages with non-whites. Worse, they may denounce him to authorities. Still, Cooper persists, and we see how he circumvents the law by visiting certain people at certain times, by making surreptitious contact with people, and so on. And in the end, we see how those laws, and those willing to get around them, impact the story.

One plot line of Paddy Richardon’s Swimming in the Dark takes place in 1980s Leipzig, in what was once East Germany. The dreaded Stazi, East Germany’s secret police, are firmly in control, and everyone dreads falling afoul of them. It’s risky to trust even family members and close friends, because anyone might denounce even a parent or child to the police. But not everyone is willing to accept bans on things like certain films and books, certain speech, and so on. There are those who get around the laws as best they can. For instance, if they want to talk to someone privately, they do so outdoors in a park or during a walk. Certain networks are set up to help people who want to leave East Germany, and in other ways, people defy the laws and evade the authorities. Among those people are the members of the Klein family. With help from friends and relatives, they slip out of East Germany and eventually make their way to New Zealand. Once there, they settle in. Ilse Klein, who’s a child at the time, ends up becoming a secondary school teacher. She and her mother, Gerda, get involved in a case of disappearance when one of Ilse’s students, Serena Freeman, loses interest in school and then goes missing. This novel shows how people find ways, even if it means risking their lives, to get around certain bans.

There’s also Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police. This one isn’t per se a crime novel, although there are crimes in it, but it does show how people work to get around certain bans and prohibitions. In the story, the unnamed narrator is a writer who lives on an island. The Memory Police are a fact of life on this island, and we soon see how they operate. Some older people, for instance, vaguely remember ferry boats, although they have disappeared. Other things also disappear, like jewelry, roses, and then birds. People let those things go. For the Memory Police, though, it’s not enough that people no longer have or talk about missing things. They want everyone to forget what’s gone. But some people have stronger memories and do not forget. The Memory Police take those people away. The narrator sees what’s happening and does what she can to help. She briefly hides one family who’s escaping and then builds a sort of hidden room to shelter her editor, who can remember everything. It’s a terribly risky decision, but the narrator finds ways to get around the laws.

And that’s the thing. Banning things usually isn’t effective. Take books, for instance. Banning a book doesn’t mean those ideas disappear. People will find ways to read those books anyway. And that’s a good thing, because book banning limits thinking, ideas, and solutions. We are far better off having access to what’s in books, even if we disagree with what’s in those books. This week is Banned Books Week in the US, a time I always urge everyone to take a stand against book bans. Read a banned book, speak out against local efforts to ban books, and please, support your library and librarians. Those people are superheroes in the effort to make sure we can freely share ideas.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Five Man Electrical Band’s Signs.