We all spend part of our days doing mundane things like picking up dry cleaning, shopping at the supermarket, or waiting for a bus. Nobody really thinks about it, which isn’t surprising. Mundane things are not interesting. That’s why it takes talent to use a mundane moment as a background for a fictional crime. People may not think suspense can be built (or started) by sitting on a park bench or going to the barber, but it can. Here are a few examples from crime fiction to show you what I mean.

In Agatha Christie’s One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (AKA The Patriotic Murders and An Overdose of Death), for instance, Hercule Poirot goes to visit his dentist, Henry Morley. It’s time for his regular cleaning, so it’s a rather humdrum sort of appointment. It all changes when Morley is shot in his surgery. Chief Inspector Japp has learned that Poirot was at Morley’s office at around the time of the murder, so he asks Poirot to help look into the matter, and Poirot agrees. At first, it’s believed that the real target of the murder was powerful banker Alistair Blunt. But then, another patient of Morley’s goes missing, and another dies of an overdose of painkiller. The case turns out to be a lot more complicated than it seemed on the surface. You have a well-taken point, fans of 4:50 From Paddington.

The real action in Pascal Garnier’s How’s the Pain begins as twenty-one-year-old Bernanrd Ferrand is sitting on a park bench. It’s a normal day, and sitting on a bench in a park is a sort of normal, even boring, thing to do. In fact, that’s Ferrand’s trouble; he’s a bit aimless and is bored with his life as it is. As he’s sitting there, he meets Simon Marechall, who passes himself off as a pest exterminator. Marechall learns that Ferrand has a driver license, which is exactly what he needs. He hires Ferrand to drive him, supposedly for business. But Ferrand soon finds out that Marechall isn’t in the pest control business. He is actually a veteran hit man who wants a driver to take him to the French coast for one last assignment. As you can imagine things begin to spin out of control…

Cath Staincliffe’s Split Second introduces readers to Emma Curtis, who’s taking a bus home from work just before Christmas. Luke Murray is also on the bus, and so is Jason Barnes. They don’t know each other, and for each of them it’s just a mundane bus ride. Everything changes when three young people board the bus and start harassing Luke. Jason steps up and temporarily stops the bullies. But when he and Luke get off the bus, the bullies do, too, and the harassment starts up again. By the time it’s over, Luke is left badly injured, and Jason is mortally wounded. Luke is rushed to the hospital in a coma, and it’s unsure what his prognosis will be. Jason’s family now has to deal with his loss. And Emma has to live with the fact that she didn’t do anything to stop the bullying. There is a police investigation, and the three bullies are caught. But the book also deals with the aftermath of a tragedy, and the way people cope as they try to go on.

In Håkan Östlundh’s The Intruder, Malin Andersson, her husband, Henrik Kjellander, and their two children, Ella and Axel, are returning to their home on the island of Fårö after a two-month absence. When they arrive, they find that their home is in a terrible state. There’s trash everywhere, unwashed dishes lying around, and worse. They had rented the house out while they were away, and at first, it looks like a case of awful tenants. But then, Malin notices that some family photographs have been defaced in a deliberate way. So, she and Henrik call in the police, in the form of Gotland police detectives Fredrik Broman and Sara Oskarsson. There’s not much to go on, really. Neither Malin nor Henrik has an enemy that they know of, and they hadn’t had trouble before. But someone seems to be targeting them. Then one day, Malin goes to the supermarket, like anyone might. It’s a mundane sort of trip, although Malin is a bit on edge. While she’s there, she notices a woman following her around. Malin gets more and more uneasy about it and ends up leaving the market as quickly as she can. It turns out that the family is in a great deal more danger than anyone suspected.

People stop for coffee all the time without even thinking about it. It’s a very mundane thing to do. But that’s not how it works out in Charity Norman’s The Secrets of Strangers. The Tuckbox Café is a very typical London coffee shop. It attracts ‘regulars’ as well as people coming in for the first time. There are people who dash in for a cup of coffee to take to work, and others who linger with friends or loved ones. One very normal, mundane morning, a group of people is at the Tuckbox. All of a sudden, a gunman bursts in and takes everyone hostage. Now, what started out as a mundane weekday morning has turned chaotic and frightening. Detective Inspector (DI) Eliza McLean is called to the scene to see if she can negotiate with the hostage-taker. The gunman, whose name is Sam Ballard, has his reasons for what he’s done, and it’s McLean’s task to find out what he wants. As the novel goes on, we learn about his story, McLean’s story, and the backstories of five of the hostages. Each one of them has a story to tell, and it’s interesting to see how their views of each other change as the day goes on.

Even the most everyday, humdrum places and tasks can serve as the backdrop for just about anything. And in deft hands, that setting can serve as an excellent contrast to the tension of a crime novel. These are just a few examples. Your turn.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Paul McCartney’s Another Day.