Murder Most Foul

Not something that can be said about most books, but in some instances returning to reread a book from younger years can turn out to be a very good thing. At one time I worked my way through the full list of Agatha Christie mysteries over a period of several months, but that was long in the past and little memory of those books remains apart from a small sense of the writer’s style and the fact that they were English murder mysteries. Something from the other day, maybe a conversation, maybe something I read or saw at the library, but something encouraged me to go back and reread one of the old Agatha Christie novels. As it happens, the first one I put my hand to in the library was the writer’s debut novel.

Written in 1916 and first published in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published mystery, and the book which introduced readers to her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. The blurb on the inside flap of the first edition explains an interesting fact about the novel’s genesis: ‘This novel was written as the result of a bet, that the author, who had previously never written a book, could not compose a detective novel in which the reader would not be able to “spot” the murderer, although having access to the same clues as the detective. The author has won her bet, and in addition to a most ingenious plot of the best detective type she has introduced a new type of detective in the shape of a Belgian.’

The story concocted by a yet unpublished writer can only be described as the classic whodunit. ‘Classic’ in this description takes into account that the novice writer was already acquainted with and fluent in the tools and architecture of detective fiction. Over the course of her mystery’s unfolding nearly everybody is under suspicion, but one by one the suspicions and accusations are adroitly proven false until the surprise culprit is at last unveiled by the clever detective.

The period is the First World War and Arthur Hastings is in London convalescing from a wound received in battle when he encounters his old friend John Cavendish. Cavendish invites Hastings to spend the remainder of his sick leave in Essex at Styles Court, his family’s country home. The beautiful estate is home to John’s stepmother, Mrs Inglethorpe, and her new husband Alfred, along with the usual gathering of sons, wives, husbands, companions and house staff, all with their secrets and hidden agendas. Despite the tranquil surroundings and crisp banter over afternoon tea, Hastings soon realizes that all is not right at Styles Court. When Mrs Inglethorpe is found poisoned a murder investigation ensues, and retired Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot—a war refugee—just happens to be staying in the local village of Styles St Mary, more than happy to wade through the confusing clues and long list of suspects.

The complications and red herrings, the polite and whispered suspicions of English gentry were all immediately familiar, but the delightful style of the untried twenty-six year-old writer was this time a complete surprise. I expect at the time of my first Agatha Christie readings I was unseeing of anything like narrative style and apart from a shrewd story failed to fully appreciate the author’s achievement. The Mysterious Affair at Styles is an accomplished and extremely stylish first novel as fresh today as when it first appeared ninety-one years ago.

Crime Doesn’t Exist

Some things take a long time catching my eye, or more accurately tickling my interest. Out of the loop, focused elsewhere, head in the sand, sometimes I look up and can only say, “Huh? When did that come out?” Last November a friend passed on a battered old paperback with a terse, “Here…This is pretty good,” and with barely a glance the book wound up forgotten in a stack on an out of the way table. It stayed there until three days ago.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith was published in April of 2008 and I completely missed the boat, never picked it up to flip through in a bookstore, never read a review, never even heard any talk about the book. I dug out the copy from my friend and sat down to read with scant enthusiasm. That old line comes to mind, ‘judging a book by its cover.’ Child 44 didn’t look interesting.

Couldn’t have been more wrong. Ten pages into the story I suddenly understood the reason behind the six pages of review blurbs inside the front cover praising the book and writer. Child 44 is an example of why reviewers throw out words like ‘compelling,’ ‘page-turner’ and ‘gripping.’

Author Tom Rob Smith has taken a piece of Russian criminal history and created a multi-layered novel of Russia in the final year of the Stalinist era. His story is loosely based on Andrei Chikatilo, a Ukrainian serial killer who murdered 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. The backdrop of Smith’s novel is the Soviet State, a place where ‘there is no crime,’ where people are so frightened and whipped by the authorities that each day is weighted by fear of arrest and torture for virtually nothing. The novel is in great part built upon the paranoia of that era and the apparatus of the secret police.

The story begins in 1933 with two starving children stalking a cat and themselves being stalked by a starving man. In the next chapter the story jumps to 1953 and we meet the main character, Leo Demidov, a war hero and officer in Stalin’s secret police—seemingly no connection to the children of the previous chapter. Leo is a loyal, efficient and brutal tool of the state, never doubting the guilt of those he is sent to arrest. A child’s murder is called an accident and Leo is sent to close the case with the child’s family. This is a case that haunts the policeman. Soon after, he is told to gather evidence that his own wife is a spy. Faint cracks begin to appear in Leo’s loyalty to Stalinist doctrine and finally he reports that his wife is innocent, is not a spy. An unacceptable conclusion, Leo is demoted and with his wife exiled to a small lumber town in the north.

A child in the town is found murdered and to Leo’s police mind there are things about it that remind him of another child’s death. The chase for a killer is on, but Leo’s every step is dogged by constant obstruction. After all, there is no crime in Mother Russia. The hunt is tense, brutal and without pause. What is it they say about some books? Hard to put down?

The beautifully detailed background of Stalinist Russia is only one aspect of Smith’s creation. All of the characters are drawn in word and action that echo the hope, fear, doubt and frailty common to us all. In two places I stopped reading to make note of especially effective character descriptions. At one point the writer describes Vasili, Leo’s nemesis as having ‘a hero’s face with a henchman’s heart.’ In another chapter he measures the effect of one character’s words upon another this way: ‘The man’s face fluttered as if she’d tossed a stone onto the surface of his expression.’

If like me you are late in coming to this book, if you enjoy suspense and a white knuckle ride, find a copy of Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44.