Crimes Against Nature

Activism in the 1970s brought us Earth Day, a day to celebrate and appreciate our planet. In the USA, it is today, April 22. The Free Love era also brought us sit-ins and love-ins, but even then I was more interested in the where- and why-fors of how victims got done in.

If you would like to read about murderous sit-ins, grab Catherine Aird's Parting Breath, in which a local university student would have lived longer had he avoided the protest and stayed home.

On the other hand, if you want to celebrate Mother Nature in an armchair sort of way, over the years there has been an explosion of mystery books that use the environment and other ecological concerns as backdrops for crimes that upset the balance of nature.

What makes for a good story is conflict, and there is certainly many a disagreement between the Green Peacers, the tree huggers, the loggers, the conservationists, the farmers, the hunters, the fishermen and the environment.

One of my favorite authors, Tony Hillerman, set his Navajo series in the Southwest, and he used environmental themes as a basis for intricate plots. His eighth novel, A Thief of Time, was published in 1988. In it, he makes the point that the ability to understand the past is lost when anthropological sites are destroyed. While his mysteries are always intriguing, it is his settings that leave a lasting memory. In fact, one way to really enjoy a Hillerman book is to have by your side a photographic companion volume with pictures taken by Tony's brother, Barney Hillerman. It's titled Hillerman Country.

Another series, which highlights some of the best and most beautiful ecological gems in this country, is the Nevada Barr series featuring park ranger Anna Pigeon. Anna has 18 cases to her credit, as she has solved crimes set in different United States National Parks, from Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico to Isle Royale in Michigan.

Track of the Cat, the 1993 novel that introduces Anna, is set in the Guadeloupe Mountains of Texas. Author Nevada Barr draws from her own experiences as a park ranger, and she always leaves the reader better informed about nature in its many guises.

Many writers have followed in Barr's footsteps. Dana Stabenow writes about Alaska, Sandra Brannan writes about South Dakota, Suzanne Arruda about Africa, Sandi Ault about northern New Mexico, and Sarah Andrews about Wyoming. In these series, there is a wealth of clashes between humans and the environment to stimulate the imagination.

Wildlife conservation is the theme of Jessica Speart's 1997 novel, Gator Aide, and she showcases different endangered species in each book of her series. Her protagonist, one–time actress Rachel Porter, leaves New York to become a US Fish and Wildlife agent. Before she realizes it, she is chasing down poachers in the Louisiana Bayous or looking for endangered tortoises in the desert. These books are fun.

Many writers have tackled environmental issues from a birdwatcher's perspective. I seem to be drawn to these twitchers, as they are called. Ann Cleeves's latest books are set in areas well known for their bird populations, such as Northumberland and the Shetland Islands. But her first books recount the birding adventures of George Palmer-Jones, an amateur birder who always finds himself involved in murders. Even twitchers can resort to violence when avian habitats are endangered. Palmer-Jones birds in Surrey, England. These early books are hard to come by, but worth looking for.

Christine Goff wrote a series of birdwatcher mysteries set in the Rocky Mountains. The series begins with A Rant of Ravens, and all books focus on the environment and the concerns of the aviary population.

Clearing out some books recently, I was re-attracted to J. S. Borthwick's The Case of the Hook-Billed Kites, which is about birding and crime in Central Texas. I enjoyed the re-read and passed the book on.

When it comes to the piscatorial denizens of the lakes and rivers, look to Victoria Houston for a good fish story. Chief of Police Lewellyn Ferris and her pal, Paul ("Doc") Osborne, are ardent environmentalists in Loon Lake, Wisconsin. They love the art of fly-fishing, which seems to lead them to dead bodies.

Glyn Carr's novels explore the beauties of nature in the thin air. His protagonist, Sir Abercrombie ("Filthy") Lewker, solves tricky crimes of the locked-room variety that come to pass in the difficult terrains of mountains from the Alps to Wales.

Mary Daheim also takes the high road and pits her newspaper owner and editor, Emma Lord, against California land developers who want to change a mountain into a luxury spa in The Alpine Gamble. There is no end to the havoc that ensues when tempers flare.

Take your pick, choose a side, and take a stance on global warming.

Better yet, just go outside today. Take a deep breath and walk a ways while you are deciding what your next literary adventure will be. If it has an ecological theme, let us know about it.

Cleaning House

I hate housework. Not with a seething, white-hot hatred or a disdain so profound that I refuse to do any house cleaning, but I do admit that my primary motivation when I clean is to avoid embarrassment if a neighbor drops in. Though, if somebody comes by when things look particularly bad, I could always pull a Phyllis Diller and say: "Who could have done this? We don't have any enemies."

Phyllis Diller (may she rest in peace) also wisely said: "Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?" Now that I think about it, though, Erma Bombeck's reply to Diller was that if you do it right, housework can kill you. As a mystery reader, I'd put a slight twist on that and say that housework done wrong can kill––somebody. (Warning: spoilers of a couple of well-known classics are included in this post.)

In 1960, Peg Bracken wrote The I Hate To Cook Book. Bracken was clearly a mystery lover; she includes a recipe for Nero Wolfe's eggs, and a slow-cooking stew recipe for those days when you want to abandon household chores and stay in bed reading a good murder mystery. But no matter how much she hated to cook, Bracken didn't kill anybody with her cookery––unlike some people.

In Dorothy L. Sayers's Strong Poison, Lord Peter Wimsey struggles to clear Harriet Vane of murdering her former lover, Philip Boyes, with arsenic. Wimsey's challenge is to figure out how anyone other than Harriet could have slipped the arsenic to Boyes, whose last meal was one in which he shared all the food and drink with his cousin. The answer to Wimsey's challenge: a clever and deadly way of making an omelet.

Nine years after the publication of Strong Poison, Agatha Christie penned a new Hercule Poirot book, called Sad Cypress, that seems to have been inspired by the earlier Sayers book. Christie's main character is a young woman in the dock for murder by poison when a man falls in love with her and is determined to save her by proving her innocence. As if that's not similar enough to Strong Poison, the man's name is Peter Lord! Beyond those similarities, the stories are very different, though. Christie's sleuth is, of course, Hercule Poirot, not Peter––and a good thing, too, since Christie's Peter seems to have only a fraction of the little grey cells of Poirot or Wimsey.

In Roald Dahl's short story, "Lamb to the Slaughter," Mary Maloney is a pregnant housewife whose police detective husband, Patrick, comes home from work and tells her he's leaving her. In a state of shock, Mary goes through the motions of dinner preparation. When she brings a large, frozen leg of lamb into the kitchen, Patrick tells her not to bother, as he's going out. His disdain jolts Mary from shock to outrage and she whacks him with the leg of lamb, killing him.

Clever Mary then puts the lamb into the oven, heads off to the grocery store to give herself an alibi and then goes home to "discover" the body. The murder is investigated by Patrick's work friends, who never suspect Mary and spend their time looking for the blunt object that obviously killed Patrick. When they point out that the roast seems to be finished, Mary invites them to eat it. As they eat, one detective remarks that the murder weapon is probably right under their noses. Too right!

In Busman's Honeymoon, the last of the Lord Peter Wimsey books, Dorothy L. Sayers shows a preoccupation with the perils of housekeeping. When Lord Peter and his new bride, Harriet, arrive at Talboys, the old house they've purchased in the village Harriet knew as a girl, they are surprised that nothing has been done to ready the place for them, as had been agreed. Bunter and the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ruddle, have to hurry to clean up, prepare the beds and light the lamps and the fire.

The next day, a recalcitrant chimney blocked with "sut," as Mr. Puffet the chimney sweep calls it, causes a domestic disaster. Wanting to be helpful, the vicar fires a shotgun up the chimney to knock out the blockage, which has the effect of causing an avalanche of dead animals, bric-a-brack and clinkers to crash to the hearth and a gigantic cloud of ash to choke the room. More cleaning required! The day goes from bad to worse when a trip to the cellar on a domestic errand results in an unpleasant find: the corpse of the house's previous owner.

Housework even plays a role in the solution to the crime in Busman's Honeymoon. That chimney mishap dislodges a clue, and it turns out that a regular domestic chore is the key to the ingenious murder method. If only a regular domestic chore around my house was integral to something really important. But I suppose cleanliness is its own reward.

Agatha Christie seemed to find an additional reward. She said the best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. I guess I'll just have to take her word for it. I do my best thinking while mowing the lawn, but then I do that while sitting on a tractor. And, as Roseanne Barr used to say, when Sears starts selling a riding vacuum cleaner, then it'll be time to start cleaning house.

Joan Rivers said she hates housework because you make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. Another woman who hates housework is Judith Singer, the Long Island housewife protagonist of Susan Isaacs's first novel, Compromising Positions. Though Judith's inconsiderate husband, Bob, definitely deserves a leg of lamb to the back of the skull, Judith channels her frustrations elsewhere. She investigates the murder of her periodontist, in the process discovering the seamy underbelly of suburbia. An entertaining book was made into an equally delightful movie, starring Susan Sarandon, Raul Julia, Edward Herrmann and Judith Ivey.

Did I mention I hate gardening too? I believe in the old saying that a garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever. Weeding is the most boring, back-breaking job ever. And why is it that it's so hard to pull weeds, but if I accidentally grab a real plant, it pops right out? My favorite thing about winter is that all the snow on the ground makes my garden and landscaping look just as good as my neighbor's.

Our British friends love their gardening, though, and it plays a role in many of their mysteries. In the Christie book I mentioned above, Sad Cypress, the resolution is helped along by a knowledge of rose varieties. (Good thing I wasn't on the case.)

In Reginald Hill's Deadheads, Inspectors Dalziel and Pascoe investigate a series of deaths at the Perfecta Porcelain corporation. Dalziel's old friend, Dick Elgood, an executive at the company, is convinced that its accountant, Patrick Aldermann, is bumping off people to clear a space for his own advancement. Aldermann is an avid rose gardener, who learned all about deadheading roses to make way for more vigorous growth from his great-aunt when he was only a boy. Has he taken the lesson too much to heart?

Even if you skip the hard work of grubbing in the dirt and just appreciate flowers through a visit to London's annual Chelsea Flower Show, that might not be safe enough. In Chelsea Mansions, the eleventh in Barry Maitland's Brock and Kolla police procedural series, Nancy Haynes's dream of coming from the US especially for the show ends violently when, heading back to her hotel after her first afternoon's visit, she is suddenly and inexplicably picked up by a passerby and thrown in front of a bus, killing her. A few days later, a wealthy Russian émigré is killed in his garden. His house is right next door to the small, somewhat rundown hotel where Nancy Haynes had been staying. Are the two deaths connected?

After reading these books, I feel I've been warned off flower gardening and flower shows. I still remember that classic of Catherine Aird's, Passing Strange, in which the village of Almstone's nurse, Joyce Cooper, is strangled at the Horticultural Society Flower Show.

Other garden produce gets into the act in G. M. Malliet's Wicked Autumn, when that battle-ax Wanda Batton-Smyth, head of Nether Monkslips Women's Institute, is bumped off in the middle of the fall Harvest Fayre. I suppose Robert Barnard's Fête Fatale is evidence that it's the gathering, not the gardening, that's the problem. After all, the church fête that is the scene of this book's murder of the new vicar is more about bric-a-brac and baked goods than produce and flowers. But, as with housekeeping, I'm not taking any chances.

As we head into the weekend, I think I'll take a page from Peg Bracken's book and throw something in the slow cooker while I curl up with a good mystery book.