Peter Lovesey: Bloodhounds

Shirley-Ann was intrigued to know what Sid was doing in a discussion group like this if he was so reluctant to join in. He plainly didn't wish to say any more. He avoided eye contact. His posture, his whole behavior, seemed to ask the others to ignore him, and that was what she herself had done up to now. She prided herself on being observant, so Sid obviously had a special talent for self-effacement. Not to be defeated, she regarded him minutely. Probably in his early forties, she guessed, with a more powerful physique than his bowed shoulders suggested. Slightly hooded blue-gray eyes, of which she had seen only glimpses, so her power of observation was not so faulty after all. Small, even teeth. Nothing in his looks could justify such shyness. Perhaps he felt out of his element socially. The clothes didn't give obvious clues, except that they were what you expected a man twenty years older to wear. A white shirt and black tie under the raincoat. Was he an undertaker, perhaps? Not a policeman, for heaven's sake? Dark blue trousers, probably part of a suit. Black, well-polished laced-up shoes. The workingman's raincoat that he wouldn't be shedding, however warm the surroundings. And the flat cap on his knees. You poor, pathetic bloke, Shirley-Ann summed up. You're not enjoying this one bit, so why are you here?

Rupert had been slightly thrown by Sid's observation. "The point I was about to make-I think-is that the sort of thing you people enjoy doesn't deserve to be called a crime novel. The only crime novelists worthy of the name are writers you've probably never heard of, let alone read. Ellroy, Vachss, Raymond-the ones bold enough to lift stones and show us the teeming activity underneath. Not country houses, but ghettos where young kids carry guns and murder for crack and even younger kids are sodomized. Corrupt cops taking bribes from pimps and beating confessions out of luckless Irish boys. Rape victims infected with AIDS. Squats littered with used syringes and verminous mattresses and roaches feeding on stale vomit."

"I don't have the slightest desire to read about stale vomit," said Miss Chilmark. "You get enough of that on the television."

"Precisely," said Rupert. "You switch channels and watch some sanitized story about a sweet old lady who makes nanas of the police through amateur detective work. The same formula week in, week out."

"As a matter of fact, I hardly ever watch television these days," Miss Chilmark told him loftily. "I don't know why I still keep the set in my drawing room."

Rupert's eyes glittered at the mention of Miss Chilmark's drawing room.

Polly cleared her throat and said, "Did anyone wish to say any more about the classic detective story?"

"Is that what we were discussing?" Milo said with a disdainful look at Rupert. "You could have fooled me. Yes, one of us obviously has to speak up for the story that challenges the reader, and as usual, it's me. I put it to you that the Golden Age writers between the wars brought the art of mystification to perfection. Regardless of what some of you were saying just now, I could name a dozen novels of that time, and probably more, that for the brilliance of their plotting stand comparison with anything written in the last half century. You may talk about the intricacy of a le Carre novel or the punching power of your hard-boiled Americans, but for me and for many others the test is whether the writer has the courage to lay out a mystery-a fair puzzle with clues-and say to the reader, 'Solve this if you can'-and then pull off a series of surprises topped by a stunning revelation at the end."

"But at the cost of many of the other merits one looks for in a decent novel," said Jessica with more restraint than Rupert.

"Such as…?"

"Character, pace, sharp dialogue, and, above all, credibility. The books you're talking about were excellent in their time, Milo, but they were never more than pleasant diversions."

"Pastimes," suggested Shirley-Ann, and got a nod from Jessica.

"That's a word you don't hear so much these days," said Polly abstractedly. "Pastimes. Nice word."

Milo was not to be overridden. "Of course, the most basic and fascinating form of detective puzzle is the locked room mystery."

Rupert groaned and slid down in his chair with his long legs extended.

Milo ignored him. "The master of the locked room mystery was John Dickson Carr. The 'hermetically sealed chamber'- as he called it-was a feature of many of his finest novels. I don't know which of you has read The Hollow Man."

Shirley-Ann gingerly raised a hand. The only other reaction came, surprisingly, from Sid, who gave a nod without removing his gaze from his flat cap.

Milo said, "In that case, I shall definitely bring my copy with me next week. Quite apart from being one of the most entertaining detective stories ever written, The Hollow Man has a famous chapter devoted to locked room mysteries. Dr. Fell, Dickson Carr's sleuth, holds up the action to deliver a lecture on the subject that is a delight from beginning to end. Am I right?" He looked toward Sid, who gave another nod.

"Yes, why not?" Milo went on. "I shall read it to you next week, and I'll warrant that Dr. Fell will make some converts among you, even if I can't."

Rupert confided loudly to Shirley-Ann, "He's hooked on this hogwash, poor fellow. We'll never get him off it. Belongs to the Clue Klux Christie and the Daughters of Dorothy L. and the Stately Holmes Society. Quite mad. They think of themselves as scholars, these people. Believe me, my dear, the only fan club worth joining is the Sherlock Holmes Society of Australia. They meet once a year, get totally plastered, fire guns in the air and sing, 'Happy Birthday, Moriarty, you bastard, happy birthday to you!' "

Shirley-Ann felt some sympathy for Milo. He had been outnumbered even before Rupert's arrival.

Polly nudged the tiller again. The best way to focus the discussion, she said, might be to move on to the part of the evening when members spoke about particular books they had read recently. Miss Chilmark offered to begin, but the resourceful Polly remembered that Milo had somehow missed his turn at the previous meeting, so he went first. His announcement that his chosen text was The Hound of the Baskervilles was received with an enormous, deeply embarrassing yawn. For a moment no one escaped suspicion. Then the dog, Marlowe, lying on his side, yawned again, and there were suppressed giggles.

Undaunted, Milo made a spirited claim that The Hound of the Baskervilles refuted the arguments leveled against the classic detective story. The power of Conan Doyle's setting and the drama of the plot far outweighed the whodunit puzzle, which was revealed long before the final chapters.

Rupert went next, after first admitting that he, too, admired much of Conan Doyle's work, but found The Hound one of the least satisfying examples. He spoke about an Andrew Vachss novel, Blossom, based on a real case about the tracking of a sniper who murdered teenagers for sexual kicks. Vachss, he told the Bloodhounds, was a New York child abuse lawyer who drew on genuine case histories and whose books unashamedly crusaded on behalf of young victims. They were written in anger, with a missionary zeal.

The evening was drawing on, Marlowe had given up yawning and was whimpering intermittently, and Miss Chilmark could be constrained no longer. Milo objected that they had often before been lectured on The Name of the Rose, but Rupert, his face radiant with mischief, pointed out that it was a multilayered book. He gave Marlowe a push, and the dog rolled on his back and went quiet. Miss Chilmark was allowed to continue on the understanding that she would talk about aspects she had not touched on before. To her credit, she had some insights to offer on Eco's use of the monastery library, symbolically and as a device to enhance the mystery. All this did take longer than anyone else's contribution, and as a consequence Shirley-Ann wasn't called upon.