In The Dark, A Review

     From time to time, I'd like to give a heads-up on a book I've just read and thought well of. So here's a short review of IN THE DARK, by Brian Freeman.

     This story is one hell of a train ride. Thirty years before, on a Fourth of July night in Duluth, young Jonathan Stride first made love to his future wife, Cindy. On the same night, and nearby, Cindy's sister Laura was murdered. The case never was solved.   Now, Stride is a police detective, still in Duluth. Cindy died of cancer several years ago, and Stride lives with policewoman Serena Dial. He's happy in his new life, but can't get the unsolved murder out of his mind.
     Enter Tish Verdure, Laura Starr's best friend in high school. She's returned to Duluth, intending to write a book about the troubling case. The more Tish snoops around, the more clear it becomes that  she's threatening someone. A brain-damaged teen-aged girl drowns. Is there a connection?
     The plot is fast-paced and intelligent, and suspense is unrelenting. Nothing seems contrived. Characters are very well drawn, with flaws for the good guys and sympathetic points for the baddies. Dialogue is realistic, never cliched. Though there's abundant difficult material, including brutal use of a baseball bat, extreme child abuse, incest, voyeurism, and death of a very sympathetic character, the author manages to make none of it gratuitous or sensationalistic. Most of the actual tough stuff occurs off-stage. And the bittersweet ending is right on.  The nature of many of the characters is underscored by the striking (sometimes bleak) surroundings and harsh weather of northern Minnesota and North Dakota. This story wouldn't work in a temperate setting.
     Of the many arresting lines in the book, here's my favorite: Stride is talking to his former high-school geometry teacher about the two cases he's investigating: Laura's murder and the drowning of the teen-aged girl. He says he remembers the parallel postulate from geometry class: If two lines cross a third and form less than two right angles, then eventually the two lines will meet if extended far enough. "It's something I find in most of my investigations," Stride says. "Sooner or later, the lines always intersect."
     I have one question (not a spoiler). When a body is found out-of-doors, after a drenching rainstorm, the police discover semen at the site, but not right next to the body. Can someone enlighten me on how the cops might have been able to notice/discover this?

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

        That's probably the Number One question writers get asked.  The answer is, "Everywhere, all the time." 
        Last night I went to a concert at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle, where the terrific Cornucopia Concert Band played selections in honor of Black History Month.  There were rags, blues, popular melodies, show tunes. 
        One of the most prominent names from the list of musicians represented in the concert was James Reese Europe.  A century ago, he was composer, bandleader, arranger, promoter, labor organizer, one of the most important New York musical personalities of the time.  He was a key figure in getting the dance craze of the 'twenties going, composing tunes for headline dancers Irene and Vernon Castle.  He took ragtime and early jazz to France, thereby setting the stage for that country to be a post-war hotbed of jazz and related music.
         Unfortunately, Europe died far too young.  In May, 1919, an argument with his drummer led to the drummer's stabbing the conductor to death.  What might have been behind this murder?  Was it simply a case of an unstable percussionist being pushed just a little too far by his boss?  Or was there more?  There's a relatively-new book out, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe.  My daughter and son-in-law gave me a copy for Christmas, and it's now near the top of my TBR pile.  I think I'll move it up to Number One.  There might be a story there.

Could Gandhi be a murderer?

Not that long ago, a thread on a mystery discussion group caught my attention. It had to do with historicals, and whether or not it was appropriate for a real-life person from the past who had no criminal record to be put into print as a murderer. With very few exceptions, most of the correspondents insisted that this should never be done, that it would be tantamount to a post-mortem smearing of the person's reputation. The majority opinion also held that such a course would make a story unbelievable, and that it would be not only immoral, but bad art as well.

I think a writer's primary obligation, one that overrules all others, is to be true to the story. In writing an historical, I do all I can to present known facts accurately - otherwise, yes, my readers will be distracted, and unable to remain in my fictional world. But I'd have no problem with a story which features a well-known historical figure as a murderer, so long as the motive for the murder is accounted for, and fits comfortably into the history.

Fictional people, no less than inhabitants of the real world, are never one-dimensional, and we all have at least a couple of pretty unsavory characters who sit on the boards of directors in our heads, and determine our thoughts and actions. Suppose that as a young boy, Gandhi witnessed a horrific attack by a British officer on someone he dearly loved. Not only that, the attacker contrived to get off scot-free. Then, when Gandhi reached his mid-teens, he was suddenly and unexpectedly presented with an opportunity to murder the attacker, and without even thinking about it, he did just that. Then, afterward, perhaps over years, as he considered the situation, he came to the realization that his act of revenge had done no one any good, that he'd lessened himself in his own eyes, and that an uncompromising pacifism is the only proper human course to take.

Or, how about an alternate-universe story? Suppose Gandhi's boyhood broodings, followed by his murderous response to the British officer set him on a course of violent opposition to the British occupation of his country? How might the world be different now?

To make it clear to readers what was real in my stories and what was made up, I write afterwords to my historicals. Still, I don't think any fiction writer can smear the reputation of an historical figure. In fact, I suspect that most of the subjects so portrayed might even be entertained by the idea of taking to the stage for a few hours to play murderer.