My objective is to list the six best mysteries that feature real people. Quite a challenge given all the published stories meeting this criterion. There are, for example, several series that portray famous personages as detectives. Some, like Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey Mystery Series, are excellent; others such as Blue Suede Clues by Daniel Klein are, well, not so excellent. Either way, I am not a big fan of this literary device, and have instead concentrated on mysteries in which real personages play important roles other than lead investigator. My selection emphasizes intriguing plots, well-developed characters, and variety. Here, in reverse order, are my six choices:
#6: Immortalised to Death by Lyn Squire. I wanted one new voice on my list and have placed my own book as #6. It has only just been published so does not have the resumé of those that follow but it has been described as ‘a fascinating tale’, ‘an impressive debut’ and ‘a delightful piece of reimagined history’. It embeds an original solution to Charles Dickens’s unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood within the evolving and ultimately tragic consequences of a broader mystery surrounding the great author himself. Two mysteries, then, for the price of one. While Dickens’s presence is felt throughout the novel, he is actually killed off in the first chapter, and the historical personages who feature most prominently are Georgina Hogarth, his sister-in-law, and Ellen Ternan, his mistress.
#5: A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson. We move from England’s most beloved story-teller to England’s most acclaimed mystery writer. Agatha Christie disappeared from her home on the evening of Friday 3, December 1926, and was missing for eleven days. She could not (or did not want to) explain her bizarre behavior. Andrew Wilson fills in the blanks in an absorbing recreation that is as intriguing as a Christie novel. He delivers an account of the incident that is plausible and perfectly consistent with how Mrs Christie might be expected to deal with the dire situation – blackmail and murder – in which she is supposedly embroiled. Wilson cleverly weaves fact and fiction throughout the narrative and succeeds in retaining the reader’s interest to the very end, even though everyone knows that Agatha Christie survived her ordeal.
#4: Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen. I wanted to include a genuine cozy mystery in my selection and decided on a Rhys Bowen novel. Rhys has probably written more historical mysteries than anyone else, and Royal Flush is one of my favorites. Set in England and Scotland between the wars, it features historical figures who are not only real, but also royal. The story centers on a series of apparent attempts on the life of the Prince of Wales. Apart from His Royal Highness, young Elizabeth (Lilibet) also makes an appearance as does that ‘dreadful American woman’, Wallis Simpson. The story has all the ingredients for a top-drawer cozy: murder (three dead bodies); intrigue (well hidden royal secrets); a plucky heroine (Lady Georgiana, thirty-fourth in line to the throne); an ideal setting (a shooting party at Balmoral); and humor (think Jeeves and Bertie Wooster). They are mixed to perfection in Royal Flush.
#3: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Our next entry takes us from cozy mysteries to true crime and Truman Capote’s brilliant nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. This fact-based account of the never-explained murder of a family in tiny Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959 is presented in the form of a fictional whodunnit. The Clutter family of four are found tied hand and foot, and shot in the head for no apparent reason. This recreation of the horrific crime and subsequent investigation and trial is painstakingly researched and at the same time told with telling effect as tensions rise in the two-hundred-and-some farming community, and then as the relationship between the two suspects twists and deteriorates under the looming threat of conviction and execution. Told with a compelling mix of suspense and empathy, and written as events unfolded, In Cold Blood set the standard for an emerging journalism-cum-fiction sub-genre.
#2: The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr. This sequel to The Alienist is even better than its highly acclaimed predecessor. It continues the adventures of Dr Kreizler and his associates but this time the story is told from the perspective of Stevie, the street urchin from the first novel. The team’s investigation into the kidnaping of a young girl evolves into a desperate search for a suspected female child-killer, then a riveting courtroom drama and finally an ugly confrontation with the Hudson Dusters, New York’s most notorious gang. Several famous people appear including Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Teddy Roosevelt, but it is the rising, midwestern defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, who steels the show with his cutting-edge brand of lawyering. With characters, real and fictional, that explode off the page and events that surprise and electrify, this historical thriller will stay in the reader’s mind long after the cover has been closed on the last page.
#1: The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard. This intriguing story of revenge with its truly inventive twist in the tail is the mystery I wish I had written myself. Gus Landor, a retired police detective with a reputation for ‘gloveless interrogation’, is called in by the superintendent of West Point after a cadet’s body is found hanging from a tree. A suicide? Possibly, except someone removed the body which, when recovered, is missing its heart. During his investigation, Landor encounters a moody, young cadet by the name of Edgar Allan Poe, a published poet with a drinking problem. The bond that initially develops between them frays as the story moves towards its conclusion and that final, climactic revelation. Regarded in later (real) life as the inventor of the detective fiction genre, Poe is one of my favorite authors, so when I say he would have loved The Pale Blue Eye, it is the highest praise I can confer on a mystery novel.
–Featured image: Dickens’ Dream, by Robert William Buss, 1875.
