FRIENDS AS IMPORTANT AS VILLAINS

Sunday, 27 January 2013 04:38
A well-devised, crafty and evil villain is worth his or her weight in gold in mystery fiction. Without great villains, the suspense wouldn’t be as high, interest would wane and the story would fizzle. After all, a good hero or heroine needs the challenge of a villain to prove their mettle.

But heroes and heroines also need friends. That circle of friends can elevate a plot, make dialogue seem more realistic and give the main characters a sense of purpose. In real life, where would we be without friends? The same goes for mystery fiction.

Friendship plays a major part in a scheme that jumpstarts The Professionals, Owen Laukkanen’s excellent debut.

Laukkanen mixes the economic downturn and a bleak job market to produce an insightful thriller about four out-of-work, newly graduated college friends who become kidnappers, as I stated in a review. Laukkanen allows the reader to care about each of these friends, but never asks readers to approve of what they are doing. They become too caught up in “some crazy Robin Hood thing, this gang of broke kids, outsmarting the rich, redistributing the wealth” to realize that what they are doing is “hard-core, no safe word, wrong.”

Friendship spurs on the four college buddies who have an annual reunion in The Three-Day Affair by Michael Kardos.

That’s the only way to explain how these ordinary, upstanding Princeton graduates turn kidnappers after stopping at a convenience store. When one of them drags out a young store clerk after just robbing the place, they stick together. In a review for Mystery Scene, I said “Kardos does a masterful job of forcing these ordinary characters into the heart of darkness to uncover their ethics in times of stress. Kardos, author of the short story collection One Last Good Time, explores the friends’ moral dilemma with the precision of a surgeon as each man learns what kind of person he is. Kardos imbues The Three-Day Affair with unpredictable twists and steamrolls to a shocking finale.”

In 1975, two young female cops forge a friendship that lasts for decades in Criminal by Karin Slaughter.

Usually Slaughter only writes about the older Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell, but seeing these two women in their 20s allows us insight into how they became who they are today. While Criminal is a contemporary mystery the novel also shows the ramifications of a decades-old murder. Back in 1975, Amanda and Evelyn notice a pattern of young prostitutes disappearing in a crime-ridden neighborhood. None of the male cops are interested in the case, so the two women begin their own investigation. That will be their career-making case.

While Criminal continues the story of physician Sara Linton and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent, the younger Amanda and Evelyn stay in our minds.

A different kind of friendship haunts the neighbors in The Playdate by Louise Millar. Suzy Howard and Callie Roberts live on the same London street and appear to be best friends. But Callie’s decision to return to work begins a frisson in the women’s friendship that is exacerbated by their new neighbor, a teacher with a dark history and fragile mental health. A lot of secrets thrive on this lovely London street.

Neighbors become a sounding board for each other in Cloudland by Joseph Olshan. But the regular coffee klatches provide a superficial friendship, until they learn more about each other.

Some friendships are a staple of a series and without them the main character would be diminished.

Sara Paretsky's private detective V.I. Warshawski needs Charlotte “Lotty” Herschel and Max Loewenthal as much as a sense of justice that her cases provide her. Although she might not admit it, V.I. also needs her neighbor, Salvatore Contreras, not just because they share two dogs. Contreras is a busy body and a bit overbearing at times but part of V.I. wants that in her life.

And the assortment of eccentrics who live at Helen Hawthorne’s apartment building are more than just background in Elaine Viets’ Dead-End Job series. Landlady Margery Flax acts as Helen’s mother, friend and sister as do the other permanent residents.

Helen needs them all, and so do the readers.