Autumnal Equinox, 2021. The water temperature is not bad, but it’s trending toward winter. Time to get the wetsuit out. 😉
Naslund’s Swimming Hole, the Bruce Peninsula
Tag: Detective Eva Naslund
Reading in the Time of Covid
Recent consumer studies show that book purchases increased during the pandemic and that the Crime/Mystery genre registered the most purchases, more even than Romance.
On my side, since Covid-19 began clobbering the planet in early 2020, I haven’t been reading much mystery/detective fiction. I’ve been digging into non-fiction, mostly history and science. With a death pall on the land, grisly murders didn’t grab me. Now that Covid-19 is a smaller scourge — in my locale, that is — I’m back to reading mystery/detective novels. Although whodunits revolve around murder, most aren’t hung up on death. The plots explore everything under the sun. They portray all aspects of humanity, from the positive to the negative. They are good and evil incarnate.
So, I’m back at it, checking out the “deadly” genre. I wonder how it will reflect the new zeitgeist. What’s going on out there? Uncertainty and innovation, to name a few things. And murder, of course. It would take more than a pandemic to rid the planet of murder, not to mention murder mysteries and romances. Read on, dear reader, whatever your favourite genres.
Dark Angels
To some, crime noir is a subgenre set in grim urban environments, featuring petty criminals and desperate characters, permeated by a sense of disillusionment. I favour a wider lens. In the North Noir series, crime noir is less bleak. It is more like life itself: not always dark, not always light.
Crime noir is linked to film noir, to movies such as The Maltese Falcon, which was first a novel. In a noir detective novel, the main character is sharp-witted and/or sharp-tongued. No quarter is given. Criminals try to rig the system, but fail.
Of course, noir detectives aren’t lily white. They cross lines, some more egregious than others, which they breach for the sake of efficiency or to apprehend criminals. Noir detectives are crime fiction’s dark angels. They know darkness, but follow the light.
Poe’s Legacy: Hominid Detectus
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) is best known for macabre stories such as “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Tell-tale Heart.” He is regarded by many as the inventor of the detective genre, which has expanded into multiple forms now considered to be sub-genres; for example, crime, mystery, detective, thriller, etc.
In the decades since Poe’s death, hundreds of authors have fleshed out his prototype: Homo detectus, a man or woman with a wide-ranging mind, ever seeking, ever suspicious.
A detective doesn’t believe everything people say. In fact, when on a case, he or she can’t afford to believe anything people say. Although humans like to believe each other — belief builds cooperation; it’s a societal glue — detectives default to the opposite: they distrust others. What a way to live. As a society, we’re indebted to them. While we enjoy each other’s company, detectives probe dark holes and darker hearts.
Northern Lights by Tom Thomson
Bay of Blood retells the story of Tom Thomson’s mysterious death.
“There are many clever details in Potter’s Bay of Blood with close parallels to Thomson’s life and death (1917). However, Potter takes his readers on a fascinating 21st-century chase, with bells and whistles never dreamt of 100 years ago.” ~ Dr. Sherrill Grace, UBC Killam Professor Emerita and Thomson Scholar.
North Noir 