By

Francine Paino, AKA F. Della Notte

Occasionally, I like to revisit old blog posts about life’s constants. Chasing dust bunnies and cat hair are among those constants, and they can be murder when not addressed routinely.

In today’s parlance, Household Management, Homemaking, Domestic Administration, or whatever term one uses to feel better about it, housework is a necessary evil. If you can hire outside help to keep those dust bunnies and cat hairs under control, I salute you, but in my life, the chores involved in maintaining a generally clean home fall to me. I do, however, have some unorthodox help, although they lift not one finger.

As I slog through the early-morning tasks involved in domestic engineering, two of my favorite fictional TV sleuths keep me company. They are as different from one another as they are from me.  

In the early episodes of Murder, She Wrote, JB Fletcher (Jessica), the down-to-earth, self-possessed, independent mystery writer, was occasionally seen doing domestic chores before she became a wealthy author who hired others to do that work. Jessica even types her own manuscripts on an old-fashioned typewriter – before moving up to a word processor, then a computer.  

Jessica, a retired high-school English teacher and a childless widow, writes a novel to distract herself from the death of her beloved husband. Her nephew, Grady, reads it, thinks it’s terrific, and sends it to a New York City publisher, who is taken with the story and decides to publish and sell it. Thus, JB Fletcher becomes the new mystery author in her second season of life.

Throughout the series, she grows as a writer and develops a reputation for being exceptionally astute. Her observations and deductions are worthy of any professional police officer or Private Eye – and both often consult her, as the storylines create different criminal scenarios. Through all the changes and growth, this classy lady and amateur sleuth never loses the personal qualities that set her apart.

For additional company, entertainment, and murder, while I haul the vacuum cleaner around the house, (don’t you just hate these chores?) I turn to my favorite TV homicide detective, Lieutenant Columbo, of the LAPD. As soon as I tune in, I smile.

Deliberately clumsy and unkempt, Colombo wears scuffed shoes and a wrinkled, ill-fitting trench coat over rumpled clothes. His facade as a mid-level cop with run-of-the-mill capabilities is fun to watch.

While JB Fletcher’s situations are more of a mystery, Lt. Colombo’s are more suspense/thrillers. The audience almost always sees the crime committed at the beginning of the show. The main question is: how will the bungling Colombo solve the case, or will he encounter a criminal more ingenious than he is? (I’ve never seen that.)

Unlike Sherlock Holmes, who leads with his abilities, Colombo hides behind a nasty cigar, always in hand, and his habit of saying goodbye – but then, “just one more thing,” to the annoyance of other characters, who wish to be rid of him, and some viewers too. Of course, this masquerade of disheveled clothes and a muddled mind makes most criminals underestimate his remarkable crime-solving abilities.  

In Ransom for a Dead Man, originally aired in the first season, Colombo encounters wily opponent Leslie Williams, a homicidal attorney who contrives a complex plot to get rid of her husband. Williams calls Colombo out on his grubby subterfuge, and her brilliance challenges his ability to capture this elusive adversary.

A plot, a word, an expression, or a look sometimes triggers ideas for my own stories. I stop my chores, grab a pencil, and something to write on, most often a scrap of paper, and jot down these nuggets of inspiration before they disappear in the fog of disinfectants.

A recent addition to my TV companions in housework is the Dalgliesh series, inspired by the PD James novels about a British detective-poet. Set in the 1970s, Dalgliesh is considered an intelligent, highbrow, thinking-person’s crime story. (Not exactly targeting the sparkle squad.)

I’m always amazed at how British crime dramas present even the most heinous crimes in a restrained, unemotional style. My only problem with Dalgliesh is that it slows down my house chores because it cannot compete with the whine and suction sounds of the vacuum, which I must turn off to give the detective my full attention. So, how do my characters stack up to my TV pals?

The lead male in the Housekeeper Mystery Series is a priest, Father Melvyn Kronkey, who is devoted to his parishioners, but wants to keep them at arm’s length, and can’t because of his housekeeper/ assistant.  

Mrs. B.  is not unlike JB Fletcher, with an Italian twist and runs on espresso. She has a nose for trouble, and reaches for it with both hands, dragging the good Father into the brawl. And there are a bunch of scene-stealing cats.

Unlike Dalgliesh’s calm detective work, they are often involved in cat-and-mouse chaos with unpredictable bad guys.  Guns and shootouts? Sometimes. Calm and measured? Hardly ever.

And while chasing dust bunnies is rarely as dangerous as chasing villains, it’s amazing what plotting can happen with a mop in hand. Dull and mundane though they are, domestic chores allow time and space for ideas, plots, and characters to incubate. Even murder methods and motives simmer with no other consequences than something not getting cleaned well enough.

And of course, in all these flights of fancy, the resident cats are never at risk.

HAPPY READING!