Spencer Quinn

Serendipitous Surprises

/ Austin Mystery Writers / 1 Comment

I wasn’t going to discuss the dreadful heat. But early this morning came two despite-the-heat surprises: first, moonset of the August Supermoon.

Next, a tiny frog, less than an inch long, sitting quietly in the shade. Could it be a Texas cricket frog? Maybe some frog-maven will know. Can you spot it here?

Another treasure: an email from a reader who’d read Ghost Cave, first book in my Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series, and wanted the recipe for the coffee cake served by Alice’s redoubtable elderly friend Ilka:

They settled at the tea table. Ilka poured. Bone china, thin and old, the glaze crazed. Like Ilka’s face and hands, thought Alice. The cake stand held something Alice had never seen—a pale smooth yeasty-smelling cake with thin cinnamon topping…

“Oh, goodness, Ilka,” said Alice. “What is that?” The yeast dough, ivory and fragrant, left a mysterious fragrance in the air.

“Cardamom,” said Ilka.

Yikes! I had to tell her I had no recipe! Only—a memory! As kids we were in awe of our neighbor Mrs. Slinn, up the street. She wore her hair pulled back in a bun and longish dresses and, I think, always an apron. When we scruffy little children approached her door she always offered cookies. (We still roll out her classic “teacake” sugar cookie dough to make Santas, snowmen, reindeer.)But occasionally Mrs. Slinn swept down the street to our kitchen bringing magic: a round yeast coffee cake, no taller than 3 inches in the middle, ivory-gold with a delicate sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar on top. It tasted amazing and when cut into small wedges was absolutely delicious…

To this memory, in Ghost Cave, I’d added cardamom—not a spice we knew when I was little. But where to find a recipe for the inquiring reader?

FROM THE READER HERSELF! She wrote back that she’d located cookbooks from Mason County, Texas (dated 1976), and Fredericksburg (12th edition–Fredericksburg cooks published their first cookbook in 1916!). Each included a recipe for “yeast coffee cake.” (The Fredericksburg recipes include the original names—like Apfelkuchen, Schnecken, Kolatschen.) Which is further proof that mystery readers themselves are bright, curious sleuths. And why hearing from readers is wonderful.

Below you’ll find a slightly modified recipe from the excerpts she sent, but with a little cardamom added.

At a recent book talk I called the relationship between mystery reader and mystery writer a collaboration. Indeed, a primary rule of the 1930 Detection Club in London was that any clue must be instantly produced for the reader. No holding back explanations or back story until the end of the book! Of course that rule was sometimes violated (yes, Madam Christie, we’re talking about you). In contrast, Christie’s contemporary, the New Zealander Ngaio Marsh, occasionally adds some colorful backstory at the end, but she also generally has already given the reader fair notice of the clues that will identify the murderer.

In her series featuring the elegant Scotland Yard sleuth Roderick Alleyn, Marsh typically begins with the setting—often provided by a variety of characters––of the site where murder will inevitably take place, either in England or New Zealand. The setting could be an artist’s colony (“Colour Scheme”), a tour boat on an English river, a village church hall, a pub, an elegant country house (“Dancing Footman”), the London apartment of a practically bankrupt upper-class family (no one seems to have a job) (“Surfeit of Lampreys”). Thus when we open a Marsh mystery, first we meet the potential suspects, including one we may hope is innocent, may hope is truthful. Then comes a seriously tricky murder. (Did someone disturb the fly rod on the wall? Why?) At that point Inspector Alleyn arrives, with his sidekick Fox and the crime scene specialists. For the competitive mystery reader—collaborating with the author to detect the murderer––each detail matters and is promptly disclosed. But who lied? Who was mistaken?

Rest assured Marsh knew her subject matter and her settings: she was an artist, an actor and a theatre director as well as a writer. She lived and worked in England as well as New Zealand. She was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1966. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed the Grand Master Award for her lifetime achievement as a mystery novelist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaio_Marsh  I suspect her character Agatha Troy (an artist who finally marries Alleyn) may be in part a portrait of Marsh.

And Marsh received a birthday Google Doodle on April 23, 2015! https://doodles.google/doodle/ngaio-marshs-122nd-birthday/

Marsh’s first book came out in 1934, featuring Alleyn as the upper-class “grandee” who resigned from the foreign service to join Scotland Yard. A different sort of sleuth was emerging in the U.S. In 1930 Dashiell Hammett published The Maltese Falcon and we met Sam Spade. In 1933 Raymond Chandler, like Hammett, was already publishing in The Black Mask magazine, and in 1939 he published The Big Sleep, presenting Philip Marlowe. Decades later the mystery genre continues to grow and grow:  Noir! Culinary mysteries! Cozies! Mysteries narrated by dogs! (Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series.) Cowboy mysteries! Fantasy/sci-fi/mystery! Sleuths in Laos, China, Australia, Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, Louisiana, national parks, Native American reservations. Edinburgh! The Shetlands! Botswana! Canada! Italy! France! Israel! Scandinavia! Legal thrillers! Spy thrillers! What a wealth of mysteries for us to enjoy.

And what about the Texas Hill Country? In her latest adventure, Ghost Bones, lawyer Alice MacDonald Greer grapples with the murder of a deeply respected judge. His death was apparently triggered by his efforts to solve the murders of six people on his property almost two centuries ago. Alice needs all the help she can get from her irrepressible assistant, Silla, and from Ben Kinsear, as she tangles with mystery, legal drama, and matters of the heart.  Finally–please let me know if you recognize that little froglet!

Helen Currie Foster lives and writes the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. She’s drawn to the compelling landscape and quirky characters of the Texas Hill Country. She’s also deeply curious about our human history and prehistory, and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. Follow her at www.helen.currie.foster.com.

Nearly Mrs. Slinn’s Coffee Cake:

3/8 c. milk, 2 Tbls. sugar, ½ tsp. salt, ¼ cup butter, 1 egg, beaten, 2 tsp. dry yeast, 1 ½ Tbls. warm water, 1 tsp. ground cardamom, 1 ¾ c flour–Plus additional melted butter (about 2 Tbls.) and sugar/cinnamon mixture (1 tsp cinnamon to 1/ c sugar) for the topping.

Scald milk and pour over the butter, salt and sugar. Stir and let stand until lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in warm water for 5 minutes. Stir egg and yeast mixture into milk mixture.  Stir in 1 tsp cardamom and 1 cup of flour. Beat well. Continue adding remaining flour.  Put dough on lightly floured board and knead until smooth (add a bit more flour if too sticky). Place in greased bowl, cover, and let double in size. Then punch down.

Butter bottom and sides of round 8” pan. Put parchment paper in the bottom.  Pat in dough. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle on the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Let rise again until double in size. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until just turning golden.   Let cool. Serve it forth!

Further Thoughts on Smell in Literature, or The Dog as Watson

/ Austin Mystery Writers / 2 Comments

 

 

By Helen Currie Foster

An author can get great mileage by giving the point of view to a Watson sort of character. The Watson can be present for all events, hear all dialogue and see all clues—while not understanding them. The Reader feels clever for having grasped the significance of clues the Watson missed or misunderstood. The Watson can admire Sherlock’s astounding mental feats while deploring Sherlock’s shortcomings (sometimes his manners, sometimes cocaine). Meanwhile the reader can identify with the Watson and can experience, perhaps, the feel and sound and… yes, the SMELL of a scene, while Sherlock is detecting or explaining arcana.

The best Watson I’ve met is…a dog. Yes, it’s Chet, the large (hundred-pounder!) companion and partner of detective Bernie Little in the Chet and Bernie Series. Spencer Quinn (nom de … plume? Or de tail?) of Peter Abrahams is the genius who most recently gave us The Heart of Barkness.

You say you won’t read a mystery told by a dog? I’m not a dog person, and that’s what I said too, turning my inadequate human nose up in the air. (I have donkeys, not dogs.)

Then I met Chet. Chet opened up the astounding sensory richness of the world that lies beyond human (that is, Bernie’s) detection, and, particularly, the world of smell.

 

Here’s a scene—a scent?—from The Dog Who Knew Too Much:

“Autumn didn’t mention your sense of humor.” Anya gave him a not-very-friendly look when she said that, but at the same time I picked up a scent coming off her—faint but unmistakable—that meant she was starting to like Bernie. Nothing about humans is simple: I’ve learned that lots of times in my career.”

        

 

Here’s Chet using his ears as well, when Bernie is banging on the door of the RV where he hopes to find Lotty Pilgrim, the country-western star accused of murder In The Heart of Barkness:

“Silence from inside. Then came footsteps, very soft, but there’s no such thing as footsteps too soft for my ears. Also I could hear breathing on the other side of the door. Plus there were smells of cigarette smoke, coffee, and perfume—and the specific smell of Lotty Pilgrim, which had an interesting milky quality. The door might as well not have been there.

At least in my case. Did Bernie realize Lotty was standing pretty much right in front of us? He raised his voice. “Lotty? Lotty?” Raised it to a level that meant the answer to my question was no.

No answer from Lotty. The milky smell changed, went the tiniest bit sour. I’ve tasted milk both sour and not, don’t like either kind. Water’s my drink. The best I ever tasted came right out of a rock, but no time to go into that now.”

Right there, we see Chet’s astounding ears in action, and his nose. We learn exactly what Lotty could smell like to our human noses, if only the dadgum door weren’t in the way. We learn that Chet can detect that some emotion—fear?—has turned Lotty’s milky smell “the tiniest bit sour.” Then we may wonder whether our human noses could possibly notice, at a subliminal level, what Chet detects as smell? Is our human sense of smell so low-level (Chet’s opinion) that our minds can’t really register certain smells as smells? Instead, perhaps our minds register an emotion, a suspicion, instead of a smell. That is, if we’re on Lotty’s side of the door, which Bernie is not, at least here.

Bernie and Chet make a great team. Chet hears a faraway car sneaking across the desert toward Bernie, way before Bernie hears it. Chet tries to let Bernie know…but Bernie’s slow on the uptake. We readers know peril impends. Listen, Bernie! Pay attention! He won’t, but not until the last second, when Chet must leap into action.

My love affair with Chet is not just his sheer joyousness. It’s his masterful specificity about smell. Here he is, on the job, searching a mountain campsite for traces of a lost boy camper:

     “When it comes to nighttime security, you can’t go wrong by sniffing around. Nothing new to pick up, the scents of the boys still all over the place—although growing fainter—plus Bernie’s scent, Turk’s, and my own, the most familiar smell in the world: old leather, salt and pepper, mink coats, and just a soupçon of tomato; and to be honest, a healthy dash of something male and funky. My smell: yes, sir. Chet the Jet was in the vicinity, wherever that was, exactly.”

Here’s a challenge for you dog people. Give us as detailed a description of your dog’s smell as Chet’s description of his own! Oh, okay, I’ll try to do the same for my donkeys. In November.

Last month I was bemoaning the stinginess of some of my favorite writers in using smells in their writing. Maybe Virginia Woolf—hey, she loved her dogs, wrote about her dogs, doubtless could have described their smells as well as Chet described his, if the times, or the Times Literary Supplement, had permitted—will rise to the challenge. Watch this space.