Pittwater LIfe December 2019 Issue

Business Life: Law
Business Life
Crime fiction: the truth
is not always stranger
And so to December: so
much to do, so little
time, and all must be
concluded before the festive
season. Why? There is no
logical reason but the lazy
hazy days of summer beckon.
Despite the demands,
perhaps in an idle moment,
as you browse the literary
supplements of the Saturday
broadsheets or The Spectator
or similar journals, your
mind can turn to the books
you might like to read if not
possess in the holiday season.
The peninsula is wonderfully
serviced by Bookoccino and
Beachside Bookshop in Avalon
and Berkelouw in Mona Vale
– and of course one can go
online to the Book Depository
or Hatchards in London.
Some acquaintances
circulate a list among family
and friends. Others leave it
under a magnet on the fridge.
All in the hope that when the
post-prandial rest occurs, the
nominated works might be
close at hand.
A colleague always
maintained: “the best law is
found in crime fiction” – a view
with which we agree.
As with many things, crime
writing has fashions. Some
years ago, The Times stated:
“We still feel fond of Sherlock
Holmes but Agatha Christie’s
genteel contrived murders
(known to Americans as
‘cosies’) are fatally out of style.”
In a dismissive note, the
paper suggested that a plot
is passé which places middle
class ladies and gentlemen in a
pre-war drawing room attended
by a butler who at appropriate
intervals drops hints which
ensures the redoubtable Miss
Marple or Hercule Poirot can
neatly identify motive and the
murderer.
One wonders if this is correct
today, with the rise of Hercule
Poirot and Miss Marple on pay
television and free to air.
While Agatha Christie was
of another era, she was not
without some experience
upon which to draw in her
construction of plots. She
had a knowledge of poisons
acquired when working as a
hospital dispenser during World
War I. Then her marriage to
archaeologist Max Mallowan
took her to digs in Syria and
Iraq.
It is interesting to note that
several writers of crime fiction,
such as Agatha Christie, also
have experience to draw upon
in plot construction.
Gianrico Carofiglio from Italy
is a novelist and former antimafia
judge in the Italian city of
Baria. His first novel ‘Involuntary
Witness’ (translated by Patrick
Creagh) is about corruption,
with hero Defence Counsel
Guido Guerrieri; it has been
made into a television series.
From Poland, Marek
Krajewski is a lecturer in
classical studies at the
university of Wroclaw who has
written many works which
have as their hero policeman
Eberhard Mock. The first in the
series, ‘The End of the World
in Breslau’, is said to kick off a
ferocious odyssey.
Liza Marklund from Sweden
is a journalist and columnist on
the Swedish tabloid Expressen;
she is a co-owner of Sweden’s
largest publishing house and
is a UNICEF Ambassador. She
is regarded as the ‘godmother’
of modern Scandi noir and has
as her heroine investigative
reporter Annika Bengtzon.
Antonio Hill lives in
with Jennifer Harris
Barcelona and is a professional
translator of English language
fiction into Spanish; he has
a prolific output of Inspector
Hector Salgado novels.
Perhaps his most noticeable
book is ‘The Summer of Dead
Toys’ (translated by Laura
McGloughlin).
Carl Valdemar Jussi Adler-
Olsen is a Danish publisher,
editor and entrepreneur as
well as an author of thrillers
which feature Carl Morck,
a burnt-out policeman, and
his offsider Assad. The
latter undistinguished but
described as possessed of an
astonishingly counterintuitive
intellect, which intrigues
readers.
56 DECEMBER 2019
The Local Voice Since 1991