July 10: Mysteries

 I wish that I didn't know the twist to Murder on the Orient Express before I watched it. The movie was spoiled by Mad Magazine in its spoof of Remington Steele. I never quite forgave Mad for that. 

If you haven't read the book or seen any of the film versions, you're in for a treat. It's doubtless that, as you watch it, you'll hazard a few guesses as to who the murderer is. You'll be right and wrong at the same time. Watch it. You'll see what I mean.

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I have a friend in Calgary who used to run a book store called Mad for a Mystery. The store was located in a house somewhere, which he rented with a friend who only sold science fiction/fantasy books. My friend was a walking encyclopedia of mystery lore - he loved Dame Agatha Christie's two detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and he positively adored Sherlock Holmes. "Real detectives have tea time," he once quipped. I once opined that Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer stories were the very best. "Oh to be young and foolish," he quipped as he took my money for a paperback edition of Kiss Me, Deadly. He didn't even think that Mickey Spillane was the best of the hardboiled writers, suggesting that I switch over to Chandler instead.

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Mike Hammer burst on the scene in 1947 when Spillane, then 28, published the first Hammer book, I, the Jury. It became an instant sensation and the now-famous ending, when Hammer shoots and kills the woman he loves, offers as big a twist as Murder on the Orient Express. I first read it as a teenager and I thought Mike Hammer was just about the coolest cat on the block. I read it again last year and I didn't like Mike Hammer so much this time. He came across as a bully. I didn't mind it when he beat the stuffing out of criminals and the like but I didn't like it when he mocked and intimidated innocent bystanders.

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Writers say that of all the genres, mysteries are the most challenging because you have to create something that is both plausible and unique. Unlike fantasies, readers won't accept fire-breathing dragons rampaging on the scene. They also won't accept deus ex machinas. You got to hide those clues in plain sight so your readers can kick themselves later on.

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Apparently, the longest running play of all time is Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. It opened on Oct. 6, 1952 and ran continuously until 2020, when it had to be discontinued because of buggabugga. When I was born, The Mousetrap had already been playing for close to 20 years. My late best friend's life was lived entirely between the opening and closing dates of The Mousetrap. Like Psycho and Murder on the Orient Express and the Sixth Sense, there is a twist in Mousetrap, which viewers are traditionally asked not to reveal. Still, the twist itself has become a part of pop culture (like Marion Crane's first act murder in Psycho) and no one would get too upset with me if I blabbed about it here.

But I won't.

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And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favourite television character of all time, Lieutenant Columbo.

With only a couple of exceptions, you knew who the murderer was in every episode of Columbo. You saw the crime being committed, you understood the motive, sometimes you even sympathized with the murderer. But then came Columbo, with his wrinkled raincoat and cigar and unassuming manner, and, over the course of the episode, he would hammer away at the inconsistencies with the murderer's story until an arrest was made or the murderer confessed. 

Columbo remains my favourite TV show of all time.