If You Are in a Crime Novel . . .

I don’t mean if you are deep in a crime novel and don’t want to be distracted.

I mean if you are a character IN a crime novel, there are certain things you have to do.

One is, if you are driving on a winding road to anywhere, with or without pursuers, you have to snake your way through the trees, the brush, or whatever the terrain offers.

Gone are the days of winding roads; if they aren’t straight, they are snaking their way through the wilderness or up a mountain.

If a mechanical object is a potential sound-maker, when someone uses it, it [does its thing] into life.

It started a few decades ago with telephones.

For example, “Suddenly the telephone shrilled into life.” This means that it rang.

Now, the drivers turn the ignition key, motors cough into life, and the driver is gone.

Electric saws roar into life. The days when these things started up are gone.

In plush offices such as those of high-powered lawyers, especially slightly crooked ones, the visitor (private investigator or amateur sleuth) is always offered coffee.

It invariably arrives on a beautiful tray, with bone china cups and saucers, a small pitcher of real cream, and a small bowl of sugar. Of course everything matches.

The coffee will be in a beautiful and delicate pot.

The secretary/assistant/underling/minion/lackey/myrmidon will pour.

The coffee itself will be beyond delicious.

It is often accompanied by delicate cookies, called biscotti, imported from a remote corner of France.

The less integrity the lawyer or Mafia boss has, the fancier and more delicious will be the refreshments accompanying the spectacular coffee.

If the private investigator or the amateur sleuth visits a Mafia boss or a truly crooked lawyer, the coffee will be accompanied by an array of perfect pastries, not just cookies.

At this point, the secretary/assistant/underling/minion/lackey/myrmidon will discreetly fade into the woodwork murmuring, “Will there be anything else, Mr. All-Powerful?”

If the crooked lawyer was born into fabulous money, he will snap, “No, leave us now, and hold my calls.” He thinks his money entitles him to be rude

If he or the Mafia boss was born into poverty, he will growl, “Just get out.” He doesn’t say it but he really means, “Get out if you don’t want a pair of concrete boots tonight.”

If many scenes in the book are laid in a police station, in the kind of book known as a police procedural the coffee-drinking will usually be in the police station.

The coffee pot is always on. Even the first cup is mysteriously not fit to drink, though all the characters drink it all day long.

The coffee will be burnt, like syrup, a type of mud, or it will taste as if it has been on the hot plate for days.

Someone keeps on making the coffee all day and into the night, but perhaps the pot is never really washed, nor the basket either. None of the characters has ever been seen washing pot, basket, or mugs, not even their own.

The detectives and the uniforms (uniformed police have been gone for several years) are so hard-pressed with the case that no one has eaten since day before yesterday nor slept more than three hours out of the past 36.

Finally the lieutenant looks at the calendar and sends everyone home for a few hours’ sleep.

They fall into bed, apparently without eating or brushing their teeth.

They can’t sleep. Mental pictures of the crime scene give them no peace. They toss and turn till nearly time to get up again, then fall into a troubled doze.

The telephone shrills into life at 3:15, or maybe between 2:00 and 3:00.

Another day has begun. Complications multiply. At last, at maybe 4:00 in the afternoon, someone remembers that no one has eaten anything since day before yesterday. No one can really remember their last meal.

They all go out to a restaurant.

No one in a crime novel has ever packed a brown-bag lunch, partly because all they have in the fridge at home is some soda, a few slices of dry bread, and a chunk of cheese curling at the edges. Their complicated lives prevent food shopping except for soda and wine.

So here they are in the restaurant. The girl detective orders a salad.

The person she’s having lunch with has an update on the case, some bad news—another murder, somebody has betrayed somebody else, someone is being investigated by Internal Affairs, etc.

It’s such bad news that instantly she loses her appetite. Very upset, she pushes her plate away, tosses some bills on the table, and exits the restaurant.

People in crime novels no longer put bills on the table and haven’t left a building for two or three years.

Later in the week when someone remembers that a few days have elapsed since anyone tried to sleep, they go home.

Everyone is divorced or widowed so they all live alone.

After a shower of ten or 15 minutes—who is paying the water bills in these stories?—the tension has drained out of their shoulders so it’s time to pad down the hall to the kitchen for a snack or a drink. Best if it’s not alcoholic because through dangerous experience they know they can’t drink any more.

And so on.

Even the most carefully plotted and written crime novel exhibits patches where these much-worn phrases and terms occur, often multiple times.

Never mind. Fashions come and go, even among authors of books. We’re reading these books for fun.

Maybe the clichés are there to check on whether we are paying attention.