Nancy Martin: Miss Marple Comes of Age

Today's guest blogger is Nancy Martin, the author of The Blackbird Mystery Series, who shares some compelling reasons why book clubs might want to lighten up.

The award-winning How to Murder a Millionaire is the first book in The Blackbird Mystery Series. Nancy is on the board of Sisters in Crime, a member of Mystery Writers of America and a founding member of Pennwriters. She lives in Pennsylvania and blogs on The Lipstick Chronicles. Check her website, www.nancymartinmysteries.com, for updates on the Blackbird books.


When I'm invited to visit a book club, I know they've had enough Oprah books.

Somebody has decided that the club needs to take a break from the emotionally compelling themes, or the hard-hitting journalism, the turgid --- oops, I mean tantalizing prose. You're sick of the insightful looks into the hearts and minds of psychopaths, molested children, or star-crossed lovers/sisters/childhood soulmates wrenched apart by unforeseen circumstances. Your hearts have finally been hardened against the downtrodden. Or the dysfunctional families make you want to grab the characters by their lapels and rattle their teeth with a shake. If you read one more ugly divorce story or gut-wrenching coming-of-age tale, somebody in your book club is going to pick up the canapes and hurl them through the nearest kitchen window.

You can only read so many poignant peeks into the lives of the clinically depressed before you start wondering if your old Prozac prescription might have one more refill left.

"It's time for a few laughs," one plucky book clubber might say. "Let's read something fun!"

That's me. The author you call when you want to lighten up.

Yes, even the most dedicated book clubs need to hit the pause button on the intellectual action once in a while.

Why not a mystery?

Mysteries come in many shapes and sizes now. While Agatha Christie is still a classic, there is a nearly endless variety of mysteries in the marketplace now. If the last mystery you read was about a tough-talking private detective with a drinking problem, icky housekeeping habits and a twenty-year-old supermodel panting after his middle-aged body...well, it's time you checked out the new stuff. (If you need help, there are many bookstores that specialize in mysteries --- like this one, that ships anywhere in the world: http://www.mysterylovers.com/) There are chick-lit mysteries, cozy mysteries and historical mysteries. Police procedurals and mysteries that are solved by talking cats. Janet Evanovich is wet-your-pants funny. Denise Mina writes about a Scottish journalist who shows us what it's still like to be a woman in a tough line of work. And I write about some Philadelphia heiresses who solve crime and sticky social situations on the Main Line. As we say in the writing biz --- hilarity ensues. Have a little laughter with your satire.

But what is there to talk about once your book club members answer the question, "When did you guess the murderer?" Since genre fiction most often focuses on plot, is there anything else to hash over before the coffee is poured?

Turns out, there's plenty to discuss besides the mystery itself.

The mystery novel is actually an old literary form. (You could talk about the roots of the mystery genre, if you like. Was Hamlet the first detective?) The whodunit question provides a structure, that's all --- a formula for telling a story that a skilled author uses as a springboard to convey more complex ideas. Some thought-provoking material can lurk beneath the sleuthing.

What about the nature of evil? Always a crowd-pleasing discussion. Or the circumstances in which a "normal" person might be moved to kill? Would you admit your guilt if you committed a heinous crime? Or lie to avoid prosecution? (Questions like these provoke laughter sometimes, but also some surprising insight into your book club members!) Is crime sometimes justifiable? Or is that idea the by-product of a society gone awry?

Here's a good one: How does the setting of the story enhance the themes the author has embedded in the plot?

Today the mystery novel has many permutations. There's surely one that will seize the imaginations --- and intellects! --- of your book club members. Take a break from the literary fiction with a walk down the mystery aisle of your favorite bookstore.

---Nancy Martin