Broad Generalizations

I'm delighted Lori Rader-Day joined us on today's Femmes Fatales.
Lori, the author of The Black Hour and Little Pretty Things, is a two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee and won the 2014 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.

Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Good Housekeeping, and others. She lives in Chicago, where she teaches mystery writing at StoryStudio Chicago and is president of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter.  

All this is admirable. But I really admire Lori because she says Miss Marple "kicked butt." I can see the  old lady now, sensible shoe aimed for an evil doer's south end. Lori says a lot more, and it's hilarious. Read on. -- Elaine Viets

Broad Generalizations

By Lori Rader-Day

 

I’m obsessed with Vera Stanhope.

Based on the character created by mystery author Ann Cleeves, Vera’s like nobody I know and everyone I know at the same time: flawed, harsh, afraid to show even the tiniest bit of vulnerability, no-nonsense. And far smarter than you think, pet.

The Vera of the TV show is who I think of—Brenda Blethlyn, who by virtue of being a lifelong actress is actually quite pretty and elegant. But as Vera she’s frumpy and rough, and she gets the job done, just like in the books. None of this running around in high-heels (though I actually love Castle and Agent Carter, too). None of this damseling in distress. Vera is a broad, in the best way possible. Rumpled, the way Columbo gets to be. Unaccommodating, the way Sherlock Holmes is allowed to be. Women characters, it should be noted, hardly ever get to be anything but gracious and good-gracious hot.

This past week, UK viewers turned on their tellies to find Vera’s season six starting up. Lucky jerks. It will be a year before the latest season hits these shores.

In the mean time, I’ve been collecting what our librarian friends call “read-alikes.” What books can we turn to in the sad months it takes British TV and poor, overworked Ann Cleeves to get us more Vera?

Amy Gallup from The Writing Class

Jincy Willett is hilarious and, for mystery writers or aspiring mystery writers, never so spot-on as when she’s writing about a college extension course that turns bad in The Writing Class. (A follow-up, Amy Falls Down, is also funny and poignant, but not a mystery.) Amy Gallup is a writer nudged off the publishing map who pays the bills teaching working adults how to write. She’s grumpy, frumpy, and the only thing she loves anymore is her basset hound.

Miss Marple in The Murder at the Vicarage, The Moving Finger, and others

OK, Miss Marple isn’t a broad. What she is: a nosy old lady who annoys people, shoves herself in where she’s not wanted. She’s overlooked until she’s completely right and smarter than everyone else, including the police. It’s that quality, of getting to the answer despite being dismissed, that I most enjoy. Vera is disheveled and overweight; Miss Marple is frail, maybe batty. Isn’t it that much more delicious when they prevail and kick butt?

Hazel Micallef in The Calling, The Taken, and others

Inger Ash Wolfe is now widely known to be a pseudonym for Canadian poet, playwright, and novelist Michael Redhill. Don’t let the “poet and playwright” thing scare you. His small-town Canadian police chief Hazel Micallef is 60-something, divorced, broken. She’s not perfect and all her mistakes and hurts are on full display in her tiny village. What you can let scare you is the darkness of these stories. It’s bleak up in these woods, eh. Hazel, however, is full of life and not even close to giving up on herself.

Precious Ramotswe in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series

Alexander McCall Smith series is delightful, if you’re into delightful. The first in the series is the toughest to engage the reader, in my opinion, because it’s difficult to decide what’s happening. Not much detecting is what is happening. But if you don’t mind a slow pace in exchange for charming characters who go about solving mysteries with common sense—characters who become like family to each other and to readers—Precious is your gal.

Gloria Harkness in The Child Garden

(It’s not sucking up if I mean it. Also, she didn’t invite me today.) Femmes Fatales’ own Catriona McPherson added an example to this list with her latest stand-alone. Gloria is, as I said when I interviewed Catriona for my blog last fall, unglamorous and unapologetic. She’s thick around the middle and has the same hairstyle she had as a young girl, but she’s fiercely loyal to her disabled son and the woman who has helped give her a place in the world. When things go wrong, she’s bright and resourceful.

Here’s the problem. I’ve read all these books. Who else have I missed? Tell me in the comments, only skip the books that give long, lurid detail on the fabrics and hats, please. Where are the no-nonsense ladies of mystery? Those are the broads I want to hang out with.

Comments

[Mark]

Have you read Sue Ann Jaffarian's Odelia Grey mysteries? I think they sound like your cup of brandy. (No tea for you, I can tell.)

[Lori Rader-Day]

I'm drinking tea right now, Mark! And I have not, so I'll add them to my list. Thank you!

[Dana]

Thanks for dropping by, Lori! I thought this past week's episode of "Agent Carter" addressed this theme rather wonderfully, talking about what's allowed for women, or more importantly, what's not. No, they weren't going to smudge Peggy's lipstick, but they did show her nom-noming a doughnut with abandon.

[Charlaine Harris]

Oh! Nurse Hilda Adams from Mary Roberts Rineharts' books. Bertha Cool from the A.A. Fair books. And even Dana Stabenow's Native American detective Kate Shugak. She is wonderfully down-to-earth.

[catriona]

Well, hey! That's some amazing company in. I agree on Vera, Precious and Miss M so now I'm gagging to check out Amy and Hazel. As for recommendations: have you read Julia Keller? Is it time to re-watch Prime Suspect?

[Lynne Raimondo]

Great post Lori! VI Warshawsky also comes to mind.

[Lori Rader-Day]

I love all these suggestions! And, Dana, I LOVED that part of Agent Carter. Well, I loved it all, but that was a funny moment.

[Elaine Viets]

Can VI be forgiven for her fine Italian-made shoes, Lori? If so, she's your kind of woman.
Second Sue's Odelia Gray series.

[Lori Rader-Day]

Hmm. Fine Italian-made shoes are a lot to overcome...

Does she have fine bone structure, too? I can't remember.

[Elaine Viets]

She's naturally slim and goes for long walks with her shared golden retriever. She wears the shoes because her Italian mother said a woman should never wear poorly made shoes. If she's following her late mother's wishes, does she get a pass?

[Lourdes Venard]

Love Vera! You might also like Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series. She reminds me a bit of a younger Vera: slightly overweight, not really fashionable, lives alone in a secluded cottage. And solves mysteries, of course.

[Lori Rader-Day]

Elaine, if she's that completely based on Sara Paretsky, she gets a pass for sure. BROAD.

Lourdes, OF COURSE. Thank you! I got to meet Elly last year but haven't read her books yet.

[Storyteller Mary]

I loved the Mrs. Pollifax books, and cried a little when I got to the end of the series. "A woman of a certain age," tough but friendly and outgoing, who gathers a circle of trusted helpers wherever she goes, and excels at judo! I want to BE her.

[Lori Rader-Day]

I forgot about Mrs. Pollifax! I've only read the first one but I LOVED it!!

[Lori Rader-Day]

Thank you to Ann Cleeves for her nice message about this post and to Elaine Viets for having me visit!

[Elaine Viets]

Delighted to have you as a guest, Lori. You're our kind of broad.

[Mollie Bryan]

I love the Julia Spencer Flemming "Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne" series. I'm not sure you'd call Clare a broad, but she certainly is no-nonsense and sometimes borders on the unlikable.

[Lori Rader-Day]

Good one, Mollie! Thank you!

[Kathy Reel]

I second the Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series and Julia Spencer-Fleming's Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series.

[Lori Rader-Day]

Thanks, Kathy!