Looking deep into the heart of evil

SALISBURY — Murder was the topic Wednesday, May 21, at the Scoville Memorial Library. Edward “Nick� Nickerson led participants deep into the psyches of some of the best mystery writers of the realist movement in American fiction.

With the onset of the Depression, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald, the “big three� of the hard-boiled detective novel, took readers to the gritty city streets with plots involving the mob, crooked cops and beautiful but evil women.

“They took murder out of the country houses and croquet courts of the Golden Age writers and  dropped it where it might actually have happened,â€� Nickerson said.

To be considered a realist novel, the story must have certain identifiable elements, Nickerson said. First, is the setting one most readers would recognize? Nickerson pointed out that the big three all set their mysteries in California, an area that was known for quick, easy wealth and a drug culture in the 1930s.

Secondly, who is the victim? “Is it someone we might reasonably meet? Or is it someone exotic like a hot-air balloonist or an astronaut?�

Finally, what is the method of the crime? “Was it a knitting needle dipped in curare or was someone just clubbed on the head?�

Nickerson compared the elements of the writers’ novels to FBI statistics from the era they were writing about. To make a fair comparison, he read 12 Agatha Christie novels and 12 Ellery Queen novels, in addition to the works of Hammett, Chandler and MacDonald.

He found, no surprise, that the realist novels were more, well, realistic.

“Christie and Queen love poisonings, which are rare in real life and quite unreliable,� Nickerson said. “In a realist novel, someone may be run over by an automobile, which is, of course, the most American of deaths.�

Nickerson compared realist deaths — stranglings, shootings, being pushed out windows — to Golden Age deaths — poisoned darts, stabbings in locked rooms, beheadings, crucifixions. The realists were closer to the FBI statistics.

But Nickerson found the realists were very far off when it came to the primary murderer, the character who sets the events of the plot in motion. Realists are fond of the evil woman, a beauty who is rotten to the core. He pointed out that all seven of Chandler’s primary murderers were women.

According to the FBI, only one out of 10 murders in the 1930s were committed by a woman. In this case, the Golden Agers were closer to real life.

“In villian selection, the realists are unreal,� Nickerson concluded.