by
Joyce Yarrow
When
it comes to creating the antagonists in my books, I heartily agree with Somerset
Maugham, who said: “Things were easier for the
old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes
were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.”
Today’s
fiction writers are challenged to make our villains psychologically complex,
without glorifying or totally damning them. Fortunately for us, we have Georges
Simenon, my favorite mystery writer, to show us the way. A Belgian who wrote
more than 200 books – many of them set in Paris – Simenon had a gift for
portraying the most degenerate, desperate, and psychopathic individuals in the
realistic light of ordinary circumstances.
In
his stories, Simenon makes no attempt to “humanize,” his evildoers – at least
not in the sentimental way implied by that term. Instead he uses the banality
of their thinking to help us understand them. Take, for example, this passage from Dirty Snow, set in occupied France:
“Men in uniform
were killed every week, and it was the patriotic organizations that got into
trouble, the hostages, councilmen, notables, who were shot or taken God knows
where. In any case, they were never heard of again. For Frank it was a question
of killing his first man and breaking in Kromer’s Swedish knife.”
A
knife that, in contrast to his abhorrence for people, Frank holds in high
esteem:
“It was made in
Sweden, a knife with a folding blade, so pure of line, so sharp, that you got
the feeling the blade was actually intelligent and could find its way all by
itself into someone’s flesh.”
Another
masterful technique of Simenon’s – one that that draws readers in and keeps us
spellbound to the very end – is his use of restraint. In the opening scenes of
Dirty Snow, we are party to Frank’s plans to commit the murder, as well as his
compulsion to reveal himself to a person with whom he will share a “secret
bond.” But when the time comes for the bloody act, Simenon cuts away to Timo’s
Bar, and all we are told is that, “The knife, carefully wiped, was in Frank’s
pocket.” By that time we are so totally inside Frank’s head, that we feel the
horror of the crime without having witnessed it.
Thanks
to you, George Simenon, mystery writers like myself have a high bar to reach
for when writing about the darker aspects of human nature.
___
Joyce
Yarrow’s complex, intelligent and satisfying mystery Code of Thieves has just
been rereleased by Istoria Books in digital formats. The new edition features
an essay by and interview with the author.
or
***
ABOUT JOYCE YARROW:
Joyce
Yarrow was born in the SE Bronx, escaped to Manhattan as a teenager and now
lives in Seattle with her husband and son. Along the way to becoming a
full-time author, Joyce has worked as a screenwriter, singer-songwriter,
multimedia performance artist and most recently, a member of the world music
vocal ensemble, Abráce.
Joyce
is a Pushcart nominee, whose stories and poems have been widely published. Her
first book, Ask the Dead (Martin
Brown 2005), was selected by The Poisoned Pen as a Recommended First Novel and
hailed as “Bronx noir”. Her latest book, Code
of Thieves, takes place in Brooklyn and Moscow. It was published in
hardcover (as The Last Matryoshka) by
Five Star/Cengage and is now available for Kindle and other ereaders through
Istoria Books. (www.IstoriaBooks.com).
Joyce
considers the setting of her books to be characters in their own right and
teaches workshops on "The Place of Place in Mystery Writing."
***
CODE
OF THIEVES by Joyce Yarrow
Full-time private investigator/part-time
poet Jo Epstein travels to New York and eventually to Russia to help clear her
emigre stepfather—who is framing him for murder and who is sending him
threatening messages in Russian nesting dolls (matryoshkas)? Her investigation
takes her on a journey into her stepfather’s past and into the honor-bound code
of the “vory,” a Russian criminal syndicate.
- "Intricately layered like
the Russian nested doll of the title..." Library Journal
- "You'll want to discover
the secrets buried in The Last Matryoshka..." Lesa Holstine, Lesa's
Book Critiques
- "Joyce Yarrow....may very
well prove herself to be the Mickey Spillane of the 21st century...."
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Buy Code of
Thieves by Joyce Yarrow for Kindle here.
It is also available at other major etailers.
_________
WIN A DIGITAL COPY OF CODE OF THIEVES!
Here's how:
Respond to this post, telling us who your favorite mystery character or author is. Make sure to put your email in the post.
By Tuesday, April 16, 2013, midnight, Eastern Time USA, Istoria Books will choose a winner at random from those who responded to this post.
______________
