THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD
By Terry Griggs
Terry Griggs's Thought You Were Dead is a book surcharged with
creative energy, crammed with a fullness of invention that spills onto its
endpapers and seems at
times a threat to its binding.
It is, primarily, a parody of the traditional village mystery. The location
is the southern Ontario town of Farclas, promoted by its boosters as
"Friendly, Safe, Fun!!" The hero is Chellis Beith, personal researcher
and fact-checker for an eccentric local novelist named Athena Havlock. His
anachronistic line of work (Ms. Havlock does not, apparently, go online) makes
him both a good amateur detective - he recognizes "God is in the
details" - as well as a facile conversationalist whose head is always full
of facts and factoids, and the difference between the two. His synapses fire so
quickly his head sounds like a bug zapper, and almost everyone's dialogue
similarly sparks with zingers. Such nimble mental and verbal patter is native to
noir, but not what you expect from your typical cozy.
Mystery and intrigue hit close to home when a book reviewer is murdered in a
neighbouring town. "Who would want to kill a lowly book
reviewer?" Chellis sensibly asks. Then decides "Only about a thousand
people [he] could think of offhand." Then Ms. H. mysteriously disappears.
Is there a connection? Chellis, assisted by ex-flame/domestic scientist Elaine,
is on the case.
Traditional mystery buffs may feel a bit put out. Griggs hasn't written a
puzzle book that invites the reader to pick up clues and figure out whodunit.
Instead she has opted for a more general satire, not only of the mystery genre
but the world of CanLit in general. One imagines Farclas to be somewhere in
Alice Munro country, and when Chellis drives through "this dingier,
ungroomed stretch of the province" with its immense fields sectioned into
"deep squares of swishing yellow plant matter," he sees in its
run-down streets the very source of its "literary gothic reputation."
And if this is the source of so much of our literary culture, at the other end
retail receives no kinder treatment. One particularly acid scene has Chellis and
Elaine going to the mall and visiting a big box bookstore furnished with shelves
of books for Dummies and staff who think Tolstoy is a Canadian author.
The structure is wobbly, with the story seeming to lose track of
itself on occasion, perhaps from taking a bit too much delight in its own
McGuffins. But Chellis is a likeable hero full of charming contradictions - an orphan who is both cynical and
gullible, a slacker dedicated to his employer - and the supporting
cast are colourful diversions. The writing is relentless in its synaptic firing,
and illustrations - yes! illustrations! - by Nick Craine help fill out a
thoroughly enjoyable package. Agatha Christie liked to refer to her own
mysteries simply as "entertainments," a form to which Griggs shows
herself a capable heir.
Notes:
Review first published May 16, 2009.
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