But I'd like to know whether there is a certain number of "requirements" for
American writers when they write mystery stories! I've started
reading a lot of
those food mysteries and similar, and they all seem to have to include the
obligatory Native Indian, handicapped person and at least 1-2 gay blokes, who
are usually terribly cute and helpful, as well as the
divorced-fighting to keep
her kid/s-having nasty trouble with her ex, heroine!!! Some authors
treat it in
a casual way which comes over well, as part of the story, but quite often I
feel like strangling the heroine and tell her that if she agonized a bit less
about her offspring's possible feelings, she would get on much better with
life!!
Do other people also think authors are going overboard with this type of
situations?
From the recent fiction, you'd never guess that the percentage of gay
people in the population is estimated to be about 2%... seems more
like 25% of the characters. And don't forget that there must be a
sympathetic Black character, and the Black is not going to be the
perpetrator of the crime, though a handicapped person might
occasionally. Unfortunately, the stock divorced/recently-separated
about-to-have-serious-trouble-with-ex is NOT overdone. We've had two
murders like that recently in our small community, not limited to any
racial stereotype. (If this is a largely American phenomenon, it runs
like this: abusive, controlling man cannot take it when woman/wife
divorces or leaves him, and kills her and sometimes the kids.) I have
not figured out whether it's the publishing houses that enforce this
political correctness, or whether there's a tacit agreement among the
authors or what. But, yes, it's so obviously a "recipe" with set
proportions that it becomes quite wearing. Thirty or forty years from
now, it will seem as dated as the Bunters (man-servants) of the books
written in the 30s and 40s.
One author I've just discovered and really like is Donna Andrews and her wacky
mysteries about Meg Langslow and her crazy family!! Try them, she's got a
delightfully crazy sense of humour. First book in the series is "Murder with
peacocks", but the craziest one (first one I got hold of) is called "Crouching
buzzard, leaping loon". With a title like that, I just had to see what she was
talking about :-)
---- A takeoff on "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or whatever it was?
--
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Martha Krieg [EMAIL PROTECTED] in Michigan
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