The Hunter is Hunted by Her Prey

(The title comes from an old “Girl Groups” song written by Smokey Robinson)

One thing is very clear…

You don’t have to like a writer to enjoy their books.

Some may recall the American poet, hailed by some as America’s greatest poet, Ezra Pound. Pound was in Italy when the United States entered the war and made many broadcasts favouring the Axis powers:

“After the war, Pound was brought back to the United States to face charges of treason. The charges covered only his activities during the time when the Kingdom of Italy was officially at war with the United States......His insanity plea is still a matter of controversy, since in retrospect his activities and his writings during the war years do not appear to be those of a clinically insane person. Treason is potentially a capital offense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound

(The same method had been used with the British World War One hero and poet Sigfried Sassoon. He was confined to a mental hospital in Scotland until he agreed to return to the trenches).

I have been reminded of that in my recent “discovery” of an American mystery writer, Jane Haddam (her real name is Orania Papazoglou). Prolific, Haddam has written two series of mysteries. The most durable are the tales of Gregor Demarkian, “the Armenian-American Hecul Poiroit”. There are over twenty in this series:

Not a Creature Was Stirring (1990)
Precious Blood (1991)
Act of Darkness (1991)
Quoth the Raven (1991)
A Great Day for the Deadly
A Feast of Murder (1992)
A Stillness in Bethlehem (1993)
Murder Superior (1993)
Dear Old Dead (1994)
Festival of Deaths (1994)
Bleeding Hearts (1995)
Fountain of Death (1995)
Baptism in Blood (1996)
Deadly Beloved (1997)
And One to Die on (1997)
Skeleton Key (2000)
True Believers (2001)
Somebody Else's Music (2002)
Conspiracy Theory (2003)
The Headmaster's Wife (2005)
Hardscrabble Road (2006)
Glass Houses (2007)
Game of Solitaire (to be released next year)

There are three main characters. Gregor Demarkian is a retired head of the FBI Criminal Behaviour Unit, and its founder. His wife died shortly before his retirement and he returned to the Armenian section of Philadelphia, bought an apartment and enjoys the quiet close-knit neighbourhood. Bennis Hannaford is first a potential victim, then a friend, and more recently a lover (and soon to be wife?). She hails from a rich but dysfunctional family on The Main of Philadelphia. Last is Father Tibor, an Armenian Orthodox priest who offers sage and often confusing advice.

Various Armenian neighbours, a police chief and would-be mayor round out this cast, and others added as the stories require. Several of the titles involved Roman Catholic nuns. They typical book starts off with a chapter introducing each character, charming little vignettes that present the character and move the plot along just enough. Then, of course, comes a murder, mostly. These are like Agatha Christie in a sense, but far more involved and convoluted. By the time the plot starts to take off, Haddam has made you at home with each of the characters and, if you have been following the series, brought you up to date on the evolving relationship between Gregor and Bennis.

Gregor is not a private detective, as he repeats often enough, but a police consultant. He seems to be invited to all sorts of places, from mansions to colleges, to movie star’s homes and even ships. Naturally, foul deeds are done. Often several. As the plot moves along, the interplay between Gregor and Bennis, and Father Tibor is a delight. Haddam is a person of definite views (more of that later) and interjects politics and political science in very chewable nuggets throughout the text. By making her characters of different political persuasions, she is able to present some funny and also piercing commentary on various views.

Now, what does this have to do with Ezra Pound?

Well, I had never heard of Jane Haddam until I joined a well-established Usenet newsgroup – Rec.Arts.Mystery or RAM. This group has been going for many years, has annual meetings and even a logo. Unlike other newsgroups, this one is not give to flames and ads for sex tonics. Most of the posts are actually about books and mystery writers. Indeed, in the Demarkian novels, Father Tibor is an avid participant in the group.

Father Tibor might join the group in fiction; Jane Haddam joins the group in real life. And that is where I met her – and we instantly disagreed.

To say the least, Haddam and I differ on “American Foreign Policy”, notably the War in Iraq and potentially the War in Iran. So that has lead to some rather hot exchanges. As Haddam’s books are not published in Canada or the United Kingdom, I had not heard of her nor ever seen any of her books. I ordered the first one in with the intention of hating it.

And when it arrived, I tried to hate it. The problem being, like with Pound, I was captured and had to surrender – at least to the books. My first taste was several months ago and now, thanks to my digging deep in cellars and strange out of the way bookshops on line, I have the complete set of Demarkian mysteries and have been reading my way through all of them.

At times, I am ashamed of myself. If I were to stand on principle I would burn them or at the least give them away to some non-English readers. But I simply can’t…

Now, the first books of the series were all written with a holiday in mind. This was, according to what I have read, her publisher’s idea, not hers. So Christmas, Easter, July Fourth, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day and more - each of the early books revolves around a particular holiday. That gets a bit tiring and makes some titles and plots a stretch. I find Haddam’s plots great fun, but in some cases the coincidences do stretch credulity as the story comes together. The first fifteen books, the "Holiday" Demarkians, were published by Crimeline. With Demarkian "16", "Skeleton Key", Haddam switched publishers to St. Martin's Minotaur and the plots were markedly less restrained by the artificial "holiday" theme. In my opinion, the freedom from holidays resulted in much better and more interesting plots. The newer books are indeed my favourites.

While not commonly found in Canadian bookstores, the titles can be found at Chapters and specialist mystery bookstores. For the early titles in paperback, I found all the paperbacks in a used bookstore in Kamloops. Better World Books and BookCloseOuts on the web also have some of the more recent titles.

Haddam has gone outside of the Demarkian series for another short series (the Patience McKenna novels) and two stand alone novels ("Charimsa" and Sanctity", both released under her true name). I have not managed as yet to locate copies of these but I am certainly looking for them.

Instead of hunting Jane Haddam to get the books signed, I often find myself her prey on line…