Book Review: The Girl Who Wasn't There (2013) by Ferdinand von Schirach

Crime fiction is often divided into two opposing camps: the noir and the cosy. The noir world is filled with vicious criminals, unspeakable crimes, gritty environments, forensic horrors, and detectives who are often only slightly less unpleasant than the criminals they're pursuing. The cosy universe has bloodless murders, charming and/or amusingly eccentric sleuths, leafy and pleasant locales, and killers who are often almost as nice as their pursuers. I'm coming to believe, however, that noir crime fiction is, in fact, as cosy as the crime novels featuring cats and spinsters and dead vicars. The dictionary defines "cosy" as something that provides a feeling of comfort, and comfort can be used to describe a pleasant routine.

A lot of noir fiction provides a comfortable routine for the reader. The crimes and criminals and settings of these novels may be harrowing, raw, and described in the most explicit terms, but there's a reliable routine to them: the detectives (private or official) will have their usual vices to contend with (booze, pills), they'll still be brooding over that great tragedy in their life (death of spouse/child), they'll have a brief affair with one or two attractive members of the opposite sex, and they'll spend some time name-checking their favourite musicians/books/films/single malt whiskies. And of course there will always be a sense of closure to each novel. The bad guy will be caught or killed, although the cost may be high and there'll probably be a sense that justice hasn't been completely served. Really, any crime fiction series with a recurring central character ends up becoming a "cosy."

There are, however, a few authors I'd describe as truly noir, and to separate them from the rest of the herd I'll call them writers of Brutalist noir. Like the architectural style I've poached the name from, writers such as Massimo Carlotto, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Dominique Manotti, and Pascal Garnier write novels that make no concessions to comfort. These writers specialize in characters and stories that are raw, blunt, and unsubtle in their purpose. Like your local unloved architectural landmark from the 1970s, the Brutalist noir novel stands out by being the literary equivalent of an eyesore. These writers get in your face, step on your toes, knee you in the groin, and they absolutely love to kick cats.

Toronto's ultra-Brutalist Robarts Library, also known as Fort Book

Ferdinand von Schirach has joined the Brutalist club. The Girl Who Wasn't There has some of the flavour of an Italian giallo film thanks to its main character, Sebastian, the slightly odd son of an upper class German family who becomes a famous photographer/installation artist and the only suspect in the apparent murder of a young woman. The heart of the novel is its depiction of Sebastian's upbringing by an unloving mother and a father obsessed with hunting. Schirach is ruthless in showing the flaws and peculiarities of this trio. It's typical of Brutalist writers that their attention to detail in characterization makes their characters almost wholly unlikable. Schirach & Co. seem to have discovered a truth, or at least believe, that all people, no matter how innocuous or benign on the surface, are in essence an aggregation of prejudices, fears, petty hatreds, and unsavoury habits.

Most of this short novel (slimness being another feature of Brutalist noir) is a character study of Sebastian and his parents. Once the focus shifts to the mystery element of the story, the novel suffers a bit from the introduction of Konrad Biegler, a defence lawyr who's brought in to represent Sebastian at his murder trial. Biegler is a rather conventional character (grumpy but brilliant lawyer) and his presence combined with a story resolution that's flat and confusing, left me a bit disappointed. The ending wasn't a deal breaker for me, but it keeps Schirach out of the top echelon of Brutalist noir writers.

Noir More Crime Fiction

He'd slap contemporary noir writers silly.

I used to read a fair amount of crime fiction. A lot, actually. In the last three or four years I've found myself reading less of it, and in the last year or so I find that the novels I give up on the soonest are crime novels. Just this week I had to throw in the towel on The White Road by John Connolly. Connolly sells a lot of books and collects some enthusiastic reviews, but he's not much of a writer. The White Road is a clumsy, sluggish mashup of the private eye genre allied with a whiff of Stephen King horror. Oddly, Connolly is an Irish writer who sets his crime novels in the US. I say oddly because based on the 200 or so pages I read, Connolly's knowledge of America has come entirely from occasional glances at CNN. I could forgive him for calling sneakers "trainers", but when he has three elderly rednecks sitting in a bar in the Deep South watching "a rerun of a classic hockey game" you have to wonder if he could actually find the US on a globe. But enough about Connolly; my real beef here is with crime fiction, particularly the writers, like Connolly, who are described as "noir".

In truth, publishers and critics use the term "noir" with the same promiscuity as the snack food industry uses "Cajun-style." It's a buzzword. Too often what it means are writers who follow a formula that's as trite and predictable as a cosy mystery featuring cats and vicars. One aspect of noir that really tires me out are detectives who are emotionally scarred by a) the tragic death of a wife and/or child, or b) a horrible crime from the past that they were unable to prevent and/or solve. And for some unlucky detectives options A and B are combined in one horrible event. Too often writers seem to think that going this route is a quick and easy way to give their protagonist depth and gravitas. Declan Hughes, Ken Bruen and Connolly all have detectives living with terrible memories, but none of these psychological scars seem convincing; it's all window dressing in the Noir Crime Shop.

The noir detective also needs to be a substance abuser to hold onto his street cred. In The Dying Breed by Declan Hughes his detective, Ed Loy, almost always has a glass in his hand. One reason I quit that book is that Ed's drinking became farcical: in the course of one day's investigation he sinks so much booze he should have ended up in a coma. It's at that point that one realizes the author isn't really paying attention to reality or logic, he's just playing the noir game. Fellow noirists like Bruen, Colin Bateman and Ray Banks also like to keep their detectives pickled and/or pilled up. As with personal tragedies, the drinking detective has come to feel like a paint-by-numbers way of creating a character.

Noir crime writers are also overly fond of letting us know what their detectives like to listen to. In the past few years I've read mysteries by Ken Bruen, Massimo Carlotto, and Gianfranco Carofiglio in which their detectives' musical preferences are regularly mentioned. It's a pedestrian way to build a character, and the worst part is that these Desert Island Discs moments always (for me) break down the fourth wall. I feel like I'm being buttonholed by the author for a bit of a natter about his favourite songs and artists. Not surprisingly, these detectives always have excellent taste in music. I blame Elmore Leonard. He introduced the idea of characters referencing their choices in music and movies, and after that the genie was out of the bottle. One of these days I'd like to see a mystery writer give us a brilliant detective with really horrible taste in music. How about a sleuth who only listens to ABBA and Slim Whitman?

The problem with some of today's noir writers is that they feel all aspects of their stories have to be dark and tragic, including their detectives. The detectives created by Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the original noir crime writers, weren't steeped in darkness. Those detectives were cynical, rough-edged and world-weary, yes, but it was their environment and job that was noir, not the detectives themselves. Part of what made them interesting as characters is that they were apart from the world they moved in. They had the psychic toughness to survive in that world, but they are observers of the noir world, not direct participants.

Now that I've vented, here are some writers who have a better idea of what constitutes noir crime writing. First up is Adrian McKinty, originally from Northern Ireland and now residing in Australia. His trilogy of crime novels featuring the roguish Michael Forsythe are fast, violent, nasty and written with a gleeful, feverish imagination. Most importantly, the Forsythe character steers clear of the usual noir tropes. He's funny, smart and has few regrets. McKinty's newest creation is Sean Duffy, a RUC cop in Belfast circa 1981. Duffy is the rarest kind of cop: he actually likes his work, and if drinks it's for the pleasure of drinking, not to drown sorrows.

Next up is Dominique Manotti, a French writer who specializes in gritty, sexy police procedurals that lay bare the corrupt inner workings of French high society. Manotti has a political axe to grind and she's not afraid to name names as she kicks the crap out of big business and the political elites. Her detective is Commissaire Daquin, who's tough, mean and enthusiastically gay. Manotti's got my vote as best current crime writer anywhere; I just wish she'd speed up her writing schedule.

And last we come to Mike Carey. Carey's detective is Felix Castor, and he's Philip Marlowe in everything but name. Here's the catch, though: Castor is an exorcist. The Castor novels are in the urban fantasy genre, but are, in fact, the best pure noir novels being written today. Castor investigates and battles demons and ghosts, but they might just as well be kidnappers or murderers; the language, the characters, the plotting, it's all pure, classic noir, and Casey's a vastly entertaining writer.

I'll keep plugging away at finding decent crime writers, but from now on if I see the word "noir" used in a blurb or review I'll be looking elsewhere.

Related posts:

Book Review: The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty
A Tale of Two Dominiques (an overview of Manotti's work)
Book Review: Thicker Than Water by Mike Carey

Book Review: Bandit Love (2009) by Massimo Carlotto

I'm a big fan of Massimo Carlotto, but Bandit Love is a mess. Carlotto is one of the better Italian crime writers, and knows more about the subject of crime than most writers thanks to having once been thrown in prison for a murder he didn't commit. His autobiographical novel about his ordeal, The Fugitive, is sensational, and his crime novels The Goodbye Kiss and The Master of Knots are lean, tough and gritty.

The problem with Bandit Love is that it's issue-driven. The issue is the corruption of Italian society from top to bottom and from side to side. In the Italy of Bandit Love everyone takes bribes, pays bribes, use drugs, sells drugs, hires illegal immigrants, or is an illegal immigrant. And while Carlotto obviously has a lot to say on this subject, he doesn't have a plot to carry his editorializing along for the ride. The story has "Alligator" (Carlotto's private eye character) helping a friend track down his kidnapped girlfriend. That story is wrapped up halfway through the novel and then Carlotto switches gears and we follow Alligator and his friends as they take revenge against the Serbian mafia boss responsible for kidnapping the woman. Both plots are lazily developed and generate zero tension.

Another sign that Carlotto really didn't have a coherent plan for this novel is that he has Alligator nattering on about jazz and blues, mentioning his favourite songs, and so on. Any time a crime writer has his main character making frequent commentaries about music, films, food or local history, you know the author's treading water because his plot is too thin. If Silvio "bunga-bunga" Berlusconi is any indication I can well believe that Italy is as rotten as it's depicted in Bandit Love, but whining and bitching about it isn't a good basis for a novel. Carlotto should take a look at Dominique Manotti, a French crime writer who effortlessly mixes political commentary with complex, fast-paced, violent plots.

Below is the trailer for Arrivederci Amore, Ciao, the film version of The Goodbye Kiss. The film's excellent, and even though the trailer isn't in English, it is available on DVD with English sub-titles.

A Tale of Two Dominiques

The downcast chap on the left is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the IMF, and this picture was taken just as he's being told that there's no maid service on Rikers Island. The Dominique on the right is also French, and her crime novels do a lot to expose the political, economic and sexual climate that produces the likes of a Strauss-Kahn.

Manotti is the author of The Lorraine Connection, Rough Trade, Affairs of State, Cop, and Dead Horsemeat. Her novels, which are usually set in the recent past, highlight the corruption and patronage at the upper crustiest levels of French society and business. She does this brilliantly, without being didactic or preachy, and even names names. I don't know anything about French libel laws, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that she's had angry avocats knocking at her door from time to time.

But Manotti isn't just a one trick pony. Her plotting is complex and layered, and unlike some crime writers who include a political angle to their work, Manotti isn't afraid to also pile on lots of action and sex (gay and straight). Her prose is muscular and, when need be, witty, and like any self-respecting French writer she's always game for a loving description of Paris or food.

Manotti's best work so far is Dead Horsemeat, the second of three novels featuring Inspector Daquin. Daquin is tough, honest, smart, quite willing to bust heads, and also ready to bend, even break, the law to get the job done. He's also openly and enthusiastically gay. In short, he blows all those moody Scandinavian police detectives out of the water.

Dead Horsemeat is about a cocaine smuggling ring that, in part, operates out of a Paris horse racing track and supplies well-heeled customers. There's actually a hell of a lot more plot than that, almost too much, so you'd better pay close attention and not put the book down for more than a day. Manotti keeps the action moving at lightning speed, and one of the highlights is the burning of a horse stable, which leads to the image of horses covered in flames racing through a woods at night. This isn't something Dick Francis' wife would write.

Some readers might not appreciate Manotti's politics (well left of centre), and others might just find her too ballsy and gritty, but right now I can't think of a contemporary crime writer who's her equal.