Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

If you’ve ever been to a place where you don’t speak the language, then you know how unsettling that can feel. That’s especially true if you get lost or have any kind of problem. Not speaking the language just makes a difficult situation worse. But that anxiety can add some interesting tension and suspense to a crime story, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we see it in the genre.

For instance, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, Mycroft Holmes asks his brother Sherlock for help with a strange case. A man named Melas was more or less abducted and required to translate for a group of kidnappers who were holding a man named Paul Katrides and a woman named Sophy. The kidnappers speak no Greek, and Paul and Sophy speak no English, but it soon became clear to Melas that there are some important papers involved. Since the kidnappers don’t speak Greek, Melas was able to include some questions in his conversation with Paul and Sophy, and he found out that the kidnappers wanted Katrides to sign over property belonging to Sophy (who, as it turns out, is his sister). He refused, and has been killed. Now, Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate to find out who exactly the kidnappers are and what has happened to them and to Sophy. In the end, they find out that justice, if you will, has caught up with the men who killed Katrides.

One of the main characters in Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia is Amy Leatheran, a trained hospital nurse. Dr. Eric Leidner has hired her to help look after his wife Louise, who’s been having severe fears and anxieties. For Nurse Leatheran, the position presents real culture shock. She’s only ever lived in England, and Leidner and his wife are on an archaeological dig a few hours from Baghdad. More than once in the novel, Amy mentions the language (that she doesn’t speak), and the different culture. It’s all at the same time exciting and anxiety-producing. And the tension ratchets up when Louise Leidner is murdered one afternoon. Hercule Poirot is in the area, on his way back to London, but he is persuaded to break his journey and find out who killed the victim and why. We learn that the motive for her murder was as much psychological as anything else.

In Cathy Ace’s The Corpse With the Silver Tongue, we are introduced to Cait Morgan, a Vancouver-based academic. When a colleague is injured in an accident, she takes his place at a conference in Nice. The presentation goes well, and she’s enjoying her time in Nice when she meets up with Alistair Townsend, a former employer. She never liked him, but he seems very happy to see her, and invites her to his wife Tamsin’s upcoming birthday party. Cait doesn’t really see a way to decline, so she grudgingly accepts. During the party, Townsend suddenly collapses and dies of what turns out to be poison. Since Cait was there, she is a ‘person of interest,’ especially when it comes out that she’s known the victim for a while. It’s a stressful situation that’s made more so by the fact that the investigation is being conducted in French. As Cait puts it, her French is ‘somewhat limited,’ so one of the officers interprets for her. Still, it’s awkward. If Cait is going to clear her name, she’s going to have to find some answers.

Shamini Flint’s A Calamitous Chinese Killing sees her protagonist, Inspector Singh of the Singapore police, in a new environment. Susan Tan is First Secretary at the Singapore Embassy in China. Her son Justin was recently murdered in what looks like a robbery gone wrong. The Chinese police claim that it was a tragedy, but not a premeditated murder. However, Susan doesn’t believe that’s what happened, and she’s heard of Singh’s reputation. So, she specifically requests that Singh travel to Beijing to investigate. Singh works with former police officer Li Jun, who is a local and who knows how things are done in Beijing. In this case, Singh is at a disadvantage because he doesn’t speak Mandarin Chinese. Although he is observant and learns quickly, Singh also doesn’t know the culture. So he relies more than he’d like on Li Jun, and doesn’t feel nearly as comfortable investigating as he would without a language barrier.

And then there’s Abir Mukharjee’s A Rising Man. It’s 1919, and Captain Sam Wyndham is a British police detective who’s just arrived at Kolkata/Calcutta to serve with the police force. No sooner has he settled in than Alexander MacAuley, head of Indian Civil Service (ICS) finance for Bengal, is murdered. His body is discovered in an alley, and there’s a note with it threatening the English. At first, the official explanation is that MacAuley was murdered by Indian independence activists. It’s a delicate matter, too, because the victim was a high-ranking person and the Powers That Be want answers. Wyndham, Sub-inspector John Digby and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee start the investigation. It’s sometimes a challenge for Wyndham because he doesn’t speak the local languages. Banerjee is very helpful in that regard (as he is in other novels in this series), but it all makes for awkwardness at times, and the investigation is impacted by the language issue.

It really can be unsettling to be in a situation where one doesn’t speak the language. And even if things go relatively smoothly, there can be a sense of unease. Perhaps that’s what adds to the tension when language gaps are woven into a story.

ps. The ‘photo was taken at one of my local grocery stores. Where I live, plenty of people don’t speak English (or not much). It’s very helpful to be bilingual here.

*NOTE: The title of this post is line from Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al.