I have written before about Doctor Ruth Galloway, the most delightful and beautifully written character in the detective novels by Elly Griffiths, all set on the Norfolk coast. I have talked to several others who have read all the books and love them as I do. (I think there is a carefully defined difference between a crime novel and a detective novel but I am not absolutely sure what it is.)
However, it is always interesting to find a new character that you grow to care about and Harbinder Kaur is one such and she is the star of both the above titles. This time we are on the south coast rather than in East Anglia, mainly in Shoreham, near Hove and Brighton in Sussex. Harbinder is a detective sergeant and with her police partner Neil she solves a variety of convoluted crimes which in both books have a bookish theme with plenty of literary allusions. As before in an Elly Griffiths book, it is the thoughts of the main characters that make the novel so engaging and appealing.
The plot is expertly and deftly handled but in all honesty it is the character development that makes me enjoy these books. Elly Griffiths writes rounded, real characters. She gets to know them deeply so that then we can too.
The author notes in her acknowledgements that she carefully researched the possible background of Harbinder Kaur, a gay, Sikh, young woman in the police force in Sussex. Stereotypical assumptions are made by some characters and we are shown in the stories how Harbinder deals with these and what she thinks but is not prepared to say. It makes for many interesting scenarios.
In the first book, The Stranger Diaries, English teacher Clare’s friend has just been found murdered. Beside the body is a line from a story by a Gothic writer whose work is taught in the school. The book is genuinely creepy in the style of all Gothic stories. I had no idea what was going to happen next and it was dark! To counter this, sometimes the dialogue and the thoughts of particularly Clare, Harbinder and Georgie, Clare’s daughter, are very funny indeed, sometimes laugh out loud funny. The acuity of the writing shows that Elly Griffiths has had a teenage daughter herself.
The Postscript Murders is set mainly within a seaside block of flats for retired people. We are introduced to further characters, all lively and interesting in their own way: a young guy who was a monk who now runs a coffee shack on the beach, a retiree who used to produce religious programmes for Radio 4 and a glamorous Ukrainian carer who seems to have a past full of shady secrets. People start to die. Is this murder? Harbinder is on the case.
Of the various comments in the blurb, the Times reviewer has it just about right when he/she writes: ‘a light-hearted, life-affirming celebration of crime fiction and the colourful characters that create it…such witty and charming entertainment.’ Quite so.
There is a third Harbinder Kaur story: ‘Bleeding Heart Yard.’ It comes out in paperback in April and I shall wait until then to buy and read it. My Elly Griffiths bookshelf is a beautifully neat line of paperbacks. A hardback stuck in the middle just wouldn’t work.