with Ron and Janet Benrey
We are delighted to welcome back mystery authors Ron and Janet Benrey to Omnimystery News.
Ron and Janet visited with us last week, when we discussed their third Royal Tunbridge Wells mystery is A Jam of a Different Color (Greenbrier Book Company; November 2013 ebook format). We asked if they could return and tell us more about what elements they consider while crafting their stories, and they have titled their guest post for us today, "Three Cheers for Friendly Murderers".
— ♦ —
Photo provided courtesy of
Ron and Janet Benrey
When you read a cozy mystery, you typically encounter a "friendly murderer" — an upstanding citizen of the community, a well-mannered individual with an interesting career, and (often) a fascinating backstory. In short, the villain of the piece is the sort of person you'd be happy to invite to your home for a pleasant dinner.
Psychopaths, serial killers, and madmen (or madwomen) need not apply.
Friendly murderers are invariably driven by straightforward motives — greed, jealously, revenge, or self-protection — and typically commit relatively bloodless killings off-screen.
We like friendly murderers. We enjoy reading about them and we gravitate toward them when we write our cozies (although we consider our mystery novels more "traditional" in flavor than "cozy").
The alternative, of course, is the "nasty murderer," a perpetrator of horrific acts of violence and terror — sometimes without any discernable motive other than a lunatic desire to kill someone using the most gruesome method available.
This is the breed of antagonist who populates many of today's best-selling mysteries, thrillers, and crime novels. Their popularity proves that many (most?) readers enjoy reading about them. They also enjoy watching them, in the many television productions and movies that feature nasty murderers.
We think the increasing quantity of in-your-face blood, gore, and cruelty is driven by the need to keep increasing the stakes for readers and viewers who aren't satisfied by the puzzles posed by less violent mysteries.
We read and watch nasty-killer stories on occasion (if for no other reason than to stay current with the trends in mystery and crime fiction), although never as a prelude to falling asleep. We'll even admit to liking well-executed examples of the category in both novels and movies.
Nonetheless, we've never felt called to write a mystery starring a nasty murderer.
Our primary practical reason has to do with plot logistics. Nasty-killer novels usually fall into the "thriller" or "suspense" genres and address: "How was it done?" … "Will the killer get caught?" … and "Will the last victim be saved?" It's hard to do really gruesome fiction without showing the killer at work, which is difficult to achieve in the kind of "Who done it?" mysteries we author. (We think that the anonymous evildoer gets tedious after a few chapters.)
But when pressed for a better excuse, we say: "We'd rather not have those ugly images stuck in our heads."
People enjoy reading fiction because it creates what John Gardner dubbed "the fictional dream" — an out-of-body experience that transports a reader to different places, to different times, and into the lives of different people.
A decade ago, we ran into one of our readers at a mystery conference who said: "A novel stops entertaining me when my fictional dream turns into a fictional nightmare. Today's villains can be so loathsome that they become downright painful to contemplate."
After we agreed with her, we pointed out that the task of writing words that will build a vivid fictional dream in her head creates enduring images in our minds.
"We find those violent images even more painful than you do."
"Hah!" she said. "Now I know why Edgar Allan Poe was so weird."
At this point, her friend chimed in: "But isn't it a fact that lots of what you call "nasty murders" are committed for real each year? Shouldn't fiction writers mirror real life in their work? It seem so old fashioned — actually irrelevant — for Colonel Mustard to kill Miss Scarlet in the Garden with a wrench."
We hemmed and hawed at the time, but we've repeatedly thought about her observation over the years. We always reach the same conclusions:
Are friendly murders old fashioned? Possibly.
Are they irrelevant? No.
Those of us raised on the "golden agers" — Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Ross MacDonald, even Raymond Chandler — were introduced to "mostly friendly" murderers. They weren't consistently charming, but they weren't irredeemable monsters, either. (Many were less wicked than the victims they dispatched!) Nor did they pose an unrelenting threat. Consequently, the novels they inhabited could move at a relaxed pace that allowed readers to focus on other aspects of each story — including characterization, setting, and even English bell ringing.
Those of us who write cozy mysteries believe there are still many readers out there who find these things entertaining … who prefer to identify with an intriguing sleuth rather than a hopeless victim … who want to turn the last page secure in the knowledge that good has triumphed over easily understandable evil, that a Knight-like detective has restored the proper balance of things, achieved a tidy ending, and put right the world again.
Three cheers for friendly murderers.
— ♦ —
Ron and Janet Benrey write cozy mysteries together. They've written "The Pippa Hunnechurch Mysteries" and "The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mysteries" (both series are now published by Greenbrier Book Company), and the "Glory, North Carolina, Mysteries" (published by Harlequin).
Despite their literary togetherness, Ron and Janet have dissimilar backgrounds. Janet has been a literary agent, the editorial director of a small press, an executive recruiter, a book publicist, and—going way back—a professional photographer. Janet earned her degree in Communication (Magna cum Laude) from the University of Pittsburgh.
Ron has been a writer forever — initially on magazines (his first real job was Electronics Editor at Popular Science Magazine), then in corporations (he wrote speeches for senior executives), and then as a novelist. Over the years, Ron has authored ten non-fiction books, including Know Your Rights — a Survival Guide for Non-Lawyers (published by Sterling). Ron holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master's degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a juris doctor from the Duquesne University School of Law. He was a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Late in 2010, the Benreys launched Greenbrier Book Company, an eBook-centric publisher that also publishes some paper books. By the end of 2013, Greenbrier had more than 90 books "in print". Greenbrier's list includes dozens of mysteries and suspense novels.
For more about the authors, visit their website at Benrey.com. To learn more about Greenbrier Book Company, visit its website at GreenbrierBooks.com.
— ♦ —
A Jam of a Different Color
Ron and Janet Benrey
The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mysteries
Click on the Amazon button to see also the special Whispersync offer associated with this title.
