Where’s The Body?
Terry Odell
I write a small town police procedural series that readers have said “has a cozy feel.” I’m not big on traditional thrillers (defined as a suspense with consequences of global proportions), or psychological suspense, or serial killers—probably because I burned out on them the year I judged the Edgars, and I don’t think I’ve fully recovered.
So, here I am in the 7th novel in my Mapleton Mystery series. Book 1, Deadly Secrets, revolved around a new and reluctant chief of police faced with solving the first homicide in the town’s collective memory. Avoiding the Jessica Fletcher/Cabot Cove syndrome became my challenge as I continued through the series. I had a cold case, homicides discovered while my character was outside of Mapleton, another case when the victim wasn’t a Mapleton citizen. With the current WIP, currently approaching the 35K mark, I realize I have yet to have a homicide. The story begins when someone sets off an IED in the protagonist’s house and subsequently disappears. It’s an arson investigation. There are personal connections between the arsonist and the protagonist, but I don’t have a body yet. Will I? Should I? What happens if I don’t?
Maybe it’s because I learned to love mystery with Sherlock Holmes, and I’m sure he solved a lot of puzzles where nobody died.
My question to you TKZers: Is a dead body critical to a book that’s going to end up on the mystery “shelf” in bookstores? There are plenty of crimes that aren’t homicides, but why is the focus on a mystery always the murder victim?
Floor is open.
Note: This is a short post because the Covid virus has invaded the Odell household. The Hubster swore it was “just a head cold” and didn’t take my “suggestion” to test until two days later. Meanwhile, we’d been going about our normal, relatively isolated rural lives, so we still have no idea where we contracted the disease. Fortunately, we’re both fully vaccinated and boosted, so our symptoms have been mild. But the old brain isn’t making all the connections, most notably with the fingers.
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Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
Another option is the missing and presumed dead person, who turns out to be alive. Or the person(s) who has/have been poisoned and won’t survive, but dies “off-stage,” after the book ends. The stakes involved in any book are important. But it’s hard to imagine stakes higher than a human life. Stakes involving the lives of many are more like thrillers than mysteries. I might be entertained by a missing inheritance, upwards of seven figures, complete with cryptic messages and a crypt or two, the Faversham pearls, a dire need to recapture the treasure, and a pretty girl.
Thanks, JG – yes, there’s a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a person (once close to the protag). Whether she shows up dead or alive has yet to be determined.
Can it be a death that’s not a crime, but leads to the revelation of secrets? Second families and children out of wedlock often don’t get found out until the funeral or, now, the genealogy chart put together by a stranger.
Or a person sworn not to reveal something until someone else dies, leading to a rearrangement of lives?
Life is full of these little ‘missteps.’
Thanks, Alicia – Appreciate your input. I like puzzles more than mayhem, I guess.
I love this line. It can go in so many directions. The picture over the mantel that has been there for years. What does that note say taped to the back?
How did Uncle James become wealthy? When you break down a household, you find the secrets.
I knew my aunt had a husband I never met. About a month ago I found the notes my mother uses for her family tree project. My aunt had a first husband. I never knew about him at all.
And why did my mother, who came to the states as a young child to escape Hitler, have a tin box filled with stamps from the Third Reich?
Or strange bequests from the deceased’s estate that ultimately lead to a complex murder plot. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Terry, hope you and your family recover quickly w/o any lingering long haul symptoms.
As J says, the highest stakes are human lives. In your arson scenario, someone *could* have died so the stakes are high enough to be interesting.
But dead bodies aren’t mandatory if the mystery is satisfying in other ways–a challenging puzzle or a clever caper.
The threat of death also works–a kidnapping, a stalker, a ticking clock.
Thanks, Debbie – we’re feeling better, and hoping there aren’t any lingering aftereffects. I’m wondering if I’ve got Covid brain or Aging brain.
Threats and stakes work for me as a reader, but reader expectations vary.
Whatever the crime, the stakes have to be high. Not just for the suspect(s), but for the protagonist. What if your guy can’t solve the crime? In real life, of course, crimes go unsolved all the time and heads rarely roll at the PD because a case goes cold. But your readers will want your hero to solve it. Readers have a habit of demanding justice in their books, probably because it seems we have too little of it in real life.
Yes, David. Very true. Leave a crime unsolved and that’s probably the last book your readers will read.
Hmm…the mysteries I’ve read (regular mystery, I’m not sure I’ve ready anything in the cozy category) all have dead bodies. I don’t think they necessarily have to have a body, but the story problem would need to be really compelling.
Where my brain jumped when I read your example of the arson investigation is: what other investigation was the perpetrator trying to cover up by using the IED?
Thanks, BK – yes, it seems most readers equate “mystery” with “murder mystery” but I can’t be killing off the entire population of Mapleton just to meet those expectations. The next question becomes, how far into the story can the body appear?
The mystery could surround the arson. I don’t think you need a dead body if the mystery is compelling enough. Hope you and yours feel better soon.
Thanks, Sue. I’ve had colds worse than this, but the fact that it’s “Covid” with all the unknowns hangs over our heads. I guess I’ll find out how compelling the story is once I write it. 🙂
Even if nobody dies physically, there should be a possibility that it could happen. Further, some form of death– physical, psychological, professional–needs to be overhanging the proceedings. Otherwise readers are simply not going to care as much as they could.
In perhaps the greatest mystery of all time, Rebecca, what’s at stake is the psychological survival of the “second Mrs. de Winter.” The death of the first Mrs. de Winter, before the story begins, is there mainly to offer the “twist.”
Confession: I have yet to read Rebecca. Another confession: the opening line didn’t do anything for me.
And there’s a LOT of those other kinds of death you so often mention in this story, so maybe it’ll come together with or without a homicide.
I think I have to agree with Jim that some “form” of death is necessary to give a mystery its life. When I read a good mystery of thriller (soft or hardboiled) I respond most to a human element — I need someone dead to care about so I can care about how the heroine solves this or brings justice. I snooze out on stories about saving the environment, financial intrigue or pure courtroom dramas. So I would wonder about arson being the only thing to care about.
First thing I thought of, given your arson scenario, is that the devastation of the fire was so complete that it revealed an old skeleton maybe secreted below the floorboards and long ago forgotten. 🙂
Hope you recover okay. Everyone in my France travel party caught what we called the Cold From Hell. We all tested negative but it wasn’t a mere cold. I came home with a painful ear infection and four weeks later, my ears are still plugged up and I am on a waiting list to see my ENT. Feel better!!!
Thanks, Kris, and hope you feel better soon, too. I can still smell and taste (verified with frequent tests of chocolate), so not too bad.
Terry, I hope you and your husband recover quickly.
Great question for this discussion. I’ve struggled with that one myself, and it is good to read everyone’s thoughts and advice. You have had many excellent answers to the question, and I don’t think I have anything else to add. It would seem that the principle goal is that the stakes are high enough to capture and keep the reader’s interest.
Thanks, Steve. I agree, it’s about the stakes, and making them matter to the characters.
Terry, I agree with Sue that the mystery could “surround” the arson. What if she learns that there was another arson, in another town with a similar circumstances, and that someone died in that town? Or they didn’t, but they survived and moved to Mapleton, and someone is still trying to kill them. If there’s a looming threat of another arson in Mapleton, then the stakes are even higher.
Or, the arson is for another, compelling reason, but like Jim said, something centered on one of the other “deaths” he mentioned.
I hope you and your husband recover quickly. FWIW, my wonderful parents-in-law both contracted Covid in August and Paxlovid helped them recover quickly and without complications.
Thanks, Dale – there are always ‘threats’ that don’t have to involve a homicide, I think. The arsonist wasn’t 100% successful. Will he come back? He seems to have vanished. Where is he? Also (something I learned while researching — at least in Colorado–insurance companies will not pay claims if the cause is arson, so there are financial stakes in there, too.
Sorry to hear about the Covid diagnosis, Terry. I hope you and your husband fully recover.
I don’t think it’s essential to have a dead body in a mystery. There are other things that can set up the quest for truth (e.g., missing person, major theft, kidnapping). For me, the real question is how to get the reader so absorbed in trying to solve the mystery that they’ll keep turning the pages. A dead body always helps in that regard. 🙂
Thanks, Kay. And you’ve made me think — “a dead body helps keep the reader absorbed” … could that be construed as using a dead body as a ‘crutch’? 🙂
“could that be construed as using a dead body as a ‘crutch’?” — Trying not to see that in my mind’s eye. 🙂
I read a novel recently by a well-known author where dead bodies were turning up on every other page. I got the feeling that every time the author got stuck for an idea, he/she threw in a dead body. I got bored with all the repetition, but I did finish the book.
I’ve often seen the “advice” that to get through the muddle in the middle, one should throw in another body. I agree that unless it’s properly set up, it will look like a way to get around being stuck.
I hope you all feel better soon and have no lingering side effects.
Nancy Atherton’s “Aunt Dimity” series started out as British cozies. The first books were murder mysteries, then the author said to heck with it and no one died. The mysteries revolve around people with mysterious secrets that the heroine and other other well-meaning snoops in town have to figure out to “fix” that person’s life or reputation. Apparently, readers didn’t care there is no body count because they are still being published and are declared bestsellers on their covers.
Paranormal cozies often don’t have bodies. They are more often “what the heck is happening” mysteries with lots of baked goods and talking cats.
Ah, I’m missing a cat, talking or otherwise!
Thanks, Marilynn – all good points. How many of us are actually involved with/connected to homicides?
The threat of something happening to one of your Mapleton protagonists would be enough to keep me reading!
Have you found your attention span is much shorter? I know mine is and all I had was the flu.
Thanks, Patricia. Glad you have a vested interested in the Mapleton gang.
My attention span/short term memory issues don’t seem much different, although I attribute a lot of that to old brain. It’s the typing that’s driving me nuts–and no telling whether I can blame that on Covid.
Wishing you and your husband a quick recovery! My husband and I went through the Covid thing in the fall of 2020. My husband was taken from his doctor’s office to the ER in an ambulance. None of the doctors would give me a percentage guess of his chances of survival. After ten days in the hospital, he recovered and so far, doesn’t seem to have no lasting after affects. I only had cold symptoms. So glad to hear your symptoms are mild, relatively speaking.
I tried writing a cozy for a friend who couldn’t hand the intense emotions of my thrillers. I made it to chapter ten before the body showed up. But it was an off-scene incident, part of the mystery but not the main reason for the mystery. It was fun to write the lighter story, but I’m not sure I could pull it off again. However, your premise sounds like it could easily sway either direction and still retain the reader’s interest. I enjoy all your books and I’m sure I’ll like this one too whether it has body or not. 🙂
Typos! I can’t seem to find them even after reading my post several times. Not until I push publish do they glare at me. Good thing I have a good editor for my books!
Thanks, Cecelia, and glad you enjoy my books.
I think the Hubster and I are fortunate we managed to avoid the virus until now, when there are better precautions.
When I got back from our anniversary trip to the UK, I thought I could write a ‘quick, happy romance’ (to help offset the cost of the trip), but it turned into a mystery. The characters insisted.
They can get bossy, can’t they? I once had a supporting character which I thought would play a minor role. She argued for a POV and got it. Sigh. What’s an author to do? 😉
I’ve had to give them their own books.
I ‘ve read a lot of mysteries and enjoy one that’s not a murder in part because it’s less predictable. I like the mystery formula but it can clank a little too loud on occasion. I wrote a mystery with no murder, but someone was shot, survived and pretended it was due to a robbery by a stranger. Maybe your arson is a cover for a completely different crime, whether murderous or not.
Thanks, Leann. The motive behind the arson has not, as of yet, been revealed.
There was a very interesting thread on buzzfeed about family secrets not too long ago. Well worth a lookup. This also ties in well with the theme of a silent child who sees everything and hears everything.
I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the lead.
If it were my story, a murder would be optional, but I’d want at least one body anyway. A grave robbery, for preference, because I haven’t stolen any riffs from Tom Sawyer recently. Also, it segues nicely into every idiot in town coming up with red herrings trying to tie the two together, such a zombie scare if you like the ol’ Scooby-Doo vibe.
True. Bodies don’t necessarily mean murders. I might be taking it too easy on my characters recently. I blame it on the state of the world these days and don’t like dealing with more frustration. I probably should have gone with a romantic suspense for my next book, but Gordon and Angie had some unfinished business after the last Mapleton.