Cultural Mystery: One's Taboo Is Other's Custom

Mystery novels focus on the eternal conundrums of violence and justice, on solving the who, how and why behind legally and socially taboo acts--so we often assume a fundamental agreement on what is illegal or immoral. However, readers with an appetite for global mysteries need to be aware that one country's taboos can be another's customs. For example, polygamy is taboo in the United States (despite TV series on Mormon sister-wives), but Islamic cultures accept that a man can have up to four legal wives. Pedophilia is illegal and repugnant here, but child marriage and child prostitution are tolerated globally; in Greece, for example, pedophilia is defined as an "ailment" rather than a crime. Incest of the father-daughter, mother-son and brother-sister type is pretty much a universal no-no today, but laws on incest still vary within the United States when it comes to first-cousin marriage and even uncle-niece/aunt-nephew relationships. In the Netherlands, France and Spain, sex (as distinct from marriage) between consenting adults is legal no matter how closely related. Well, at least all societies agree that murder is wrong. Not really. Cultures differ by ignoring, condoning or punishing leniently homicides that the community has deemed justified: "Honor killings" in South Asia and the Middle East and "crimes of passion" in Latin America are examples. The "stand your ground" defense in some U.S. jurisdictions has sparked similar controversy and condemnation by human rights groups. For U.S. taboos that are considered acceptable in other countries, see http://www.buzzfeed.com/natgeo/lifestyles-that-are-taboo-in-the-us-but-are-okay-5n1c

Is It Time to Escape on a Foreign Mystery Tour?

As you emerge from winter's grip, it's time to plan for some fun travel -- and there's no cheaper way than a global mystery tour. Enjoy sunny piazzas, pyramids and pagodas with fascinating sleuths for company. If you're already addicted to bleak Scandinavian landscapes by Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, consider Norway's "Queen of Crime" Karin Fossum and Swedish master Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series. But then go sip white wine in a Paris café courtesy of one of the world's top-selling mystery writers, the late Georges Simenon, creator of the Commissaire Maigret mysteries. Add Italian zest with mystery fan favorites Andrea Camilleri, creator of Sicilian Inspector Montalbano, and Donna Leon, creator of Venice police detective Guido Brunetti. Best-selling Spanish novelist Arturo Perez-Severte can offer historical flair with his Diego Alatriste, a 17th century sword-wielding sleuth. Next leave Europe and go East. Sample Japanese Keigo Higashino's The Devotion of Suspect X, a 2012 Edgar Award nominee, and Qiu Xiaolong's series about poetry-spouting Shanghai detective Chen Cao, including Death of a Red Heroine, an Anthony Award winner for first novel. Fly over the Taj Mahal and land with Kishwar Desai's award-winning Witness the Night, featuring Punjab social-worker-cum-crime investigator Simran Singh. Visit Africa with the Botswana-based Detective Kubu series by Michael Stanley (alias of a duo of South African professors). Finally, come back to the Americas and go south with acclaimed psychological thriller The Book of Murder by Argentina's Guillermo Martinez. And that's a very abbreviated world tour of great mysteries! For a much longer list by geography, go to http://www.mysterylovers.com/books/book_clubs/foreign.php

Foreshadowing: A Key Mystery Writing Tool

Foreshadowing is an important literary technique in all fiction, but it is especially useful in mystery writing. Foreshadowing hints at events to come and piques reader interest. It can create a mood of foreboding and dread, build suspense by aligning details to make the reader anticipate a climax, and advance the plot by linking present to future or past events and by planting clues that will be significant later. Foreshadowing can also be used to deliberately mislead the reader to create a surprise solution or culmination. Here are some foreshadowing examples: 1) the pre-scene anticipating a more spectacular scene (brief turbulence for an airplane flying into big trouble); 2) the unsubtle warning ("The weather was going to be bad, but he didn't know how bad."); 3) the irrational concern (Where's that misplaced letter opener? With the killer, of course.); 4) the unexplained apprehension (Why is he so nervous?); 5) the blunt narrator statement ("It was the last time he would see her."); 6) the ominous object (or "Chekhov's gun" after the Russian playwright's use of a seemingly irrelevant loaded gun to foreshadow events); 7) a character's opinion ("I think he's hiding something," said the detective.); 8) premonition or prophecy (when that creepy fortune-teller sees danger ahead); 9) symbolism (storm clouds on the horizon and a dead bird on the porch); 10) the red herring (a favorite device in Sherlock Holmes stories to misdirect reader suspicion); and 11) the flash-forward or flash-back (a jump in the timeline that builds suspense because the complete context and connection are unclear). For a useful article covering many of the examples above, go to http://www.novel-writing-help.com/examples-of-foreshadowing.html

Great Travel Writing Offers an Inner Journey

I am currently traveling in India. As I sat in a rocking train, reading Indian author Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, I began to think about how talented writers have informed my appreciation and understanding of foreign places, or helped me to rediscover domestic places. Now travel literature is an old genre, including the travel journals of ancient Greek tourists, medieval Arab raconteurs, Song Dynasty Chinese classics, and Captain James Cook's best-selling diaries. Among more contemporary U.S. writers, William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, John Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie, Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, and Cheryl Strayed's recent Wild stand out for me. Travel writing can also be fictional, although based on real journeys, such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Personally, John Berendt's City of Falling Angels was fascinating preparation for a visit to Venice, Italy, and Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze provided great insight during a recent trip to China. What makes great travel literature stand out? It is not just about the physical journey, although vivid descriptions of natural and man-made sights are important. A really good tale reveals the culture and history of a place on a living, human scale in a way monuments and vistas cannot. It also reveals the inner journey of the writer and takes us along to our own insights about leaving home, about being a stranger in strange lands, about confronting new experiences, ideas and lifestyles. At the end of travels together, author and reader will share some truths about the variety and universality of the human adventure. So, if you are planning a trip, don't just get the maps and guidebooks, look for insights from authors who've blazed the trail. You can start with a Condé Nast Traveler selection of the best travel fiction at http://www.cntraveler.com/features/2008/11/The-69-Greatest-Fiction-Travel-Books-of-All-Time