Eight Perfect Murders(4)
“Eight Perfect Murders” was the first piece I wrote for the Old Devils blog. John Haley, my new boss, had asked me to write a list of my favorite mystery novels, but instead I pitched the idea of writing a list of perfect murders in crime fiction. I don’t exactly know why I was reluctant to share my favorite books yet, but I remember thinking that writing about perfect murders might generate more traffic. This was right around the time that several blogs were taking off, making their authors rich and famous. I remember someone doing a blog about making one of Julia Child’s recipes every day that was turned into a book, and maybe even a movie. I think I must have had some delusions of grandeur that my blog platform might turn me into a public and trusted aficionado of crime fiction. Claire added fuel to the fire by telling me repeatedly that she thought this blog could really blow up, that I’d find my calling—a literary critic of crime fiction. The truth was that I’d already found my calling, at least I thought I had, and I was a bookseller, content with the hundreds of minute interactions that make up a bookseller’s daily life. And what I loved most of all was to read—that was my true calling.
Despite this, I somehow began to see my “Perfect Murders” piece—not yet written—as more important than it really was. I’d be setting the tone for the blog, announcing myself to the world. I wanted it to be flawless, not just the writing, but the list itself. The books should be a mix of the well known and the obscure. The golden age should be represented, but there should also be a contemporary novel. For days on end, I sweated it out, tinkering with the list, adding titles, subtracting titles, researching books I hadn’t yet read. I think the only reason I ever actually finished was because John started to grumble that I hadn’t published anything on the blog yet. “It’s a blog,” he’d said. “Just write a list of goddamn books and post it. You’re not getting graded.”
The post went up, appropriately enough, on Halloween. Reading it now makes me cringe a little. It’s overwritten, even pretentious at times. I can practically taste the need for approval. This is what was eventually posted:
Eight Perfect Murders
by Malcolm Kershaw
In the immortal words of Teddy Lewis in Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan’s underrated neo-noir from 1981: “Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you’re gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you’re a genius . . . and you ain’t no genius.” True words, yet the history of crime fiction is littered with criminals, mostly dead or incarcerated, who all attempted the near impossible: the perfect crime. And many of them attempted the ultimate perfect crime, that being murder.
The following are my choices for the cleverest, the most ingenious, the most foolproof (if there is such a thing) murders in crime fiction history. These are not my favorite books in the genre, nor do I claim these are the best. They are simply the ones in which the murderer comes closest to realizing that platonic ideal of a perfect murder.
So here it is, a personal list of “perfect murders.” I’ll warn you in advance that while I try to avoid major spoilers, I wasn’t one hundred percent successful. If you haven’t read one of these books, and want to go in cold, I suggest reading the book first, and my list second.
The Red House Mystery (1922) by A. A. Milne
Long before Alan Alexander Milne created his lasting legacy—Winnie-the-Pooh, in case you hadn’t heard—he wrote one perfect crime novel. It’s a country house mystery; a long-lost brother suddenly appears to ask Mark Ablett for money. A gun goes off in a locked room, and the brother is killed. Mark Ablett disappears. There is some preposterous trickery in this book—including characters in disguise, and a secret passage—but the basic fundamentals behind the murderer’s plan are extremely shrewd.
Malice Aforethought (1931) by Anthony Berkeley Cox
Famous for being the first “inverted” crime novel (we know who the murderer and victim are on the very first page), this is essentially a case study in how to poison your wife and get away with it. It helps, of course, that the murderer is a country physician with access to lethal drugs. His insufferable wife is merely his first victim, because once you commit a perfect murder, the temptation is to try another one.
The A.B.C. Murders (1936) by Agatha Christie
Poirot is investigating a “madman” who, it appears, is alphabetically obsessed, killing off Alice Ascher in Andover followed by Betty Barnard in Bexhill. Etcetera. This is the textbook example of hiding one specific premeditated murder among a host of others, hoping that the detectives will suspect the work of a lunatic.
Double Indemnity (1943) by James M. Cain
This is my favorite Cain, mostly because of the grim fatalistic ending. But the murder at the center of the book—an insurance agent plots with femme fatale Phyllis Nirdlinger to off her husband—is brilliantly executed. It’s a classic staged murder; the husband is killed in a car then placed on the train tracks to make it look as though he fell off the smoking car at the rear of the train. Walter Huff, her insurance agent lover, impersonates the husband on the train, ensuring that witnesses will attest to the murdered man’s presence.
Strangers on a Train (1950) by Patricia Highsmith