Dinner For the Damned

By Abir

 

This week’s question: You’re hosting a dinner party. Which six characters from crime fiction are you inviting and why?

 

Dinner parties aren’t my forte, at least not preparing for them. Truth is, my culinary repertoire is limited to only a few dishes (though I do a mean salmon linguine and a also lamb curry which tastes good but isn’t going to win any prizes for presentation). Fortunately my wife is a fantastic host, so she does 97% of all the preparation and the cooking while I content myself with taking care of the alcohol and the entertaining, which often blend seamlessly into each other.

 

But ok, let’s run with this dinner party idea. At first, I thought about inviting some of my favourite detectives from crime fiction. This is pretty easy – there’d be Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther, Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko, and Robert Harris’ Xavier March for starters. You might spot a pattern emerging there. To them, I’d add Teodor Borlu and Lizybet Corwi from China Mieville’s classic, The City and The City, because they the cities where they work- Bezel and Ul Quoma – and the organisation they represent – Breach – are, in my opinion, some of the greatest literary constructs of modern fiction. I’m fascinated by the cities, and I’d love to read more about them. Finally, because we need six, why not Six herself? Nicola Six, from Martin Amis’ London Fields. Nicola is truly enigmatic. Right from the start of the novel, we know she’s going to die. The only questions are how and why. We could ask her about it over dessert.

 

But then I thought, why the good guys? If there’s something that unites the above, with the possible exception of Lizybet Corwi and Nicola Six, is that they are rather dour, brooding souls – hardly life and soul of the party material. And that’s the thing about much of crime fiction. The good guys are often quite lacking in social skills. They’d rather be dead than attend a dinner party. The bad guys, though…now they know how to have fun, and as the great American philosopher William Joel once said, ‘I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners have much more fun’.

 

So how’s about we invite a different crowd? How’s about we invite the villains? People who will appreciate my humour, and will probably be less judgemental about the look of my lamb curry.

 

I’ll have to set ground rules though. No serial killers and no cannibals. The first, because I don’t particularly want them knowing where I live, and the second because, what if the food’s crap? I have visions of Hannibal Lecter – a person who literally eats human flesh - turning their nose up at my mushroom risotto. I don’t think I could live with the shame.

 

So then, who’s coming to dinner?

 

First up: Justice Wargrave, from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. This is a man who essentially kills a bunch of folks at what might be termed his retiring party. Mad, yet avenging, angel of justice. I like his style.

 

Second: Tom Ripley, that most talented creation of Patricia Highsmith’s. What can I say, I’m a sucker for charming people. I’d make notes on everything he says.

 

Then there are two people coming as a pair, Professor Moriarty and Irene Adler, two of Sherlock Holmes’ greatest adversaries. Moriarty, I’m a bit scared of. I think he’s unhinged, so I might have to pay special attention to him. Maybe give him his own bowl of nibbles as he walk in the door.

 

Irene Adler, though. She’s the one who fascinates me. A villain whose intellect matches Holmes’ own, and who may also touch his heart. What an amazing person. I’m sitting next to her at the dinner table.

 

Next, and sitting on my other side, will be Helen Grayle (not that that’s her real name) from Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely. The archetypal femme fatale, she’s a bit two dimensional in the book, so it’d be nice to get to know the real woman.

 

Finally, and most interestingly for me, I’m going to go out on a limb and choose Estella from Dickens’ Great Expectations. I know it’s not a crime novel, but it’s my party and I decide who gets to come. Why Estella? Because of her effect on men? Because she’s been damaged? Possibly, but mainly because like Helen Gayle, she is a femme fatale – the flame around which men flock, then burn. I find women like that fascinating. I’d also put in a good word for Pip.

 

So there you go. My dinner party for the damned. And there’s an extra space at the table if you want to come.