By Joel Thurtell
I’m a fan of Sara Paretsky and her V.I Washawski private eye novels.
Hadn’t read Paretsky in years.
My wife brought the Warshawski detective novel, Blacklist, on our vacation to Canada. I read it, enjoyed it, and then found a copy of Paretsky’s first novel, Indemnity Only.
It’s a great read. I’m about halfway finished, and having trouble getting other things done. There’s painting, there’s organizing all the clutter at or around the dock at our cottage here in Georgian Bay. Sunfish sailboats, masts, anchors, anchor lines, gasoline jerricans, anchors, that swim ladder I can’t figure out how to attach to the dock, the flagpole I want to put up, anchors and a hundred other projects that seem to be adrift as I enjoy my way through this brash, funny, suspensful book.
But I have one bone to pick with Paretsky, and with other authors who try to write what is supposed to pass for newspaper prose to amplify and intensify their plots.
Paretsky, I believe, has a PhD in history. But I don’t believe she ever worked as a journalist.
It shows.
In her book Indemnity Only, Paretsky presents a newspaper report of a police action:
Police have arrested Donald Mackenzie of 4302 S. Ellis in the murder of banking heir Peter Thayer last Monday. Asst. Police Commissioner Tim Sullivan praised the men working on the case and said an arrest was made early Saturday morning when one of the residents of the apartment where Peter Thayer lived identified Mackenzie as a man seen hanging around the building several times recently. It is believed that Mackenzie, allegedly addicted to cocaine, entered the Thayer apartment on Monday, July 16, believing no one to be at home. When he found Peter Thayer eating breakfast in the kitchen, he lost his nerve and shot him. Commissioner Sullivan says the Browning automatic that fired the fatal bullet has not yet been traced but that police have every hope of recovering the weapon.
I won’t quibble about how the cops know the suspected murder weapon’s maker when they don’t have the weapon in hand. Presumably Chicago cops have ways of figuring out the manufacturer of a gun from either the bullet or the trail it left through the dead body. I doubt it, but that’s not my beef.
My complaint is that this passage, had it been published in the real world, could get its author and the newspaper in a peck of trouble.
You don’t have to go to J school to learn pretty quickly, if you work in a newsroom, that nothing about a homicide suspect gets published until a warrant is authorized. Usually, the suspect has to be arraigned before news media will publish the suspect’s name.
Why all the caution?
Well, what if the man or woman police suspect didn’t do it?
More to the point, what if the “suspect” is never charged?
In Paretsky’s case, Donald Mackenzie not only is tagged as a murder suspect, but he’s called a cocaine addict.
The story has libel stamped all over it.
Paretsky better hope Mackenzie is charged.
If not, her reporter and the newspaper could be in a jam.
Since the book was published in 1982 and is fiction anyway, Paretsky has nothing to worry about from the lawsuit angle.
But the passage, to me, is not believable.
Authors of any kind of fiction who concoct newspaper accounts ought to be aware that to be credible, to seem authentic, fictitious news reports need to follow the rules of good journalism. For instance, how could a reporter possibly write such a story and not include the suspect’s age? Another tip — leave the precise address out of the story. Just say the 4300-block of S. Ellis. It’s never wise to pinpoint crimes too precisely in case the address is in error or the entire account is laced with sloppy police accounting.
A cardinal rule of journalism is, Don’t commit libel.
Following from that come rules about how to report and write the story in ways that avoid lawsuits.
The problem for the writer of fiction is that those rules might get in the way of the murder mystery plot.
Putting that worry aside, here’s how Paretsky might have written her fake news report had she attended a workshop for fiction authors at Joel’s J School. My apologies, too, Sara, for translating the action to Detroit, a helluva lot more exciting news venue than stodgy ol’ Chicago. Why, we’ve got a mayor in jail.
A 42-year-old Chicago man was arraigned Saturday in Detroit’s 36th District Court on an open charge of murder in Monday’s slaying of 19-year-old banking heir Peter Thayer. Judge Ralph Schtungelmayer ordered a $100,000 bond and set the preliminary hearing for Oct. 6. Thayer’s body was found in the kitchen of his Chene Park apartment. According to Wayne County assistant prosecutor Portly Demeanor, Thayer died of a gunshot wound to the head. The murder weapon has not been found.
I’ve omitted the blarney from the police commissioner about how great a job the cops did. Best wait for the trial, if there is one, and see how well the police evidence holds up.
I’ve omitted the twaddle from a neighbor who supposedly saw Mackenzie “hanging around.” That kind of hearsay won’t get Mackenzie bound over for trial.
“Allegedly addicted to cocaine” is a no-no. “Allegedly” won’t save your butt if the guy says he’s not a cokehead. He isn’t being charged with drug abuse, and if he was, scuttlebutt alone wouldn’t convict him.
How does anybody know what Mackenzie “believed” about the victim being alone? Hearsay put him “hanging around” the building, but what evidence put him in the building and who crawled into his brain to mine out what he “believed”?
Ditto for “lost his nerve and shot him.”
Who says?
The problem for this whole passage is that it’s unlikely a prosecutor would have authorized a warrant of murder on such flimsy evidence.
But in the end, who cares?
Indemnity Only is a novel — and a very good one.
It’s a fun read.
I just hope that before she writes any more news reports, Sara Paretsky enrolls in one of our Joel’s J School seminars for authors on “Writing News For Fiction.”
Meanwhile, stay tuned for my essay on what journalists can learn from V.I. Warshawski.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
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