I’m a junkie for competence porn. I used to think my fetish started with the creation of MacGyver, whose name is now synonymous with the genre. But it goes back much earlier than that. Columbo, with his bumbling shtick that covers up a steel-trap truth processor. Sherlock Holmes, the ultimate know-it-all. CSI began as science-is-everything competence porn. If the premise of any story is that the detectives and investigators are smart, inventive and know what they’re doing, I’m there. Now more than ever, with facts of science under siege, and ignorance coupled with brute strength held up as virtue, I find myself turning to mysteries, again and again, for stories of competence. Facts. Deduction based on evidence. Even better, competence that leads to justice. Mysteries are where evil is punished, and smart, not always rich or beautiful, people rule. The LGBTQ community lives again in a world under siege, where county clerks and bakers can deliver deaths of a thousand paper cuts to our rights. Our entire community has a profound craving for answers in the unsolved disappearances and murders of gay, bi and transgender people. We yearn for justice, in the here and now. Any good mystery novel brings answers to hard questions, and usually at the hands of a competent investigator. Our story heroes may be broken and themselves a quagmire of conflicts. But their goal is securing truth and justice usually on behalf of another. It’s Karma in action, between the covers of a book. And when that competent investigator draws on facts as well as insight into human nature, it’s a winner for me. Give me stories from Jean Redmann, Erica Abbott, Ellen Hart, Sarah Drehera! My To Be Read stack includes so many more. Take your pick because the range and selection is fabulous these days. Perhaps its sacrilegious coming from me, but a love story inside a mystery is totally optional. I don’t have to fall in love with my justice heroes, and they can be antisocial loners. Doesn’t matter. It’s the mystery storyline that promises me I will get angry and sad, my heart will pound and there will be justice in the world by the end. Relax, The Women are in Charge In decades past, mysteries tended to be very male, and a lot of them were really awful to their women characters. Many female characters ended up dead or helpless fodder to prove the hero’s bravery. Then they were bedded and discarded by the next book. Spy novels a la James Bond, are a kind of competence porn, after all. A notable exception to the use of women as dead-body wallpaper are the horse-world based mysteries of the late Dick Francis. The novels abound with respectfully treated love interests who often bring the missing deductive puzzle piece to the party and rarely need to be rescued. With the rise of women in print, lady sleuths emerged, bringing with them stories of justice for women and victimized communities. Finally, mysteries that passed the Bechdel Test! Many of my favorite series have accompanied me on long drives as audio books, making me loathe to ever turn off the car, like The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, The Bernadette Manuelito (Leaphorn and Chee) Series by Anne Hillerman, and The Mary Russell Series by Laurie R. King. Bad people get caught. Justice, not always jail time, is dispensed. The Truth is Everything Inside a great mystery story is world where unearthing the truth is everything. This was true in one of the first lesbian mysteries I ever read, Murder at the Nightwood Bar by Katherine V. Forrest. It’s the power of Kate Delafield’s reasoning, her careful attention to detail, and ability to see people through the lens of facts that leads her to a surprising conclusion. What Kate knows is truth and the justice she serves sustains her, and us, after confronting the inhumanity of hatred and abuse. Ultimately, stories like these give me comfort because I know when writers create characters they are drawing on models in real life. Our real world is filled with every day competent people. Our news of late is filled with unlikely first responders: data geeks and lawyers with laptops using their competence and commitment to serve the cause of justice. I read mysteries because I believe the words I repeated in school in my youth: And justice for all. Karin Kallmaker has been exclusively devoted to lesbian fiction since the publication of her first novel by Naiad Press in 1989. In addition to multiple Lambda Literary Awards, she has won the Ann Bannon Popular Choice, multiple Goldies and has been selected as a Trailblazer by the Golden Crown Literary Society. Her latest novel is Captain of Industry from Bella Books. The California native is the mother of two and blogs at Romance and Chocolate. Search on social media for “Kallmaker” – there’s only one. Everything you wanted to know about any of her stories is right here: https://kallmaker.com/allabout/ http://dlvr.it/NNkLBt
