I felt it was about time to discover some female authors in
the crime genre. My pick was none other than Mrs. Ross MacDonald. I’ve read
several Ross MacDonald books and I’ve always enjoyed his stories that centered
on fractured families and maintaining an air of normalcy within the ideas of socially
acceptable society. Drawn to that subject matter and intrigued by the plot
synopsis on the back of the book, I decided Millar’s A Stranger in my Grave
would be the perfect introduction to the feminine side of the crime genre.
Originally published in 1960, Stranger in my Grave revolves
around housewife Daisy Harker’s vivid dream of visiting her own grave at a
quaint seaside cemetery marked with her death dated four years ago. What’s
troubling about the dream is that Daisy can’t quite place the significance of
the grave or the date. Daisy’s family matters seem to play a crucial role in
her lack of happiness and unease. Distanced from her well to do husband, Jim,
after the discovery of her inability to bear children and irritated by her
meddlesome live-in mother who claims that her dreams are unsubstantiated, Daisy
also copes with a mostly absent alcoholic father whose hand perpetually extends
for handouts and who literally disappears and reappears as any situation dictates.
After a bail bondsman/private detective, Pinata, contacts
Daisy to bail her father out of jail, Daisy hires him to piece together the
date from her dream that’s etched onto her tombstone. Together they begin an investigation
of Daisy’s past with literally no bank accounts, records, or firm memories of
where to start. Is Daisy having a memory? Is Daisy having a premonition or a
ghostly flashback? Eventually, the seaside cemetery from the dream offers the
pair the first clue to the mystery when they find Daisy’s tombstone marked with
the name Carlos Camilla. An elderly man that police records indicate committed suicide
on that date. As the story unfolds, Daisy discovers a payoff that her husband
has obscured for four years and her father has a connection to a Hispanic woman
that Daisy once helped at the clinic where she worked precisely four years ago.
Slowly the story’s plot mechanisms begin to turn and build into
a grand crescendo that mixes the fractured family histories into an intriguing crime
story. Margaret Millar’s story telling is superb. I felt like the author was
using the tropes of the Sentimental novel as a springboard cranking it sideways
and stuffing it into a mystery novel. It works very well at a slow burn pace. I
will say that the twist ending wraps up all the story threads very nicely. Millar,
and her husband, MacDonald, excel at these family stories that feature families
that use a façade of happiness or normalcy to mask their misfortunes to
society. The crucial piece to understand is that all families have something
swept under the carpet or hidden in the closets somewhere.
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