Crime fiction has always been predominantly a man’s genre. From Conan Doyle’s creation of Sherlock Holmes in 1887, to the most recent writers of the twenty-first century, crime has been deemed a man’s area of expertise, despite the few successful female writers such as Agatha Christie and P.D. James. Law enforcement agencies have socially and traditionally been viewed as a male dominated arena. Police are the most visible representatives of social order. As a closed system with women in the minority, it is rare to reach the depths of the organisation. For women to write about crime is a breach of the security and inner sanctum of the male investigation.
Men have set out the typical structure, designed the conventional endings, and created the murderous characters. In a way, male writers have done women a favour as their formulaic conventions have set up expectations in the reader, which the female author can exploit and vary. Patricia Cornwell’s series centring on the main female protagonist, Doctor Kay Scarpetta, is part of a strong counter-tradition in crime invention, borrowing familiar detective fiction features and turning them upside down: ‘writers of female detective fiction, whether feminist or not, are inevitably involved in changing the myth of the traditional detective’ (Anne Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction, 144). Her crime fiction series aids the progression of feminist crime writing, challenging the legends of predictable crime detection by incorporating new and old elements.In analysing Cornwell’s work, one encounters a range of representations of women, from the strong women who fiercely resist the violent, psychotic criminals, to the opposing murderous women who resent justice, the FBI, and Scarpetta. In the main characters I am investigating here one sees three quite different forms of female power and self-assertion: one of the women discussed, Jaime Berger, is a female prosecutor whose role in many respects parallels that of Scarpetta herself; the other two are women who threaten the established order, the diagnosed, psychologically deranged mother figure (Denesa Steiner) and, in the final section, the violent entity of a computer genius and psychopath (Carrie Grethen).
The Pathological Liar in The Body Farm
Denesa Steiner typifies the beautiful, charismatic, yet murderous, femme fatale. Denesa is never seen as a suspect in her daughter, Emily’s, murder, fooling the police force and Scarpetta. Female emotions appear to create a great barrier of deceit, and the male police officers are unsuspicious of the mother figure, prejudiced against her for being a woman and a mother: ‘Criminality is still assumed to be a masculine attribute and women criminals are therefore perceived to be either “not women” or “not criminals”’ (Anne Worrall, Offending Women, Female Lawbreakers and the Criminal Justice System, 31). The diagnosis of a psychological condition, Munchausen’s by proxy, removes from Denesa the intent to kill, and implies that she had no control over her actions, thus making her no longer a criminal, but a sick woman.The timid, melancholy outer layer of Denesa hides a dark, murderous interior that cries out for attention, and feeds on the compassion of others, ‘poor, poor Denesa, everyone said of this murderous maternal creature with blood on her teeth’ (Body Farm, 354). Denesa abuses her power as a mother figure to harm her child for attention. She turns the role of protector into murderer.
Denesa is a serial killer, most likely having killed her husband, and possibly others:
Women serial killers often murder husbands, relatives, significant others. Their methods are usually different from those of male serial killers…They like poisons. They like to smother people who can’t defend themselves…The fantasies are different because women are different from men. (Body Farm, 314)
Her crimes are recognised to be different from those committed by men, conniving and discreet, not obviously bloody or violent. Denesa probably considers herself to be in the realm of a serial killer, and this is heightened when she asks Scarpetta about Temple Gault. She wants to know what he sounds and looks like, maybe to build up a fantasy image in her mind (Body Farm, 145). Her association in thought with the killer heightens her need to be a victim; by connecting him with her daughter’s murder she is increasing the public and media interest in the case.Denesa draws Scarpetta into her game, playing a psychological battle against a female of equal strength: ‘People I loved had become her pawns. She had come to dominate what I thought and did’ (Body Farm, 338). Like other serial killers in the series, she develops a deep fascination with Scarpetta. She uses Marino to get at her, breaking him away from his partner in crime. Marino’s emotions overpower his professional thoughts, and he lets them get in the way of his job, which is a reversal of the typical ‘distraught pre-menstrual female’ figure who is mocked by the male workers. Denesa used her daughter as an extension of her character, a toy for her to play with. She is labelled as having a psychological disease – does this excuse her at all from her acts? Scarpetta does not think so, calling her ‘a narcissistic, demented woman with an insatiable appetite for ego gratification’ (Body Farm, 354). Not only does The Body Farm have a female protagonist, it includes a female serial killer, increasing the power of women, and showing the good and evil sides of female strength.
The Professional Truth-Seeker in The Last Precinct
Jaime Berger is the first female character in the series to have equal prominence, status, intelligence, and success, as Scarpetta. Berger is Scarpetta’s equal, with both working in a male-orientated environment, ‘It is said that I am the most famous female forensic pathologist in the country and she is the most famous female prosecutor’ (Last Precinct, 94). It is interesting that they are both defined by their gender, and also that they are not titled as ‘the best’, but as ‘the most famous’. Is this because of their success in their careers? Or because they are women, and frequently in the media’s eye?The traditional linear form of a murder committed and solved is banished from The Last Precinct. No murder has occurred at the start of the narrative but in a twist of the pen, Scarpetta is accused of Diane Bray’s murder from the previous novel. Detective novels are usually monologic, allowing the reader to follow the investigator’s thoughts that link to resolution. Cornwell focuses on Berger’s thought processes, teaching female readers how to read clues as women, which the readers accept as truth. Her character takes the reader into the closed system of the police force. The figure of a female prosecutor reverses the conventional depiction of a ruthless man, eager to condemn the defendant:
Placing a female character in a male role transforms not only the role itself, but every other element of the plot as well. To make a female detective convincing as a character, to have her operate as more than just an honorary male…requires a radical assessment of the characterisation of the detective and the narrative in which she functions.(Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction, 143)
Berger’s role as a prosecutor should technically be to show Scarpetta to be guilty of the murder of Bray. However, her belief of the defendant’s innocence means her role is reversed as she strives to find evidence that supports her credence.Her character brings Scarpetta, who is used to her male partner and role of pathologist, into a new light, drawing her and the reader away from her boundaries as a pathologist and into a new role as detective. Their friendship is strained and formal for the duration of the novel. Scarpetta refuses to call Berger by her first name, seeing her as stiff competition, and resenting the new celebrity in town. Scarpetta would not think twice about helping Marino with his investigations, but she expects more from Berger, for the most likely reason that she is a woman, ‘I want her to show at least a hint of compassion toward me and what I have endured’ (Last Precinct, 379). The boundaries have changed with this duo simply because Berger is a woman, and Scarpetta expects more from someone who is socially considered able to show emotion and sympathy. Their characters can be linked to the television detective duo, Cagney and Lacey, of whom critics have said, ‘that Mary Beth as a “true women” is structured in order to recuperate Christine as a woman-who-wants-to-be-a-man’ (Sally Munt, Murder By the Book? 72). Berger does seem to highlight Scarpetta’s stubborn masculine qualities, forcing her to fight back against Chandonne.
Like Scarpetta, Berger suffers prejudices and anger because of her position and authority in the male world. She is the first to interview Chandonne, and we have to accept that maybe he only spoke to her because of her beauty, and his lust for the female form. The policemen are jealous that a woman got the top job, ‘There isn’t an investigator on this planet who wouldn’t want to interview such a notorious, freakish killer. It just so happens that the beast picked the beauty’(Last Precinct, 219). Female appearances are valued and can be used to draw violence closer, tempting the monsters to talk.
There are two crucial differences to Berger’s character when compared with the main protagonist of the series. Firstly, Berger has a family. This goes against Scarpetta’s beliefs throughout the series. She often talks of how it is impossible to have both a family life and a successful profession, ‘I managed one but certainly not the other’(Last Precinct, 296). Berger refutes this by being a successful professional and having a husband and two children. Does it make any difference that her children are her stepchildren? Is she viewed as a bad mother for working at Christmas? The second main difference is the issue of closure. Throughout the series, Scarpetta had to get closure from her cases; she had to see the murderer, or kill him, or have him locked away. In short, for her cases to be satisfactory, the killer had to suffer somehow. In the character of Berger, the reader sees no clue to a loss of control that would result in her being scared, or vulnerable. She is very self-contained and self-controlled. Her success is measured by what she attains in the courtroom, and not by how many people she puts away in prison.
The Character Disorder and the Psychopath
Without a baddie – be it an individual person, a multinational corporation, an unpleasant attitude, or simply an unsolved crime – our heroine doesn’t get to show any of her myriad skills or her clever repartee. (Stella Duffy, ‘Writing the Villain in Crime Fiction’, in A Career in Crime, ed. Helen Windrath, 87)
Carrie Grethen is the nemesis of the law for four of Cornwell’s novels. Described as ‘a monster with supernatural powers’ (Point of Origin, 98), she is a computer genius, whose intelligence and obsession with killing draws her into partnership with notorious criminals. Her character is developed as she joins forces with Temple Gault, and then Newton Joyce in Point of Origin. Stereotypical images of woman as the caring and calm motherly figure clearly clash through the character of Carrie as her love for blood and violence parody the typical domestic, caring images of woman.
Like Denesa Steiner, Carrie first enters as a striking, pretty woman. The main difference between the two killers is that Steiner’s method of murder was subtle and calm. In contrast, Carrie’s acquaintance with killing is violent and bloody. As her decline into the murderous world escalates, her body dissipates to a practically androgynous figure, which is easily mistaken for a man. By destabilising the psychopath’s appearance, the emphasis of ‘female’ killer is lessened. It is therefore ironic that her main role in her partnership with Gault is a sexual one, as he needs her ‘to move a body or perform a degrading act’ (From Potter’s Field, 315). Carrie looks and dresses like Gault, emphasising her affiliation with him and his acts of brutality. Her involvement in the murder of a woman in Point of Origin differs from the others, ‘her wounds were so numerous and violent that they radiated an aura of rage’ (Point of Origin, 284). It is believed that Grethen was the person who inflicted the stabs, and the manner of crime provides a clue to her character, of one ruled by ‘rage’.
It is significant that Carrie is never directly placed in the role of killer. The only explicit connection we see of Carrie and murder is when she is caught on camera before Gault kills Sheriff Santa, and when she is in the helicopter firing at Scarpetta and Lucy, but even then we do not know if she is firing or her partner, Joyce. She is implicated in all the crimes, even Eddie Heath’s murder in Cruel and Unusual, and she is believed to be the one who pulled the trigger on Benton ‘because it was personal’ (Last Precinct, 84). However, her involvement in the murders can never be pinpointed. Marino can never say she pulled the trigger. Carrie is only a partner in crime, an accessory to the murders. The fact that we never know for sure who she kills takes away some of her power. The term ‘female serial killer’ cannot truly be applied here, as her connection with the murders is constantly overshadowed by the presence of her male partners, who appear to be the masterminds behind the crimes. Carrie’s exact actions are never known, thus diminishing her violent nature.She is a celebrity, a figure of evil. Her psychotic character is glamorised, especially when she uses the media as a force against the FBI and Scarpetta, ‘to them she’s gold. She’s magazine covers and movies in the making’ (Point of Origin, 155). Her alleged crimes become bigger than the investigation, inviting public opinion to question the role of the FBI and voice of justice.
Grethen is undoubtedly a psychopathic, violent entity. She is a freakish figure of murderous power. However, the strength of her character is diminished in various ways. Her almost sexless figure and the uncertain reconstructions of the murders takes away some of the power and slipperiness she enjoys.
Cornwell’s Scarpetta series encompasses females as investigators, victims, and murderers. By representing women as forces of evil and good she shows the two extremes of the female psyche. They all embody stereotypical masculine attributes such as physical fitness, scientific knowledge, and the ability to kill in defence or attack. The lack of closure in The Last Precinct perhaps signifies the breaking away from the male bodies that the female characters work for. The pairing of Scarpetta and Berger in the case against Chandonne, and the formation of The Last Precinct by Lucy and her partner, Teun, suggests that in the future, they will answer to no one, and will join together to fight the enemy, a female body fighting for justice.
Bibliography
Cranny-Francis, Anne, Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990)
Hester, Marianne, Liz Kelly and Jill Radford (eds.), Women, Violence and Male Power (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1996)
Klein, Kathleen Gregory, The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988)
Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics, Feminist Literary Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 1985)
Munt, Sally R., Murder by the Book? Feminism and the Crime Novel (London and New York: Routledge, 1994)
Reddy, Maureen T., Sisters in Crime: Feminism and the Crime Novel (New York: Continuum Books, 1988)
Walton, Priscilla L., and Manina Jones, Detective Agency, Women Rewriting the Hard-Boiled Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1999)
Windrath, Helen (ed.), A Career in Crime, Inside Information from Leading Women Writers (London: The Women’s Press, 1999)
Worrall, Anne, Offending Women, Female Lawbreakers and the Criminal Justice System (London and New York: Routledge, 1990).
