Ann Granger

• Born: July 12, 1939
• Birthplace: Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

Types of Plot: Amateur sleuth; cozy; police procedural

Principal Series: Meredith Mitchell and Alan Markby, 1991-; Fran Varady, 1997-

Contribution

Ann Granger’s best-known Mitchell and Markby series derives from the traditional cozy crime novel that was made popular in the 1920’s by writers such as Agatha Christie. These early cozy mysteries were set in rural England in a society made up of a few ruling families who had lived in their country houses for generations; their dutiful, subservient servants; equally dependent cottagers; and the local farmers and townspeople, who were also well aware of the need for deference to those of a higher social class. As everyone had a role to play in this society, murder was a shocking aberration, and the purpose of the novel was to put things right as speedily as possible. Readers did not expect to find acts of violence and descriptions of bloody bodies in these mysteries; it was appalling enough that a murder had been committed in what was assumed to be an ideal society. However, as this society disappeared, the genre declined in popularity.

In the 1970’s, some talented writers saw how the cozy mystery could be redefined and refocused, and revived the genre. Granger’s popular Meredith Mitchell and Alan Markby series is among the best of the new cozies. In this series, Granger retains the village setting and many of the character types found in the traditional cozy, but she is uncompromisingly realistic about the changes that threaten to destroy English country life. Because of both its style and its substance, the Mitchell and Markby series is highly regarded by critics. Granger’s works have been translated into French, German, Swedish, and Finnish.

Biography

Ann Granger was born Patricia Ann Granger on July 12, 1939, in Portsmouth, England. Her father, Eugene Granger, was a Royal Navy officer; her mother, Norah Granger, was a homemaker. As a child, Granger learned to love books and reading, as her mother would read to her for hours. When she was still a teenager, an English teacher encouraged her to read literary works by writers not often encountered by young readers, such as the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevski.

Granger completed her education at Royal Holloway College, London University, where she specialized in modern languages. From 1960 to 1961, she worked in France as an English teacher. Granger then returned to London University, and in 1962, she received her bachelor of arts degree, with honors. After graduation, she went to work in the visa sections of British consulates and embassies in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. In 1966, she married John Hulme, a colleague in the foreign service, and accompanied him to Zambia and Germany. Both of their children, Timothy and Christopher, were born while the Hulmes were abroad. When the family returned to England and made their home in Bicester, Oxfordshire, Granger embarked on a new career as a writer.

Although Granger really wanted to write crime novels, she began her literary career with historical romances, publishing them as Ann Hulme. From 1981, when Summer Heiress appeared, until 1989, Mills & Boon published almost a dozen of these books, and several more were picked up by Worldwide. Granger’s historical romances are now out of print. It was not until she produced her first mystery novel in 1991 that she began to achieve critical recognition, as well as the phenomenal popularity she eventually came to enjoy.

In her first crime novel, Say It with Poison (1991), Granger introduced Meredith Mitchell, who like the author is an experienced foreign service officer. Mitchell is presently based in London although she would like another posting abroad. While attending her goddaughter’s wedding in the Cotswolds, she meets Chief Inspector Alan Markby. Thus begins a romance that develops throughout the series, eventually ending in marriage. However, Mitchell and Markby’s romance is never allowed to overshadow the crimes they encounter. Granger keeps the focus of these novels on the village murders, which can be solved only by sleuths who have the remarkable gifts of psychological insight that Mitchell and Markby both possess, gifts that also account in large part for their continuing fascination with each other.

In 1997, Granger embarked on her Fran Varady series, set in the slums of contemporary London. Critics and readers admired the spunky heroine as well as the colorful secondary characters whom Granger brought so vividly to life. In 2006, Granger published her first historical crime novel, A Rare Interest in Corpses, which is set in Victorian London. The Companion, which appeared the following year, featured the same setting and the same sleuths. Though Granger’s remarkable abilities, particularly for characterization, drew readers to these two new ventures, the ongoing Mitchell and Markby series remains the best-known and the most popular.

Analysis

Unlike the cozy mysteries of the Golden Age, Ann Granger’s village stories have serious themes. One of the author’s preoccupations is the loss of a sense of community in rural England. She points out that the cottages where the same families had lived for generations are now occupied by strangers from the city, to whom the village is no more than a pleasant weekend retreat. The newcomers are not inquisitive; they do not scrutinize their neighbors’ doings and often do not even know their names. While this way of life enhances privacy, it weakens the community, for villagers no longer feel responsible for their neighbors or for the village as a whole. As a result, criminal activity is made much easier, and as Mitchell and Markby find over and over again, solving crimes becomes much more difficult.

Granger also fears that the natural beauty of the Cotswolds, where her series is set, will soon be lost forever. She admits that with farming less and less profitable, it is difficult for long-established farm families to hold onto their land. Granger is sympathetic toward the young men and women in her novels who remain on the land, working harder and harder, while they secretly resolve to sell out and leave as soon as their parents are dead. One of the recurring characters in the series is developer Dudley Newman. With her usual honesty, Granger does not show him as a villain but instead as a pleasant person who makes no secret of the fact that his goal in life is to make money. Unfortunately, Newman values the natural setting only as a backdrop for the houses he erects and as a further inducement for city dwellers to come to what they mistakenly believe will continue to be an unspoiled paradise.

Though the Mitchell and Markby books deal with serious issues, they are enlivened by the presence of colorful characters, by references to local history and persistent rural customs, and by frequent flashes of wit and humor, especially in the exchanges between the two principal characters. It is also to Granger’s credit that even in a series with more than a dozen mysteries, she has managed to keep every book unique. Even the relationship between Mitchell and Markby is constantly changing; in one book, they seem closer to commitment, while in the next, it is clear that they are still dealing with serious problems. Moreover, Granger invents a totally different structure for each novel in the series, sometimes drawing brilliantly on past history and even juxtaposing crimes that are in fact separated by years.

Cold in the Earth

The third mystery in the Mitchell and Markby series, Cold in the Earth (1992), focuses squarely on the problems of the present. When Mitchell leaves her home in London for the village of Bamford, where she has agreed to house-sit for Alan Markby’s sister, she expects to have a pleasant holiday in the Cotswolds, an area she has always equated with peace, quiet, and natural beauty. She could not be more mistaken. A body is found at the site of one of the new developments that are springing up all over the Cotswolds. One of the suspects in the crime is the contractor, Dudley Newman; another is Alwyn Winthrop, one of the young farmers who wants to sell out to a developer and escape from the rural life he has come to loathe. Thus Granger bases her plot on the pervasive theme of change.

In time, the corpse is identified as a French undercover narcotics agent, and it becomes even clearer that the seemingly bucolic village is not immune from urban crime. Interestingly, even though this mystery is set in the present, Mitchell finds disturbing parallels in events that transpired in Bamford long ago. Thus she emphasizes the presence of the past, which is another recurring theme in the series.

A Restless Evil

In A Restless Evil (2002), an old crime takes on new life. Twenty-two years ago, a man dubbed the “Potato Man” by the media committed a series of rapes but was never caught, and Alan Markby has continued to be troubled by his failure in this case. Now, however, Mitchell has finally agreed to share her life with him, so the pair are too busy house hunting and planning their future together to worry about much else. When a skeleton is found in Stovey Woods, where the rapist used to take his victims, Markby is forced to revisit the past. A few days later, a seemingly blameless woman is found murdered in the village church. Mitchell and Markby cannot believe that her death is connected to the rapes, but they soon find that they are mistaken.

Although this mystery ends with the punishment of the evildoers, it also concludes with redemption. After the skeletal remains are identified, Markby has the privilege of hearing a confession and then of lifting the burden of guilt that an innocent woman has carried for years. In her story one can see why Granger is so much admired for her use of psychology. Such insights make her characters more believable and her novels more profound.

Although in her Fran Varady mysteries and her Victorian crime novels Granger also creates interesting characters, places them in convincingly realistic settings, and proceeds with complex plots that lead eventually to the restoration of order, it is her Mitchell and Markby books that are most acclaimed by critics and most admired by the reading public. Her reinterpretation of the cozy genre has played no small part in the revival of the form.

Principal Series Characters:

• Meredith Mitchell is a career foreign service officer, now based in London, who sees little hope of getting another assignment abroad. Her inquisitive mind and her need for action often lead her into amateur detecting, to the despair of Chief Inspector Alan Markby, who would prefer that she leave crime and criminals to the police. Over the course of the series, she becomes closer and closer to Markby, and eventually she agrees to relinquish her independence and marry him.
• Chief Inspector Alan Markby , head of the Criminal Investigation Department unit in the small Cotswolds town of Bamford at the start of the series, later is promoted to the rank of superintendent, with responsibilities for a larger area. A tall, handsome man with fair hair and blue eyes, Markby is always noticed by women, but he is interested only in Meredith Mitchell. Although he resists her involvement in his cases, he admits that her skill in eliciting information from others complements his more guarded approach, which derives both from his temperament and his public school education. He also admires her incisive mind and likes to test his theories on her. Markby has no doubt that the two of them belong together.
• Fran Varady is a young woman who was abandoned by her mother when she was just a child and whose other relatives have died, leaving her homeless at the age of sixteen. In London, she survives by taking low-paying jobs and sleeping wherever she can. Eventually, she hopes to become an actress. Meanwhile, her unfailing compassion for the street people around her propels her into becoming an amateur sleuth.

Bibliography

Ashley, Mike, comp. The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction: The Authors, Their Works, and Their Most Famous Creations. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Essay on Ann Granger includes biographical information and traces the author’s use of pseudonyms. Praises plotting and characterization in the Mitchell and Markby series. Notes that the Varady series, though also well written, differs markedly as to setting and social class.

Heising, Willetta L. Detecting Women: A Reader’s Guide and Checklist for Mystery Series Written by Women. 3d ed. Dearborn, Mich.: Purple Moon Press, 2000. Brief entry on Granger differentiates between the author’s two series and lists mysteries written through 1999. An extensive index points out numerous other references to the author and her works.

Oleksiw, Susan. “Cozy Mystery.” In The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert, Catherine Aird, John M. Reilly, and Susan Oleksiw. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Defines the genre and traces its history. Oleksiw’s suggestion that the form has once again become popular as a way to explore issues of community is clearly applicable to Granger’s mysteries.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Shades of Murder, by Ann Granger. 248 (September 24, 2001): 72. This book exemplifies Granger’s success in modernizing the traditional village mystery. Her handling of a double plot, involving two poisonings more than a century part, is superb.

Windrath, Helen, ed. They Wrote the Book: Thirteen Women Mystery Writers Tell All. Duluth, Minn.: Spinsters Ink, 2000. Essays by British and North American female mystery writers on subjects including setting, characterization, plotting, and research. One particularly illuminating essay discusses the use of women sleuths.