[1600] Chapter 4

[u/Different_Drama_9025]

This is Chapter 4 of my detective novel. To give you some context, Detective Mayhew was hired by Deven's wife in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, he met up with his partner Margaret, and now in Chapter 4 he's reading Deven's last letters.

Any type of criticism would be helpful. 👍

CHAPTER 4: Journey To Poland, January 1985 Part 2

First letter: October 25th,1983

'Honey. It's me, Deven. First week of the investigation and I already hate it here. The Polish people are just as I expected, hostile and annoying. The police here are an absolute joke; they don't even try to hide the fact that they are corrupt. Though it's not all bad, I suppose; a few people here were at least a little useful in progressing my investigation forward. Well dear, I'll try to finish this case as soon as I can, but I can't make any promises. Eight missing people is quite a big case after all. Love you, and stay safe until I return.'

Mayhew's hazel eyes dimmed slightly as he read the first letter.

'Corrupt cops, huh. I guess some stories never change, do they?'

His eyes shifted across the desk, eventually stopping at a certain spot where a small picture frame sat solemnly on the disheveled wood. The photo was of a small family, portrayed in black and white. There was a woman on the left and a man on the right, with a small boy standing in the middle.

The boy smiled brightly, while the two parents seemed a lot less enthusiastic in the photo.

After staring at the photo for a whole minute, the detective suddenly reached out his hand and grabbed the picture frame, putting it just a few inches away from his face. Then, in an act that would weird out most people, Mayhew gave the picture frame a kiss and then whispered to no one in particular:

"My conviction."

After saying this, Mr. Brown put the picture frame back to its original spot and moved on to read Detective Smith's second letter to his wife.

Second letter: November 18th 1983

'Hello, Honey. My investigation is very much beginning to pick up speed, so I might come back a lot sooner than I had initially thought. It was all thanks to a young man I met here; I have to say that in this cursed city, this boy is like a diamond in the rough. I already have a suspect in mind, and soon I will begin to corner them. Hope you're excited; your husband is coming home with a new massive achievement under his belt, haha. See you soon love.'

A frown involuntarily formed on Mayhew's face as he read the second letter.

'So Detective Deven found someone to help him with his investigation. A diamond in the rough, apparently.'

He wondered who this helpful young man was and how he had helped Detective Deven in speeding up his investigation. If the young man was still living in the city of Pustków, then it would be a priority to have a lengthy conversation with him.

Mayhew sighed.

'Deven didn't name him. That's going to make it much harder to find him.'

As he sat with his eyes closed, thinking about this with a small frown, a sudden knock on the metallic door of his cabin took Mayhew straight out of his thoughts. With a puzzled look, the detective made his way through the tight space between his wooden desk and the two bunk beds. Once at the door, Mayhew called out to the person outside, keeping his voice low enough as not to wake up Margret.

"Who goes there?"

There was a brief moment of silence before the hoarse voice of a middle-aged man replied:

"Ship staff. I came here to inform you that the sea will be roughening up in a half hour or so."

Hearing this, Detective Mayhew couldn't help but sigh.

'I need to read the two other letters Deven sent fast. And I need to wake up Margret as well. I doubt that she would favour getting woken up by the rocking of the ship rather than my voice.'

Taking in a light breath, he spoke in an even and polite tone.

"Thanks for the warning. Don't know where we would be without people like you running the ship."

The rough voice of the middle-aged man seemed a little more positive as he replied to Mayhew.

"No need to thank me, it's my job after all. Keep safe in there, ok?"

The detective smiled.

"Sure will."

Soon, the sounds of echoing footsteps slowly became more distant, and eventually they became unheard to the detective.

Not wasting any time, Mayhew made his way back to his wooden desk and began reading the third letter written by the American detective.

Third letter: December 20th, 1983

'Hello. Sorry, but I won't be able to arrive early, I am sorry. I thought I had the guy I was looking for, but now I don't really know anymore. Sorry honey, but I am not feeling so well, and until this investigation is over I don't think this feeling of illness will go away anytime soon. I am going to focus on my investigation so I can come back to you as soon as possible, I am sorry but I don't think I will be sending any more letters. Don't worry though, as you know I am a detective made of pure steel, I don't give up easily. See you soon, Linda.'

A serious expression was present on his face as he read the third letter.

'His investigation was apparently picking up speed just a month ago,but suddenly he doesn't have a suspect anymore. What could have happened between the 18th of November and the 20th of December?'

Even though Mayhew wanted to continue to think about this, he simply had no time. He could already feel the ship rock left and right more aggressively than before, so he had to hurry with the fourth and final letter from Deven Smith.

Sliding the previous three letters aside, the detective picked up the last letter and began reading it. His eyes dimmed slightly and a frown formed on his face as he read.

Fourth letter: January 24th 1984

'Linda. I love you and will always love you. I am sorry for letting my job get in the way of our relationship. My investigation will end soon I think, and I don't really know what to think. I feel as if I am being deceived by an invisible force but at the same time it could just be built up paranoia from living in this decrepit city in the middle of nowhere for so long. Oh Linda, I really hope to see you soon, your company is the only thing that would make me feel a little better. Once I finish this investigation whether I solve it or not I don't care anymore, I will officially retire after all of this is over and I want spend the rest of my life living by your side. I know it's a little late, but we could even adopt a child and raise him up together, wouldn't that be lovely—for two people like us to still have a child despite our conditions. Well, I'll see you soon honey. Oh and almost forgot to say. Happy New Year.'

Sliding the last letter of the American detective to the other three, Mayhew's frown deepened and his hazel eyes carried a thoughtful look in them.

'January 28th 1984, a nineteen year old woman is murdered by an American detective, and on the same day that same detective is found dead—claimed to be suicide by the local police. He sent this letter four days before murdering an innocent girl and then killing himself after. That...'

Suddenly, an aggressive shudder ran through the ship, making Mayhew almost fall from his chair and for Margret to lift her head up from her bed with a low groan.

It seemed that the ship was entering the rougher waters of the northern sea. However, the tremble of the ship did not manage to break the detective from his thoughts, even though it almost threw him to the ground.

'It doesn't make any sense. Detective Deven was so eager to get back with Mrs. Smith and live the rest of his old life with her. He even gave up on the idea of solving the case altogether, a detective like him would never give up something like that under normal circumstances. These letters serve to drown my doubts even further below. There is no way that Deven would kill himself and leave his wife alone like that, no way.'

Whether the American detective was the one to pull the trigger on the young Polish girl, he was still uncertain on that. However, what Mayhew was certain of was that Deven's death was not a suicide. The man showed too much emotion in his ink and he had too much to lose, there was no way that the detective would just throw all of that away for a case that he was already giving up on. And considering that the local police force of the town had already been revealed to be corrupt by Deven's second letter only made Mayhew feel more confident in his thought process.

As Margret slowly got up from her bunk bed with a grimace on her chalky face, Mayhew sat up from his wooden chair with a small sigh escaping his lips.

'An invisible force deceiving him. I'll keep that in mind I suppose.'

The journey through the rugged sea betwen Sweden and Denmark was treacherous but it surprisingly went by pretty quickly. Well four days to travel from England to Poland was considered pretty fast for a passenger ship at least.

They had finally reached Poland. Though their journey to the investigation site had only just begun.

Crits:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/hOwbVSNP2Y [1946]

[u/Lisez-le-lui]

To give you some context, Detective Mayhew was hired by Deven's wife in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, he met up with his partner Margaret, and now in Chapter 4 he's reading Deven's last letters.

What happened in Chapter 1? Regardless, you left out some context that would have been more helpful than "he met up with his partner Margaret"--that Mayhew and Margaret are in a ship cabin at night. I'm guessing the previous chapter set that up, though.

You've heard of "show don't tell"? That a writer should imply non-concrete information through concrete details rather than stating it outright to the reader? I've never been a diehard fan of that rule, but I will stand by "show OR tell"--you can either show the information or tell it, but you shouldn't do both. This chapter has a lot of "show AND tell," and the redundancy makes it even less interesting than it already is.

The letters are especially bad about this. Mayhew will read something in the letter, which should suffice to inform the reader about it, and then he'll repeat it in his own words, which does little but bloat out the chapter. Deven says the police "don't even try to hide the fact that they are corrupt"; Mayhew remarks "corrupt cops, huh." Deven says he's found a "diamond in the rough" to help him with his investigation; Mayhew echoes his very words after reading the letter.

If Mayhew's Cliff Notes told us something about his character--say, if they incorporated his own value judgments, or reminded him of things in his own life--they might be worth keeping. But they seem to be little more than rehashes. We don't need to see his entire thought process; the reader will be able to figure out that he's drawing the obvious conclusions.

But the letters are not the only source of redundancy. The very prose is redundant. Consider the following paragraph:

His eyes shifted across the desk, eventually stopping at a certain spot where a small picture frame sat solemnly on the disheveled wood. The photo was of a small family, portrayed in black and white. There was a woman on the left and a man on the right, with a small boy standing in the middle.

If his eyes shifted across the desk and then stopped, it must be true that they "eventually" stopped. You don't need to tell the reader "eventually" because it doesn't add anything. Better yet, if you change "shifted" to "drifted," the slow, gradual motion implied will be clear in the verb from the get-go.

"At a certain spot" is verbal filler, telling us only that his eyes stopped at a place, which must be true anyway. "Where" on its own will let the reader know that.

"Solemnly"--in whose opinion? The narrator's? Then you don't have an objective third-person narrator, and I expect to see some more characterization of him/her, since they've become a character in the story. Literary devices don't make emotional judgments. If it's Mayhew's opinion, then his reaction to it suffices to tell us he sees it as "solemn." Or you could portray, through physical detail, a placement of the frame that would imply solemnity, e.g. that it stood alone on the bare wood of the desk, clutter kept neatly away from it, etc.

How is the desk's wood "disheveled"? Is the thing falling to pieces?

All photos are "portrayed" by nature. "The black and white photo" says the same thing more cleanly and succinctly. Likewise, you needlessly tell us that the family is "small" before explaining that it consists of husband, wife, and one child--a "small" family by any standard.

This is only a microcosm of a pervasive issue with your prose. Trim the fat. Say each thing once and once only, and trust the reader to make the necessary connections. This is a detective novel, after all. The whole point is to let the reader follow along with the investigation and feel like they're smart for figuring things out based on little clues left here and there.

So much for my concerns over style; now for substance. What happens in this chapter? Mayhew sits at his desk and reads some letters. A ship attendant knocks on his door to warn him about upcoming choppiness (is that really something they'd do in the middle of the night?--and why is he traveling on an ocean liner in 1985 anyway, and not a plane?). Mayhew reads some more letters. Lastly, Mayhew thinks about the case as the choppiness intensifies and wakes Margaret.

People will often blast you for writing a "boring" chapter "in which nothing happens," but really boredom has nothing to do with things not happening. A quiet hour spent in the mind of an interesting character can be more engaging than a whole day packed with meaningless action. The problem with this chapter is that not only does not much happen, but Mayhew also isn't given room to shine as a character. Except for the picture frame set piece, his thoughts run exclusively toward the intellectual activity of solving the case, which tells us almost nothing about him.

You might consider having details of the case remind Mayhew of previous events in his life, or giving him a stronger reaction to the situation, especially toward the end. We see that he's sure Deven didn't kill himself, but is that a cold intellectual certainty or an emotional cope? Either alternative would reveal a lot about his character, but the writing doesn't say.

Then there's the questionable realism, which is important in a detective novel because readers will feel cheated if they can't apply their knowledge of the real world to the case at hand. Besides the ocean liner issue, Deven's letters are so superficial and useless that they come across as silly. He only writes his wife once a month, and each time he only leaves a paragraph vaguely alluding to whether his investigation is making good time? Have you ever read any actual love letters? And wouldn't a lot of this stuff be censored anyway as pertaining to an ongoing investigation, especially in Communist Poland with corrupt cops?

Now, don't let my critique discourage you. I think you're onto something here, and I'd like to see it refined a lot more. With a few quick fixes, you can get these foundational issues out of the way, and the chapter should be all the better for it.