Regulars will know my enthusiasm for the British Library re-issues of Golden Age Crime. I'm not a great lover of short stories - prefer something to get my teeth into - but as the anthology Cyanide in the Sun, which is holiday crime, was on offer from Kindle unlimited, I did take a look. I enjoyed the stories, many of which were set in old fashioned British seaside resorts like the one I grew up in. (And have moved back to - although it is a bit different now.) What struck me about the whole selection was how many revolved around a crime resulting from a fall - usually over a cliff - there being an abundance of those at the seaside.
I've commented before that I seem to have rather a thing about pushing people off high places - and it seems I am not alone. Actually I am doing it again, as the cosy crime I keep waffling about would start with a car going off a cliff. What is it with high places?
Thinking about it, there are elements to appeal to a writer - if you have that sort of mind, of course, and if you write crime, you do. My excursions into falls from high places have twice been from buildings, not in nature, but certain principles apply. Always a possibility of an accident, or self harm. to muddy the water. It's a fairly effective method of murder, the human body being a fragile thing when in contact with gravity. and if you are talking cliffs, then there is always potentially the added ingredient of the sea. If the fall can be engineered rather than involving a hefty push -by misdirection of a dangerous path, an obstacle to be fallen over, even the intervention of the weather in storms or fog, the murder doesn't even have to be there. And the up close and personal method, the time honoured blow to the head with a blunt instrument can easily be disguised in other injuries.
Disadvantages? The victim has to be lured to the site. OK if that is a keen walker who frequents the path, but what if they are not? And the experienced hiker would know the dangers of the place where they were walking. And, of course the murder has to go to the location themselves to do the deed, or set the trap. Always the possibility of being seen.
A fall seems like an easy solution - and it's certainly a popular one. But it actually needs just a much planning as shooting or stabbing - maybe more. But that is what crime writers like to spend their time doing.
Now - about this car, going over the cliff ...