Just read a novel where multiple story lines are all resolved by the end of the book. It felt forced. That was followed by a novel (My Cousin, Rachel, where the ending was enigmatic. I wasn't sure exactly what had transpired, despite enjoying much of it. I am never sure in this case if my attention had drifted off and I have missed some key clues.
What do you demand at the end of a good novel, especially crime, I guess? How much resolution do you like? What book had the most satisfying ending in your memory?
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Two recent novels with extremely satisfying endings that come to mind are Lawrence Block's GETTING OFF and Ed Gorman's BAD MOON RISING. Block plays with the noir expectation that nothing good can ever last, and the last line made me laugh out loud. Gorman's last few pages reveal that the mystery was much more simple, human, and tragic than at first appeared -- and he follows it up with something really unexpected on the last page. I don't want to give it away, but the surprise is a reminder that there's more to life in Black River Falls than just the mystery.
What I liked about Denis Mina's The End Of The Wasp Season was that the crime resolution was slight - almost perfunctory - since the book was more about people trying to tie up their life's loose ends. And it had a willfully optimistic part to the ending too, which I liked very much.
I do want a fair idea of who did it and why, but I have come to appreciate a few open questions a lot.
One novel I have enjoyed recently is Andrew Taylor´s "The Barred Window" - because the ending is nicely ambiguous (as I see it). Still I think the lazy reader may see it as a shut case so I suppose it must make most readers happy.
Right now I am also reading a novel with a biased first-person narrator, Liz Rigbey´s Summer Time. Extremely promising, because why on earth did all those accidents happen to those children???
I just want some echoes to take with me. If the book engages me on a human level--rather than plot level--then there's a take-away. Five memorable scenes makes a good movie in memory Billy Wilder said (I'm sure I'm misquoting him slightly). Yes I want resolution (and not deus ex machina) but the resolution doesn't matter if the book hasn't hit me in some way. I'm not dismissing plot but plot is wasted if the people and their troubles don't work for me. Very goof question, Patti.
Anti-climax in a good crime-detective-triller novel. I wouldn't call it the "most satisfying ending" to a book in memory, but I was quite surprised by the anti-climax to journalist-author Anthony Grey's spy thriller THE CHINESE ASSASSIN in which the protagonist, a london political scholar, is desperately searching for his kidnapped daughter and is abruptly killed in a bomb explosion in communist China. I thought Grey, the author of hugely successful books like SAIGON and PEKING, didn't get this one right. But it's his story, isn't it? On the other hand, I was satisfied with the ending of THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE where Thomas Hardy brings his anti-hero, the passionate and violent Michael Henchard, who sells his wife and daughter, to heel -- a classic case of pride before fall.
Thomas Hardy's world was the most ominous place to find yourself ever, I think. Yes, resonance is important for me too. When I am still in the "world" a writer creates a few days or weeks later, that is something special. I just read a collection of stories by Amy Bloom, many of them based on an interracial family and that world will be hard to put behind. Each story explored a different moment in their lives. Or the same moment from different perspectives.
In short stories, I love a twist ending, but I don't generally like those at novel length. I like an ending that suggests that the world goes on and the charcters go on, but that resolves the basic story line of the novel. These days, I'm beginning to like happy endings over sad endings.
I think happy endings are harder to pull off given our morose times. But they are very satisfying if done well and realistically. And happy for me might not be happy for someone else of course.
Putting that Mina on reserve. I have heard so many good things about it.
I just finished Adrian McKinty's Falling Glass, which has one of the most delightfully ambiguous endings I've ever read.
Patti - Oh, good question (as ever). I have to say, to me, the end of a good novel resolves the major plot line. So in the case of crime fiction, it's important to me that we find out who and whydunit. I'm less insistent when it comes to non-major story threads (e.g. It's less important to me to find out whether the sleuth and her or his new love interest get/stay together). I really don't mind a few loose ends, unless they are major story lines.
I don't care for ambiguous endings--there's too much ambiguity in real life--which was a major reason I felt let down by Sarah Waters's THE LITTLE STRANGER (which I thought was a crackerjack of a book for 3/4 of its length and then sort of petered out at the end). When I read mysteries, I like to know whodunnit (or whydunnit). The English mystery writer Robert Barnard writes wonderful short stories and novels that have interesting twists, some in the very last sentence; the culprit is still uncovered, but some aspect of the story is now set before us in a different light. What's more, Bernard accomplishes this with a very light touch which I imagine is even more difficult to pull off than coming up with a twist in the first place.
Yeah, the Waters book was wonderful but somewhat frustrating. I spent months in some chatroom with readers giving their interpretations before giving it up when I read an interview where Waters seemed to leave it up to you.
Barnard does great endings.
I agree with Deb - I don't want an ambiguous ending. I guess it's like life - I'm a pretty straightforward kind of guy and I want a straight answer, not "well, maybe it's this and maybe it's that."
I realize life does not always give you a straightforward answer but that's part of the reason I read mysteries: I want the answer.
As for Mina, I've tried one of her earlier books and it was way too dark for my taste. I don't want to spend 500 pages in her world, but obviously many people do.
Jeff M.
I don't mind being fooled by an author, as long as it's at least somewhat believable. One book with a very good twist at the end was INTERFACE by Joe Gores. One that I thought had one twist too many was THE POET by Michael Connelly. I really liked most of the book but that extra final twist lost me.
Jeff M.
This is kind of a non-answer, but I like endings to have "enough." There has to be some sense of resolution, but I alsowant the feeling that the lives of the major characters go on. I just don't get a chance to read about them anymore. (Unless, of course, it's series.)
The best writers will anticipate what his readers want and give it to them, being true to the world she created.
My favorite ending of all time remains AGE OF INNOCENCE. I cried my eyes out in that library.
Probably the worst ending I loved was THE CRYING OF LOT 49 where absolutely nothing was resolved.
I've enjoyed a lot of plotless books in my time. John Fante novels just seem to roll into each other and I ate them all up.
My favorite mystery ending might be THE TASTE OF ASHES by Howard Browne. It was a case of Chandler redux that surpassed the inspiration.
Lily Bart in HOUSE OF MIRTH-that was a heart breaker too. Endings were bigger then.
I am not a fan of ambiguous endings in any novel, but especially in crime fiction. I can excuse it in a book where the supernatural is featured. But when there is a crime and its fiction there should be a a firmly resolved storyline. The culprit should be revealed. I feel there's enough of the unexplained in real life and so many criminals get away with horrendous deeds. In fiction where all is imgainary the author has the power to create justice whereas in real life often there is none. I've mentioned how much I am enoamored of imaginative storytelling rather than documentary-like depictions of real life in a fictional setting. I don't read fiction to read about real life. In the books I read I want the bad guys revealed and summarily punished. (Just saw that Deb wrote exactly what I feel. I'm with you, Deb, all the way.)
I wonder if crime fiction lovers read crime fiction because of this. That they like completion-justice-closure.
Complete closure in a story, for me, never feels real. I'm a big fan of ambiguous endings in both books and films, but pulling them off successfully is harder than it looks. It still has to feel like a natural end point. I know that in mainstream crime fiction the reader needs a resolution (the bad guy has to pay the piper) but that sort of fantasy turns me off... which is one of the reasons I dislike most "mystery" novels, and love stuff like Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor books.
...and I think it was the great Jed Ayres who said "Happy endings are for massage parlors..."
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