Shinabery Kraig lives in Santa Barbara, California. She came to detective fiction relatively late in life, publishing her first novel in this genre when she was already 56. Until that point, she had forged a part-time career churning out short cowboy novels for Mills & Boon. When her distinctive brand of erotic detective fiction became popular in the late-1970s, she brought with her the work-ethic she learned writing Romances, and has so far published twenty-three mysteries.
An interesting aspect of Kraig’s novels is that there are no recurring characters, and each new story introduces a new detective. This is because each hero is invariably killed off towards the end of the story. Always, their death is necessary to exposing the crimminal, but sometimes, they meet their demise without discovering their nemesis identity themselves, and it is left to a minor side-kick (and the reader, of course) to complete the puzzle. This allows Kraig a certain freedom with her characterisiations, and one find that her detectives are less likeable than others we encounter in the genre.
Each death happens in unusual ways. Indeed, in the run up to a new novel being published, devoted fans of Kraig’s work spend hours discussing how the lead character may meet their doom.
In this exceprt, from The Magicians’ Accomplice, the arrogant Detective Faggot (pronounced Fa-joh), assumes he is about to reveal the identity of a jewel thief, to great acclaim. In fact, he is merely minutes away from being decapitated inside a magician’s trunk. Only then do we realise that there were actually two jewel thieves!
“Commission,” said his wife haughtily. “Surely that has nothing to do with magic?”
“Oui, madame,” replied Faggot, “it has, but you naturally do not know why. As for the meeting, you are quite wrong. When he went to the meeting – which, incidentally, was never scheduled to take place yesterday – Arkady Apollonich dismissed his chauffeur at the Acoustics Commission (a hush came over the whole theatre) and took a bus to Yelokhovskaya Street where he called on an actress called Militsa Andreyevna Pokobatko from the local repertory theatre and spent about four hours in her flat.”
