The plot is the storyline of 'what happens' in a novel. Listed below are some of the plot conventions you may recognise in a detective thriller:

• A murder of a seemingly innocent person is committed. The police appear to have the case under control but a relative or friend of the deceased suspects foul play and contacts a private detective to investigate.
• There are a number of suspects, each with a motive for committing the crime. This is the 'whodunnit' aspect of the genre - readers are challenged to work out the identity of the murderer.
• The writer will include some 'red herring', i.e. false leads to decoy the reader away from the real culprit.
• Chapters will end with 'cliff-hangers' - the hero might be in a very dangerous situation, about to be killed with no obvious way out.
• High-speed car chases are common.
• Stooges will often follow the PI in cars, on foot or in disguise.
• Violent crimes, break ins, fights will take place.
• Cryptic messages or ransom notes may be left as clues.
• Both the criminals and the detective may use weapons, gadgets, or bugging devices to get what they want.
• The final scene often reveals everything, with the last pieces of the plot's jigsaw falling into place. A character may make a long speech retelling aspects of the plot to tie up any loose ends. The police, or another character, may ask questions which call for the confusing details of the story to be explained for the reader's benefit.
• The police arrive at the end to arrest the villains and tidy up any messy details.

PLOT OF HARRY LAVENDER

The plot of this story involves a search for the missing manuscript written by Mark Bannister. In some ways this novel's plot is unlike most other 'whodunnits' because we already have a fairly clear idea 'whodunnit' early in the story. The identity of Mark's killer is made apparent by Harry's little calling cards. Rather than being a hunt for a murderer then, this plot is a game of cat and mouse between Harry and Claudia.

STRUCTURE OF THE PLOT

The structure of a novel means the way the story is put together. Some stories go in a straight line from beginning to end, others constantly move in and out of the past and present. The main storyline of Harry Lavender is fairly linear - it moves in one direction from beginning to end. There are, however, some obvious interruptions to this linear direction. The italicised chapters containing Harry's monologues, for example, take the reader away from the flow of the main action. Day's occasional use of flashbacks also changes the linear direction of the plot.

HARRY'S MONOLOGUE

The five italicised chapters scattered evenly throughout the book interrupt the main plot but they also reinforce it. These chapters are meant to be extracts from Mark Bannister's manuscript about Harry and they are narrated from Harry's point of view. They give us an insight into Harry's mind and his background so that we understand the forces that made him into a criminal. When we read them, we are finding out even before Claudia why this manuscript is so valuable - because it exposes incriminating details of Harry's life. The manuscript is a 'novel within a novel'. Both have the same title because they effectively tell the same story but they do so from different viewpoints.

FLASHBACKS

Flashback is a style of storytelling in which the author interrupts the main storyline to go back into the past. An author may do this to give us some necessary background to a character or to describe a significant event which influences the main story. In 'Harry Lavender', Day uses this technique to tell us about Claudia's early life or to remind the reader of an earlier piece of evidence that may be important. Here are some instances of her use of flashback:

• This italicised extract (p.94) is a flashback to Claudia's childhood. Claudia describes the fear and sadness that she felt as her father was forced into drunkenness by Lavender's threats. It helps to explain that revenge for this troubled childhood is one of Claudia's motivations for chasing Harry Lavender.
• Again Day 'flashes back' briefly to Claudia's childhood in a few short italicised phrases (p.97). These fearful recollections show us that Claudia has been emotionally damaged by her frightening childhood experiences and that she is becoming scared of the dangerous people with who she is dealing.
• This flashback beginning 'I nearly killed him...' (p.113) concerns conversation Claudia had with Steve when they first met to discuss Mark's pacemaker. The extract shows Claudia's mind at work and reveals her increasingly suspicious outlook as she begins to suspect Steve of involvement in the murder. It is also a red herring, as discussed earlier in the chapter.
• Day uses a similar technique to flashback when Mrs Levack describes how she witnessed Mark's death through the window (p.39). In this way we are able to relive the murder, even though it occurred outside the life of the novel.

PLOT REVISION

A plot revision occurs when an author retells part of the plot and it is a common feature of the detective thriller. Because crime fiction plots are generally very complex, it is easy for the reader to become confused or to lose the thread of the storyline. This is particularly the case in this genre because the plot often involves decoys or red herrings which are deliberately included to distract the reader and complicate the puzzle. To ensure that the reader has not 'lost the plot' the author will revise the plot from time to time. This may done by having a new character introduced so that the events have to be explained to them or it may be achieved through a character making a confession to the police.

This feature is obvious in the last chapter of 'Harry Lavender. In this chapter, Brian Collier is the perfect character to perform the task of plot revision. He is a newspaper journalist, so it is his job to ask questions and find out the details of criminal cases. Therefore it is not unexpected that he quizzes Claudia about what has happened. He is also suitable because he has been involved in some aspects of this case, but has missed out on a lot of the action, so he is interested to hear what has taken place. In terms of the plot, the role of Brian Collier in this final chapter is to revise the complicated storyline for the reader. He asks questions which clear up any doubts that may remain about the actions and motives of the main characters. At the start of the chapter, he asks 'Why Mark Bannister?' (p.164) and this allows Claudia to retell the skeleton of the plot.

THE CONCLUSION

One of the unusual aspects of the structure of this plot is that the ending does not really work out entirely in Claudia's favour. In most detective thrillers, the hero ends up solving the crime and the 'bad guys' finish up behind bars. In this story, Harry, the villain, really has the last word because he dies before the full extent of his criminal dealings can be revealed to the public in the manuscript. His death weakens Claudia's victory. This is particularly so because one of her motivations was revenge and this seems to have been denied her. Claudia saves something at the end, however, because there is a romantic ending when she arranges to have a week's holiday with Steve (p.167). The story, therefore, ends on a happy note, but in terms of Claudia's detective work, it has not been a complete success.

The other odd feature of the ending of this story is that it actually ends with a beginning. The final paragraphs of the book are the opening paragraphs of Harry's book of the same title. We have already read this opening chapter of Harry's memoirs on page 15, so you could say the structure here is circular - it goes back in a circle to the beginning of the book.

In a typical detective thriller, the police arrive at the end of the story to take over the official arrest of the villains. This happens in 'Harry Lavender' with the arrival of Carol Rawlins who arrests Sally for possession of an illegal firearm. Claudia wonders how Carol can do her job 'with a straight face' (p.161) because she knows that arresting Sally is really only a minor concern compared to the discovery of the missing manuscript.

GUNS AND VIOLENCE

In a conventional thriller, violence and the use of guns are expected features of the plot. The detective hero is often involved in solving a murder and he/she may be attacked or threatened by the criminals who are being chased. Shoot-outs, fights, bashings or torture are part of the criminal underworld and provide opportunities for the detective hero to demonstrate his or her fighting skills.

In 'Harry Lavender', however, Day does not include a great deal of violence or gunplay. Such violence can be seen as a particularly male tendency and, as a feminist novelist, Day is attempting to challenge this behaviour. This presents her with a real difficulty - although she wants to write a story with the least possible violence, the reader has come to expect gunplay and fighting in a detective thriller. These are part of the excitement and appeal of the genre.

One way that Day avoids some of the violence is by setting the story up so that Harry actually needs to keep Claudia alive rather than kill her. Normally, when a nosy detective starts to investigate a crime boss, he or she risks being killed. In this novel, however, the crime boss toys with Claudia, using her to carry out his search for the missing manuscript.

Guns are traditionally male weapons. Their shape and function make them phallic objects used by men to exercise power. Day deliberately has weapons, calling them 'cowboy colleagues' (p.30). It is interesting to note that when she is confronted by a gun in her work, she is always able to outwit her attacker by using her legs, which she has trained to be her best weapon and form of defence. When she is attacked by the security guard at the container terminal, for instance, she kicks his gun out of his hand before escaping. Similarly, when Sally threatens her with the gun in the sauna, Claudia again kicks the weapon out of her hand. Even when she has Sally's gun, Claudia does not use it. Instead she throws it on the heater where it later goes off in a comical fashion, spraying the gym with stray bullets. Note, Sally's gun had been given to her by a male. Another incident involving a weapon occurs at the end of the story when she is being pursued by the Maori bouncer who has a knife. She again uses her legs as her best means of defence, this time running and jumping to safety over the bridge.

On other occasions of violence, Day does not linger on bloodthirsty details. In the scene where the Maori bouncer cuts out Ronny's tongue, Claudia is in the other room, so we are spared the gory aspects of the murder. Later, in the fight in the sauna between the two naked women, the violence is controlled and deliberate.