THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF HARRY LAVENDER by  Marele Day

GLOSSARY

1. Accomplice - Someone willing to help the law-breaker.
2. Anti-hero - A character who does typically heroic things, but has obvious weaknesses.  Not always 'by the book'.
3. Arch-villain - The most evil character.
4. Autopsy - An operation to determine the cause of someone's death.
5. Black Humour - Making jokes about things which are not usuallly treated lightly.
6. Cardiac Arrest - A heart attack.
7. Caricature - An exaggerated description, like a cartoon drawing which exaggerates features.
8. Cliff-hanger - Actions which leave the reader hungry to know what is going to happen.
9. Colloquial Language - Language used in ordinary conversation.
10. Cryptic - With a hidden message.
11. Culprit - The one guilty of doing something wrong.
12. Decoy - Something set up to lure someone into a trap.
13. Dilemma - A situation in which you have to choose between equally difficult solutions.
14. Drones - Worker bees; people who follow orders.
15. Eccentric - Having strange behaviours and habits.
16. Facade - The false front to a building (or person) hiding what is less attractive behind it.
17. Feminist - A person who supports the rights of women.
18. Femme fatale - French expression meaning a dangerous woman who leads a man to his downfall.
19. First person narrative - Character tells story from his/her viewpoint. The pronoun 'I' is used.
20. Flashback - Storytelling technique in which the main storyline is interupted by descriptions of events from the past.
21. Functional characters - Characters who simply help the story move.
22. Gender-switching - Swapping the expectations we have of male or female characters to challenge our limited views of either sex.
23. Gumshoe - Slang for 'detective'.
24. Henchman - Someone who does the dirty work with unquestioning obedience.
25. Hitman - A hired killer.
26. Imagery - A picture created by a writer to help the reader imagine what he/she is describing.
27. Incriminating - Shows someone is guilty of a crime.
28. 'Love Interest' - Male or female character whose role in the story is to provide a romantic partner for the main character.
29. Lucifer - An angel in Milton's 'Paradise Lost' who turned into a devil.
30. Lyrical Language - Poetic, musical words or expressions.
31. Meglomaniac - Someone who is mad with power.
32. Memoirs - A written record of someone's life and experiences.
33. Metaphor - A comparison which speaks of one thing as if it were another, eg: "The tentacles of Harry's power stretched across the city".
34. Monologue - A long talk by a single speaker. The italicised chapters spoken by Harry Lavender are monologues.
35. Motherboard - A circuit board that is part of a computer.
36. Narrator - The person telling the story.
37. PI - 'Private Investigator'
38. Pacemaker - A machine surgically implanted to control the rate of heartbeat of someone with a faulty heart.
39. Paranoid - Feeling an exaggerated fear.
40. Pawn - Smallest chess piece; someone who is used by another.
41. Personification - Describing something non-living as if it were a person, eg: "the city was a beautiful, dancing lady".
42. Phallic - Shaped like a penis.
43. Plot Device - An event or character's action which conveniently helps the story unfold.
44. Politically Correct - Using language and expressing ideas which are considered 'proper' by today's society, eg: using non-sexist terms.
45. Ransom - Money demanded for the release of someone kidnapped.
46. Red Herring - A false lead deliberately set to distract from the real villain.
47. Sadist - Someone who enjoys causing pain to another person.
48. Sexual Politics - The unwritten rules about how women and men treat each other.
49. Simile - A comparison which uses 'like' or 'as', eg: Claudia was 'like an Amazon'; Harry was 'as influential as a queen bee'.
50. Slang - Very informal and sometimes vulgar language.
51. Stereotyping - Categorising people by simplistic descriptions of them as 'typical' of a certain age, race, sex or profession, eg: the stereotype detective is male, tough, tall, handsome, a larrikin and good fighter.
52. Stock Characters - The sorts of characters that are essential to a particular type of story, eg: a hitman or a thug would be a stock character in a detective story.
53. Stooge - Someone who does somebody else's dirty work.
54. Trait - A characteristic; a feature of someone's personality.
55. Two-dimensional Characters - Not described in any detail; we only get to know them on the surface. They don't grow or develop in the story.
56. Underworld - People living on the criminal edge of the main society.
57. Wake - A party following someone's death.
58. Whodunnit - Murder mystery in which you have to work out 'who done' the crime.
59. Wit - Ability to think quickly; a good sense of humour.