Liner Notes for The Affair of the Correctly Accused Mentor
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Money laundering again. Well, it’s the future of crime, or at least the present. Law enforcement may not be able to stop criminals before they commit crimes but the money hangs around afterwards and leaves a trail, letting them find it at their leisure. Unless you can take the dirty money and clean it.
Amateurs steal money, professionals launder it as we say in the semi-professional crime writers’ clubhouse. Or we would if we had one.
The story briefly talks about criminology and Villefort’s contention, not entirely unorthodox that the crimes that emerge from society depend on the mores of that society. Generally murder is considered bad, but speeding is not. In my lifetime drink driving had gone from being a minor peccadillo to quite a no-no, the “just one drink because I’m driving” now a staple rather than the imprimatur of an over cautious fusspot. White collar crime is just fiddling numbers on a spreadsheet, burglary causing a hundred times less damage in financial terms can cause more personal distress.
Anyway, no answers here. An oligarch trying to smuggle his ill-gotten gains out of his country because the government might turn against him can have both our contempt and our empathy, and also our professional appreciation for the stylish methods he uses to sidestep the regulations.
Lacey basically blackmails and threatens her way through this one. And technically Villefort is guilty! This isn’t actually noir, where the world is shades of grey and the only choice is who goes down for the crime (which may or may not be the actual crime or the actual perpetrator). Wait, in fact it is, it just doesn’t have noir trappings. “I knew the dame would be trouble when she came tripping into my office on her well-upholstered legs,” etc. Sorry about that.
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