The Dog Collar Murders

Pam Nilsen #3

by Barbara Wilson, Barbara Sjoholm

This novel follows "Murder in the Collective" and "Sisters of the Road", which feature the sleuth Pam Nilsen. It investigates the suspicious death of Loie Marsh before she gets the chance to speak against pornography at a conference on sexuality and the feminist issues which arise from it.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, LGBT, Lesbian

203 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Barbara Wilson is the pen name of author and translator Barbara Sjoholm. Her mysteries, written under the name Barbara Wilson, include two series, one with printer Pam Nilsen (Murder in the Collective) and one with translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly. Her mysteries include the Lambda-award-winning Gaudi Afternoon, made into a film of the same name. She was a co-founder of Seal Press and in 2020 received the annual Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society for her contributions to lesbian literature. Her books have been published in England and translated into Spanish, Finnish, German, and Japanese.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely the best of the three, and set me off on a Pat Califia spree

[Woebbelchen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Naja.
Als Krimi leider komplett unbrauchbar, da die Spannungskurve nichtmal so flach verläuft wie Norddeutschland, nein, sie war wirklich gar nicht vorhanden.
Ich habe an keiner Stelle mit irgendjemandem mitgefiebert. Die ganze Handlung plätscherte dahin. Es fühlte sich an wie eine aneinanderreihung schrecklich flacher Beschreibungen von (weitestgehend weißen) cis Menschen mit super ähnlich klingenden Namen. Die Detektivinnenarbeit der Protagonistin Pam war einschläfernd und trotzdem schlecht nachzuvollziehen, was sie imerhin selbstironisch zugibt. Die Auflösung machte wenig Sinn - und was sollte eigentlich das Baby in der "Story"line?

Kommen wir zu den Gründe, weshalb ich trotdem zwei Sterne vergeben habe:
Die zeitiche Perspektive, aus heutiger Sicht skurrile Ausdrücke (die der fragwürdigen Übersetzung geschuldet sein dürften, "Analpfropfen" hat mich sehr lange erheitert) und die Darstellung der Szene/n, deren Hierachien und Diskussionen.
Es war interessant, so viele Verhaltensweisen und Diskurse, die noch heute aktuell sind, wieder zu erkennen - in einem 30 Jahre alten Buch! Auch Anflüge von "heutzutage macht ja keine mehr X..." - was heute genau so gejammert wird - sind aus heutiger Perspektive lehrreich.
Andere Diskussionen, die heute in der Art glücklicherweise nur Randnotizen in queerfeministischen Diskursen sind, wie die Frage ob Toy-Benutzung ok ist oder schon BDSM!, sowie ob BDSM klar geht oder per se mit sex. Gewalt gleichzusetzen ist, habe ich mir gerne nochmal vor Augen führen lassen. Damals war ich noch nicht dabei und hätte mir bspw. die diskursive Verknüpfung vom Tabu Toybenutzung (heutzutage ja völlig standard, wenn nicht gar Pflicht) und noch schlimmerem Tabu BDSM, gar nicht so vorgestellt, auch wenn ich beide Einzeldiskussionen kannte.

Wirklich schade ist, dass die Autorin zwar zum großen Thema in dem Buch, Pornographie/Sexwork, mehrere Seiten zeigt und auch verschiedene Charaktere und deren Meinungen darlegt, die sich für eine wesentlich differneziertere Sicht aussprechen, aber sie selbst davor zurück schreckt, Stellung zu beziehen. Idealerweise gegen sexworker_innenfeindliche Haltungen und Verteuflung von Pornographie. Ob ihr das Eisen dann doch zu heiß war?

Bedauernswert, dass das Buch so langweilig war, die historische Perspektive hätte für mich getaugt.

[Fanny Aboulker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and entertaining read.

[Molly Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun bc it was such a detailed fictionalised exploration of the 1980s feminist sex wars. But I found the plot the least convincing/compelling of the three I think.

[Megan]

The third and last book in the Pam Nilsen series is another satisfying feminist mystery, with an emphasis on the feminist. In this one, Pam is involved in a conference discussing the very divisive issue of pornography. On one hand, pornography often portrays violence against women and almost always portrays them as sex objects for men. As one of the big names of the conference notes, “Men hated women. Always had. Always would. There was absolutely no other way to explain history.” Well, that’s one viewpoint. Another held that women need to feel free to express their sexuality, whether that be by acting in pornographic films, enjoying such films privately, or even engaging in S/M practices—in which violent scenarios can be safely acted out.

Pam, having only recently realized her true sexuality, is in way over her head on these topics, but when two of the women at the conference are strangled to death with dog collars, she vows to find out who the killer is. And, of course, she does, but that’s not the point of the book. The point is to discuss feminist theory. The point is to present two or three different arguments and have the readers decide which fits them best. As Pam’s girlfriend Hadley exclaims, while watching naked women dancing in a peep show, “I can’t decide whether it’s horrible or it’s wonderful.”

Yes, Hadley is back from Texas after placing her ailing father in a rest home and she and Pam are houseboat-sitting for a friend—a temporary arrangement—while they decide how committed they are to each other. Pam’s twin sister Penny is back from South America with her boyfriend Ray and a newly born daughter. Pam loves Hadley and wants to stay with her forever, but Hadley isn’t so sure. Penny wants to have a real wedding, which goes against much of Pam’s feminist ideals and leaves her a bit at odds with her sister for the first time. So it’s no wonder that Pam needs something to concentrate her energies on other than her personal or family life.

And she is tenacious in her pursuit of the killer. Each interview, each conversation she has with other participants of the conference reveal just a little more of the answer. Pam describes her method as , “making everyone so nervous with my questions that I precipitate events.” Unfortunately, the perpetrator turns out to be one of the most obvious suspects and the one with the least feminist ideals. Still, as I said, The Dog Collar Murders is not really about the crime, it is about the milieu.

I’m not sure how this book was received with it first came out in 1989. Certainly the average reader would have thought it dreadfully academic while feminist readers would have had arguments among themselves. Today, it stands as more of a history of part of an important “violence against women” movement that has disappeared from mainstream thought. As Pam says, “women were much angrier a while back, with an anger that didn’t allow for complexities, that burned away all the scrub—and many of the trees—and left you looking at a world you’d never seen before.” Sadly, women of Pam's day were still angrier than many women are today.

But it is more than just a history. It is a discussion of feminist authors like Julia Kristeva, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Griffin, and even mentions Jacques Lacan and other postmodernists. Author Wilson uses terms that today we would eschew, such as “Penny really didn’t accept my becoming a lesbian.” or when Pam asks a woman pornographer, “Then why are you a lesbian?” Did women in 1989 think that they had a choice? Although I still enjoyed it, this is probably the least likable of the three books in the series, but also the most feminist. The parts that discuss S/M are reminiscent of the novels of Kate Allen, and especially of her wonderful novel Just a Little Lie. which was written a decade after The Dog Collar Murders. My recommendation? Read them both. Read them all.

Note: I read the fourth printing of the Seal Press edition of this novel.

Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too drawn out for me. The mystery somehow got kind of lost in the anti pornography and women’s rights, so much discussion on these topics and not enough on who killed the two women.

[Wayne Spiceland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, exactly. The actual writing is sound, the narrative style engaging, almost conversational. For most of the book, though, our lead character is whiny and insecure, not traits I want in my protagonist. I also feel it's a copout when an author lets a mystery more or less solve itself.

There's also a hell of a lot of rhetoric from various points of view about pornography and violence against women. Not to disparage either topic, certainly the latter is of major importance, but these passages cause an otherwise fast moving story to really drag. Historical material that in Elizabeth Pincus or Kate Allen is interesting and adds to the story here feels more like filler.

Overall writing: A
Mystery: B
Extraneous material: D
Romance: D

Probably should be only two stars, but I've recently decided to start giving the benefit of the doubt. In other words, if I'm thinking 2 1/2 stars, I'll go with 3 rather than 2.

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was ok. It didn't really capture my attention like some books do, but I didn't dislike it. Part of the problem might have been how old it is (1989). I am debating continuing to read books by Barbara Wilson. Her other books might be better.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is sweet--a mystery that also looks at the arguments for and against porn and feminist porn, as well as issues around bondage, etc. Done well, too, not sensationally, tittilatingly.

[Sketchycat8 · Rating 2 out of 5]

at least it was short.. characters not fleshed out enough for my liking, but it was ok.

[Lukorito Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice book... though lots of rhetoric on feminism and the theme on porn is kinda outdated now...