Why crime fiction?
"Crime fiction is a way of satisfying that nosy need to know" Sophie Hannah
I’ve read crime fiction obsessively since I was very young.
I quickly exhausted the possibilities of the children’s library, and started on my Dad’s library books by the time I was ten. He was an avid reader of crime fiction, so I read it too.
I recall reading various Collins Crime Club novels and Ian Charteris’ Saint novels. I was allowed to watch Roger Moore in the TV series too, which I loved - I spent hours in front of the mirror learning how to raise a single eyebrow. I read the James Bond novels. I can clearly remember realising that Pussy Galore’s name had some kind of hidden meaning, and the look of horror on my Dad’s face when I asked him, and he pretended not to know. Even so, he still let me continue to read anything and everything.
The librarian very kindly allowed me an adult library ticket years early, so I started working my way through even more crime fiction. Agatha Christie. Ngiao Marsh. Dorothy Sayers. I found Lord Peter Wimsey unbearable at first but grew to love him - mostly because of Harriet Vane, of course.
I read lots of other fiction too - and non fiction. I was obsessed with psychology and history. I read Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. Jane Austen, and the Brontes. I read Dickens - okay, I slogged through Dickens, even though I didn’t much enjoy. I gradually started reading more and more and more current literary fiction. Margaret Drabble. Emma Tennant. I went through a phase of reading HE Bates’ stories - including the Darling Buds of May.
But I always came back to crime fiction. Why?
Psychological Self Defence
I’ve never seen a better explanation for the attraction than this quotation from Sophie Hannah -
"Crime fiction is the genre that most closely mirrors the real dangers and dilemmas of real life. Namely, working out who the bad guy is before he gets you. I think that's what we all do every day."
All fiction is ultimately about putting oneself into other people’s shoes - as a favourite exchange between Atticus and Scout Finch goes, in To Kill a Mockingbird
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—”
“Sir?”
“—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
I wrote more about Theory of Mind in an earlier post, What is fiction for?
Of course, it’s not just about self-protection. It’s also about a more general interest in understanding people - ourselves and others. In what ways are we like those other people, over there? In what ways are we different?
But still, in crime fiction, there’s always a question of which people are dangerous and what can we do about it.
Social issues in crime fiction
Many of my favourite crime writers find social issues a rich source of ideas. Tana French, Sophie Hannah, Sara Paretsky, Ruth Rendell, PD James - and let’s not miss the men out - Rankin, Jonathan Kellerman, and Reginald Hill.
“For me, crime fiction was an opportunity to sneak up on readers with social issues, something they won't go out of their way to seek.”
Laura Lippman
Of course this is another attraction of the genre. It’s not just about understanding people and what makes us tick - it’s about how we interact with our environment - the society that shapes us.
PD James once expressed a very unpopular opinion - mentioned here in this Guardian article which opens with the warning This article is more than 22 years old.
Murder she Wrote
“During a radio interview five years ago, James attempted to explain how contrast is at the root of good crime writing by arguing that middle-class murderers make better characters, because the contrast between their ugly deeds and their urbane environment has a more dramatic effect”
I seem to recall her saying that middle class murder stories were more interesting on a moral level - because poor people, I suppose, commit crimes because of the pressures of poverty and lack of opportunity.
Yet, of course crime fiction is written and enjoyed by those of all political persuasions, and all will tend to use it as a lens to explore what they think about the world.
If we are reading to understand how the world works, then surely we will be happy to read crime fiction from all kinds of points of view, and set in all kinds of places - from sink housing estates to High Anglican theological colleges.
Innocent Blood by PD James is one of my favourite crime novels - I wrote about it here. The heroine’s father is a sociologist - which is very relevant to the story - and it is a very middle class story because of the characters who people it, and the setting.
Ruth Rendell who was very much the contemporary of James, wrote a much wider range of stories. The world seen from the perspective of her character Chief Inspector Wexford, is imbued with his compassionate understanding of human nature, but Rendell balances this by showing his the more right wing views of his sidekick, Detective Inspector Mike Burden. This avoids her stories turning into class or politically based lectures.
Rendell also wrote fascinating stand alone novels, often seen through the eyes of someone on the bottom rung of society, those who are lost and alienated and sometimes violent and quite frightening - about as far from PD James’ world as it is possible to get.
And Rendell’s Barbara Vine are different again - these are deeply psychological thrillers, with complex intertwining narrative threads - very much the kind of novel I love to read.
What kind of crime novel am I interested in writing?
Really, as I’m working hard on this writing course, trying to up my game, so that my next novel will be better than my last - than all my previous ones - this is the question I keep on coming back to - like a dog to its vomit, or the murderet to the scene of the crime.
Write what you love to read - that’s the advice. But what I love to read encompasses pretty much all crime fiction. From what Americans call cosy mysteries, to the darkest thrillers.
This us why at the moment, when I’m too poorly to write very much, I am reading and rereading and going back to the question of what my favourite crime novels are, and whether they have anything in common. Is it writing style? Theme? Certain kinds of characters and stories? Maybe there’s a little bit of a revenge thing going on in my first novel. There’s a bit of dysfunctional family stuff in novels 1 and 2, oh, and novel 3 too. Well there’s a coincidence. But the kinds of stories they are are very, very different.
So over the next few weeks, I’m probably going to be writing a bit about the novels I’ve been reading - the ones I loved and the ones I didn’t love quite so much.
Maybe I will find out what bus I’m on (read about this here) and perhaps something about where the bus is going.
I hope that will be of some interest to you too. And I promise I will give plenty of spoiler warnings in case you want to read the novels before my wittering about them.
Until then,
Ann
The one time I owned my own house (was when I was married ) we planted a hedge of bushes around our front lawn which then grew to like 10 feet tall. I loved that hedge. I felt like I lived in a private castle rather than a one story spanish home. That was my dream house and that hedge is still there - as I live only a few blocks away now. My dream (in another lifetime as I would never be able to afford this 3+ mill dollar house now nor was it that much when we sold it, yea wouldn't it be nice if the court would have allowed me to keep it 🤷🏼♀️but anyway...)...my dream to buy that house again... and have my wall of hedges ...haha....
"I spent hours in front of the mirror learning how to raise a single eyebrow" - ha! For some weird reason, I can raise my left eyebrow by itself, but not my right. I can raise them both at the same time, just not the right one singly. And I swear there is no Botox involved!