Detective Fiction and the Crime Genre

I like it as a relief from all the other reading I do. It's basically escapist but not silly (ala a lot of Science fiction). I'm a big fan of Ian Rankin, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, Tami Hoag, Ruth Rendell and I've just started a book by George P. Pelecanos which is beautifully written and seems, so far, to be well constructed. Crime Fiction automatically has a good hook, it deals with the sleazy side of life (which we all love to discover vicariously) and should provide ample opportunity for characterisation, description and a subtle denouement. A recipe for success if done well - but so few are able to do it.

I've a blind spot with Rankin. I find his writing pedestrian and lacking grace. But Leonard is one of my favourites. I've learned a lot from him and am reading "When the Girls Come out to Dance" at the moment, which has some chilling and delicate stories. I suppose crime stories are popular because they are inherently dramatic. And a mystery makes a seductive promise: I will surprise you. I'm uncomfortable when crime tries to be literature. For me the fancy stuff just gets in the way of the story.

I'm reading through Rankin's Rebus books at the moment and have to say I think they're great. The writing isn't always brilliant - and probably quite a long way from 'great literature' and there's a lot of references which repeat themselves (Deacon Brodie, Jeckyll and Hyde etc) but they do that thing of the lone voice calling out pretty well and keep me turning the pages. Very much a "down these mean streets a man must go" as Chandler described Marlowe.

One thing that draws me back to the genre is the aspect of figuring out a puzzle, or making sense of the senseless, or bringing order (of akind) to chaos. I'm less concerned about bringing the criminal to justice (or having him go free for that matter) than I am about the actual unravelling of the mystery. That probably explains my current fascination with CSI and now CSI Miami. Those are far from the first TV shows featuring forensics (Quincy is an obvious forerunner), but they are the most direct, and the best written. It's like the old saw: at first there was chaos and then the mind of man gave it order. Of course, the notion of "order" is hardly fixed, the mind of man created the chaos in the first place, and the resolution may not be much better than the problem, but the process draws me in. This is only to be expected from someone like me who has spent a lifetime trying to "figure things out," often with minimal results, yet the effort continues.

i am a big fan of detective stuff, rankin, pelecanos, val mcdermid, peter robinson... i like the way they put the case together and the better ones interweave the personal stuff into the narrative to give you a rounder, deeper view of the characters...

Whilst the appeal of detective fiction is unarguably rooted (at least in part) in a fascination with crime and the 'underworld', it strikes me as an essentially moral genre. Many detective stories, and particularly the 'hardboiled' stories of Hammet and Chandler, which have been mentioned above, have a distinctly puritan ethic, prizing individual integrity and morality above all else, even the institutional structures of law. This suggests to me a strange conflict at the heart of the genre - with such a strong moral framework underlying them, how do detective stories reconcile themselves with the fact that their appeal, to a certain extent, is voyeuristic?

Easy, that one....they don't reconcile it. That's probably another reason the genre has such appeal....something for everyone.

Tony - I'm a fan of Ellroy too. Cops, murderers, proper writing: what more could you want?

I'm just about to start a big-off volume of G K Chesterton short stories. I am a-rubbing my paws with glee. And ghee.

I met Ellroy at a book signing in Amsterdam, of all places. This was in about 1998 I think. I wrote a review of American Tabloid that includes this incident. It's in my review section. As it turns out, Ellroy and I lived about 1 mile from each other in Connecticut for several years in the 80s and early 90s. He wasn't so famous back then, but in retrospect I do recall seeing him in some of the local shops from time to time, though I had no idea who he was.

Paul - as an Ellroy fan you will love Pelecanos. I've only just found him but I guarantee that you will be knocked out by him!

I think it works because it has great scope for a range of emotional subject matter - and sometimes it works because of a negating of those emotions. Eg, there's nothing more shocking (hopefully not anyway) than the sudden and violent death of someone you love - from that single point comes a whole range of dramatic possibilities. Yet in Chandler and Hammett (as examples) there are men who come into contact with that extreme act on an almost daily basis and so have to develop this calm cynicism in the face of it. Why is it so popular? Because at it's best it's dramatic, challenging, draining even. And at it's worst you're still likely to want to know who did it just to you can throw the book against the wall when the clunking twist comes into view. But then I speak as someone who has never read Agatha Christie so what do I know about 'crime writing'?