IT'S A CRIME! (OR A MYSTERY...)

Guest Post: Birth of Clue by James McCreet

It's a Crime! is delighted to welcome back James McCreet with another guest post.  Here he offers an insight into literature’s long-standing debt to crime writing.

Birth of a Clue

TS Eliot famously described Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone as "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels” and he was not alone among literary men with a penchant for criminal thrills. Kingsley Amis liked James Bond books so much that he wrote one himself (Colonel Sun, 1968), while arch-wordsmith Anthony Burgess couldn’t resist writing his own “eschatological spy novel” Tremor of Intent (1966).

We shouldn’t be surprised. In a genre sometimes derided as frothily commercial, we can count such ‘literary’ productions as Umberto Eco’s (The Name of the Rose, 1986), Alain Robbe-Grillet’s brain-melting The Erasers (1953), Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths. In each case, these heavyweight authors have leaned heavily upon (and luxuriated in the pleasures of) the tropes and narrative structures created by the originators of detective fiction. Indeed, when Agatha Christie had her unreliable narrator own up to the murder in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), she pretty much threw postmodernism out with the bathwater.

Murder to Music is Cosy? Well, now that you've asked...

Described by Paul Magrs as ‘the Queen of Cosy Crime’, Lesley Cookman’s latest in her Libby Serjeant series (with Accent Press) – Murder to Music – hits the shelves on Monday April 11th.  Here, she puts the case for cosy crime and how it needs to be crafted in our contemporary social structure and technological world.

First, I’d like to say thank you for allowing me to hijack the It’s A Crime blog today. It’s a great opportunity for me for a number of reasons. I’m published by one of the smaller independent, although hugely successful, publishers who haven’t the resources of the big guys, so I’m more difficult to find, not being on the shelves of the major supermarkets or WH Smiths Travel shops, neither am I reviewed in the broadsheets.

The other reason is to push the underrated but still surviving “cosy” genre, the direct descendent of the Golden Age detective stories and, some would say, redundant and anachronistic in the 21st century. Or, some others would say, just plain daft.

Well, yes. The amateur sleuth who happens, Jessica Fletcher-like, to stumble on crime after crime, corpse after corpse in her own small corner of the world is, frankly, unbelievable. But I still like reading them and to my delight, so do quite a lot of other people.  Of course, these days it’s not about the toffs and domestics who tug their forelocks and say “Yes’m.”  It’s about ordinary people with ordinary and out-of-the-ordinary jobs. We also tend to have very up to date and relevant themes. I’ve had illegal immigrants, homophobia and gay-bashing and incest among others. I’ve also used another thorny topic as part of the background in Murder to Music, which will be out on Monday April 11th, but I don’t want to give the game away. You never know, you might buy it! 

James McCreet's Crinoline Crushes

The Crimson Petal and the White starts on TV later this evening.  To get you up to speed with the world of Victorian prostitutes, here’s historical crime novelist James McCreet with a very interesting briefing…

As Michael Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White brings Victorian prostitutes to the BBC, I welcome the creeping vice with open arms. A flash of naked ankle is never a bad thing, and nor is a thorough beating with a brush of holly if you really get into the matter.

 My second book, The Vice Society, required me to do a lot of research into Victorian vice and the indecent book trade of London – a fascinating and surprising area as it turned out. And the Victorians agreed: the term “pornography” was a neologism of the 1850s referring to the great number of books and pamphlets being written on the subject. Like much of the crime genre itself, it had that irresistible ‘car-crash’ attraction of revulsion and compulsion.

The allegation at the time was that 80,000 prostitutes worked in London – an estimate that was virtually impossible to prove, but also one that was credible when you learn that many working class girls would resort to it periodically at times of need. They were known as “dollymops” and were often milliners’ girls.

L C Tyler recommends Talking About Detective Fiction by P D James

One of the problems with crime fiction, in my humble opinion, is that there is so much of it.  Crime writers are expected to be fairly omniscient concerning their genre; most of us (with the possible exception of Martin Edwards) aren’t.  Before I started writing, I would probably have regarded myself as being reasonably well-read – but there were gaps that, even then, I was dimly aware of.  For example (and I’m only telling you this because I know you won’t tell anybody else) I have never knowingly read anything by Ngaio Marsh.   And of course the deeper I have delved into the subject, the vaster the chasms in my knowledge that have been revealed.

Talking about Detective Fiction is, if nothing else, at least a marvellous way of mapping your ignorance of the subject and provides a great introduction to writers you may have missed up until now.  It is also an excellent overview of themes and sub-genres.

PD James’ book takes us from detective fiction’s murky beginnings, through the Golden Age and the origins of the hard-boiled novel, and up to the present day.  It is an easy read – both because it is well-written and because the length (just over 150 pages) leaves no scope for getting bogged down in unnecessary detail.  Nor is this just an adulatory homage to the Golden Age – of Christie, for example, James writes “she wasn’t an innovative writer and had no interest in exploring the possibilities of the genre”.  So much for some reputations, then.  But I defy you to read the book and not develop a sudden enthusiasm for (say) EC Bentley, Edmund Crispin or GK Chesterton.

GUEST BLOG: Sue Armstrong on a Matter of Life and Death

This week sees the publication of Sue Armstrong’s A Matter of Life and Death: inside the hidden world of the pathologist with Canongate.  It is a collection of conversations with pathologists, exploring their hidden worlds and it’s a book I look forward to reading as soon as a certain reading challenge has been completed.  I invited Sue to write a guest blog post to uncover the story behind the book and to give a taster.  With many thanks, and over to Sue…

GUEST BLOG: S J Parris, author of Heresy

It’s a Crime is pleased to welcome author S J Parris with a guest blog on publication of her novel Heresy.  This is the author’s first outing into historical crime fiction which introduces the monk Giodarno Bruno, magician, scientist, and heretic in a new series.  You may have read other work from this author for she is Stephanie Merritt, previously published in literary fiction and non-fiction, as well as a critic and feature writer in the media, currently writing for the Observer.  What led her to the historical world of crime?  Over to Stephanie, with many thanks for the article…

GUEST BLOG: Why Crime Fiction Always Sells

Today, It's a Crime! welcomes Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of forensic scientist schools.  In the following article she considers why crime fiction always sells.  Over to Adrienne:

There are varying forms of crime fiction – some focus on the crime, others on the main characters; some are violent and gory, others do not refer to the crime other than in passing; some are series featuring recurring characters while others are standalone novels, each of which is complete in itself. Crime fiction is a genre that will always find readers; it has been selling from the time books began to be published and will be around even though other new genres come about. And the reasons why crime fiction sells are:

• The author is good: When you know and love an author, you don’t think twice about buying his or her books, even when you don’t know the storyline or the plot. You know you love the author’s style of writing and that’s all that matters. A good crime writer can hold readers’ attention and keep them coming back for more, even after a long break.
• There is a series: Some crime stories are written as a series, with one or more books being linked together in terms of characters and plot. This makes you want to know what happens next, and you end up waiting avidly for the next book in the series.
• People are attracted to crime: in a very strange and compelling way. They don’t want to be at the center of the crime or even related to it in any way, but they do have voyeuristic tendencies that make them crowd around crime scenes, read crime news in the paper, and of course, buy crime fiction. Also, a good whodunit is an entertainer for all seasons and makes for light reading at any time.
• Readers are curious: They love to find out how the crime is solved and how the criminal is brought to book by the protagonist. They are curious about the method used to solve the murder or rape, and this makes them continue to buy crime fiction even though they have never read the author before.
• Some people want the thrill: If you’ve ever read a good crime thriller, you’ll know what I mean when I say that you tend to feel a sort of anticlimax when you reach the end of the book. It’s like you build up to a crescendo during the closing pages, the ones that lead to the capture of the criminal. And once the end has come and the last page has been read, your adrenaline levels drop down drastically, leaving you wanting another fix. This makes people buy crime fiction books repeatedly.

Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions, including at her email address: adrienne DOT carlson83 AT yahoo DOT com.  Many thanks to Adrienne.

GUEST BLOG: Jeri Westerson on medieval lawlessness

Jeri Westerson's new Crispin Guest medieval noir novel, Serpent in the Thorns is now available for purchase and It's a Crime! is pleased to welcome her today with her guest blog on lawlessness in the middle ages.  Thus, I direct you into the safe hands and well-researched mind of Jeri for a trip back to the days you'd probably not choose not live through if given the choice, but for a time that resonates even today.

Guest Blog: Ben Kane author of The Silver Eagle (published 4 June 09)

Let's all indulge in a virtual toga party of the book launch variety.

Tomorrow, Ben Kane's second novel, The Silver Eagle (Preface) hits the shelves.  I wrote about the author a few weeks ago and invited him to guest blog at the time.  We met on an Arvon course in 2005 and he recently contacted me again to tell me his second novel was on its way as well as his second child (a girl, safely delivered and the whole family is doing well).  I suggested that Ben write about why he has a passion for the Romans and how he goes about his meticulous research to get the detail right.  His first novel, The Forgotten Legion recently went into paperback.  Read on to find out more from Ben, including his recommendation for a "One Stop Shop" on the internet "for all things Roman".  Yes.  Really.  From Ben's pen:

Guest Blog: John Baker, author of Winged with Death

Winged with Death - Virtual Tour 

I was struck by something Elizabeth Baines said the other day. When speaking about the writing process she said, always be prepared to put back things you've cut. 

This is something I've never thought about before. I've cut lots of passages, sometimes whole chapters from my own manuscripts. During the editing stage I've removed thematic elements from a novel, and from time to time, single characters or families, including all references to them made by other voices in the narrative. Obliterated them. 

When you cut something from a narrative you don't expect to have to put it back. You imagine you have made an irrevocable decision. For some reason the narrative is flawed, slowed, obscured by this passage, so the passage has to be cut. 

But I have, in the past, replaced cut sections of a novel. I didn't learn Elizabeth's lesson to always be prepared to put back things you've cut, but, of course, I'm not going to forget it now. It's a good thing to remember. 

I was prepared to do it in the instance, because a novel is a huge project and one of the things that is very difficult about a huge project is managing to keep it all in your head at the same time. It is likely that you will be doing some quite close work during the editing stage and your concentration, of necessity is focussed on one or more aspects of the narrative that for some reason is unsatisfactory. This is the most likely stage when something will be cut. And the cut takes place because it would seem to solve a problem. 

Later, however, sometimes quite a short time later, I may easily discover that the cut has created a bigger problem than the one it solved, and in fact it would have been better not to cut but to trim a little, or to shift emphasis. 

That's why a cut is only ever done with half a heart. A passage is removed from the narrative, but, in my case at least, never burned or buried or shredded. It's just dumped in folder labelled 'cuts'. And left there to languish, sometimes for ever. 

As we've seen, these cuts sometimes make a comeback, they're reinstated, they were falsely accused. In the past I've thought that they may be incorporated elsewhere, into another novel, into a short story, etc. etc. But this is rarely the case. Because they have been been created as part of a bespoke project, they don't fit elsewhere, they always stick out as if they were of a slightly different hue, or like an overcoat made specifically for a man with short arms, they always appear a little odd out of context. 

Sometimes I find a use for them in my blog, This works because they can often stand alone, and readers have commented, indicating that these out-takes seem to have an internal integrity. It is often not necessary to include reference to where they came from or why they are orphaned in the world. They have a way of letting us know.