Why Crime Fiction?

Last year, during two hot months in France I wrote the first draft of my new (now completed) novel about a Private Investigator.

Until then I had not anticipated writing crime fiction and there are times still when I find myself surprised by this turn of events in my writing life. Times when I ask myself – why crime fiction?

I think this P.D. James quote goes a long way to answering my question – she says ‘I learned a lot from Dorothy Sayers, I think. I learned that it’s important to write well. She was a good writer. I learned…that you can use  a detective story…to say something true, or something you really believe in – and to illumine contemporary life.’

A number of crime writers I admire, Henning Mankell for one, have said something similar: that moving into crime fiction was the means for them of exploring  social issues and moral dilemmas.

Ian Rankin, defender of the genre says ‘…the best crime fiction today is actually talking to us about the same things big literary novels are talking about. They are talking about moral questions, taking ordinary people and putting them in extraordinary situations, and saying to the reader, “How would you cope in this situation?” Or saying, “How would you feel about living in a world in which this these crimes are allowed to happen?” I don’t see a distinction between the two. I think some of the best crime fiction is literature. And some of the best literature is crime fiction.’

I’m inclined to agree – after all a good novel is a good novel is a ….and for me, crime fiction, is most definitely the  place in which I can explore the darker aspects of  the world I live in, including the lives of many of the women I worked with in prison, while at the same time doing what I enjoy most – writing.

And writing my crime novel was probably the most fun I’ve had in my writing life to date!

Looking forward very much to 11.00 am Sunday and P.D. James interviewed by Val McDermid at the Hexham Book festival (now sold out)