That I Can Tell You in One Word…Tradition!*

Tradition plays a very important role in our lives. Whether it’s family tradition, religious tradition, sport tradition or something else, our traditions give us a sense of continuity and stability. And that can be comforting and very helpful in a world that sometimes seems upside-down.

There are traditions in crime fiction too. For example, one tradition in crime fiction is that there is an obvious crime, usually murder, which is then investigated. That tradition began with the earliest crime fiction and has continued even to recent releases. For instance, Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime, released just a few years ago, features the poisoning murder of Lídia Font. Her wealthy and politically powerful husband Lluís Font is a likely suspect. He believed that his wife was having an affair, and even hired Barcelona private investigators Eduard and Josep ‘Borja’ Martínez to follow her and find out if she was being unfaithful. But Font claims that he’s innocent, and he wants his name cleared. So he asks the Martínez brothers to continue working on his behalf and find out who the real killer is.

Another tradition in crime fiction is that the sleuth pursues leads, makes sense of evidence and finds out who committed the crime. Again, we see that tradition in a lot of modern crime fiction. For instance, Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs begins with the gruesome discovery of a left foot that has washed up on shore near the Norwegian town of Savern. Chief Inspector William Wisting and his team begin the process of looking for clues, following leads and so on. Then another left foot is discovered. And another. It turns out that these discoveries are linked to the disappearance of a group of residents that have gone missing from the same old-age care home. Wisting and his team also discover that the missing people had another connection, this one going back to the years during and just after World War II. The tradition of narrowing down the list of suspects and finding out whodunit and whydunit is an important part of this novel.

And then there’s the tradition that crime fiction stories are told from the perspective of the sleuth and/or a sidekick/assistant. Although readers may get a look at what other characters do and say, the real focus of the novel is the sleuth. Of course not every early crime novel was written this way (for instance Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone wasn’t). But from the beginning, it’s been customary for crime stories to be told from the sleuth or sidekick’s point of view. And many modern novels follow this tradition. For instance, Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series is told from the perspective of Galloway, who is a forensic archaeology expert at the University of North Norfolk, and the perspective of DCI Harry Nelson, the official investigator of these cases and also the father of Galloway’s daughter Kate.

These and other crime fiction traditions are a critical part of the genre. They are at its roots and they give readers and authors both a structure and a set of important parameters. But here’s the thing. Times change. Ideas change. People change. And if the genre didn’t evolve too, it would become stale and outworn. It wouldn’t meet the needs and interests of today’s readers and it would limit today’s authors. So traditions are perhaps most helpful if they are integrated with adaptation and innovation.

For instance, for many years, the crime fiction tradition was that PI sleuths were male (I know there were a few early female PI sleuths; I’m talking in generalities here). But authors such as Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky changed the PI tradition. The genre is better because it includes stories that feature Sharon McCone, Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski. Not only has that innovation welcomed many new readers and authors, it’s also breathed new life into the PI sub-genre. Yes of course there are still traditional male PI fictional sleuths and some of them are terrific characters. But adapting the sub-genre to meet new needs has improved it.

When Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, she got quite a lot of criticism for it because she broke with one of the important traditions in crime fiction. She had kept with the custom of the sleuth (in this case Hercule Poirot) who investigates a murder (here, the stabbing death of retired magnate Roger Ackrody). But she did part with tradition in a fundamental way and plenty of people didn’t like that. There was a feeling she hadn’t ‘played fair.’ And yet, if you read through that novel, there are several clues as to whodunit. This novel was an innovation and helped to change and develop the genre. In hindsight, it’s often regarded as one of Christie’s best and has one of the most famous dénouements in crime fiction history.

We also see a break with tradition in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. The story is told from the perspective of Central City, Texas deputy sheriff Lou Ford and concerns the investigation of a brutal beating and later, a murder. So far, so traditional.  But Lou Ford is not at all a ‘typical’ lawman. He has a hidden dark side – he calls it, ‘the sickness’ – that affects much about him and plays a critical role in the novel. Thompson’s creation added an innovation to the genre and opened it to all sorts of different kinds of plot twists and protagonists as well as new ways to build tension.

And then there’s the crime fiction tradition that a crime novel involves an obvious crime and the ensuing investigation. That tradition is one of the founding principles of the genre. And yet, opening up the genre to include novels where there isn’t an obvious murder or other crime has allowed for memorable novels. For instance, Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost tells the story of Kate Meaney, a ten-year-old would-be private investigator. She’s even got her own agency Falcon Investigations. Kate is content with her life until her grandmother Ivy decides she would be better off going away to school. She insists that Kate sit the entrance exams at the exclusive Redspoon School and Kate reluctantly agrees after her friend Adrian Palmer persuades her to go. Palmer even goes with Kate to the school to keep her company. Then, Kate disappears. Despite an intensive police search, no trace of her is found, not even a body. Palmer is blamed for her disappearance, although he claims he’s innocent. In fact, his life is made so difficult that he leaves town. We learn the truth about Kate when twenty years later, Palmer’s sister Lisa and a friend of hers Kurt return to the mystery and piece together what happened. Without spoiling the story I can say that this isn’t at all a typical crime-followed-by-investigation kind of novel. And yet it’s powerful.

Traditions link us with the past. They give us a safe structure and they are important in helping us order our lives. But without innovation and change, traditions become limiting. They seem to be most helpful to us when they are seasoned with evolution. What do you think? When you read, what sort of balance between tradition and innovation do you like? If you’re a writer, how does tradition fit into what you write? Or doesn’t it?

 

On Another Note…
 

 

This post is dedicated to the memory of Jackie Robinson. On 15 April 1947, he became the first African-American to play in a major-league U.S. baseball game. Baseball has always been a sport rich with tradition. It still is. But then-Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey saw that in order to attract new fans and make the game more popular, baseball would need to evolve and change the tradition of fielding only White players. Rickey had the idea and Robinson had the courage, the class and the baseball talent to make that idea a reality. And baseball is far better for it. So are we as a people.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the prologue to Jerry Brock and Sheldon Harnick’s Tradition (Book by Jospeh Stein).

‘Cause Nothing’s Going Right and Everything’s a Mess*

For the past seventy years or so, noir has been an important part of the world of crime fiction. Today it’s considered a significant sub-genre; a quick glance at blogs, online and traditional literary magazines and of course, new crime fiction titles is all it takes to see that noir is a force to be reckoned with in the genre.  Noir fiction is by its nature bleak and sometimes very depressing. And noir deals with the ugly, the dirty and the unpleasant. So why do we read it? What is it about noir that appeals to readers? Of course, we choose what to read for a whole constellation of reasons. But here’s my thinking about what makes noir a part of so many people’s reading diets.

As I mentioned, noir is dirty and gritty and sometimes unpleasant. It turns over rocks and takes a look at what’s under them. And that’s just what some people like about it. Because it’s unflinching, noir addresses issues that aren’t as easy to address in other sub-genres. For example, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me is the story of Central City, Texas deputy sheriff Lou Ford. Ford is well-enough liked, although no-one would exactly call him scintillating. But Ford is carrying a dark secret which comes out slowly as the novel moves on. First, local prostitute Joyce Lakeland is brutally beaten. Then there’s a murder. As we follow along in this investigation, we find out that Ford is not the nice, if a bit dull, guy that everyone thought he was. In fact, he himself refers to this as ‘the sickness.’ So on that level Thompson takes an unflinching look at mental illness. This novel also explores prostitution and domestic violence as well as the ugly reality of the effect of violence and murder on a small town. The story takes up difficult and challenging issues.

So does Roger Smith’s Dust Devils. Former journalist Robert Dell, his wife Rosie and their two children are taking a drive one afternoon when their car is ambushed not far from Cape Town and sent over an embankment. Dell survives but the other members of his family are killed. Soon he’s accused of the murder and imprisoned. He’s been framed, but at first he doesn’t know why or by whom. His father Bobby Goodbread engineers his escape and together the two go in search of the person who killed Dell’s wife and children and framed him. This novel addresses several difficult but very real issues that would be hard to treat honestly in another kind of novel. For instance, one of the themes in the story is the reality of race relations in modern South Africa. That’s a complex and sometimes unpleasant topic. So are corruption and nepotism, which are also treated in this novel.

In Gene Kerrigan’s The Rage, Dublin police detective Bob Tidey is part of the team that’s investigating the murder of Emmet Sweetman, a crooked banker who made a fortune during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years. At the same time, Vincent Naylor, a young thug who’s recently gotten out of prison, is planning his own master stroke – an armoured car robbery. Drawn into both of these cases is Maura Cody, a former nun who has her own history. As Kerrigan tells the story of these three people, he also explores some unpleasant issues that it would be hard to do justice to without some grit. In the story behind Emmet Sweetman’s murder we see how greed and poor planning played roles in the Irish financial collapse of 2008 and how that collapse started a chain reaction of real misery. In the story of Maura Cody we learn of the wrenching horror of some of the abuses some Irish priests and nuns committed. This too is an ugly issue that would be hard to address in a different kind of novel.

But it’s not just the fact that noir explores difficult issues that makes it appealing. It does so in an honest way – no sugarcoating or glossing over the truth. And that realism resonates with a lot of readers. For example, Megan Abbott’s Die a Little is the story of Pasadena schoolteacher Lora King. She is devoted to her brother Bill, so she is quite concerned when he marries Alice Steele, a former Hollywood dressmaker’s assistant. For Bill’s sake Lora tries to get along with her new sister-in-law but bit by bit she discovers some unsettling things about Alice. The more she learns, the more Lora has to face the fact that at the same time as she’s repulsed by Alice’s seamy world, she’s also drawn to it. Then there’s a murder. Lora wants to find out just how involved Alice may have been in this killing so, telling herself she’s doing so to protect her brother, she begins to ask questions. As she slowly finds out the truth, readers get a very realistic picture of 1950’s Hollywood. Underneath the glitter there really was a lot of abuse, corruption and other ugliness and Abbott doesn’t gloss over that. Nor does she make light of what can happen when one person becomes obsessed with another person.

The tragedy of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia cannot be overstated. Andrew Nette takes a very realistic look at the devastation left behind in Ghost Money. Madeline Avery hires Australian former cop Max Quinlan to find her brother Charles. His last known address is in Bangkok so Quinlan starts there. When he arrives he finds the body of Avery’s business partner Robert Lee. He also finds evidence that Lee has fled to Cambodia. So Quinlan’s next stop is Phnom Penh. There, he learns that Avery may have been involved in some shady business deals and could have made some very nasty people angry. As Quinlan traces Avery to northern Cambodia, he discovers the brutal reality of life in Cambodia. War, mistrust, greed, corruption and prejudice have all taken heavy tolls and Nette doesn’t sugarcoat any of it. But (and this is just my opinion, so feel free to differ with me if you do), not to be realistic about these issues would mean not doing them justice.

That sense of authenticity adds a layer of suspense to Karin Alvtegen’s work as well. In Betrayal, she looks at the ugly reality of lies. Eva Wirenström-Berg and her husband Henrik have been happy enough until Eva discovers that her husband has been unfaithful. Blaming him entirely for their marital problems, she makes a fateful choice that doesn’t seem like a problem at first. Then she finds out who Henrik’s lover is. That prompts Eva to a course of action that also has a tragic consequence. As things begin to spin out of control, Alvtegen shows us honestly what happens to a marriage when the people in it lie to each other and to themselves.

Noir is unvarnished, gritty and sometimes really ugly. But it looks at important issues that are hard to address in any other way. And it does so in an honest way. I know I haven’t mentioned all of the noir greats, but they’ve added to the genre. What do you think? Do you read noir? Why? What’s its appeal for you? If you write noir, what draws you to it?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Avril Lavigne’s I’m With You.

Oh, and She Never Gives Out and She Never Gives In*

A fascinating discussion at Mrs. Peabody Investigates (A blog you really need to follow if you’re a fan of crime fiction) has got me thinking about two trends in crime fiction. One of them (and this is what was discussed at the blog) is the increase in depictions of extreme violence against women in some crime fiction. I’ll get back to that shortly. The other trend is the increase we’ve seen in the last few decades of strong female protagonists. I’m most emphatically not saying the two trends are necessarily related. I find that duality really interesting though.

Of course, there’ve been crime novels that depict violence against women for quite some time. For instance, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, published in 1952, is the story of Central City, Texas deputy sheriff Lou Ford. Everyone thinks of Ford as a nice, competent lawman, even if he isn’t exactly an exciting person. Then a local prostitute Joyce Lakeland is brutally beaten. Then there’s a murder. As the investigation into these events goes along, it becomes increasingly clear that Ford is not the person everyone thinks he is. In fact, he’s battling with something he calls ‘the sickness.’ While this novel is not as extreme as some of today’s novels, it certainly is uncompromising.

So is Mickey Spillane’s treatment of women. In several of his Mike Hammer novels, women are the victims of all sorts of abuse. And in this ‘hardboiled’ category of noir crime fiction, that violence is not glossed over, even in Spillane’s earlier work. There are other examples too, especially among other ‘hardboiled’ novels, of plots that involve violence against women.

But what seems to be a much more common theme among today’s crime fiction novels is the deliberate targeting of female victims. I won’t – promise – list for you all of the novels in which there’s a series of brutal torture/murders of women. But if you pay attention to crime fiction, you know exactly what I mean. Those who’ve been involved in the discussion on Mrs. Peabody’s blog are right that there are many more of these kinds of plots than there used to be. And in many of those novels, the violence isn’t just extreme; it’s described in excruciating (and I mean that word) detail. I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know what the reason is that books like this sell as well as they do. But if they didn’t sell my guess is that fewer of them would be written.

What’s interesting (or maybe it’s just my opinion) is that at the same time as we have this increase in the number of books that feature extreme violence against women, we also have the development of several very strong female protagonists. Again, there’ve been strong female characters in crime fiction for a long time. Dorothy Sayers’ Harriet Vane, Patricia Wentworth’s Maude Silver, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Ngaio Marsh’s Agatha Troy are just a few examples of Golden Age female characters. And recent decades have added to that number. From Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone to Helene Tursten’s Irene Huss to Adrian Hyland’s Emily Tempest, we’ve seen the number of strong female characters grow rapidly. Space doesn’t permit me to mention each one of them (I know, I know, fans of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski).

And even in novels that feature male protagonists, the female characters have gotten stronger and more self-sufficient. Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti for instance is married to the very strong and independent Paola Falier. And Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller was married to the formidable Maggie ‘McFierce’ McPherson, who can most definitely hold her own as a character. There are many other examples too; I’m sure you could give me more than I could ever offer to you.

It’s not just a matter of strength of character either. More and more, female characters have positions of high authority and power, too. Again, I won’t go on and on with a list of examples. Suffice it to say that in just about any sub-genre of crime fiction, there are women who are high-ranking police officers, bank presidents, well-known attorneys and so on.

And from what I read in reviews and on blogs, readers want it that way. They want female characters, whether or not they are protagonists, to be ‘fleshed out,’ to be strong, and to be interesting as people. If you look at the sales for authors such as Leon and Connelly, you know that people buy a lot of books in which women are portrayed as strong characters. What’s more, those authors don’t write a series of books in which killers target only beautiful young women and subject them to unspeakable horrors.

So why are we seeing these two simultaneous trends? I don’t know the precise reason. And it could very well be that the two trends have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I’m going out on a proverbial limb here, not being a psychologist or other expert who’s studied the role of women. One guess might be that different sorts of people buy those two different sorts of books. I don’t have access to marketing data, but I wonder whether people who buy books that feature extreme violence against women also buy books in which they play significant roles and are in fact, strong protagonists. Another guess might be that this dual trend says something about society’s view of women. That’s a complicated issue in and of itself of course. But books usually do have something to say about the society in which the authors live.

I honestly don’t have the answer, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you see this same dual trend? If you do, where do you think it comes from? Where do you see it going? If you’re a writer, do you think about the roles your female characters play?  Thanks, Mrs. P, for the inspiration.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s She’s Always a Woman.

Like the Circles That You Find in the Windmills of Your Mind*

One of the most interesting things about crime fiction is the way it reflects our developing understanding and the way we think. You can even use crime fiction as a way to look at some of the new developments in our knowledge over time. That’s certainly true of our understanding of the human mind. Many people find the human mind and human psychology fascinating. And as we learn more about the way people think, what motivates them and how psychology works, we see that come through in crime fiction. That’s one reason that well-written psychological novels can be so compelling.

There are certainly what you could call psychological motives in early and early-classic crime fiction. For instance, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes investigates the murders of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson. Both men are Americans, staying at a rooming house during a trip to London. Drebber dies first and it’s assumed that Arthur Charpentier, whose mother owns the rooming house, is guilty. That’s because Drebber made unwelcome advances to Charpentier’s sister Alice. But then Stangerson is murdered, and it becomes clear that the two deaths are linked. Holmes and Watson investigate and discover that these murders have their roots in the men’s pasts. The motive here is revenge, which you could call a psychological motive. But it’s not a very deep exploration of the human mind.

By the time that Agatha Christie began writing in the early 1920’s, Sigmund Freud’s groundbreaking work in psychology had made human motivation and human thinking a worldwide topic of interest. You can see that interest in psychology coming through in several of Christie’s novels, too. For instance, in Three Act Tragedy (AKA Murder in Three Acts), Hercule Poirot is invited to a cocktail party at the home of famous actor Sir Charles Cartwright. Poirot is therefore present when one of the other guests, beloved clergyman Stephen Babbington, is poisoned. There seems no motive for the murder, and little progress is made on the case. Then, noted doctor Sir Bartholomew Strange is poisoned in the same way when he has a gathering at his Yorkshire home. It’s soon clear that the two deaths are linked, and Poirot begins to see how the murders might have been accomplished. Then there’s a third death. In the end, Poirot discovers how the deaths are linked, and although you could say that the primary motive is basic fear, this novel is also an interesting exploration of the psychology of the murderer. Once we understand how that murderer thinks, the murders fall into place, you might say. Several of Christie’s later novels also explore how human psychology motivates what we do.

We see a real movement towards the psychological crime novel in the mid-to-late 1950’s with the work of authors such as Patricia Highsmith and Jim Thompson. In Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, for instance, Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are fellow passengers on a cross-country train journey. They meet by chance and begin talking. Before long, the two confide in each other as fellow passengers sometimes do. Bruno, for instance, has an unpleasant, insufferable father. Haines is unhappily married. The conversation takes a sinister turn when Bruno suggests that the two men make a compact to commit murder for each other. Bruno offers to kill Haines’ wife if Haines kills Bruno’s father. Haines brushes Bruno off, convinced that Bruno wasn’t being serious. To his dismay, he soon discovers that Bruno was all too serious when Bruno kills his wife and demands that Haines “repay the favour.” In this novel, Highsmith explores Bruno’s unehealthy psychology as well as the more stable mind of Haines, who’s suddenly thrust into a situation he couldn’t have imagined earlier.

Jim Thompson explores the unstable human psyche in The Killer Inside Me. That’s the story of Central City, Texas’ deputy sheriff Lou Ford. Everyone sees Ford as a “good guy,” if a bit dull and plodding. Ford himself knows better. When local prostitute Joyce Lakeland is severely beaten, and that incident is followed by a murder, it becomes clear that Ford may not be the person everyone thought him to be. In fact, Ford himself refers to this as “the sickness.” That slowly-developing awareness of what’s really happening adds a layer of suspense to this novel and it shows very clearly the way our increasing understanding of human psychology found its way into crime fiction.

Psychological thrillers such as those by Margaret Millar, Margaret Yorke and Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell have delved even more deeply and with more understanding into human thinking and human psychology. Of course, these are very talented authors. But we can also see how our continually increasing knowledge of psychology has found its way into their novels. For example, Margaret Millar’s Mermaid takes a look at the psychology of guilt, exceptionality, fear and attachment, among other things. Margaret Yorke’s Speak For the Dead explores the psychology of deception as a part of the story. And Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine has explored many, many aspects of human thinking, human psychology and human motivation. Although her Reg Wexford series certainly touches on these topics, it’s really her standalones that delve into these topics. There are also other fine authors, such as Val McDermid and Håkan Nesser, who explore psychological themes in their novels. In fact, in today’s crime fiction world, even authors in other sub-genres (e.g. police procedurals, cosies, etc.) explore psychology at least a bit in their novels. And as we get to understand psychology better, we see more accurate and sometimes very interesting depictions of human thinking.

As time goes by, we’re also understanding psychological and mental disorders better, too, and it’s interesting to see that reflected in crime fiction. There are several novels in which either the sleuth or one of the main characters has a mental disorder; I’ll just mention two recent ones. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone, who has autism. When Boone finds the body of his neighbour’s dog, he decides to be a detective just like Sherlock Holmes and find out who the culprit is. In this novel, we see a careful and thoughtful portrait of what autism is like; in fact, that’s one of the “pluses” of this story.

In Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind, we meet retired orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Jennifer White. White’s been diagnosed with dementia; as this novel is written from her point of view, we follow along in a harrowing way as her disorder progresses. When White’s neighbour is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, and it’s fascinating if very disturbing to see how the crime and the other events in White’s life are seen through her eyes.

Novels like these show what we’ve learned about psychology through the last hundred years, and how interesting psychology and human motivation remain. They really seem to hold a fascination for us. But what’s your view? Do you like crime fiction that focuses on psychology, or do you prefer more traditional whodunits?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s Windmills of Your Mind.

>Overdone…

>Crime fiction fans, like fans of any other genre, want books that keep them engaged and that offer something new and interesting. Of course, there are only so many believable motives for murder, and there are only so many kinds of believable murder plots. Perhaps that’s why we seem to see very similar themes cropping up again and again in crime fiction. Talented authors can take a theme that’s been done before and make something fresh and exciting from it, but that’s not easy. There’s also the fact that for very good reasons, publishers want to produce books that will sell well, so authors may very well be pressured to write books with certain themes because that’s the kind of book that sells. Whatever the reason, there are some themes that run through quite a lot of crime fiction; one might even say they are overdone. Crime fiction fans (at least the ones I know) get tired of these themes and leery of books that feature them. Here are just a few of them:

The Psychopathic Serial Killer

There have been some truly memorable books that have featured this kind of killer. Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, for instance, feature Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He’s a brilliant psychiatrist with a fascinating personality and wits to match just about anyone. He’s also a vicious killer. He makes no apologies, really, for the murders he’s committed and is, to put it mildly, a very dangerous person. And yet, he’s not a hackneyed character. He’s interesting. He’s even philosophical.

The killer in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me is also an interesting person, and not what you would call clichéd. In that novel, Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of Central City, Texas. He’s got the reputation of being a nice and hardworking, if somewhat dull, person. Then, Joyce Lakeland, a local prostitute, is brutally beaten. While Ford’s investigating that crime, there’s a murder. As Ford is involved with these crimes, we learn that he’s hiding a terrible side of himself that he calls “the sickness.” Lou Ford is a complex character and that’s part of the interest in this novel.

Is it possible to write a truly gripping novel about a psychopathic serial killer? Yes. There are plenty of examples of this kind of character beyond the two I’ve mentioned here. But it’s difficult to do well and with this kind of story, it’s easy to let the plot disintegrate into gratuitous gore.

The “Damsel in Distress”

Suspense adds much to a crime fiction novel and when a character’s in danger, this can ratchet up the pace and interest level. Since women are more likely than men to be raped and are often more attractive targets for carjackings, muggings and so on, a scene in which a woman, say, is taken hostage or otherwise becomes a victim makes some sense. On the other hand, characters in stories with this sort of theme can quickly become stereotyped. Today’s women may still be physically vulnerable in some ways; however, most crime fiction fans want their female characters to show some resilience and mettle. It isn’t necessary for a female character to be unfeminine for her to also be smart, resourceful and capable.

There are some solid examples in crime fiction of “damsel in distress” plots that work. Peter Robinson’s Gallows View focuses on this theme. In that novel, DI Alan Banks and his Eastvale team investigate a series of break-ins, a murder and a spate of voyeurism. In an attempt to find out who the peeper is before those episodes escalate into something worse, Banks works with psychologist Dr. Jenny Fuller to create a profile of the kind of person who indulges in voyeurism. At a critical point in the novel, Fuller is taken hostage. Like anyone in that situation, she’s terrified. But she doesn’t react by wringing her hands and collapsing. She uses her wits and her skills as a psychologist to stay as safe as she can.

That’s also the case with P.D. Martin’s Sophie Anderson. She’s an FBI profiler whose specialty is “getting into the heads” of killers. She’s helped by psychic visions that give her glimpses into the minds of the people she’s tracking. In novels such as Body Count and Fan Mail, she gets herself into real physical danger. And yet, she doesn’t dissolve into helplessness. She’s a smart, quick-witted and capable person who doesn’t sit around and wait for a hero to come and save her. At the same time, she’s not oblivious to the danger she’s in. She feels as vulnerable and frightened as anyone might under the same circumstances.

The Tormented Detective

Crime fiction fans want their sleuths to have some personal history – some backstory. And it can add to a character if she or he has some personal scars. After all, we all have them, so it makes a character more human to have some tragedy in his or her life. Crime fiction fans also want their sleuths to be realistic. It’s realistic that a detective would get so involved with the job that it’s hard to juggle work and home life. It’s also easy to believe that the stress of being a detective can put a lot of strain on a marriage or partnership. That said, though, a sleuth who wallows in personal pain or is obsessed with his or her scars can become clichéd.

Of course there are plenty of very well-drawn and beloved fictional detectives who have a lot of personal pain. Take, for instance, Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander. His wife Mona left him, he’s got a very troubled relationship with his daughter Linda, and he doesn’t take care of his health. He’s got several scars and we see them. But at the same time, he doesn’t wallow in them. He does his job and devotes himself to doing the best he can.

The same is true of Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe. She’s certainly got her share of personal scars. She grew up virtually without a mother, she fled from a terribly abusive relationship and she lost her only child. And yet, she doesn’t let those events define her. She makes the best of life and although she mourns her losses as anyone would, she isn’t self-indulgent about it.

It’s not easy to balance the need for a well-rounded sleuth who’s had a realistic share of life’s troubles with the need to avoid the stereotype of the “tormented detective.” But when it works, the result is a really memorable sleuth.

The Mounting Body Count

A lot of crime fiction involves murder. In fact, some crime fiction readers really don’t enjoy a story unless at least one person dies. And it’s realistic to believe that someone who’s killed could kill again. If you add to that the mounting suspense as first one murder, then another, and then another are discovered, it’s easy to see why some books fall into the “mounting body count” trap. But when too many people end up dead for a reason that doesn’t advance the plot, that plot becomes shopworn.

Of course, it’s possible to have several people die without the plot losing its “punch.” In Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, for instance, there is a “mounting body count” theme. Ten people receive invitations to Indian Island off the Devon coast. For different reasons, they all accept the invitation and travel to the island. On the night of their arrival, one of the guests suddenly dies of what turns out to be poison. During the night, someone else dies. And then other guests begin to die. The survivors have to find out which of them is the killer while at the same time staying alive themselves. Although this plot certainly focuses on more and more people dying, it’s not stereotyped.

There are also several well-written medical thrillers by writers such as Michael Palmer in which a number of people die. In plots like that, the sleuth races against the proverbial clock to figure out who or what is killing the victims. When those plots are written in a believable way, they can be utterly absorbing.

If a number of murders really advance the plot, a high body count can be engaging. Otherwise, the plot can fall apart.

These are just a few examples of themes that have arguably been overdone. What do you think? Which themes do you think have been overdone? If you’re not sure, complete this sentence and you’ll know: “I am so sick of reading about__________.”