All the World’s Indeed a Stage and We Are Merely Players*

Today (or yesterday, depending on when you read this) would have been William Shakespeare’s 449^th birthday. I don’t think I have to convince you that Shakespeare’s work has been tremendously influential in many ways, and it’s not hard to see why many people think of him as the greatest English-language poet and playwright. Whether you agree with that or not, there’s no denying his impact on books, plays, poems and authors. People don’t always consider Shakespeare a crime fiction writer but if you think about it, he was. Murder, betrayal, jealousy, theft, politics, family dysfunction – yup, it’s all there. So it’s little wonder that we see Shakespearean references and Shakespeare’s influence throughout crime fiction. There are dozens of examples, so I’ll just mention a few.

Agatha Christie refers to Shakespeare quite a lot. Even the titles of some of her stories (e.g. Taken at the Flood (AKA There is a Tide)) are taken from Shakespeare’s work. And in there are other references too. In one of her novels (No spoilers!), Hercule Poirot says this about a murderer:

 

‘‘…I have always wondered,’ he added, ‘exactly what sort of woman Lady Macbeth was. What would she be like if you met her in real life? Well, I think I have met her.’’

 

There are lots of other allusions to Shakespeare too in the Christie canon.

Shakespeare is also woven through the plots of many theatre mysteries. I’ll just mention two to make my point. Simon Brett’s What Bloody Man is That? is the story of the Pintero Theatre’s production of The Scottish Play. Famous actor Warnock Belvedere is slated for the role of Duncan, and Brett’s sleuth Charles Paris has been given two bit parts. For Paris, this is an opportunity to re-build his career, which has suffered greatly, mostly due to his over-fondness for drinking and to the fact that he’s in emotional distress after separating from his wife. It doesn’t help that his agent isn’t exactly of the highest calibre. As the blocking, first readings and later rehearsals for the play go on, Warnock Belvedere alienates just about everyone. He is arrogant, rude, sexist and egotistical. One night after a particularly disastrous rehearsal, the cast goes to the bar to drown their sorrows. Paris takes a particularly deep dive, so to speak, but he manages to find his way back to his dressing area in the theatre and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes up at three in the morning, he discovers two things. First, he’s locked inside the theatre, as it’s been shut for the night. Also, he finds that Belvedere has also been locked in the theatre, and he is dead. At first Belvedere’s death is put down to heart failure but soon enough it’s shown that he was poisoned. Afraid he’ll be suspected by the police, Paris decides to clear his name and he begins to investigate. Shakespeare readers will know that the title of this novel comes from the play that the Pintero Theatre is producing. Some of the themes in the novel do, too.

In Deborah Nicholson’s House Report, Calgary’s Foothill Stage Network is doing a production of Much Ado About Nothing. The show’s run is going well until one night, Peter Reynolds is murdered and his body discovered in the men’s washroom. One of the first and most likely suspects is Reynolds’ ex-wife Gladys, who works as a theatre usher. She claims that she’s innocent and asks house manager Kate Carpenter to help her prove it. Carpenter is reluctant at first, but then, her lover Norman ‘Cam’ Caminksi comes under suspicion. Mostly to clear his name, Carpenter starts asking questions. With help from her assistant Graham, she narrows down the list of people who could have killed Reynolds. As she gets closer to the truth about the murder, Carpenter finds that the killer has discovered she’s on the right trail. Now she’s going to have to work even harder if she’s to find the killer before she and Graham are the next victims.

There are of course a lot of other theatre-related murder mysteries, many of which allude to Shakespeare. And really, how could they not? But Shakespeare’s influence goes beyond the surface level of his writing. Shakespeare used his characters and plots not just to tell stories, but also to make political and social commentary. If that sounds familiar it should. Many, many authors of crime fiction have done the same thing.

For example, Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö used their ten-novel Martin Beck series for similar purposes. This police procedural series features Beck and his police team as they investigate robberies, riots, disappearances, brutal murders and more. The cases are in and of themselves engaging and as a police procedural series, it’s in many people’s estimation the ‘gold standard.’  But fans of this series can tell you that the novels also serve as a vehicle for their authors’ social and political agendas. It’s not hard to see that in the context of telling stories, Sjöwall and  Whalöö were also making statements about capitalism, police brutality, class and privilege and other issues. Shakespeare probably would have respected that about them.

Sara Paretsky has done the same thing with her V.I. Warhsawski series. Warshawski is a Chicago PI who has gone after all sorts of ‘bad guys’ including insurance fraudsters, corrupt politicians and bankers, union thugs and greedy business executives. The Chicago-land setting, the plots, and Warshawski’s character have won Paretsky millions of fans worldwide. But the novels do more than just tell well-written stories about well-drawn characters (although they do that). Paretsky has strong social and political views, and her novels are one way in which she shares those views. I think Shakespeare would have respected her for that too.

Whether it’s subtle or more obvious, it’s hard to overstate Shakespeare’s influence on writing in general and on crime fiction. And on this World Book Night, it’s appropriate to salute his memory.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Rush’s Limelight.

I Think You Were Lost in the ’70′s*

As anyone who lived through them could tell you, the 1970′s were a time of real social, political and geopolitical change. And because good crime fiction reflects society, we see those changes reflected in the crime fiction of the era. There won’t be space in this one post for me to discuss all of those changes; I’ll just mention a few of them and you’ll see, I hope, what I mean.

Let’s start, though, with some major changes that were going on in crime fiction itself. You may disagree with me on this, but I see the 1970′s as a bridge between the end of the Golden Age/traditional kind of detective fiction and more modern crime fiction. Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and some other Golden-Age authors were still writing as the 1970′s began, and we see their influence. At the same time, though, other authors were taking that tradition and innovating with it.

For instance, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö began writing their series featuring Stockholm detective Martin Beck in the mid-1960′s and carried it through into the mid-1970′s. In that series, we see elements of traditional crime novels. But we also see innovations such as exploration of psychology and social critique. We could say a similar thing about Ruth Rendell’s series featuring Inspector Reg Wexford. That series began in the 1960′s and has continued since then. As the series moved into the 1970′s, we see the traditions of the Golden-Age detective story, but made more modern and addressing more complex themes. I would argue (but feel free to differ with me if you don’t see it this way) that these two series reflect a growing interest in 1970′s crime fiction in the development of deeper and more complex characters.

We also see that development in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, which also began (with Last Bus to Woodstock) in the 1970′s. That series has some elements that you could argue come from Golden Age traditions (e.g. the brilliant detective, the cast of suspects and so on). But at the same time there’s exploration of psychology, there’s the development of the flawed and complex sleuth, and other elements that one could argue are more typical of modern crime fiction.

The world outside was changing too and crime fiction of the day reflects that. One major change was the development of what I’ll call the youth culture. Many people think of ‘hippies’ as a ’60′s phenomenon,’ and certainly there was plenty of youth activism then. But student demonstrations and student political activism was vey much a part of, especially, the early 1970′s. We see that for instance in Reginald Hill’s An Advancement of Learning, in which Superintendent Andy Dalziel and (then) Sergeant Peter Pascoe investigate a murder on the campus of Holm Coultram College. There’s a strong student movement also in John Alexander Graham’s The Involvement of Arnold Wechsler. In that novel, a Classics professor is asked to investigate his brother’s connection to a radical student movement on the campus of quiet Hewes College. There are lots of other examples too of crime fiction that involves student activism and the ‘youth culture.’

Another major change of the 1970′s was the beginning of the move in international politics from the Cold War to what we think of as modern-day terrorism. Oh, the Cold War was still going on, and I’m sure you could list lots more Cold War-themed novels of the day than I could. And terrorism did not begin in the 1970′s. But especially after the tragic attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics, terrorism began to be a reality more than it ever had. We see that reflected, for instance in Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s The Terrorists. In that novel, Martin Beck and his team are assigned to protect a U.S. senator who’s visiting Stockholm because he is at risk from terrorists. In the meantime, they’re also investigating the murder of pornographic film-maker Walter Petrus (Valter Pettersson) and the case of Rebecka Lind, who’s on trial for a bank robbery she says she didn’t commit. It’s an interesting look at, among other things, the rise of the threat of terrorism and its effects on policing.

The politics of the 1970′s (I’m thinking in particular about the Watergate scandal that brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon’s administration) changed the way many people viewed political leadership. There’ve been political thrillers around for quite a while of course, but consipiracy thrillers (such as those of Robert Ludlum) were made even more popular by real-life events such as Watergate.

The 1970′s was also a time of a great deal of social upheaval too. As women began to insist on being treated as equals (the movement was called Women’s Lib(eration) in the U.S.) there was a real re-thinking of the roles men and women should play. Basically, the rules had changed and a lot of people were no longer sure exactly what they were any more. We see that reflected in a lot of crime fiction. For instance, there’s Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse, who is old-fashioned in some ways. As the 1970′s goes along, he has to increasingly interact with women who simply don’t see the world, or male/female relationships, the way he does. And then there’s the beginnings of the truly independent female crime fiction protagonist. Of course there’ve been female protagonists for quite a long time in the genre. But protagonists such as Marcia Muller’s PI sleuth Sharon McCone were a newer development. McCone does have relationships, but she doesn’t depend on a man to ‘do the rough stuff.’ Nor does she try to ‘act like a man.’ By the end of the decade, women were beginning to take on the world, if I can put it that way, on their own terms, and we start to see that in crime fiction.

I could mention a lot of the other major changes the 1970′s brought (e.g. the rewriting of the ‘rules’ for race relations, the beginning of the gay rights movement, and so on). And the crime fiction of the era reflects what an unsettled time it was. But what’s your view? What 1970′s phenomena do you see reflected in that decade’s crime fiction? C’mon, comb those sideburns or that ‘Farrah Flip,’ dig out that forest-green suit or peasant blouse and let me know what you think.

ps. You will notice that this post contains no mention of disco or disco fashion, other than this sentence. There is a reason for that.
 
 
 

*Note: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s All You Want to Do is Dance.

I Look And I Write My Book*

An interesting comment exchange has got me thinking about something you might or might not have noticed about crime fiction. But of course, you’ve probably noticed it. Crime fiction gets away with addressing some very controversial and difficult subjects. Of course crime writers aren’t the only ones who’ve done that and it’s not really a new phenomenon. Authors such as Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Swift used their pens to make statements hundreds of years ago. And they got away with it even in the days when it could be extremely dangerous to question or poke fun at society. For most crime writers the stakes aren’t so high these days. But even so, it does involve risk when an author addresses a difficult or controversial subject. And yet, a lot of crime writers have done just that.

How have they got away with it? I’m not a sociologist or psychologist, but my guess is that part of the reason is that those statements are wrapped up in well-written stories. We read those stories and get caught up in them and it’s only in the context of the story that we think about the political or social point the author is making. Also, by its very nature crime fiction deals with the darker side of human nature. People get murdered in crime fiction. So there’s a certain amount of leeway in terms of what’s considered fair game for the genre. You can probably think of a lot more examples of this kind of risk-taking than I can. Here are just a few.

Agatha Christie often held up a mirror to society in her writing. I’ll just give one example. In Hickory Dickory Dock (AKA Hickory Dickory Death), Hercule Poirot’s secretary Miss Lemon is concerned about some strange thefts and other events that have occurred at the student hostel managed by her sister Mrs. Hubbard. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and he pays a visit to the hostel. There, he urges Mrs. Hubbard to call in the police immediately. Before she can do that, hostel resident Celia Austin comes forward and admits she is responsible for most of the thefts. At first it looks as though the matter is settled. But two nights later Celia dies, an apparent suicide. As Poirot and Inspector Sharpe look into the case we get to know the various students. In their interactions there are some interesting discussions of racial prejudice, communism and anti-communist hysteria, all controversial topics for the time (the novel was published in 1955). That commentary though isn’t really the central focus of the novel. Instead the story itself is the main focus.

The same is true in Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison. In that novel mystery novelistHarriet Vane is arrested for the poisoning murder of her former lover Philip Boyes. There’s evidence against her, and she had a motive so the case doesn’t look particularly hopeful. Lord Peter Wimsey attends her trial and is immediately smitten with Vane. He determines to clear her name so he can marry her, and when the jury can’t agree on a verdict, he gets a month in which to do so. With help from his friends Katherine Climpson and Inspector Parker, and his valet Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey investigates and discovers who the real killer is. At the time this novel was published, it was considered socially unacceptable to live with someone and be romantically involved without being married. Women in particular were expected to live up to a very rigourous moral code. Sayers takes a look at this social ‘double standard’ in part by making Harriet Vane a sympathetic character even though she lived with Boyes without being married. There are also a few scenes in the novel where characters with more old-fashioned standards are painted unsympathetically. While women’s status is not the central focus of the story, it’s interesting to see how Sayers weaves it through the novel. She does a similar thing with the issue of the death penalty in Busman’s Honeymoon. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane have married, and gone to a country home called Tallboys for their honeymoon. When they arrive they discover that the house’s former owner William Noakes has been murdered. Wimsey discovers who the killer is and truly agonises about contributing to the killer’s arrest because he knows the killer will be executed. Again, the question of whether the death penalty is appropriate isn’t the main focus, but Sayers does address that issue.

Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö used their Martin Beck series to take a good look at the Sweden of the 1960’s and 1970’s during which the series was published. Crime fiction fans will know that they were leftists who made many critiques of their society. Let me give just two examples. In Murder at the Savoy Beck and his team investigate the murder of wealthy businessman Viktor Palmgren, who’s shot during a posh dinner at the Savoy Hotel. In the course of finding out who the killer was, the team learns quite a lot about Palmgren’s history and his business affairs and it’s clear from that he made several enemies. In the context of the search for the killers, there is a critique of the Swedish class system of the times and of the business and government elites who perpetuated it. In The Abominable Man, Beck and his team investigate the murder of police inspector Stig Nyman. As they look into the case to find out who would have wanted to kill him, they find a long list of suspects as Nyman had a history of brutality. That issue – police brutality and too many people’s willingness to look the other way – is a major theme in the novel. Although there is little doubt of Sjöwall and Whalöö’s political and social agenda, the real attention in these novels is on the plots and the characters.

We also see this in A Case of Need, which Michael Crichton wrote under the name of Jeffery Hudson. The focus in this novel is the death of Karen Randall, the daughter of wealthy and powerful surgeon J.D. Randall. OB-GYN Dr. Albert Lee is soon arrested for performing an illegal abortion (this novel was published in 1968, before abortion was legal in the U.S.) that led to the young woman’s death. Lee claims that he is innocent and is being targeted because he’s Chinese-American. He asks his friend pathologist Dr. John Berry to help clear his name and Berry agrees. As Berry searches for the truth about the death of Karen Randall, Hudson/Crichton discusses the reality of the abortion controversy. There are some very ugly scenes involving people on both sides of the issue. The issue of racial prejudice is also brought up here. But in both cases the focus remains on the story – on the question of what happened to Karen Randall and why.

That’s also the case in Ruth Rendell’s Simisola. Inspector Reg Wexford has to confront his own feelings about race and class when his physician Dr. Raymond Akande asks Wexford’s help. Akande’s twenty-two-year-old daughter Melanie hasn’t been seen for a few days and her parents are getting worried. Wexford isn’t concerned at first; there could be any number of reasons for which a young woman might go off for a few days without telling her parents. But when more time goes by Wexford agrees to look into the matter. Shortly after Melanie’s disappearance, Employment Bureau employee Annette Bystock is found murdered. Since Melanie had an appointment with Bystock just before she disappeared it’s soon clear to Wexford and his team that the two cases are related. Then, the body of a young woman is found in nearby woods. At first Wexford is sure the body is Melanie Akande’s. He’s wrong. As it turns out, all of these events are tied up with the Employment Bureau in an interesting way. As Wexford and the team look closely at the bureau, Rendell holds up a mirror to the class system, the system of providing for the unemployed and the reality of what amounts to human trafficking. There’s an unflinching look at racial prejudice too. But it’s the story and the characters that keep the reader’s attention.

Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood is the story of one awful morning when Tasmania Police sergeant John White and probationer Lucy Howard are called to the scene of a break-in. Shortly after they arrive White is murdered. The most likely suspect is seventeen-year-old Darren Rowley, and there are good reasons to assume he’s responsible. But he is part Aborigine and the police know that if they don’t handle the investigation precisely ‘by the book’ they’ll be accused of brutality and racism. As the Tasmania Police come to grips with the death of their beloved sergeant, we follow the investigation of the murder. And in the course of building the context and giving background information on the characters Erskine also takes an unflinching look at race relations, police brutality (or is it?), social class and corruption. This novel takes aim at social issues while at the same time telling the story of a murder investigation.

And that, to me, is part of how crime writers have gotten away with talking about controversial topics and holding up a mirror to society. They tell stories and those stories – not so much the controversy – are at the heart of what they write.

 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Blonde Over Blue.

What an Amazing Future There Will Be*

If you think about it there are all kinds of scientific inventions we use every day that we couldn’t have imagined just a couple of decades ago. It’s actually pretty amazing. For instance a lot of people have given up their landlines entirely and now communicate exclusively on mobile telephones. I’ll get to other examples in just a bit; for now, just think of the difference mobile and satellite technology has made in our lives. It’s true in real life and we certainly see it in crime fiction.

For instance in Martin Edwards’ The Serpent Pool, DCI Hannah Scarlett and her team investigate the six-year-old drowning death of Bethany Friend. It turns out that her death may be related to two other, more recent, deaths. So Scarlett works with her friend and colleague Fern Larter, who is in charge of those investigations, to find out how the murders are connected and who is responsible for them. At one point in the novel Scarlett arranges to meet with Oxford historian Daniel Kind to discuss the case with him. Kind’s running late but it’s not a huge problem; all he has to do is send a text message to Scarlett telling her he’s delayed in traffic. That couldn’t have happened fifteen years ago.

We see a similar advance in C.J. Box’s Below Zero. In that novel Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is up against the Mad Archer, an unknown hunter who’s illegally shooting game and leaving them to die. Pickett rushes home when his daughter Sheridan begins to receive eerie text messages from the Pickett family’s step-daughter April Keeley, whom everyone thinks was tragically killed six years ago. Pickett wants to find April if she is still alive. If she has died he wants to know who knew so much about April that it was possible to feign her identity. Neither this mystery nor its solution would have been possible just ten or twelve years ago.

And what about the joystick? Val McDermid’s video-game-loving sleuth Tony Hill would probably find it quite difficult to get along without this scientific invention. Hill is a profiler who works most frequently with DCI Carol Jordan and sometimes his work is both dangerous and difficult. It takes quite a toll on Hill so it makes sense that he’d want something to help him relax. Video games are his choice. Without the invention of the joystick his whole character would be different. Fans of Tony Hill will likely agree that part of what makes him unique is his attachment to gaming.

In Lindy Cameron’s Redback, the joystick takes on a more sinister purpose. In that novel, a crack Australian team of retrieval specialists have earned a reputation as experts in getting people out of extremely dangerous situations. This time they’re up against one of the most dangerous enemies they’ve ever faced. Several horrible terrorist attacks and a murder have occurred in different parts of the world. When Team Redback finds out they track down the threads that tie these terrorist acts together. They discover that a behind-the-scenes group of terrorists is using a video game called Global WarTek to recruit new members and give them instructions. Joystick technology isn’t mentioned specifically in this novel, but it’s an essential part of modern gaming.

And what about the modern microchip? We can all think of dozens and dozens of crime novels in which computer technology is critical. I’ll just mention two examples. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy features computer wizard Lisbeth Salander. In those novels, Salander proves herself a master of the microchip as she tracks down information, hacks others’ computers and manipulates all sorts of financial transactions.

There’s also Kerry Greenwood’s Heavenly Pleasures. In that novel, Greenwood’s sleuth Corinna Chapman and her lover Daniel Cohen investigate a few mysteries, one of which is a bomb in the building in which Chapman lives and works. The bomb may be related to a case Cohen’s been investigating – a self-proclaimed messiah who’s been luring young people away from their homes. Or it could be related to a case of poisoned chocolates at Heavenly Pleasures, a confectionary located in the same building. Or it could have something to do with a mysterious new resident in the building. The key to the bombing turns out to be information that’s stored digitally – something that couldn’t be done before the advent of the microchip.

Oh, and then there’s enhanced photography. Photographs prove essential in Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Roseanna. In that novel Stockholm police detective Martin Beck and his team solve the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Roseanna McGraw. She’s an American who’s murdered during a holiday cruise in Sweden. What makes this case challenging is that when the victim’s body is discovered there is no identification with it. At the time this novel was written there was no DNA testing so it takes weeks for the body to be identified. Finally Roseanna McGraw is identified but communicating with Nebraska police lieutenant Elmer Kafka is challenging. At the time this novel was written there was no satellite technology that would have made a transatlantic telephone call easy. A break in the case finally comes when the police start paying attention to photographs that other tourists took of the cruise. That phase of the investigation takes a long time too because developing the ‘photos takes time. Besides, they’re not high-resolution quality. All in all it takes months for Martin Beck and his team to track down Roseanna McGraw’s killer. Can you imagine how much more quickly the team could have cracked this case if they’d had satellite technology and digital imaging?

So where did all of these great developments I’ve mentioned here come from? That’s right. Scientific research. Science, the scientific method and the scientific approach to inquiry has led to more advances than I could ever mention in a year of posting. Suffice it to say that the decades of research that so many scientists have engaged in have revolutionised the way we live. And that, to me, is a good thing.

 

ps. Want an example of what I mean? Today’s post, including the ‘photo, was planned, written and posted to my blog using a tablet computer that fits in a medium-sized handbag. Ain’t science amazing?
 

Oh, and at the risk of going on too long on this topic, tomorrow I’ll be taking a look at some crime fiction that features scientists. Here’s to ‘em!

 
 
In Memoriam…

 

 

This post is dedicated to the memory of Neil Armstrong. Not only was he a noted astronaut but also, he was a dedicated scientist. All of the developments I’ve mentioned in today’s post came about because of the space program that took Armstrong and his colleagues to the moon. He was one of those who boldly went…

 
 
 

Note: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Two Thousand Years.

All Together Now*

A post by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write (and the discussion that follows the post) has got me to thinking about how books become blockbuster best-sellers, even if they really aren’t very high-quality. Of course, there are several factors that play into this. Sometimes a promotional campaign just happens to strike a chord with readers. Sometimes there aren’t a lot of books by established successful authors coming out in a given month, so a book gets more notice. There are other factors, too. One of them (and this is where the discussion I refer to comes in) is what you might call the “herd instinct.”

One can look at that instinct in two ways really. One is that if a few people buy and “talk up” a book, suddenly everyone’s talking about it. That’s especially true if the few people who start the conversation are very well-respected. In no time at all, the book’s a major best-seller whether or not it’s actually very well-written. I’ll be candid here; publishers and others in that business (many authors too, if truth be told) count on that instinct when they’re trying to sell books. That’s why major reviewers and bloggers are always getting complimentary copies of books and invitations to do reviews. It’s also why extremely successful authors are always getting requests to do book blurbs and recommendations. I don’t have to list examples here of what I mean; you can probably think of lots more than I can.

There’s another way one can look at the “herd instinct” too. It’s often happened that a novel becomes a bestseller, and then publishers and sometimes authors rush to put out very similar novels. The hope is of course that if the first novel has been so successful, other novels like it will be too. We see that in all kinds of fiction really and certainly in crime fiction.

One example of this is the case of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. That’s the story of investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist and his researcher Lisbeth Salander. In the novels that feature them, Blomqvist and Salander uncover corruption, abuse and murder at the highest levels of business and government. And in their personal lives, each (but particularly Salander) has to cope with some awful events. Readers have had a variety of different reactions to these novels. Many have absolutely loved this series; others not so much. But the main point is that the series has sold millions of copies. It’s been the talk of book clubs, blog reviews and films for several years now.

The tremendous success of the Millennium trilogy has arguably made it much easier for Scandinavian crime fiction to be translated and marketed to audiences in other parts of the world. Of course highly talented Scandinavian authors such as Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö, Henning Mankell, Peter Høeg and Karin Fossum have been writing since long before the Millennium trilogy came to English-language markets. But since that time, the work of those other authors has enjoyed a re-birth of interest. And authors such as Åke Edwardson, Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff, and Åsa Larsson have had the opportunity to get their work “out there” in markets that might not have been available to them had it not been for the phenomenal response to the Millennium trilogy.

And that is one of the positive effects of “the herd instinct.” When an author from one place or who writes one kind of book has success, this can open the door for other authors who might otherwise not have the opportunity to get their work noticed.

Another positive effect of this phenomenon is that issues and topics that need to be discussed can be brought out into the open. For instance, the Millennium trilogy addresses issues of the status of women, high-level corruption and other important topics. The more people talk about those serious social problems the more chance they have of being addressed

There are of course negative effects too of “the herd instinct.” One of them is that novels may be published primarily because they’re superficially similar to the blockbuster novel, not because they’re really high quality in and of themselves. Here’s just one example. Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon and later The Silence of the Lambs are compelling portraits of a brilliant but psychopathic killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In those novels we learn just a little about how such a person’s mind works and why a person might be a truly psychopathic murderer. Those particular novels are (in my opinion, so feel free to differ with me if you do) well-written and well-executed.

But here’s the problem. Publishers, agents and authors saw the success of those novels and the films based on them. That success arguably opened the door for many, many badly-written, truly gory and gratuitously violent novels featuring serial killers. If you’re a crime fiction fan, you know how many novels there are out there with serial killers in them. Some are good; many are not. If you’re a writer, you know that there can be a lot of pressure to write that kind of novel.

And it’s not just the serial-killer motif that’s arguably been overdone. For example, Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly are very different writers in a lot of ways. They have in common though that their respective protagonists John Rebus and Harry Bosch have a history of going up against authority figures. And both authors’ series have been extremely successful. That “maverick” streak works for both Bosch and Rebus in part because they are otherwise well-developed characters with interesting backstories. In part it works because both Connelly and Rankin are talented authors who create interesting and absorbing stories and have worked hard to build their characters.

The fact is though that because these authors’ creations have been very successful, there’s arguably been a rush to create protagonists who have trouble with authority and have the reputation of being “mavericks.” Some of those characters are well-written and interesting. Others…are not. And there is lots of extremely well-written crime fiction where the protagonist isn’t a maverick who constantly has conflicts with authority figures.

The “herd instinct” can make it very tempting to write in a certain way or to buy one or another author’s work. But that’s not how very good books get written. So in my opinion (don’t be afraid to differ with me if you do), it’s just as important for authors to write good stories regardless of what the latest trend is. It’s also important for readers to be aware of this “herd instinct.” Savvy readers already are.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a Beatles’ song.