Writing the Murder

The what, why and how of crime fiction

Why do people write murder mysteries? And why do so many others read them? These are the basic questions explored by a new collection of essays, Writing the Murder, published last year by Liverpool-based Dead Ink Books. It ended up on our bookshelves after one of our periodic visits to Waterstones, and it definitely provides further evidence of the value of unpremeditated book purchases.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the subtitle (“Essays on Crafting Crime Fiction”), which could suggest abstract analysis or how-to guides. This book, however, is much more personal, giving insight into each author’s own relationship with crime fiction as both readers and writers. The thirteen “essays” cover various aspects of the what, why and how of crime-writing. This includes “spotlights” on three significant authors: Patricia Highsmith, Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. As a final bonus, you get a list of 100 must-read mystery novels and 50 short stories at the end.

The Table of Contents

The book is primarily aimed at writers, and it definitely offers helpful guidance and advice from experienced practitioners. Yet, it is a fascinating volume for mystery readers too. I have no intentions of writing any crime fiction, but I enjoyed the enthusiastic and thoughtful reflections of the various contributors. It was also a good prompt for me to reflect on why I read crime fiction, and why certain styles appeal to me more than others.

Rather than giving a chapter-by-chapter analysis, below you’ll find my reflections on the six most interesting essays.

The collection begins with a striking chapter by historian and writer Tess Little, vividly exploring the question: “What is mystery?” She invites us to imagine finding ourselves in a room with three items: A folded square of paper, a small cardboard box, and a pool of blood. What follows is a narration of our hypothetical thought processes, as we attempt to construct an answer to the question. We soon discover that mystery as a genre is itself mysterious, “a genre that bleeds into the rest.”

In Tess Little’s narration, we keep circling back to Ronald Knox’s classic 1929 definition of detective fiction: “A detective story must have as its main interest the unravelling of a mystery; a mystery… whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end.” In its various incarnations, mystery fiction builds on the three key elements here: the question, the unravelling, and the answer. It’s a fascinating way of exploring the genre’s boundaries, and like all good mysteries, Tess Little gives us a neat twist at the end.

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In the next chapter, Young Bond author Charlie Higson makes a confession: “I love crime fiction about criminals, rather than people solving crimes.” He reflects on his attraction to classic pulp fiction, with its novels that explore the twisted mind of the criminal and eschew neat endings. He particularly praises the writing of Jim Thompson, “The King of the Pulps”. Thompson’s books don’t give the reader a cosy, order-restoring denouement. Rather, “by the end of the story, nothing has been put right, everything is broken, and we’ve somehow wound up in hell.”

Higson’s chapter was an interesting reminder of the diverse tastes within the crime fiction community. At one point, he itemises his two main frustrations with classic detective fiction (i.e. the kinds of books which provide the staple of my fiction reading). First, crimes are presented as puzzles, with little attention paid to motive. Second, “detection stories present us with the comforting myth that crimes can all be solved.” His criticisms made me smile, because for me, these are part of the attraction of classic detective fiction. I like the puzzle and I like the “comforting myth”! I’m generally less interested in motive than means. And if I read novels from the criminal’s perspective, they’re generally “howcatchems” that still restore order at the end. Each to their own.

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The book’s spotlight on Agatha Christie is shone by Jessie Greengrass, who uses it to defend the practice of “reading as escape”. She laments the derision sometimes shown towards people who primarily read or write fiction as a form of escapism, as if a higher purpose is needed to make fiction worthwhile. Yes, fiction can be a tool for understanding humanity and engaging better with the world, but it doesn’t have to be. As Jessie Greengrass argues: “A person can look for more than one thing in literature — can want both art and entertainment; can need, at different times, both to be challenged, and to be allowed a rest.”

She explores this theme by reflecting on her own childhood discovery of Christie’s novels during the breakdown of her parents’ marriage. Lord Edgeware Dies and other Christie titles offered a refuge during this time, an alternative world where “everything always came good”. Greengrass considers this part of the enduring appeal of Christie’s work: “She saw that what her readers wanted wasn’t necessarily the world reflected back at them, but to be let out of it, for a little while”. I definitely agree with Jessie Greengrass, that sometimes it’s just good to escape, to demand from our novels “nothing more complicated than enjoyment” — and the worlds of Poirot and Marple are good destinations to head for.

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In the final section of the book, there are essays exploring four subgenres: historical crime, crime in translation, police procedurals and locked-room mysteries. Ex-cop Paul Finch leads the investigation into police procedurals, using it to probe the issue of realism in crime fiction. Reflecting on his experience writing for British TV drama The Bill, Finch highlights some of the inevitable limits to accuracy. Sometimes, realities need to be set aside in the interests of drama. And “there are many aspects of policework that simply don’t lend themselves to good fiction”, not least the paperwork.

Alongside the question of how realistic crime fiction can be, there’s the related issue of how realistic it needs to be. Paul Finch makes a strong argument for a high level of accuracy in various areas — police command structure, legal protocols, forensics and technology. If you’re going to invent things, these should be “the sort of thing that could exist within the conventional police universe.” I imagine Finch’s police background affects his view here. As an uninformed reader, I am far happier for authors to be inaccurately inventive, and the Golden Age novels I enjoy offer varying degrees of plausibility. But it’s an interesting question to ponder: how much truth do you like in your fiction?

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My favourite contribution is from Tom Mead, discussing the world of locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes. I have enjoyed reading some of Mead’s own impossible mysteries (see here and here) and he is definitely an excellent choice for writing on this subject. His passion is inescapable, although this does have a downside as his essay’s recommendations have now added another twenty classic crime novels to my To Read list. In his chapter, he surveys both familiar authors (John Dickson Carr, Edward D. Hoch) and less well-known names (Hake Talbot, Bruce Elliott).

Tom Mead gives us a wonderful peek behind the curtain, to see how impossible puzzles are constructed. He argues that successful writers of such mysteries “are more acutely aware of the psychology of their readers than in any other genre”, as their craft involves carefully exploiting the flaws in our perception of the world. He outlines how the work of neurologists like Oliver Sacks and the world of stage magic have both shaped his understanding of how to manipulate readers effectively. I was particularly interested by his discussions around illusions, as I was a devotee of magic when I was younger. Mead also describes his own practice of constructing two parallel timelines for mysteries: one for “what the reader thinks happened”, and one for “what actually happened”. Summing up, he writes: “The impossible mystery is the most challenging of all the diverse subgenres of crime fiction. But when it works, it works beautifully.” It definitely does!

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The final chapter is a spotlight on Arthur Conan Doyle, written by Sherlock Holmes pasticheur Tim Major. He shares an interesting reflection on the challenges of writing a faithful Holmes pastiche. Any continuation novel or short story has to take account of both the original works and the expectations of contemporary readers. In some areas, there can be tension between these two factors. Readers (and publishers) may expect a 70,000-word novel with Holmes in a central role throughout, but Doyle himself never produced a book matching these criteria. Reflecting on his first Holmes commission, Major comments: “I was to produce a novel faithful to canonical Sherlock Holmes novels that, in fact, never existed.”

Tim Major outlines other examples of readers’ expectations diverging from the OG Holmes adventures. For instance, readers may assume Holmes was concerned with legal order, but “in many of the canonical stories Sherlock Holmes does not contribute to the capture of criminals.” Stylistically, Doyle’s original writing has been supplanted in many people’s minds by “the pop-culture image of Holmes and Watson in films and TV series.” In terms of plot, “mysteries must be more devious than in many of the canonical tales, in order to match the complexity of plots in multi-episodic HBO or Netflix thrillers.” There is also the thorny issue of prejudice — should a Holmes adaptation share the original character’s views on class, race and women? Tim Major’s essay is a good exploration of this pastiche “balancing act”.

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So, those are my favourite essays in the collection, although there are others to explore, including Barry Forshaw on Patricia Highsmith and Vaseem Khan on historical crime fiction. Writing the Murder has been nominated for the H.R.F. Keating Award in this year’s CrimeFest Awards, the winner of which will be announced on the 17th May. You can buy a copy direct from Dead Ink Books or from all good booksellers.

Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)