The current state of British crime writing
It might be argued that the low esteem in which British crime writing was held for so many years allowed it to slowly cultivate a dark, subversive charge only fitfully evident in more respectable literary fare. And precisely because genre fiction was generally accorded critical indifference (except by such astute highbrow commentators – and fans – as WH Auden), this critical dismissal was consolidated by the fact that readers – while relishing such compelling crime and murder narratives – looked upon the genre as nothing more than harmless entertainment. Since the status of crime writing was subsequently elevated by writers such as PD James, many modern writers now utilise the lingua franca of crime fiction in innovative fashion, with acute psychological insights freighted into the page-turning plots.
Similarly, informing much of the work of contemporary British crime writers – the subject of this study, as opposed to writers of the recent past or the Golden Age, or historical crime fiction – is a cool-eyed critique of modern society. But not all current practitioners are this ambitious in terms of giving texture to their work. For that matter – and let’s be frank here – a great many modern writers are little more than competent journeymen (and women); the genre is still beset by much maladroit or threadbare writing, particularly in an age of self-publishing, where editorial input is painfully conspicuous by its absence.
Nevertheless, prejudices have been eroded (hallelujah!), and crime fiction on the printed page is now frequently reviewed in the broadsheets by writers such as myself alongside more ‘literary’ genres, but often in crime column ghettos (although solus reviews are not unknown). However, literary editors – in my experience – still favour overly serious writers above those they perceive as ‘entertainers’. So, what’s the state of modern crime writing in the UK today? I’ve attempted to tackle that question in the following pages.
This is not a social history of the British crime novel, though it touches on the more radical notions of the genre; however, the ‘readers’ guide’ format I’ve used (with entries ranging from the expansive to the concise) hopefully allows for a comprehensive celebration of a lively genre – a genre, in fact, that continues to produce highly accomplished, powerfully written novels on an almost daily basis. What’s more, despite the caveats above, Britain – including Scotland (not yet cut away from the rest of the UK, despite the wishes of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond) – and Ireland are enjoying a cornucopia of crime writers who have the absolute measure of the four key elements of crime writing (social comment is a bonus). And those four key elements? They are:
1. strong plotting
2. literate, adroit writing
3. complex characterisation
4. vividly evoked locales.
Murderous secrets and professional problems
Readers have plenty of cause to be thankful, as these crowded pages will demonstrate. But this wasn’t an easy book to write. The range of contemporary crime fiction (as opposed to the historical variety) in the UK is surprisingly broad, given that the geographical parameters of the British Isles and its Celtic neighbours are proscribed compared with the massive canvas of the United States. But the parochial nature of much British crime fiction might be precisely what imbues it with its customary sharpness – when murderous secrets confined in British suburban spaces are set free, the results are explosive. And then there is the perception of the British love of order (although such stereotypes are in flux at present); crime novels are particularly satisfying in that we are invited to relish the chaos unleashed by the crime and criminals before the status quo is re-established. This is a process that has a particular resonance for the British character – more so than for, say, Americans (the barely contained pandemonium of the large American city is never really tamed). Of course, when Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins introduced several of the key tropes of crime fiction in such classics as Bleak House and The Woman in White, neither author had any thought of creating a genre. It is instructive to remember that their books, while massively popular, lacked the literary gravitas in their day that later scholarship dressed them with; this was the popular fare of the time, dealing in the suspense and delayed revelation that was later to become the sine qua non of the genre. In generic fiction, the inhabitants of 221b Baker Street and their celebrated creator are, of course, the most important factors in terms of generating an army of imitators – notably Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot – and Holmes clones continue to surface to this day, dressed in contemporary garb rather than deerstalker and Inverness cape but still demonstrating impressive ratiocination.
In the twenty-first century, apart from the sheer pleasure of reading a meaty crime novel, the ‘added value’ in many of the best examples is the implicit (or sometimes explicit) element of social criticism incorporated by the more challenging writers. Among popular literary genres, only science fiction has rivalled the crime novel in ‘holding the mirror up to nature’ (or society). Best-selling modern writers have kept alive this rigorous tradition, although rarely at the expense of sheer storytelling skill, the area in which the crime field virtually demolishes all its rivals. When, in recent years, crime fiction became quantifiably the most popular of popular genres (comprehensively seeing off such rivals as romance fiction), it was only the inevitable coda to a process that had been long underway, and one that should be celebrated all the more for this added value of societal critique.
Given that the issue of class is still an important one in Britain, it is surprising how little the subject exercises current writers. From the Golden Age onwards, the ability of the detective figure to move unhampered (and in insolent fashion) across social divides has always accorded the genre a range not to be found elsewhere – while this is also reflected in American hard-boiled fiction, money rather than class is the signifier there. Similarly, detectives from a patrician background are rare indeed in contemporary crime; it has taken an American writer setting her books in Britain, Elizabeth George, to keep the Sayers/Wimsey blueblood tradition alive with her aristocratic sleuth Lynley. Most of the slew of coppers who populate the genre are middle- or lower middle-class but sport a bolshiness that suggests working-class resentment – think of Rankin’s Rebus, Billingham’s Thorne et al. The resentment of the (often) male policeman, however, is generally reserved for his superiors (who are constantly attempting to take him off sensitive cases) or the intransigence of the system he is obliged to deal with.
In terms of gender, while the middle-aged, dyspeptic (and frequently alcoholic) male copper still holds sway, eternally finding it difficult to relate to his alienated family, the female equivalent is the woman who has achieved a position of authority but who is constantly obliged to prove her worth – and not necessarily in terms of tackling male sexism, although that issue persists as a useful shorthand. The influential figure of Lynda La Plante’s Jane Tennison has to some extent been replaced by women who simply get on with the job – and their professional problems are predicated by the fact that they are simply better at solving crime than their superiors: in other words, a mirror image of the male detective. This hard-to-avoid uniformity inevitably makes it difficult for writers to differentiate their bloody-minded female protagonists from the herd, but ingenuity is paramount here – one female detective in the current crop, for instance (MJ Arlidge’s DI Helen Grace), differs from her fellow policewomen in having an inconvenient taste for rough sex and S&M.
About the book
Looking at mainstream crime fiction in the modern age (and leaving aside the legacy of the past), it is clear that the field is in ruder health than it has ever been. In fact, such is the range of trenchant and galvanic work today that an argument could be made that we are living in a second Golden Age.
The remit of this study has been as wide as possible: every genre that is subsumed under the heading of ‘noir’ crime fiction is here, from the novel of detection to the blockbuster thriller to the occasional novel of espionage (though they are the exception). But – please! – don’t tell me that some of the authors here are not really ‘noir’; let’s not get locked into a discussion of nomenclature. ‘Noir’ here means ‘crime’ – the distinctly non-noir Alexander McCall Smith may not want to be included, but he is. My aim here was – simply – to maximise inclusivity regarding contemporary British crime writing (historical crime apart – that’s another book), whether from bloody noir territory to the sunnier, less confrontational end of the spectrum.
I offer preliminary apologies to any writers from the Republic of Ireland, who may be fervent nationalists and object to appearing in a book called Brit Noir; their inclusion is all part of my agenda of celebrating as many interesting and talented writers as I can. Although it’s not quite the same, sometime before the last Scottish referendum, I asked both Val McDermid and Ian Rankin if they would still want to be included in a study of British crime writers if the vote were ‘yes’ to cutting loose from the UK, or if they ought to be dropped as they were now foreigners. Both opted for the former option.
It should be noted that Brit Noir is principally designed to be used as a reference book to contemporary crime – i.e. (mostly) current writers – as opposed to a text to be read straight through. But if you want to do the latter, how can I stop you? And you’ll note that I’ve erred on the side of generosity throughout, avoiding hatchet jobs; in a readers’ guide such as this, I feel that should be the modus operandi.
A note on locating authors in Brit Noir
One problem presented itself to me when writing this study (well, a host of problems, but let’s just stick with one). If the layout of the book were to be geographical – i.e. placing the work of the various authors in the regions where they have their detectives operating – that would be fine with, say, Ian Rankin, who largely keeps Rebus in Edinburgh. But what about his fellow Scot Val McDermid? Her Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books are set mostly in the North of England – and, what’s more, in the fictitious city of Bradfield. Should I have a section for ‘Bradfield’ with just one author entry? And what about those authors who set their work in unspecified towns? You see my problem, I hope – but that wasn’t all. What about the writers with different series of books set in different places, such as Ann Cleeves? Or Brits who place their coppers in foreign cities? I briefly considered elaborate cross-referencing, but decided I’d rather use my energies in other areas. So here’s the solution: if you want to find a particular author, don’t bother trying to remember the setting of their books and thumbing fruitlessly through the Midlands or the North West. Simply turn to the index at the back of the book, which will tell you precisely where to find everyone.