Emerson Ward Mysteries

Interesting thing happened the other day. A fellow working on his doctorate at the University of Edinburgh sent me a message on Facebook asking if I'd be willing to answer some questions about crime writing.

Why not, I thought. It' what I do--crime writing, that is--and a topic most crime fiction authors enjoy discussing. Here, for your amusement and edification, are my answers.

- Representing about 60 % of popular fiction read today, do you think
Crime Fiction deserves more critical attention and what do you imagine
would be its benefit?

First, crime fiction is no passing fad. It’s been with us as long as people have told stories. This year we celebrated the 200th anniversary of our patron saint of crime fiction in the U.S., Edgar Allan Poe.

Crime fiction does deserve more critical attention, not simply because it represents a large proportion of books but because there are so many good books being written by crime authors. There are fabulous writers doing crime fiction—even literary fiction authors like Jonathan Lethem, Jess Walter, and Michael Chabon—and authors who are willing to tackle difficult social issues in their books in intelligent, thoughtful ways.

Two main benefits from more critical attention I think would be more readers drawn to the genre, and a way for them to determine which authors might appeal to them and which might not be worth their time.

- Are you concerned with the social structures that facilitate
outbursts of crime and do you wish to reveal them by dramatising
individual crime?

Certainly some authors may be moved by that, but most are struck by a particular issue or subject which piques their interest. I think few crime writers consciously concern themselves with the reasons for real-life crime (though some, like Andrew Vachss, have devoted themselves to a particular cause; in his case, child abuse), but I do think newspaper (or web) headlines often stir authors to write about an issue.

In some of my books, I’ve written about issues that I wanted to explore personally (abortion, the Catholic Church, etc.). More often, I want to explore characters’ motivation and personal journeys and use the vehicle of a crime novel to do so.

- At a time when “due process of law” is no longer taken for granted
in the political treatment of the individual, do you think we read
crime novels for their promise of an ersatz justice?

Absolutely. The popularity of crime novels, in large part, is due to that promise, an ending, not necessarily happy, in which good guys win and bad guys get their just deserts. Crime novels restore a semblance of order to a world of chaos, which readers find fulfilling in our uncertain world.

- Does the crime novel, as you see it, offer a version of social
development that the reader may use to counterpoint reality and draw
his own conclusions for criticism or betterment?

As mentioned above, many authors, myself included, use crime fiction as a vehicle to explore social issues, perhaps presenting them in a new light, giving readers an opportunity to see them from a different perspective. Ultimately, my goal as a crime writer is to entertain, but if I can educate and stimulate thought or discussion in the process I serve a higher purpose.

- Do you think we read crime fiction as a guide to modern life; that
we may look to the detective as a role model for the compromises we
make every day, a way to survive the modern world?

I don’t think crime novels serve as guides to life so much as they present a more ordered reality from which readers take comfort, reassurance and resolve. The life lesson most fictional detectives offer is the value of persistence. It’s been said that half of life’s about simply showing up. The other half is about asking questions, tilting at windmills, falling down and getting up again, persistently pursuing one’s own sense of truth.

- Do we read and do you write crime novels because this genre doesn’t
hesitate to postulate the extremes we as human beings are capable of?

Perhaps, though I think readers drawn to depictions of those extremes may be more inclined toward horror fiction. Reading and writing scenes of graphic violence personally make me squeamish. Again, I think what readers are drawn to is not the darkness we’re capable of, but the extremes to which the brave among us will walk in that darkness to right wrongs and pursue justice.

- Whose work would you say offers those valuable experiences that
carry us outside of our lives and return us to ourselves enlarged and
with a new perspective on the “big questions”?

I’ve mentioned a couple of literary authors whose crime fiction accomplishes that. The list of crime writers who write beautifully and get us to look outside ourselves is quite long. A few examples, in my opinion are T. Jefferson Parker, Jonathan Kellerman, Michael Gruber, Carl Hiassen, Martin Cruz Smith, Lisa Unger. The fictional worlds they create may be small and intimate, their plots about the mundane, not big worldly social issues. But in exploring the small everyday decisions people make that can have life-altering effects these authors do encourage and even force us to ask ourselves what we would do in the same situations, what moral or ethical decisions we would make.

Truly, any author worth his salt can take us outside ourselves and easily convince us to slip into the world they’ve created on the page. Elmore Leonard, James Lee Burke, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, John Burdick, Stephen White—they’re all masters, and there are hundreds of others.

- And finally, have you read Scottish crime fiction, or other
Noir writing, and care to comment on it?

I’ve not yet read Scottish crime fiction, but you’ve piqued my interest.