Not just escapism. Tell me which crime books made you think.
3 mins read:
In 1920s Hollywood, left-leaning writers and directors had a problem. There was much to criticise about the reality of life in America, but the studio bosses didn’t want to know. They wanted entertainment, not “message” films.
As studio magnate Sam Goldwyn said, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
What did the film-makers do?
They turned to crime.
Not escapism all the time
Crime, they realised, was an ideal way of talking about serious matters while still telling stories that grip an audience. Not every filmgoer – or indeed reader of novels – wants to be hit over the head with what’s wrong with the world today. And yet not everyone wants escapism all the time.
Crime squares the circle.
In movies such as The Public Enemy and Little Caesar, organised crime gangs could stand for rapacious corporations. Gang leaders James Cagney and Edward G Robinson could symbolise capitalist greed and expose social divisions. Yet bypass the political “censor”.
High stakes
Crime gives readers a forward momentum – a crime is committed, the criminal is caught (or, in some more recent films, escapes). The strong structure and high stakes give the writer a chance to squeeze in some deeper questions.
In his comedy spy novel Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene took his inspiration from real-life WW2 double-agent ‘Garbo’ who created a completely imaginary network of spies to feed false information to the Germans.
Greene parodied this, creating vacuum cleaner salesman Wormold, who, desperate for money, sells MI6 what he tells them are plans of a secret military installation. In fact, they are massive enlargements of Hoover parts. But then someone gets killed…
Greene uses his crime/spy plot to poke fun at the British establishment and play with ideas of fiction and truth.
Social critique
A few years later, Swedish journalists Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö set out to write what became a ten part series of crime novels centred on police detective Martin Beck. They wove a succession of popular stories with the deliberate intention of using them to expose the way Swedish society was changing and the many ways power was being abused.
Returning to satirical uses of crime, Gonzo journalist Tom Wolfe put a crime at the centre of his sharply comic critique of New York society The Bonfire of the Vanities.
He could have simply made fun of 1980s New York life, from the ultra-rich to the angry poor at the bottom of the heap. But he put a crime at the centre.
When rich bond trader Sherman McCoy is involved in a hit-and-run accident, the police investigation draws in all social levels, and allows Wolfe to satirise political ambition, social aspiration and the politics of racism and class. Themes which still resonate today.
Crime reader and writer
This is why I love crime and all its subgenres – both as reader and writer. I want to have fun, but with a serious edge.
My first novel – The Breaking of Liam Glass – uses a mugging gone wrong to bring out the black comedy of 21st century London. Not so much a Whodunnit as a Whattheydidafterit, it allowed me to weave a story around a whole bunch of nefarious – and fun – characters – from lying journalists to politically ambitious police.
Room Fifteen takes a more serious look at crime. A thriller about a police detective with amnesia, the murder at its heart leads the reader deep into the psychology of a man who is not only trying to escape being framed, but also find out who he can really trust.
While, returning to comedy, last year’s Play Me! let me have fun with celebrity, gang culture and international corporations (and their many similarities). With, at its centre, a hapless rock star who witnesses a presidential assassination and finds himself framed for it.
If you haven’t already, give them a try.
And do tell me which crime books have made you think.
Read more
The Breaking of Liam Glass – Not so much a Whodunnit as a Whattheydidafterit
Room Fifteen – A police detective with amnesia has to find out who he can really trust.
Play Me! – A hapless rock star witnesses a presidential assassination and finds himself framed for it.