by Stuart MacBride
Two decades ago, I embarked on a very strange journey when my first novel was published. It’s a trip that’s seen me go from being a fresh-faced “young turk” on the crime-fiction scene, to a fusty middle-aged old poop who smells of cats and rubbing liniment.
And I’m not the only one who’s changed. In these last twenty years a lot of things have gone from “safe and predictable” to “complete and utter disasterfest”; some people haven’t just grown older, they’ve grown nastier and stupider and even more self-righteously vile; wars rage; despots … despot; a bunch of people think it’s time to give fascism another go; and a whole chunk of society has been convinced that offshoring their critical thinking to AI is a good idea.
THE WORLD HAS CHANGED[1].
I know the world has always changed, but it would be nice if, for once, it would change in a nice way. Like, everyone gets a free kitten, or an extra Monday off every other week, or an exciting hat…
So it should come as no surprise that Crime Fiction has undergone a bit of an upheaval too. Several of them.
For example: way back in the LongAgo[2], when my first book came out, humour was Not A Big Thing in mainstream crime fiction. There were some brave souls, valiantly ploughing their comedy furrows, but the fields were bleak and windswept, and the Caterpillars Of Doom would often blight the harvest.[3] What the public wanted were hard-bitten detectives, hunched and hairy like highland cattle, who had problematic relationships with women, alcohol, contemporary music, and authority. The kind of detective who only lived to solve the case and bring justice to the victims.[4] The kind whose private life was only there to supply a chunk of grief and an extra dollop of misery.
Now, it’s a positive chuckle cavalcade, with teams of police officers bantering away like panellists on topical quiz shows. Some of the Old-Guard Heavy Hitters even have a bash,[5] even though, back in the LongAgo, they’d barely manage a groanworthy pun once a book. If you were lucky.[6]
It’s tempting to say that another change is the huge increase in Books With A Message! But crime fiction has always been full of that sort of thing. It’s an inherently political genre, crime. Criminal offences are often driven by social problems[7] and when you write about the former it’s hard not to be making a commentary on the latter. I think what’s different, these days, is that people are being a lot less subtle about it. More shouty. And perhaps that’s because subtlety clearly hasn’t worked over the last century – things are worse than ever – so a bit of shouting couldn’t hurt.
But what I think is the biggest change is the way mainstream crime fiction has lurched towards something far cosier. Of course, Cosy Crime is hardly a new phenomenon, people have been at it for years, but the more we barrel headlong into “complete and utter disasterfest” territory, the more people seem to want to escape into something softer and fuzzier than can be provided by blood-drenched serial killers who stitch those Cymbal-Banging Monkey toys into the chests of their eviscerated victims. After eating all their inside bits.[8] Then daubing an appropriate bible verse on the wall in their blood.[9]
Not that those darker books aren’t still being written – I love a good, old-fashioned, wholesome, serial-killer story: always have, always will – but every time I look at the charts I see more and more crimes being solved by vicars and retired hairdressers, quirky undertakers, and cuddly Detective Inspectors who crochet dachshund-warmers and go ballroom dancing in their spare time.
In times of genuine horror, many people don’t want to be confronted with the seedy underbelly of the human condition: they want escapism, a nice cup of tea, and a custard cream[10].
I think that’s why it took Northern Ireland so long to develop a thriving crime-fiction scene. The same thing’s true with South Africa. Because why would people living through real trauma want to read about the fictional variety for fun?
And that’s kinda where much of the world is, right now.
Which is a shame, because I write dark, gritty, sometimes deeply uncomfortable, crime novels where pretty traumatic things happen to a variety of unsuspecting people. And, to be honest, it would be really cool if the world would settle the hell down and go back to being a nice place to live in.
After all, I’ve got cats to feed.
[1] Technically, it’s gone to crap, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say “crap” here, so I’m playing it safe.
[2] Or 2005 as some people perversely like to call it.
[3] Because there’s nothing like running a metaphor into the ground.
[4] Who were often female, blonde, and of the Penelope Pitstop persuasion.
[5] Some of them are even quite good at it. Others … not so much.
[6] If you were unlucky, they’d have two.
[7] And Poop knows we have enough of those.
[8] The victim’s, not the Cymbal-Banging Monkey. That would just be silly.
[9] Again: THE VICTIMS. Cymbal-Banging Monkeys don’t have blood – they’re full of snot and bile instead.
[10] An underrated, but excellent biscuit.
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