Writing The Murder - Essays On Crafting Crime Fiction Edited By Dan Coxon & Richard V Hirst

Publisher – Dead Ink

Published – Out Now

Price – £10.99 paperback £4.79 ebook

There's been a murder... From the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe through to the locked-room mysteries of the Golden Age, to the many faces of modern crime fiction and the explosion of true crime, writers have always explored the most taboo of human transgressions: the taking of a life. What is it about murder that has fascinated us for so long? And what is it about crimes of this nature that make for such compelling fiction? Gathering an impressive line-up of suspects, Writing the Murder asks some of the finest contemporary writers to dissect their craft and analyse the place of murder in fiction. Authors such as Charlie Higson, Louise Welsh, Jessie Greengrass and Tom Mead interrogate what it means to write about this most illicit of acts, the lasting appeal of crime fiction, and offer practical advice for those looking to write seriously and convincingly about crime. An essential tool for the grizzled veteran and the fresh-faced rookie alike, Writing the Murder gives you the motive and the means to write your own tales of murder and intrigue.

Often (perhaps too often) we have debates on a genre’s imminent demise and more often it turns out to be that people fear a particular form of story isn’t that popular anymore. This reminds us that genre is actually a loose term for a collection of story types. As a young child my initial exposure to crime was the TV Adaptions of Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett FTW) but as a I got older I realised just how many varieties of a crime novel there can be from the forensic thrillers of Patrica Cornwell, the noir of Chandler the stylised borderline horror of Silence of the Lambs in Thomas Harris’ series to scandi noir and more recently the ‘cosy crime’ novel. When someone says a genre is dead it far more often means the facet of genre they liked is (for now) no longer the most popular. Now in Dan Coxon and Richard V Hirst’s engaging essay collection Writing The Murder – Essays On Crafting Crime Fiction we have various authors engaging with what crime fiction actually is and some o the key figures of its history. I found this a fascinating set of perspectives offering much food for thought.

The collection is broken down into three sections and in The Means we explore what draws us to a crime novel. In ‘It Bleeds’ Tess Little tackles our love of the mystery itself as a puzzle, and I really liked his opening tale for also creating a little mystery for the reader to try and solve at the same time. We get an expansive view of the stories that focus on the puzzle from classic crime to Japanese mysteries and how the concept of a mystery is so key to stories across so many genres how rules are required and how in the post-modern era they got played with. It champions the idea of some readers too wanting little grey cells to work hard.

In contrast Charlie Higson in ‘The Killer Inside Me: Writing The Criminal’ looks at his long love of the stories that explored the seedier side of human nature. Our human fascination with watching some commit a crime and on occasion liking them more than the detective. I enjoyed this personal history and some of the spotlights but for me I would have liked Higson to explain a bit more about what exactly he gets out of this strand of the genre rather than simply how much he enjoys reading it.

Completing this section is Andrew Gallix’s very interesting and expansive essay ‘The Deader The Better: On Writing the Murder’ what is it about this particular crime that works so well for us. This brings the fusion o the two essays as we are both attracted and repelled by murder even when in reality it is very rare. We look at morality, philosophy and even murder as a form of art to appreciate. Lots of interesting books and ideas are being explored in this one.

Each section then gets a spotlight on an author and appropriately here Barry Forshaw explores the life and work of Patricia Highsmith in ‘No Compromises: The Crime Fiction of Patricia Highsmith’ starting with writer’s own very blunt meeting with Highsmith many years ago and she already in that scene becomes fascinating. I came away from this mix of biography and criticism very keen to read a lot more Highsmith and this very much helped that exploration of the darker side of crim fiction being so alluring.

The next section entitled The Motive is about why have authors chosen crime as their genre. Louise Welsh delivers a fascinating meditation of our need for justice in “There’s Been A Murder: Miscarriages of Justice, Respectability And The Fatal Flaw’ moving from real history to fiction we explore our human need that justice must be done while at the same need our human prejudices can often get int eh way. So many authors have used this as a frame to tell stories and I found this very engaging and often troubling for what it says about people being people. I strongly recommend you also do not skip the footnotes for the various gems of history being displayed.

There is a really interesting approach given in Carole Johnstone’s ‘Setting Our Your Stall’ which explores her own genre from writing in fantasy and horror and yet her novel career is in crime. This is very useful to have a peek behind the Curtis in of publishing, trends and the actual business end but it also cone back to the discussion of what is a genre as speculative elements can be wrapped up into crime. It’s a really useful and perceptive exploration of how crime fiction is like any genre term quite flexible.

Another perspective comes via Saima Mir in the mirrored room where they talk about being a British Asian woman she saw aspects of culture the newsroom when she was a journalist was not keen to explore and writing allows her to put characters and her society front and centre of a novel tackling a range of issues in the process.

The next spotlight is by Jessie Greengrass on Agatha Christie ‘On Reading As Escape: All of Christie’s Murderers, And Me’ on the one hand I loved and related to a young person finding these books of strange long ago worlds and the comfort such puzzles provided and for Greebgrass this comes at a time of family break up. There is though a sense of faint prosise Christie is readable but now something for now not touched and there is little exploration of why Christie still is so popular beyond she offers comfort. I’m not quite sure that is the case for all readers.

The final section explores The Opportunity - all the different types of crime tales being written. This starts with Vaseem Khan and ‘Making The Dead Dance: Historocal Crime Fiction’ here we get both a look at fleshing out different aspects of history many readers are unaware of plus the fun of creating variants of classic story types but with new locations and prods to play with. Really interesting and an even handed exploration.

Quentin Bates in ‘Breaking The Translation Barrier’ gives us a look at the growing appreciation of international crime novels and also a look behind the art of translation and how tricky that process is to get right. Very interesting and I again had a list of books to look for.

Paul Finch in ‘ Cop Stuff: Fact or Fantasy’ explored the balance for accuracy and making a story work which was engaging and Tom Mead in ‘The Method and The Effect: Conjuring The Impossible Crime’ explores the art of crafting the locked room mystery and how many authors have worked to make us not see the solution. The escalation of this in the Golden age to uses even today is fascinating and the link to conjuring also makes a lot of sense - writing as misdirection.

The final Spotlight is an indoor look at Arthur Conan Doyle and Tim Major exploring ‘The Problem of The Faithful Pastiche’ here how authors using established characters and periods to create new stories is really delved into. The balance between tone and setting but also making stories work for the readers of today is really well handled and even some Holmesian stat work is thrown in making this a fine ending.

Writing The Murder continues to this series exploring wanted to be a fascinating look at how writers see the subject and I would strongly recommend this for writers, reviewers and also fans of the genre to just get a feel for how big and deep the genre is. A reminder no genre ever truly dies even if the characters have brutally!