The Crime of Crime Fiction

 Guns.  Gams. Bad Words and Bad Men.  These are what we tend to think of when we think of crime writing.  And why not?  It the standard, from games like LA Noire and Grand Theft Auto to TV shows like Dexter and movies like Shoot ‘Em Up.  It’s all about the style, the sexiness of violence, good guys doing good and bad guys getting what’s coming to them.

 And it’s almost never done well, and as an award-winning crime writer, it’s making me want to write romance novels instead.

Look, I love anti-heroes.  We all know how I feel about The Shield’s Shane Vendrell and Justified’s Boyd Crowder.  I got mad love for Han Solo and Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel.  But there’s a major difference between an anti-hero and an asshole, and that difference is that an anti-hero has something redeeming about him. 

Husband. Father. Friend. And Baddest Cop You'll Ever Meet.

Let’s talk Vic Mackey.  In the first episode of The Shield, we see Vic at a BBQ with his friends.  His kids are playing in the pool.  Kenny Johnson isn’t wearing a shirt.  This is all very deliberate because Vic is going to do a very bad thing by the end of the episode, and if we’re going to sympathize with him, we need to see that he does it for a reason—to protect his family, his friends and the job he believes in.  Yes, he has his selfish reasons too, but those only add to the complexity of his character.  He is not a hollow badass, and that’s why we can follow him for seven seasons—because we are simultaneously fascinated and hoping to God someone catches him and brings him to justice for all his crimes.  It’s complex, and that’s what makes it good.

By contrast, Dexter Morgan kills people because he’s an angel of true justice.  He has a code and a compulsion, but those are secondary.  He kills bad people, and that’s fine with us.

I rejected any and all stories that glorified the Dexter-style torture of people, especially women, as an act of “revenge” for a supposed wrongdoing.  How on Earth am I supposed to sympathize with such a character, follow his actions and applaud for him in the end?  I can’t.  These revenge stories exist solely to appease the writer’s warped sense of justice, usually fueled by fear and inadequacy in a world that thrives on anonymity.  Dexter especially fuels our fantasy that we kill the bad people we read about in the news—rapists, murderers, child molesters—but who are we to judge bad and good?  There’s only one person who can do that, and He does a pretty good job in the end.  But luckily, for now, I’ve been charged with judging bad and good stories, a power I wield with great aplomb.

Also, Mickey Rourke is awesome

If you want to read a good, modern crime story, Frank Miller’s The Hard Goodbye is, at it’s absolute barest structure, a perfect example of crime fiction done right.  You’ve got the guns, the dames, the stylized violence in stark black and white, but at the heart of it, you have the story of Marv, a dumb lug of a criminal trying to do right the only way he knows how, which he admits isn’t even a very good way.  He knows he’s doing wrong and in the end, he suffers the consequences, but he does it for the woman he loves, and what you end up with is a beautiful, violent tragedy.

Because good crime fiction isn’t about the style.  It’s not about fedoras and guns and acts of violence committed solely for a thrill.  It’s about people—people affected by crime and by violence and how the react and how they feel and why they react and feel this way.  A good crime story has real characters, characters who breathe and sweat and fear and panic . . . not a whole bunch of slang designed to make it “feel” real.

You are not, nor will you ever be, Humphrey Bogart

So if you got a rejection letter from me, or if you’re writing a story you want to send, ask yourself—is this just my revenge fantasy?  Is this all style and no substance?  Who are these characters, and what’s really important to them?  How can I make them complex, and not just a string of words that sound sharp and sexy?  Because I’m tired of reading retreads of Max Payne and Boondock Saints.   Give me someone I want to invite into my home, even if he/she has blood on their hands.  Give me a character I can care about, a scenario I sympathize with, and for the love of Pete, no more fedoras!