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Commentary: How far should crime writers go?

Oct 25th, 2009
by gav.

Crime fiction has become so violently and graphically anti-women that one of the country’s leading crime writers and critics is refusing to review new books.

link: Sexist violence sickens crime critic | Books | The Observer

It seems that Jessica Mann, according to The Observer just found source of the quote(thanks to @crimfictreader), has said that an increasing proportion of the books she is sent to review feature male perpetrators and female victims in situations of “sadistic misogyny”. “Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims’ sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit, as young women are imprisoned, bound, gagged, strung up or tied down, raped, sliced, burned, blinded, beaten, eaten, starved, suffocated, stabbed, boiled or buried alive,” she said.

I must admit that the description above does nothing for me. I can’t see how anyone can enjoy the glorification of the crime. And I truly can’t understand who wants to read about it?

For me the pleasure in crime fiction has always been about the solving of the crime. On TV I’m addicted to Miss Marple (the BBC rather than ITV version), Poirot and Midsummer Murders. It’s the motivations that are explored rather than the act of violence and that can even be said of Bones, which has some of the most graphic details but the investigators treat the victim with a lot of respect.

Indridason, Vargas, Theorin and Penny to name a few examples have all managed not to understate the act itself but not to play on it either or bring a sense of fear that seems almost like it’s pornographic – is there a word for getting a thrill from reading something that’s so graphic that you, the reader, find it stimulating?

I wonder if this is why most of my choices in Crime Fic are European?

And as a reviewer Jessica Mann is well placed to say when enough is enough. But I still want to know whose buying them? Are you?


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  • I like the pottering crime fiction of the past. I don't even like Ian Rankin as it is too gritty. Not that I can't read about horrors, I can and do in other fiction (ie historical), but that 'gritty' crime seems so worked at and in the end becomes a version of 'gritty' for the middle classes. Having worked with people whose lives were, and are, really and truly gritty the fake grittiness of modern crime palls. No matter how much slicing they do it is fake. So if we're having fake crime then lets have cosy fake crime it is easier on the brain cells. the only modern crime I like is historical ie Andrew Martin's Steam Detective or Nicola Upson's Jospehine Tey series.
  • I like the pottering crime fiction of the past. I don't even like Ian Rankin as it is too gritty. Not that I can't read about horrors, I can and do in other fiction (ie historical), but that 'gritty' crime seems so worked at and in the end becomes a version of 'gritty' for the middle classes. Having worked with people whose lives were, and are, really and truly gritty the fake grittiness of modern crime palls. No matter how much slicing they do it is fake. So if we're having fake crime then lets have cosy fake crime it is easier on the brain cells. the only modern crime I like is historical ie Andrew Martin's Steam Detective or Nicola Upson's Jospehine Tey series.
  • SMD
    I don't actually read all that much crime fiction. I am reading a book called Angel of Death from Angry Robot that has several scenes where the crime/murder is described, but I think, in that instance, the purpose for that is different because the book isn't necessarily about the solving so much as the oddness of the circumstances for everything (you'd have to read it to understand, because I'm not going to ruin it for you...but it's weird).

    And, to your question in your last comment: yes. If they weren't, then Andy Remic would not be selling at all. His work is brutal and unapologetically so. But he doesn't write crime fiction, so maybe that's different.
  • SMD
    I don't actually read all that much crime fiction. I am reading a book called Angel of Death from Angry Robot that has several scenes where the crime/murder is described, but I think, in that instance, the purpose for that is different because the book isn't necessarily about the solving so much as the oddness of the circumstances for everything (you'd have to read it to understand, because I'm not going to ruin it for you...but it's weird).

    And, to your question in your last comment: yes. If they weren't, then Andy Remic would not be selling at all. His work is brutal and unapologetically so. But he doesn't write crime fiction, so maybe that's different.
  • Thanks for the link - I'm coming to this very late then ;)

    I'm glad that you don't get it either - for want of a better phrase.

    I just don't know what else to say but I'm with you - why can't they just not publish them - are readers becoming that blood thirsty?
  • Thanks for the link - I'm coming to this very late then ;)

    I'm glad that you don't get it either - for want of a better phrase.

    I just don't know what else to say but I'm with you - why can't they just not publish them - are readers becoming that blood thirsty?
  • The Guardian/Observer has picked this up very late - Jessica Mann wrote this Spotlight piece nearly 2 months ago. It was picked up by Martin Edwards on his blog and discussed there. I subsequently wrote a post about it (on 4 Sept) here: http://petrona.typepad.com/petrona/2009/09/drawin... . I read a lot of crime fiction but not of this type, in answer to your question! In the Observer piece I thought the comments from Transworld a bit self-serving, given that the publishers have plenty of choice about which books to publish and which to spend a lot of money promoting.
  • The Guardian/Observer has picked this up very late - Jessica Mann wrote this Spotlight piece nearly 2 months ago. It was picked up by Martin Edwards on his blog and discussed there. I subsequently wrote a post about it (on 4 Sept) here: http://petrona.typepad.com/petrona/2009/09/drawin... . I read a lot of crime fiction but not of this type, in answer to your question! In the Observer piece I thought the comments from Transworld a bit self-serving, given that the publishers have plenty of choice about which books to publish and which to spend a lot of money promoting.
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