I have come to think of the crime novel as the perfect form of the novel: a distillation of decades, of centuries of literary entertainment and enlightenment. That distillation, that dynamism continues naturally and vitally. It’s for you as a crime writer to run with, to make your own.
Every now and then I decide to get serious about learning to write, and so I buy a book to help me. I’m a sucker for a good detective; my three middle-grade Verity Sparks books featured a young sleuth and a variety of crimes; now I’m attempting a crime novel for adults. Thus, Crafting Crime Fiction by Henry Sutton.
He’s a Professor of Creative Writing and Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia (UAE apparently pioneered university creative writing degrees in the UK) and has written fifteen novels himself. Which is a good sign, I think.
Sutton divides this guide into structured sections that build a comprehensive picture of the crime novel. Lots of opinions, lots of advice and many examples from current crime luminaries like Lee Child and Val McDiarmid, as well as from past masters such as Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith. Sutton uses a really expansive range of crime authors and sub-genres in this guide, but also includes writers you wouldn’t normally think of, like Eleanor Catton and Martin Amis. And, most helpfully, he uses his own personal experience in writing crime.
Unusually for me, I was underlining like crazy as I read, and even writing notes in the back few pages…but all that activity stopped at the half-way mark, which is when my brain ran out of juice. But I will return! Crafting Crime Fiction is a seriously useful discussion of the genre, and I am paying real attention to Suttons ‘mantras’, which are pace and purpose and menace and motivation. I’ve written them on index cards; they’re now pinned on the board above my desk.
I am very excited for this work in progress. Keep us posted!