Keynote Address - It’s Character Building: bad men, good men and why we like to read crime fiction

It’s Character Building:

bad men, good men and why we like to read crime fiction

Dr Rachel Franks @cfwriter

Crime Fiction: Here and There and Again

University of Gdansk 11 – 13 September 2014

Abstract Murder is widely considered to be the most heinous crime: the one crime for which there is no meaningful restitution. Of course readers of crime fiction often have no objection to murder while authors have found many reasons for one person to kill another because a dead body is, today, considered an essential plot device for a crime story. Yet these murders can offer much more than escapism, such crimes can offer an exploration into what is bad and what is good. Indeed, committing murder can, under certain conditions, define and disclose character. Inspector Edmund Reid, of the BBC’s television series Ripper Street, asserts that: ‘Evil men do as they please. Men who would be good? They must do as they are allowed.’ With a focus on crime fiction novels, and an acknowledgement of how the formula is replicated for television programs, this paper will look at some of the ethical questions attendant on the act of murder in crime fiction. These questions are highlighted through a discussion of some of the creative processes involved in crafting characters that commit criminal acts and a brief examination of how some murderers are considered ‘bad’ while others are thought of as ‘good’. The traditional setting, for most crime stories, is a world of black and white: a world where the demarcation between good and evil is clearly understood by both the creators and the consumers of this genre. This paper seeks to disturb that dividing line and ask if men and women who would be good really should be able to do as they are allowed? Moreover this paper will look at how such ethical debates do not detract from crime fiction’s primary purpose to entertain but rather serve to ensure the genre’s place as the world’s most popular type of fiction.

It’s Character Building (Rachel Franks)

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Speech notes for a Keynote Address given at the

University of Gdansk on 11 September 2014

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Today I am focusing on Australian examples of crime fiction, though I have included

references to some well-known international works and have selected a few very popular

television series within my lists of examples – hopefully there is something new and familiar

for everyone.

Also, while giving away key plot points is part of the territory for a crime fiction

conference I feel it would be improper, for a paper that touches on ethics, to not declare:

Spoiler Alert.

Introduction

In Miles Franklin’s Bring the Monkey (1933) Ercildoun Carrington states: ‘I’ve always

loathed murder.’1 Of course readers often have no formal objection to murders taking place

and authors have found numerous reasons for one person to kill another because a body is an

essential plot device for a murder mystery. Readers also have the capacity to engage with

murder in ways that exceed its function as a plot device. Cathy Cole, in her work Private

Dicks and Feisty Chicks (2004), talks about ‘extenuating moral dimensions.’2 This concept

relates to how readers can empathise with a murderer’s motivation if the victim had

perpetrated a sexual or other violent crime, or had taken something of great value such as

retirement savings through mismanagement, or a loved one through drunkenness.3 Another

example Cole offers of acceptable revenge killing can be seen when readers ‘find themselves

celebrating the death of the perpetrator in a police shootout.’4 The concept of ethics in Cole’s

work is one which encompasses concerns about morality and social responsibility and she

argues that the crime fiction genre’s very purpose is to: ‘examine the moral and the ethical,

the difference between good and evil.’5

Murders Committed within Ethical Frameworks

The idea of a murder committed for ethical reasons has been explored by authors as diverse


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as: Agatha Christie of England; Jeff Lindsay of America; and Matthew Reilly of Australia. In

Agatha Christie’s work Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case (1975) Hercule Poirot, ‘a tidy little man,

always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round’,6

murders Stephen Norton, a murderer himself. In his confession Poirot declares: ‘By taking

Norton’s life, I have saved other lives.’7 This novel was first published in 1975 yet Christie

wrote it in the early years of World War II and deposited the manuscript into a bank vault

with instructions that, upon her death, it should be given to her daughter, Rosalind. It is

fascinating that the work which, more seriously than any of her other literary efforts,

addresses issues of who should live and who should die was written in anticipation of ‘being

killed in the raids’8 on London during the Blitz.

In the opening pages of Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) Dexter Morgan, in

his role as narrator, explains he has killed before and will kill again. Tonight he will kill

Father Donovan; a man he kidnaps and takes to a house south of Florida City where he has

laid out the exhumed bodies of seven children in a vile display of Father Donovan’s victims.

The desperate priest begs: ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help myself.’9 Dexter advises readers:

‘I am not like Father Donovan, not that kind of monster. I am a very neat monster’ and, by

removing someone who has brutalised and murdered children, ‘one small corner of the world

is a neater, happier place.’10 The reader is advised, quite emphatically, that ‘Father Donovan

deserved to die.’11

In addition to Hercule Poirot and Dexter Morgan, there is Patrick Bateman of Bret Easton

Ellis’ American Psycho (1991) who kills those ‘who engage in extreme and socially

damaging acts of excessive and deliberately conspicuous consumption’12 and David Klein, in

James Ellroy’s White Jazz (1992), a vigilante who is selective in who he kills, focusing on

despatching ‘wrongdoers.’13 In contrast to killers who act alone, the novels of Matthew Reilly

present men and women who commit murder as part of a team. The majority of Reilly’s

characters are members of elite military units. It is acknowledged that the idea of killing

people is more closely associated with combatants than civilians yet these works are an

important contribution to crime fiction because they are dominated by decisions about who

should live and who should die. Through his good men and bad men Reilly is consistently

asking readers to examine the ‘difference between good and evil.’14

In Australia, a nation colonised as a storage facility for murderers and other lawbreakers,

there was a natural interest in the criminals who were such a large part of the new British

settlements. Writers capitalised on this curiosity and quickly developed a collection of

bushranger tales and squatter thrillers. These early stories indicated the ‘readiness with which

the Australian crime novel accepts the viewpoint of the criminal and outlines with sympathy


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the wrongs committed against him – occasionally her.’15 Tolerance of fictional criminals and

their various activities is not an exclusively Australian trait, is not a recent phenomenon and is

certainly not automatic. If a writer wants a reader to view characters as bad men or good men

they need to be every bit as cunning as the criminals they create.

The A B C D of Crafting a Criminal

I propose a set of criteria – which I have been working to refine for several years – which

writers utilise, either by accident or design, in crafting criminals. It is the deployment of what

I refer to as the A B C D of character construction16, which will define a criminal as either bad

or good (or occasionally just somewhere in between).

A: Attributes

The first criterion, attributes, relates to the personal or the physical traits of the character. If

a criminal has attributes readers either possess or aspire to then those readers will more

readily align themselves with the criminal rather than with other characters in the story. One

such character can be found in the series of works by Guy Boothby which detail the exploits

of the occultist, Dr Nikola, who is: creative, daring, intelligent and a master of disguise.

Readers discover that he is, quite simply, the ‘most marvellous man in the world.’17 Readers

can also respond positively to those men and women who make mistakes or who are simply

swept along by events that are not entirely of their own making. In some pieces of crime

fiction there are criminals who are not inherently good or bad, men like Dick Marston. This

man, caught up with the notorious bushranger Captain Starlight, expresses genuine feelings of

regret and remorse, and is ultimately rewarded with a second chance, in Rolf Boldrewood’s

Robbery Under Arms (1888).18

Recent examples of such characters, appearing on the small screen, are Detectives Rustin

Cohle and Martin Hart of True Detective (2012). Both men portray moral ambiguity and the

average person would probably hesitate if either man issued them with an invitation to dinner.

Yet there is much to admire about both characters: determination, grit and a reckless bravery

in ensuring that justice is done.

Those traits that we dislike in others or ourselves will, if seen in a killer, assist in

generating a negative response from readers and subsequently alienate those readers from a

character. Writers play on this knowledge, to reinforce sympathy with the victim, and the

importance of solving the crime and catching a killer, by creating criminals who have no

redeeming characteristics. They are the killers who hurt animals and small children. They rape

and torture. They are the killers who are often described as being physically repellent, the


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ones who kill for personal gain or just because they can. In those fictional worlds that are

dominated by stereotypes these are the villains. There is no discussion or dispute. Their status

is obvious. This is the easiest technique for writers to deploy; and the one which facilitates the

easiest decision making process for readers.

B: Back Story

The back story created by a writer for a character can provide a rationale for, and thus a

positive response to, their actions. Descriptions of a series of abuses or a single trigger event

can give readers the opportunity to justify criminal behaviour and therefore the criminal. The

year 1992 saw the first publication of Robert Barrett’s Davo’s Little Something. This novel is

about Bob Davis, or Davo to all of his mates, a man who had that ‘typical, rugged, laconic

Aussie look about him.’19 Most people like Davo and Davo likes most people until one night

he goes to a concert with an old school friend, Wayne St Peters, and they are set upon by a

street gang hunting for gay men. Wayne is killed in the vicious attack while Davo is

hospitalised with numerous injuries including ‘a certain sliver of brain damage’20 the doctors

did not detect. As he recovers in hospital Davo begins to ‘feel a deep, burgeoning hatred

spreading through his body’:21 a hatred that festers until the nice butcher from the local

supermarket becomes a killer who violently eradicates anyone who remotely resembles the

gang members he encountered on the fun night that turned fatal.

In Miles Franklin’s Bring the Monkey (1933) there is no such back story to support the

behaviour of Lord Tattingwood. The master of Tattingwood Hall, a vast estate set in the

beautiful English countryside, is obsessed with money:

Owing to post-war taxes and the rising cost of living in every direction, the

Baron himself was threadbare. Tattingwood Hall had become a devouring

monster that put him on the rack.22

Lord Tattingwood is a bitter and brutish man who, when taking a break from forcing young

women to defend themselves from his sexual advances,23 murders a police officer in a fit of

jealousy. There is nothing at all to admire about Lord Tattingwood and there is no sense of

loss when, stricken with cancer he writes and confesses his guilt in the matter of the murder of

Chief Inspector Stopworth.

Inspector Edmund Reid, of the BBC’s television series Ripper Street, asserts that: ‘Evil

men do as they please. Men who would be good? They must do as they are allowed.’ For the

Inspector stationed at Whitechapel we know his story and we understand it: his thwarted hunt


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for Jack the Ripper; the loss of his child, then his wife; his urgent need to avenge

wrongdoings. Though we might question how far he is prepared to go, and the idea of

outsourcing the task of retribution to others we do not immediately label him as a bad man.

(As an aside I believe back story drives the demand for true crime: we need to know.)

C: Casualty

It is much easier, of course, for a reader to think more highly of a killer if they do not

know, or do not like, the casualty of their crime. In Arthur Upfield’s outstanding novel Death

of a Lake (1954) Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte travels to the Australian outback where a lake

that had been: ‘born three years before on the bed of a dustbowl [...] was about to die. The

real heat of summer was just round the corner, and the sun would inevitably murder Lake

Otway.’24 The purpose of the Inspector’s visit is to investigate the disappearance of Ray

Gillen a man who ‘was assumed drowned.’25 When Gillen disappeared, fifteen months prior

to the novel’s opening scene, he did so with £12,000 in cash so it could have been murder. As

the lake waters evaporate the body of Gillen, and the cause of his death, are revealed. Yet,

despite some insights into the victim there are no genuine opportunities for a reader to know

this man. Ray Gillen remains a simple plot device that allows the other characters within the

text to come to life.

In the first novel of Margot Neville, the pseudonym of the sisters Anne Neville Goyder and

Margot Goyder, Murder in Rockwater (1945) the casualty is Clarice Dodd. Mrs Dodd is

described as a bloodsucker,26 albeit a very wealthy one. There is little grieving for Mrs Dodd,

the other characters within the novel are not sorry she is gone and neither is the reader. Such a

reaction supports Jeff McMahan’s argument that: ‘The death of a person who is widely loved

and on whom many others depend will be worse for the survivors than the death of a person

who was simply a nuisance.’27 When a writer closes the door on engaging with the victim it

allows readers to emotionally invest in the killer: the crime story becomes the killer’s story

and the reader turns the next page out of interest in the criminal, or their pursuer, but not

because of their casualty.

There are numerous examples of casualties we do not particularly care for on television.

Creating opportunities for those whose motivations we can appreciate. Often cast as a

vigilante there are classics from the 1980s including Knight Rider and The A Team and more

contemporary examples such as Person of Interest and, of course, the television adaptation of

Dexter. In these programs we may not always agree with the methods chosen to resolve an

issue but, as there is no genuine engagement with the victims, we are prepared to make a few

allowances.


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D: Driving Force

The final criterion, driving force, relates to the motive for murder. If a reader is able to

empathise with the motivation for a crime then they are more likely to rationalise the actions

of the criminal and subsequently apply the label of good. If readers respond negatively to a

murderer because they regard the motive that is offered as one that cannot be justified then

that killer will more likely be labelled as bad. Elizabeth Antill’s classic clue puzzle Death on

the Barrier Reef (1952) tells the story of several murders that are committed to obtain an

inheritance. Ann Wentworth murders two family members and a friend because she believed

that ‘both her beauty and intelligence were being wasted in that job she had in Sydney.’28

In sharp contrast to the fiscal motivations of Ann Wentworth are the extenuating moral

dimensions that drive Captain Shane Schofield, a US Marine Officer with the codename

Scarecrow, to commit murder. In Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow (2003), the demarcation

between good and evil is clear. There is a $20 million bounty on Scarecrow and the self-

proclaimed villain Jonathan Killian intends to claim the cash by devising a plan to: ‘draw out

the troublesome Schofield by holding his beloved Lieutenant Gant hostage.’29 Merely

incarcerating Libby Gant, however, is insufficient so Killian has her decapitated. As soon as

‘Libby Gant’s headless body drop[s] to the ground at the base of the guillotine’30 readers want

revenge. Schofield does not disappoint and his position within the text as a hero is

consolidated. That Killian dies screaming31 is a bonus.

Recent re-imaginings of Sherlock Holmes, in particular Jonny Lee Miller’s portrayal of the

great consulting detective in Elementary, is an excellent example of how we can occasionally

like good men doing really bad things.

A Practice-Led Example

My first ideas around character construction in crime fiction came out a practice-led research

project. In an original creative work, a novel, that I completed as part of my doctoral program

I explored some of the ethical questions attendant on the act of murder.32 I was particularly

interested in the idea of motive and how I could present two murders committed within

different, but potentially equally valid, ethical frameworks so that readers would question

their own ideas about what sets of conditions might be necessary to consider murdering

someone.

My novel, Blood on their Hands, takes place in Sydney, Australia over a five-week period,

from early April to mid-May, in 1932. Despite the triumph of the recent opening of the

Sydney Harbour Bridge, the city is gripped by economic crisis and political turmoil. Crime,

evictions, fascism, scandal and unemployment all jostle for headlines within the major papers


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of the day. Against this background Charles Jones has been forced, like many other

Australians during the Great Depression, to travel in order to find work. In Charlie’s absence

his sister Eddie Jones and her unlikely companion Lady Catharine Darling decide to secretly

run his private investigation agency. The two women accept their first case and, despite the

apparent simplicity of the task, start planning their approach to the investigation of thefts from

the poor box of a local church with enthusiasm. The case is soon complicated by a dead body,

a series of obscure clues and the uncovering of a fascist plot, led by an organisation known as

the New Guard, to kidnap Premier Jack Lang: a plot that could result in either the dismissal of

the NSW Government or the start of a civil war.

Two men are murdered in Blood on their Hands. The first victim is Robert Snook, a man

who had been trying to stop the New Guard and their plans to kidnap the Premier of NSW.

His death signals the end of his own story but also the beginning of the novel’s narrative and

the story of Eddie and Catharine. Mr Snook was murdered by his wife, Roslyn Snook, who

poisoned her husband because she believed in the New Guard and their goal to depose the

Premier of NSW. She saw it as her patriotic duty to prevent her husband, regardless of the

cost, from interfering with the plan to kidnap Jack Lang. Robert Snook dies, murdered by his

wife because of an ethical framework constructed of ideology, patriotism and politics. Roslyn

Snook believes that in taking this one life she is saving others because she feels if Jack Lang

is kidnapped then a civil war, if it breaks out, will be short and see a minimal loss of life. The

motivation of Roslyn was crafted to question the social construction of murder and how the

definition of murder changes between cultures and contexts. For example, had Australia been

in the grip of a civil war and Roslyn had poisoned her husband in an effort to reduce the

duration of the conflict, then would her status as a combatant have afforded her a different

label to that of murderer? The Snooks, as murderer and as victim, both play quite minor roles

within the story: their actions serve as triggers for other events. As such the attributes and

back-story are not very developed for either character, placing Mr Snook and Mrs Snook on a

relatively even footing: how readers relate to these characters will depend, predominately, on

how readers view the political situation in which Robert and Roslyn were entangled.

The second murder in Blood on their Hands is committed again, because an ethical

decision was made to take one life to save others; someone was seen as presenting such a

threat to society it was considered unethical to let them live. In sharp contrast to the Snooks

readers are given very different insights into the victim and the victim’s killer. The victim

presents no redeeming attributes; he is a man without a name and without a back-story; and it

is easier to engage with his murderer because it is difficult to comprehend this man’s

behaviour. What readers do learn about this man who, acting on the instructions from


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members of the New Guard, had helped to kidnap Catharine Darling, is that he

After Catharine is rescued she relays an overheard confession to her friend Eddie. In the

novel’s climax both Catharine and Eddie confront this man and he is promptly dispatched. In

a twist this second murder results in neither the readers nor the characters knowing which of

the main female protagonists, Eddie or Catharine, fired the fatal shot. Such a strategy was

enlisted to highlight the important role crime fiction can play in engaging with ethical

questions. These two characters, Eddie Jones – a working class seamstress living on the city’s

fringe and Catharine Darling – an upper class socialite living in an exclusive waterfront

suburb, are representative of the extremes of Sydney society during the Depression, they are

strong individuals who can be: brave; determined; funny; sarcastic; smart; and occasionally

helpless. Such a broad range of characteristics allows readers to identify with these women

and their journey from amateur investigators to competent professionals.

In addition to possessing attributes many people would find admirable, both women are

developed throughout the text through the provision of back stories that allow readers to

engage with and understand these characters: who they are and why they behave the way that

they do. When one of Catharine’s kidnappers, a known rapist and murderer, is gunned down

by one of these women on Macquarie Street the driving force is clearly grounded in

extenuating moral dimensions and it is certainly easier to identify with the murderer than with

the casualty. Whoever pulled the trigger is one of the good guys.

An Extension of the A B C D Framework

The A B C D framework can be extended to include a fifth criterion - E: ethics. This

additional element is a concept that the writer, regardless of how skilfully they deploy the

criteria explored briefly here, has no control. If readers agree with Sergeant Bull, of Elizabeth

Antill’s Death on the Barrier Reef (1952), that there is never ‘an adequate reason for

murder’33 then all murderers are automatically bad. In contrast, if readers can identify with

Captain Schofield and feel that the most appropriate response to the loss of a loved one is a

response that is based in revenge then some murderers will be considered good.

So, Why Do We Put Ourselves Through This?

If, as is so commonly argued, we read crime fiction for the certainty that a black and white

world can provide, why do we so often choose to navigate landscapes that sit between the

clear constructions of bad and good?

I propose that crime fiction allows us, vicariously, to actively contribute to an environment

that is often difficult and painful but is ultimately fair and just: a fictional world which can be


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in sharp contrast to the real world in which we have no personal control over our respective

judicial systems.34 Moreover, crime fiction facilitates the delivery and the evasion of

punishment.35

Punishment and Crime Fiction

There is a strong genealogical link that connects crime fiction to ideas that circulate around

punishment. Crime fiction is an ancient art form, tracing its lineage back to the books of the

Old Testament. Such longevity is a tribute to the genre’s original purpose and how early

crime tales were told to help establish a common ethical framework for how to live and to

inform readers (and listeners) that there are consequences when the rules of that framework

are broken: the earliest examples of these works forming a series of primitive guidebooks for

Emile Durkheim’s conscience collective.36 Crime fiction has, over time, become increasingly

sophisticated, but the strong connection the genre has to how we conceive and perceive

punishment endures.

The most obvious alignment between the engineering and execution of various

punishments and the writing and reading of different types of crime fiction can be seen in the

mid-18th century. It was during this time that the The Malefactors’ Bloody Register, more

commonly known as the Newgate Calendar, emerged to provide accounts of the crimes and

the trials of notable offenders of the day.37 Such was the interest in these men and women,

and their fates, people bought the Newgate Calendar in unprecedented numbers’38, paid entry

fees to watch trials39 and flocked to public executions. Enormous crowds of up to 100,00040

attended hangings, soaking up ‘the carnival atmosphere.’41 Sarah Redmond’s investigations

have linked these displays to literary renditions, observing ‘the similarity between the scaffold

and the theatre.’42 This alignment is still clear today; just more convenient. Crime fiction texts

are more readily available now than at any other time in publishing history, while the mass

media provides the modern-day ‘spectacle’43 of punishment, in all its forms, at any time of the

day or night.

Many different types of punishment have been deployed across the ages. From those that

are designed to simply inflict suffering, or, what Durkheim referred to as repressive sanctions

– an approach that has often been legitimised as a means of deterring future crimes because, it

is alleged, ‘it incapacitates the criminal and discourages others from pursuing the same path’44

– to more subtle punishments grounded in social sanctions.45 The most common price paid for

crime in the modern era is loss of liberty and it is incarceration which threatens the bulk of

criminals within crime fiction, though some works – depending upon when and where they

were written – present, too, the spectre of execution.


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It is also interesting to observe here how some punishment practices labelled as barbaric,

have merely been re-imagined by contemporary crime writers for a modern age. For example,

the branding irons of the medieval period – originally designed to leave an indelible criminal

record upon a person – have been replaced in the technological age by digital branding. Those

who commit crimes, or are merely accused of committing a crime, are, in the online world,

now forever associated with that with which they were charged.

In the urban fantasy work, Zoo City (2010), Lauren Beukes plays with the idea of branding

by generating symbiotic relationships between criminals and animals (for whom there is also

a strong history of branding). The central protagonist, Zinzi December, must carry with her at

all times a sloth as a public mark of her criminal behaviour.46 Crime fiction does far more,

however, than present old punishments in new ways; the genre also allows us to act out and to

avoid punishment.

Delivering Punishment in Crime Fiction

I suggest that the reading of crime fiction facilitates an extension of Emile Durkheim’s thesis

of the conscience collective and the idea that punishment is a process that allows for the

demonstration of group norms and the strengthening of moral boundaries.47

David Garland, in summarising Durkheim’s arguments, states:

So although the modern state has a near monopoly of penal violence and

controls the administration of penalties, a much wider population feels itself

to be involved in the process of punishment, and supplies the context of

social support and valorization within which state punishment takes place.48

In relation, I claim the idea of a much wider population connecting with the task of

punishment can be taken further. For some, standing witness to the state delivering upon the

task of issuing penalties, though an important part of the cycle of the controllers and the

controlled,49 is insufficient; the need to be directly involved in the process of punishment can

be so great it can only be satisfied when a sense of being an agent of punishment has been

achieved. The most extreme case of this is the vigilante, but it is crime fiction, above all other

forms of literary production, which, for those who do not directly contribute to the

incarceration of criminals, allows a feeling of active participation in the penalising of a

variety of perpetrators.

Crime fiction readers are therefore, temporarily at least, direct contributors to a more stable

society: one that is clearly based upon right and wrong and reliant upon the conscience


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collective to maintain and reaffirm order.50 Thus, crime fiction is elevated from the status of

providing mere entertainment and is realised as playing a crucial role in the preservation of

social mores.

There is, however, a significant issue with such an approach, in that the need to become an

agent of punishment is not always tempered by the responsibilities of the meting out of

various penalties. Lord Peter Wimsey, in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon (1937),

brings a murderer to account for his crime but struggles in the final pages of the novel with

the burden of seeing a fellow human being hanged and he went, as was ‘his custom under

such circumstances to ask the condemned man’s forgiveness.’51 This is, however, not a

conventional approach, as crime fiction writers tend to specialise in neat endings: a tidy

assembly of suspects; evidence laid out for all to see; identification of the killer; and a clinical

description of the how and the why of murder. It is here that the story often ends. The crime

fiction reader has, through an amateur or professional sleuth, brought about justice and can

relax knowing that punishment is assured.

Yet the truth of the penalty allocated is not automatically examined.52 The reader does not

have to concern themselves with issues around the loss of liberty, the ethics of corporal

punishment or, in some states, judicial executions. Likewise, ideas of recidivism are only

routinely contemplated if a writer brings back an individual criminal, or a gang of law-

breakers, for a sequel.

Evading Punishment in Crime Fiction

It is important to appreciate that, superimposed upon the dichotomy of right and wrong in the

field of punishment is the dichotomy, in crime fiction, of the desire to be a punisher and the

desire to not be punished. One of the functions of fiction is that it ‘allows us to experience

social situations vicariously, thus allowing for personal consideration of response and

action.’53 In the case of crime fiction, this can mitigate thoughts of needing to murder a

disagreeable neighbour, a spiteful supervisor or an unfaithful spouse because crime fiction

allows readers ‘to experiment in a controlled and safe manner, with intentions, emotions, and

emotion-evoking situations that would be impossible and often highly undesirable in the real

world.’54

Essentially, crime fiction provides us with numerous opportunities to experience the

planning, and the praxis, of murder: all without any fear of being caught, arrested, tried and

then sent to prison. Through crime fiction we can commit any number of crimes and

continually evade punishment. This is particularly problematic as – of the main justifications

for punishment: retributive; justice; deterrence; incapacitation; and rehabilitation55 – the


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evasion of punishment, in this context, focuses almost exclusively upon retribution. Indeed,

the line that delineates punishment and revenge is often blurred. Punishment indicates a

measured response. Revenge often explores reactions that are out of proportion to the original

event. As Giacomo Cassanova explains:

In the physical world anything which strikes is subjected to the same force in

reaction; but in the moral world the reaction is stronger than the action. The

reaction from being imposed upon is scorn; the reaction from scorn is hatred;

the reaction from hatred is murder.56

These ideas of punishment – particularly who should and should not be punished – easily link

back easily into those ideas, put forward today, around character construction.

Conclusion

To conclude.

Crime fiction is the world’s most popular genre with nearly one in every three new books

in English falling within the crime fiction category.57 Readers of crime fiction, much like the

readers of any other type of fiction, read for the traditional appeal factors of character,

language, setting and story. Some read because they want to be entertained by fabulous and

flawed amateur and professional sleuths. There are those drawn to the dignified dialogue of

Ngaio Marsh or the ‘grimly realistic depictions of crime and urban life’58 written by Dashiell

Hammett. Some may want to experience people and places far removed from their own

everyday worlds. Yet others will want to challenge themselves and compete with the central

protagonist in the search for ‘whodunit?’.

Crime fiction will always, however, offer more than these long-accepted attractions for

readers because, while some have argued that the genre is merely entertainment, ‘an addiction

like tobacco or alcohol’,59 this type of fiction will continue – across Australia and around the

world (here and there), as it has done for centuries (again and again), to encourage readers and

writers to navigate complex ethical landscapes. Should good men really be able to do as they

are allowed? Where is the line that separates the good from the bad?

I read crime fiction to follow this demarcation line: to watch how it shifts. I know that

homicide is a criminal act but I also know – as Thorne Smith suggested in Did She Fall?

(1930) – that: ‘Sometimes, a well-executed murder clears the air.’60


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1 Miles Franklin, Bring the Monkey (Sydney: Endeavour Press, 1933), 1. 2 Cathy Cole, Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction (Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2004), 94. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 114. 5 Ibid., 86. 6 Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case (London: Harper Collins, 1975/2002), 256. 7 Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Autobiography (London: Harper Collins, 1977/2010), 283. 8 Ibid., 509. 9 Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter (London: Orion, 2004/2007), 10. 10 Ibid., 11. 11 Ibid., 14. 12 Carolyn Beasley, “Serial Killer as Social Good,” Paper presented at the inaugural conference for the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (Sydney, Australia, June 30-July 2, 2010). 13 Ibid. 14 Cathy Cole, Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks, 86. 15 Stephen Knight, Continent of Mystery: A Thematic History of Australian Crime Fiction (Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 1997), 50. 16 Rachel Franks, “Visualising Villains: crafting criminals in Australian crime fiction,” Rachel Franks and Susan E. Meindl eds The Real and the Reflected: heroes and villains in existent and imagined worlds (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary, 2012), 163-172. 17 Guy Boothby, Dr Nikola’s Experiment (Fairford: Echo Library, 1899/2007), 20. 18 Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms (Sydney: New Holland, 1888/2008). 19 Robert Barrett, Davo’s Little Something (Sydney: Macmillan, 1992/2009), 2. 20 Ibid., 90. 21 Ibid., 86. 22 Miles Franklin, Bring the Monkey, 15. 23 Ibid., 51. 24 Arthur Upfield, Death of a Lake (London: Pan Books, 1954/1956), 5. 25 Ibid., 15. 26 Margot Neville, Murder in Rockwater (Melbourne: Jabor, 1945), 7. 27 Jeff McMahan, Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 95. 28 Elizabeth Antill, Death on the Barrier Reef (London: The Thriller Book Club, 1952/1953), 242. 29 Matthew Reilly, Scarecrow (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2003/2009), 331. 30 Ibid., 333. 31 Ibid., 498. 32 Rachel Franks “Blood on their Hands: representations of class, gender and ethical questions attendant on the act of murder in Australian crime fiction, 1830-1980” (PhD thesis, Central Queensland University, 2011). 33 Elizabeth Antill, Death on the Barrier Reef, 195. 34 Even those individuals who work directly in the fields of law and punishment exert little personal control over these systems; the various elements (police forces, penitentiary organisations, parole boards, policy makers, law makers and the judiciary, amongst others) are each subject to their own restrictions and are, necessarily, in constant negotiation with each other. 35 Rachel Franks, “To Condemn and Condone: The ‘Conscience Collective’ and Punishment in Crime Fiction,” Rachel Franks and Janice Robertson eds The Letter of the Law: contemporary debates on language, dignity and the punished body (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, In Press), 21-43. 36 David Garland, Punishment and Modern Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 52. 37 Lyn Pykett, “The Newgate Novel and Sensation Fiction, 1830-1868,” Martin Priestman ed. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003/2006), 20. 38 Kelly Grovier, The Gaol (London: John Murray, 2008), xvi. 39 “Historical Background,” London: Old Bailey Proceedings, accessed March 1, 2010, www.oldbaileyonline.org 40 V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 57. 41 Kelly Grovier, The Gaol, xvi. 42 Sarah Redmond, “Staging Executions” (MA thesis, Florida State University, 2007), 8. 43 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 32. 44 Daniel Sullivan et al., “Collectivism and the Meaning of Suffering,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103, 6 (2012): 1024. 45 Paolo Buonanno et al., “Crime and Social Sanction,” Papers in Regional Science 91, 1 (2012): 193. 46 Lauren Beukes, Zoo City (Oxford: Angry Robot, 2010), 8.


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47 Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor (New York: Free Press, 1893/1964). 48 David Garland, Punishment and Modern Society, 32. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 52. 51 Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937/2003), 446. 52 Some crime fiction works do focus on the experience of punishment; John Grisham’s novel The Chamber (1994) is a good example of this. 53 R.A. Mar & K. Oatley, “The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3, 3 (2008): 183. 54 Ibid. 55 O. Carter Snead, “Memory and Punishment,” Vanderbilt Law Review 64, 4 (2011): 1245. 56 Giacomo Casanova, History of My Life (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1997), 70. 57 Stephen Knight, Crime Fiction since 1800: Detection, Death, Diversity (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), xi. 58 Sean McCann, “The Hard-Boiled Novel,” Catherine Ross Nickerson ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010/2011), 43. 59 W.H. Auden, “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story by an Addict,” Harper’s Magazine (New York: Harper’s, 1948), 406. 60 Thorne Smith, Did She Fall (New York: The Sun Dial Press, 1930), 1.

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Keynote Address - It’s Character Building: bad men, good men and why we like to read crime fiction