Extra Insight

I watched a BBC4 documentary this morning "Who is Kurt Wallander", a slightly misleading title as it was more about the Sweden that provides the context for the detective. Very interesting background on the social state ideal that has crumbled and now has the same problems as the rest of Europe.

Then the Sunday Times television critic A A Gill (the Marmite of critics, but I'm very much in the love camp even if I don't always agree with him) writes today about the death of the television detective in relation to Wallander. His theory is that the detective characters are still great but are let down by the plots (the article can be read here).

I think he has a made a good point. Many current shows rely on smoke and mirrors, tricks and quirks to distract from the slightness of the plot. The ante is upped on the levels of gore, nastiness or science to compensate. Perhaps we've seen it all before.

But does that matter so much? My favourite thing about Morse was not the crimes or their resolution, but the character of Morse and his relationship with Lewis. The plot is largely secondary to that. In the Rebus novels (particuarly the early ones), I was frequently disappointed with the whodunnit element, as I was with the Henning Mankell book I read, "Return of the Dancing Master", but enjoyed the characters. If the characters are strong enough I think the detective can survive.

So I will continue to watch the detectives even if all of the good plots have already been used. Although, of course, I do have a higher tolerance and intake of detectives than the average person.

Reading the Detectives, Part 2

A year ago I wrote about my reading in the crime genre, which hadn’t really been much. Recently I’ve been reading a lot. In fact I’ve been reading manically as it is the only thing that seems to soothe the feelings of angst from which I’ve been suffering.

This reading has included some more crime novels. Firstly, I got back into the Rebus series and read the final two books in the set. I especially enjoyed End Music and thought it was a good farewell to Rebus, who I shall miss.

Next I borrowed a George P Pelecanos book from the OH, the first in his Washington series “The Big Blowdown”. It took me a little while to get into it, but I enjoyed. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the next instalment “King Suckerman”, can’t get a swap for it on “Read It Swap It” and my library doesn’t have it. I will probably crack soon and buy it but at the moment I’m loathe to pay full price for it.

Then I read "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" the book by Jeff Lindsay on which the television series was based. It was similar to the programme but there seemed to be one plot difference, so there was still some suspense there for me.

Last weekend I read “The Shape of Water” by Andrea Camillieri, the first of the Inspector Montalbano books which are set amongst the corrupt officials and gangster in Sicily. It had a decent plot but wasn’t too heavy-going. It is the perfect sort of read when I don’t want to think too much.

Yesterday, I started “The Return of the Dancing Master” by Henning Mankell, This time my reading has taken me to Sweden, and it’s a much darker journey than the one to Sicily. Its quite graphic, but I like the characters in it so far. The thing I don’t like about, and I realised is what puts me off a lot of crime novels, is the book itself. It is one of those squat books, that implies low-brow. At least it doesn’t have a black cover with blood-soaked dagger on it and the author’s name in a huge font. I like my crime books to look just like any other books, to look like they might be good literature too.

Reading the Detectives

I was looking for other blogs on a similar theme to this one, and pretty much all I could find were blogs on crime fiction. There are tons of them out there.

I'm not actually a big reader of crime fiction. I'm not sure why - perhaps I just need a break from it after watching it on television so much. Or it might be that my degree in English Literature makes me a bit of reading snob. But that's not to say I haven't read any crime fiction. I have.

Some of the first adult books I read were crime fiction - Agatha Christie novels, read on holidays in Spain and the Algarve, that had been left behind in the clubhouses by previous holidaymakers. Normally read after I'd exhausted my own supply of books (usually the Sweet Valley High series!).

Later, around the age of 16, I was reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books, which led onto the Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novels. Not really ordinary detective fiction - Dirk ran a holistic detective agency. I remember a particularly great description of a character as 'looking like lots of David Bowies joined together'.

Then at University, I read a few bits and pieces in the genre - some Sherlock Holmes stories definitely - but I never managed to take the course entitled 'Signs and Clues: Detective Fiction'. I did however do a course in Post War American Fiction, taught by the unfortunately named Sally Munt, a leading light in Lesbian fiction. The course syllabus was changed from the advertised books, to include a few lesbian detective novels. I can't remember the name of the author - all I do remember is that no crimes were ever solved as that was a masculine narrative tradition which she was rejecting. We also read American Psycho, The Crying of Lot 49 and Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, which I suppose were all crime/mystery fiction but not as dear old Agatha would have recognised.

1996 and the 'Trainspotting' effect can be fully seen in publishing. I'm 21 and lap up books about clubbing, which includes a couple by Manchester writer Nicholas Blincoe, who seemed to be found in the Crime section because his books featured gangsters. The then-boyfriend bought me a Janet Evanovich book - Two for the Dough I think - he bought it because it had a bright cover and I then did read another couple of hers before losing interest. I also read 'White Merc with Fins' which was set where I was living - it was good but his next book 'Rancid Aluminium' was rubbish and tainted the memory of his previous work.

Then I read Christopher Brookmyre's 'Quite Ugly One Morning' and loved his mix of mystery and politics. I read everything he wrote after that and quite fell in love with his investigative reporter, Jack Parlabane. But then the relationship soured - 'The Sacred Art of Stealing' was too much of a rip-off of 'Out of Sight' and the next one I never really grasped. I haven't read his most recent effort.

Because of the comparisons made between Brookmyre and Carl Hiaasen, I decided to see what the fuss was about there. I read a couple of his books, borrowed from the local library. I enjoyed them but the mistake I made was that I couldn't later remember ones I'd read already because I no longer had the books to check and reading the covers, they all sounded kind of the same. So I've not read anymore Carl.

Then came Alexander McCall Smith' 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency'. An easy read on holiday (as with Agatha Christie) but after reading about five, I found them rather repetitive - I don't just mean in plot structure, I'm pretty sure whole chunks of description about the main characters were lifted wholesale from one book and plonked down in the next.

I'd seen Ian Rankin on the Late Show and News Night Review alot and liked him but hadn't read any of his books. I took the plunge about two years ago, buying one in a train station shop for my journey home. I enjoyed it - like Hiaasen and Brookmyre, he was politicised. I started to work my way through the series when I had a long train journey ahead of me, finding the books easy to get into, but not too low-brow. I decided I preferred the later books. On my last trip to visit my mother, I bought 'The Falls' and 'Resurrection Men'. The former I read greedily on the outward journey and finished half way through the return, then I started the next one. Three months later, I have just managed to finish it - I don't know why but I lost interest in it. I'm out of love with Rebus and can't see me picking up a crime novel for a while.

Unless of course, someone wants to recommend something from the millions being written.