Different types of crime fiction focus on commonatlities:

 

PLOT

Complicated plot-lines.

Need an aware audience that is paying attention.

Common criticism is that they try to be to clever and the solution is not well established.

 

A CRIME

Essential for the crime fiction.

Some crime fictions do not begin with murder.

'The Skull Beneath the Skin' starts with someone protecting someone in danger. Though the job turns to a murder investigation.

Crime is usually horrific as this adds to the desire to track down murderer.

Defacing Clarissa Lisle in 'The Skull Beneath the Skin' demonstrates this.

Whilst the ignored body in 'The Real Inspector Hound' help achieve the necessary gruesome effect.

Often murder occurs somewhere that we might expect to be safe.

The INVERSION of the friendly and innocent also adds to the horror.

 

INVESTIGATION

The investigation has to occur by someone with skills to solve th crime.

Crime fictions rely heavily on the interview.

They might be confronted with conflicting or new evidence.

If using police procedure investigation strategies then it will probably involve stake-outs, tailing, suspects and searches.

Also documentary evidence.

The intellectual skills of the sleuth are clear in their use of deduction and logic to solve the crime.

But careful exploration of suspects and situations can lead to logical links being seen.

Intuition may also play a part and there does seem to be use of 'hunches' in the hard-boiled text.

The crime may be re-enacted which is a classic feature of the 'Golden Age'.

It is important that the crime is actually solved.

Crime fiction must end in some order. The mystery needs to be solved so the world is safe again.

 

CLUES

Clues may be physical evidence, character motivation or tendency or even contextual details.

They are not seen first by the reader but seen with the investigator.

To be believable at the conclusion it is important they were sustained.

In a novel the clue may be given by having an object reappear subtly. Yet they must be oblique, as no composer wants their audience to be ahead of their investigator.

 

VIOLENCE

Crime fictions contain violence.

Even the 'cosy', parlour room puzzles of the 'Golden Age' a gruesome murder initiated the game.

Historically hard-boiled texts had the most violence.

Tension is maintained through threat.

Contemporary crime fictions often use the past to heighten the violence.

Whilst the situation's violence is concentrated in one place they might use the background of the setting to allude to past large-scale human violence. The World War Two allusion in 'Skull Beneath the Skin' uses this technique.

Weapons are often part of this violence, particularly in the hard-boiled texts.

The murder or crime in the hard-boiled text is generally the first in a series.

 

SETTING

Setting is an essential part of the text. It certainly anchors the plot but it also creates the atmosphere and helps provide clues necessary to the investigation.

James 'Skull Beneath the Skin' demonstrates how the setting in a crime fiction is often used beyond the function of simply space. She is well known for her interest in architecture and decor design. She deliberately uses detailed descriptions of a character's place to relect that character thereby building her characterisation through her settings.

Think also about 'Harry Lavender' and how pivotal the setting is in this crime fiction.

 

CLASSICAL CLOSED CIRCLE

This is the common setting type for the Intuitionist texts. It is a setting where the group is somehow cutoff from the outside society.

Investigation is limited to the group and the locale.

This secluded setting is seen repeatedly in Agatha Christie's work.

The aristocratic Manor house emerged as the stereotype of this closed setting. Stoppard uses this when he chooses Muldoon Manor for the setting of his parody, 'The Real Inspector Hound'. James also uses the idea when she sets 'Skul Beneath the Skin' on Courcy Island which can only be accessed by boat.

We are well out of the 'Golden Age' many modern crime fiction writers search for an exotic locale that can be portrayed as an isolated place.

 

A FOCUS ON THE ORDINARY

Crime fiction deliberately present the very mundane, ordinary world of their characters. This is a strategy used to heighten the horror of the crime and violence.

Contrast ordinary with the strange and terrible is a powerful technique for atmosphere creation.

Readers trust the ordinary so the expectation of change creates suspense.

James uses this strategy when she shows us Cordelia Gray's office and her relationship with Miss Maudsley and Bevis. DIscussion of fixing a nameplate, stray cats and making tea is as unassuming and average as could be.

 

THE HOSTILE WORLD

Crime fiction are often hostile and dangerous worlds.

This is achieved through alluding to past crimes that the setting is associated with.

James 'Skull Beneath the Skin' does this through giving Courcy Island a horrific past.

The hostile setting is lampooned in 'The Real Inspector Hound' Muldoon Manor is surrounded by inclement weather, 'treacherous swamps' and cliffs. Fittingly it is also haunted by the strange disappearance of Lord Muldoon ten years before.

Much of the action occurs at night and in the rain.

Deceptive and seedy.

An oppressive world.

Even modern society in the more contemporary texts seems a threatened place.

A sense that it is always changing.

James uses her descriptions of architecture to reflect this.

 

CHARACTERS

THE DETECTIVE

Depends on what type of crime fiction the text leans towards.

Many realist and hard-boiled detectives are ex-police.

However, there are some similarities.

The sleuth is always the 'goodie'. Morally better. A hero. Clever and able to see through the deceptions. An adept logical thinker.

The Intuitionist school like to use genius sleuths that may be eccentric or a little odd. This quaintness helped the investigator gather information, as they seemed harmless. Often amateurs.

Realist school 'go beyond pure thinking-out the problem'.

Scientific detectives have continued to emerge as have many that are specialist in forensic Science.

The hard-boiled detective has a clear set of stereotyped characteristics. Isolated from society. Often divorced or have terrible personal loss. Reasons as to why they have left the police force. Often sexually attractive. Able to defend themselves. Survivors of a tough world. Their language is also part of this and they are brusque and concise. They have no time for false pleasantries. They are risk takers. They will do what police cannot, eg: illegal searches, roughing up.

Weary and cynical.

They see the realities of life.

Social niceties are of no use.

Painfully honest.

Moral attractiveness.

World-weary dialogue.

Seem vulnerable.

Real people.

Often drink and smoke hard.

Refusal to play the society game is often symbolised by their battered car, dumpy home and inability to form lasting relationships.

Their failures help the audience identify with them.

Modern hard-boiled texts still use these stereotyped characteristics. Marele Day 'The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender' uses a female detective but still Claudia Valentine is a femal example of all these hard-boiled traits. She is drop-dead gorgeous, has one night stands, lives above a pub and can fight as well as she gets.

 

THE VICTIM

In the Realist and contemporary crime fiction the victim can be anyone.

Sometimes the victim is very innocent as this heightens the horror of the crime.

Children and young mothers work nicely here.

Intuitionist texts often like the victim to be someone completely despicable like Clarissa Lisle in 'The Skull Beneath the Skin' who we cannot like at all.

Hard-boiled texts like the victim, no matter how innocent, to be somehow linked to the underworld of crime.

 

THE CLIENT

Client becomes necessary when a private detective is the sleuth.

In early examples of the form the client was wealthy.

Often eccentric or quite troubled.

Last half of the twentieth century clients have shown more variety.

Yet it must be someone who wants to know the solution to the mystery.

Mysteries may not start by being murder but they end this way.

 

THE MURDERER/CRIMINALS

The 'baddies' are intelligent.

They leave ingenious false trails and have clever alibis.

They are worthy opponents for the sleuth.

This is remnant of the closed-circle setting of the Intuitionist text. Every suspect is known.

 

OTHER CHARACTERS

Crime fiction texts show characters that live troubled lives.

Many suspects who need motives. Means that there are a lot of disgruntled charcters.

In Intuitionist text this usually means that everyone in the circle has a reason to have the victim dead.

In Realism text there are many likely contenders.

Genre is forced to portray a negative view of society!

Realism texts, have quite friendly relations between police.

Hard-boiled texts generally have not presented such a positive view. Often the bulk of police are to be ineffectual, even stupid. Often corrupt and obstruct the justice. The good officers tend to weary of the system.

In more modern crime fictions police are often shown to be tied by the legal system of society. Think, 'Harry Lavender'.

They cannot do because of privacy laws and court evidence admission rules.

This reflects the society we live in where many police professionals feel the same sort of restriction.

Hard-boiled detective must work outside the law to solve the case.

 

THEMATIC MESSAGES

GOOD OVERCOMING EVIL

The detective solves the crime so evil is caught. No matter what style of detective they are moral and righteous.

Detectives from the hard-boiled school are sometimes said to be touched with medieval romance.

They are the grey knights for justice in a black world.

Heroes of the American wild west.

The sleuth of crime fiction is good and that those he/she exposes are evil.

 

RESTORATION OF ORDER

The social threat is removed by the resolution of a crime fiction. The fractured lives of the characters have logic and order restored.

Whilst the mystery has been cleared up there is a sense that it is only a brief respite.

 

INSTINCTIVE JUSTICE OVER TARNISHED JUSTICE

The detective exemplifies the notion of natural justice.

The criminal deserves to be caught.

The investigator's moral stance ensures such instinctive justice is victorious.

The institutional forces of justice are flawed.

 

HUMAN NATURE - THE PERVERTED WORLD

Crime fictions are comments on the depressing reality of the human condition.

Whilst the Intuitionist texts may be less concerned with a social comment than they are with the creation and solution of a puzzle.

The closed circle is symbol for the whole society - as in 'The Real Inspector Hound' or 'The Skull Beneath the Skin'.

 

The fact that there are so many suspects, each with a real desire to kill the victim demonstrates the evil in society generally.

James shows in 'The Skull Beneath the Skin' that it is a world of perverted values. Tax avoidance becomes a motive for murder so it is greed that has corrupted. Yet the other suspects reveal crippling jealousy and vengeance. Crime fiction shows there is the potential for violence and evil within all.

 

Crime fictions are critical of human nature.

They show, often in a darker and more serious way the depressing reality that lies behind the social niceties and facades of society. The deceptions and breakdown of identities symbolise the falsity of our systems, values and relationships.

Humans emerge as tarnished and shabby whilst the city comes to symbolise wickedness and evil. Hard-boiled texts clearly make these comments.

Often texts begin with a single event only to have it snowball into a series of crimes.

 

LANGUAGE/STYLE

CONVENTIONAL NARRATIVE FORM

Most crime fictions still follow the conventional form of a narrative.

Most crime fictions have a linear structure. They have a beginning, middle and an end.

Many people find conventional structure comforting.

 

NARRATIVE STYLE
 

Often said that narratives of crime fiction are usually told in the first person.

From the perspective of the hero.

The reader generally needs to follow the progress of the case through the sleuth. A certain intimacy between audience and sleuth needs to be established. The asides between Birdboot and Moon in 'The Real Inspector Hound' serve this purpose as the audience is allowed to follow (to some extent) the reasoning of Birdboot.

 

TIGHT CONSTRUCTION

Crime fictions must be tightly structured. The clues must lead to the logical conclusion.

Dropped in a way that makes the solution believable.

The more complex the plot line the more tightly structured the text must be. This basic requirement is parodied in 'The Real Inspector Hound' when events re-occur and order seems lost.

 

FORESHADOWING

Foreshadowing is another technique used to give this tight structure. This is where something later used is foreshadowed by referring to it earler in the text. This technique helps makes plot events believable.

 

DETAIL AND TENSE ATMOSPHERE

The attention to detail and atmosphere in a crime fiction is very much a feature of the genre.

The clues must be woven into the fabric of the text.

Many crime fictions, especially the hard-boiled texts, work to sustain a dark, action-oriented atmosphere.

Descriptions which are beautiful, shiny and/or new can often be even less trustworthy since the facade is so at odds with what the audience comes to see as the real world of human existence.

 

LANGUAGE

Dialogue is important as this is how many of the clues are given and inconsistencies are revealed and exploded. In written texts, description is essential to character development and atmosphere creation but this is another way the composer can subtly plant clues for the audience.

 

Once again the hard-boiled texts offer clear conventions. The fact that the detectives are action orientated and colourful characters is reflected in their language.

Their language is stripped of social niceties and 'fillers' and is instead concise, pragmatic and often contains dry wit.

Language in contemporary crime fiction texts varies greatly.

Many focus intently on setting descriptions to build character and atmosphere. This often involves poetic language.

The audience must not be allowed to drift off or they will miss the clues. Thus description is generally not allowed to halt the run of the story.

 

There are common language feature of 'cosy' mystery stories. Intuitionists are full of polite formal dialogue that seems somewhat stilted. Stoppard, in 'The Real Inspector Hound', shows he finds the detectives of such texts to be overly formal, questioning and overly dramatic. He lampoons these features by Hound's exaggerated language. Hound asks questions continually and repeatedly asserts his authority, ordering everyone around.

 

OFTEN PART OF A SERIES

Crime fiction is one fo the genres where series creation is very common. The means the sleuth; amateur or professional is featured in another text investigating another crime.