Jim Kelly

2010 BLOG

I have just been listening to P.D.James, the esteemed crime writer, on the Today programme. She took some time to lament the modern inclination for the genre to be a blood-splattered forensic-fest, replete with serial killers and skin-crawling flesh. She has a point - particularly in high-lighting the extent to which it seems the victims of such butchery always seem to be women. I am just reading the first of John Harvey's Resnick novels and I am nearly three-quarters of the way through and there are only - so far - two murder victims. There has not been a single scene devoted to violence leading to death. There has not been a single scene devoted to an autopsy. But there is a palpable sense of menace, and danger, and the characters live in a world where death is circling. There are plenty of good lessons there. The problem, however, with the school of thought which denigrates much of modern crime fiction - and most of TV crime - is that it leads inexorably towards a call for a return to the Golden Age. Baroness James was joined in her Today slot by Sir Ian Blair, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who wanted a return to the clever plots of the past, presumably all the way back to the 'cosy'. But do we really want crime fiction to give up its place, so hard fought for, in the main stream of British cultural life ? Baroness James got closer to the right path, I think, in asking that crime novels become more like novels - in other words, I suspect, to become less genre, and more mainstream. Because that's what the current obsession with forensics and sub-horror is - a genre dead-end. Thinking back over the year on TV, surely programmes like Collision - a series about a road traffic accident - are an encouraging development, growing a compelling story out of a crime, not taking a slice of real life and turning it all into crime. Having outlived the Golden Age of puzzles it would be an irony if modern cirme fiction lost its way by ending up in a similalry constricting world of autopsy suites, serial women slayers, and gory blood baths. It's not that a really talented writer can't make a great job of such a book -they do. It's just that we don't want that one style to define the whole genre. Perhaps 2010 will be the year of the backlash. Like most backlashes its almost certainly condemned to go too far. Happy New Year !