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Why Do It?

       James Runcie

      Since Aristotle there have been numerous attempts to provide a rulebook for crime writing. Most famously, Ronald Knox wrote his famous ‘Ten Commandments’, which recommended no twins, no undiscovered poisons, no supernatural agencies and no Chinamen. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a historical survey in her introduction to The Omnibus of Crime published in 1928, outlining potential murders and possible plots: ‘Here is a brief selection of handy short cuts to the grave. Poisoned tooth stoppings; shaving brushes inoculated with dread diseases; poisoned boiled eggs (a bright thought); poison gas; a cat with poisoned claws; poisoned mattresses; knives dropped through the ceiling; stabbing with a sharp icicle’ (that melts – I recently noted melting ice in the drama series Death in Paradise on BBC One); ‘electrocution by telephone; biting by plague-rats and typhoid carrying lice; boiling lead in the ears … air-bubbles injected into the arteries; explosion of a gigantic “Prince Rupert’s drop” (that’s molten glass dropped into cold water – a swimming pool might be ideal); frightening to death; hanging head downwards; freezing to atoms in liquid air; hypodermic injections shot from air-guns; exposure, while insensible, to extreme cold; guns concealed in cameras; a thermometer which explodes a bomb when the temperature of the room reaches a certain height; and so forth …’

      Then, crucially, she adds, ‘There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will some time come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks. But it has probably many years to go yet, and in the meantime a new and less rigid formula will probably have developed, linking it more closely to the novel of manners and separating it more widely from the novel of adventure.’

      Here, I think, she understands that what matters is not so much plot, but character. Crime fiction cannot work if we do not care about the people involved. The story has to be more than a puzzle. It can’t just be a conjuring trick with people’s lives, no matter how fictional they all are.

      It’s my belief that we use crime writing to test the limits of our capacity for good and evil and to make sense of the world – and, as the writer of The Grantchester Mysteries, I think we turn to crime to contemplate our own mortality.

      Here’s a thought …

      One hundred years ago, in the United Kingdom, people used to recite the Book of Common Prayer at least twice a day, at morning and night.

       Good Lord, deliver us from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death.

      Now, in a less Christian country, we think about death through crime writing. This has become the secular space in which we address our deepest fears and anxieties and, at the same time, we look for the consolation, justice and closure that is so often found wanting in real life.

      As a result, I think crime writing has to be more than entertainment. It needs moral energy.

      Think of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov’s killing of both the old landlady, Alyona, and then her sister, Lizaveta, provokes the questions: How much is it true that a murder can be justified? Can it ever be explained or excused by the argument that the murderer claims he was possessed by the devil? Can some individuals transcend cultural norms or contemporary ethics? Is it true that ‘without God everything is permitted’? Should confession and regret lead to a lighter sentence? Can a criminal ever truly repent of his crimes? Can a Christian?

      For Christians the answer is ‘Yes’, but this forgiveness is dependent on the sincerity of penitence – and who, other than God, is to judge that?

      The issues can prove so complex and disturbing that many writers bring the light of humour in to alleviate this moral darkness – even Dostoevsky does it. Think of the cynical giggling detective Porfiry Petrovich or Sonya’s dreadful old drunk father Marmeladov. They are the kind of figures you might find in Dickens; and it could be argued that Oliver Twist is a crime novel. Oliver is brought up ‘in care’ and is frequently kidnapped and kept in a place against his will. Fagin runs a criminal gang. Nancy is in an abusive relationship. Bill Sikes is a murderer. Monks dies in prison. Fagin is sent to the gallows. It’s a crime novel, a satire and a grim fairy tale all in one; but as with so much great fiction, the writer tests the characters by exposing them to crime, malpractice and misadventure.

      Crime writing, if it is to be any good, is necessarily ethical. My own books are moral fables. You could even argue that they are sermons dressed up as fiction and social history. My hero, Canon Sidney Chambers, does not simply investigate. He considers the moral implications of crime and its effect on its victims. While keen to establish who dunnit, Sidney looks at the aftermath as much as the felony itself, regarding all those involved with compassion, bemusement and, sometimes, even comic detachment. His task is fiercely Christian. The whydunit. Hate the sin but love the sinner. There are traditional crime motifs in the stories, plot turns, twists, and heroes who turn out to be villains. There are several love interests. And while there are also jokes in these mysteries, there is also a teasing and tolerant humanity.

      By the end of the series, I hope to have written a loving portrayal of a man who moves between the world of the spirit and the all-too-mortal world of the flesh, bicycling from Grantchester to Cambridge and back, attempting to love the unloveable, forgive the sinner, and lead a decent, good life.

      I believe that detective fiction has to have this moral purpose and that, however lightly it is done, it should also enable people to think more deeply about the world and what matters within it. No crime is ever cosy. All good writing has to count. As Dorothy L. Sayers observed, ‘The only Christian work is good work, well done.’

      We write, and we read, not just to be entertained, but in order to work out who we are and how we might live a better and more meaningful existence on this frail earth. And then, in confronting death imaginatively and unflinchingly, we learn to contemplate what we believe in, what we value and what we cherish.

      It should make us all the more glad to be alive.