Howdunit. Группа авторов

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.

      Frances Fyfield’s background is in the law rather than the church, and she has created two series characters, Helen West and Sarah Fortune, who are lawyers. Like her friend the late P. D. James, she is interested in detective fiction’s moral dimension, and the calibre of her books prompted Ian Rankin to say, ‘Her knowledge of the workings of the human mind – or more correctly the soul – is second to none.’

The Moral Compass of the Crime Novel

       Frances Fyfield

      Murder most foul! Read all about it! Distract yourself from daily boredom by reading of people whose lives are infinitely more dramatic and dangerous than your own.

      The Victorians loved a good murder and the love of the reportage of same marks the beginning of this popular fiction. Read all about it, the more brutal the better. Revel in repugnance of dreadful deeds and personal tragedies and let the crime writers make money out of it. Is this really a high calling, or a base occupation? Is it exploitative, rather like being a salaried voyeur?

      Once, when I was working in a legal office, a senior colleague came into my room and slammed one of my books down on the desk. ‘Filth!’ he roared. ‘Absolute filth!’ Fact is, some regard the fictionalization of murder as dirty work, while the majority of readers know better. Murder, that subject of universal fascination as being ranked the most abhorrent of crimes (I don’t always agree with that; think there could be worse) is the best subject you could ever get for a novel. The crime novel explores extreme emotions, the root causes and the effects of untimely death. It reflects its own society, and in the case of historical crime fiction, other societies. There is nothing wrong with murder as entertainment. P. D. James, writing about Dorothy L. Sayers, said of her, ‘She wrote to entertain and make money; neither is an ignoble aim.’

      You may as well say, don’t write about war, or anything involving pain. When P. D. James (my role model in all things) wrote and talked about the morality of writing about murder as a subject, she was never ambivalent. You wrote the truth was all; you wrote a story in which moral dilemmas were paramount, so that the morality of the thing was implicit in the text. In other words, she wrote about characters who made a choice either to kill or to engineer the death of another. With her characters, there had to be a choice. Maybe the decision to do it seemed irreversible at the time, because of the imperatives of revenge, survival, reputation, jealousy; a whole range of motives that lead to eradication by homicide as the only solution for the perpetrator. When really, with her characters, there was always another choice, i.e. to refrain and … take the consequences, however dire they might be. The worst consequence of all was to go ahead, because as P. D. James said in so many words, in the act of taking life, the thinking murderer is changed. He or she remains damned, haunted, guilty, unloved, on the run and lonely. Murder is akin to suicide.

      Unless the perpetrator happens to be psychopathic, with no emotions on the normal register, who likes pulling wings off things and killing for fun. His choices are limited: his capacity for regret no more than damage limitation and evasion. An all-too-convenient device in a crime novel, but not, to my mind, nearly as interesting as the examination of choice and regret.

      The crime novel always has a moral compass. It cannot be self-indulgent: the rule is, tell the story, and above all, add more than a dash of pity.

      P. D. James wrote about choice and consequences; about retribution, revenge and the enduring power of love. She said in her memoir, ‘The intention of any novelist must surely be to make that straight avenue to the human heart … every novelist writes what he or she needs to write, a subconscious compulsion to express and explain his unique view of reality.’

      P. D. James again: ‘The crime novelist needs to deal with the atavistic fear of death, to exorcize the terror of violence and to restore at least fictional peace and tranquillity after the disruptive terror of murder, and to affirm the sanctity of human life, and the possibility of justice, even if it is only the fallible justice of men.’

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