Is the critical world doing society a disservice by setting crime fiction apart from undefined literature and well beneath it in terms of merit?
As it happens I have rather strong opinions on the subject, and as the former Exec Vice President of Mystery Writers of America, a lecturer at Hofstra University in creative writing, I teach courses on writing mystery fiction; a stretch, I know – and someone who began as a poet, I feel well qualified to contend that there is a lot of crime fiction that is equal to or better than so-called literary fiction. I would suggest that Daniel Woodrell, Philip Kerr, Laura Lippman, George Pelecanos, Megan Abbott et al are as skilled with the English language as anyone you might summon up from the literary field and that their books deal with as many of the big questions as any literary author. There are segments of the crime fiction world that are, of course, exploitative and silly, but is this not true of literary fiction?
Why do you write, for whom do you write, and what makes your writing worth reading?
I write because it’s an affliction. I write because I’m compelled to write. It’s a motor that steers the driver. I am not one of those authors who consider the end game before they begin. I write for me and hope other people like it and find value in it. I’m not judging people who do it differently, but I couldn’t do it any other way. As to why people read my work, such as they do, I am always suspect of answering this. I think what crime writing offers, as opposed to most other genres, are niches. Some people read only PI novels, some only procedurals, some cozies, some hardboiled, some only noir. Then there are those that read for plot, others for characters, some even for setting.
Given this variety, does crime fiction deserve more critical attention?
Of course I’m a self-interested party here, but yes, I do believe the genre deserves more critical attention – critical being the key word. As in all genres, there’s great mystery fiction and there’s crap. The issue with our genre is that because it’s so popular, you have a lot of crap to wade through to get to the good and great. Frankly, critics and reviewers are simply overwhelmed. I won’t mention his name, but I had a friend who did book reviews for a major American newspaper. He got so many books to review, it was silly. His own publisher sent him his own book to review. I mean, how absurd is that? But beyond the reviewers and the critics, I think mystery fiction is too often ignored and dismissed by the intelligentsia. It’s ridiculous that Daniel Woodrell or Ken Bruen aren’t taught at college level. To dismiss any art simply on the basis of form is foolish.
When form becomes formula, does it also become a liability to the genre’s reputation?
This is always a difficult question to answer. Look, cozies are comfort food, but there’s nothing wrong with meatloaf and chicken soup. Some cooks make better meatloaf and chicken soup than others. Why should I reject cozies? I may not write them or enjoy them, but I don’t object to them. I also find it unfair that mystery writers are asked to make this choice. Does anyone say to George Clooney, do farces and comedies ruin movies? Does anyone think less of Citizen Kane or The Godfather because another moviemaker made Citizen Ruth or Dear God? I think it’s a false choice. In fact, I think formula can work for a skillful writer. I go back to my previous answer. To dismiss any art simply on the basis of form is foolish. Good writing is good writing.
Does good writing have an agenda – does yours?
Personally, I am interested in the fate of humankind, but my writing is about what interests me at a particular moment. I worry about writing with an agenda, regardless of how well-intentioned that agenda. This is not to say I do not use social commentary – it’s one of the things I’m known for – or that I don’t philosophize. As long as a writer never forgets that his or her first job is entertainment and to stay within the confines of the story being told, he or she can do anything. This relates to your question about formula. A skilful writer can use the form to say all manner of things while sticking to the formula.
On the topic of social commentary, what are the complexities that account for crime, and what are the considerations that animate your antagonists?
I’m afraid I know too much about crime to attach any sort of significance to it beyond the act. Crime is usually done out of weakness, lack of impulse control, strong emotion, or fear. Remove drugs, alcohol, and guns from the equation and you’d see a remarkable drop in crime. As to what goes into creating my antagonist, I want him or her to be entertaining. I’m just not one of those people who see writing the bad guy as a surrogate for things inside me. I went to therapy for that and I take out my aggression on the basketball court.
What do you make of heroes?
I reject the notion of heroes. Just as I believe all humans are capable, given the right motivation and set of circumstances, of the most heinous acts, so too do I believe that all humans are capable of the most heroic acts. I believe in heroic acts, not in heroes.
Given the ongoing abuse of civil rights and due process, is crime fiction reflecting a contemporary suspiciousness of systematic policing?
This is the great motivator behind PI, detective fiction. In many, many cases, it is a single citizen who feels he or she has been ill-served by the system – that justice has been denied them of their loved ones, hence they turn to the PI for justice. This is why I think there will be a resurgence in PI fiction. The PI is the one against the many; the citizen against the state.
Is good crime fiction about the big questions, or what do you make of its confrontation with mystery?
I teach a course at Hofstra University in writing crime fiction, and one of the first things I say is that all fiction is mystery fiction. Let’s start with Hamlet
Is the reinforcement of core values an accident or its appeal?
Making sense of the senseless is the writer’s mission. One of them, anyway. I think people read crime fiction to be entertained. If the by product of that happens to be a reinforcement of core values, great. But if you read someone like my friend Jason Starr or even some of Ken Bruen’s stuff, where’s the reinforcement of core values? In fact, what I love about noir is that it rejects core values… well, other than survival at all costs.
Where does that leave us?
You want the facts, read non-fiction. You want the truth, read fiction.
What does that make your long-term relationship with your characters?
Problematical. At times they are like my children away at college. I love them, but they’re not present. However, when I’m writing about them, it’s like they’re back home and very present. For instance, I rarely think of Moe Prager
If you had to start all over tomorrow, what would be your last thought before going to bed tonight?
I hope I’m better in the morning.
In that hope, thank you for your candid answers.
Len, it was my pleasure. Too often we’re asked the same silly questions and it is always fun and stimulating to discuss the genre on a deeper level than: “Where do you get your ideas from?”
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.” Seeking a metaphor, he rummages through various grand notions: wind rolling in the trees and so on, finally settling for “grass, an assassin of polish.” You pick up an insignificant blade, toss it back down – and only then discover that it has cut you, “the thread of blood from the unfelt stroke.”
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that it was your tribute to Conan Doyle. Where you referring to its 19th century setting or the theme of its adventure narrative? 
to Doug McLure in 
. Many of these tales involve dinosaurs, but I wanted something different. For a while I didn’t know exactly what “creatures” I needed, but that all changed as soon as the setting clicked. Back in 2005 I had the good fortune to holiday in the Rockies. It was while scanning through photographs of that trip that the thought of the high mountain valley came to me, and when Neil Jackson told me about Montana and the Big Hole Valley, I knew I’d found my spot. And the pictures of the ice and snow from my trip also gave me the era from which I would draw my creatures – the last Ice Age. I now knew that my protagonists would be heading into a Lost Valley where relic animals lived, and that these creatures would be hairy and large. I had an image of a herd of mammoths by a partially-frozen lake, and that was the image that drove me on in the early concepts.
, Marlowe and his disciples have been seen as latter day knights in shining armour. How did you go from that tribute to the 
trilogy? 
– the book that led to the movie 
– is a fine example, an expert blending of gumshoe and deviltry that is one of my favourite books. Likewise, in the movies, we have cops facing a demon in Denzel Washington’s 
that plays like a police procedural taken to a very dark place.
stories, in a series of Carnacki stories, and I even got a chance to have Holmes fight a Necromancer in Edinburgh in an anthology appearance in 
. It seems there is quite a market for this kind of merging of crime and supernatural, and I intend to write a lot more of it.
and 
in particular is also a big influence. Other Scottish writers who have influenced me include John Buchan, Iain Banks and, more in my youth than now, Alistair MacLean and Nigel Tranter. From them I learned how to use the scope of both the Scottish landscape and its history while still keeping the characters alive.
. 
, but I wanted Augustus Seton to be more of a pragmatist, a man set on his path through having succumbed to his baser desires, and now forced to pay the penalty. Seton’s antecedents are characters from my teenage reading: the aforementioned Kane, Moorcock’s Elric and Corum, and, possibly the main one, Gemmell’s Jon Shannow, 
, forever seeking personal redemption.
by Capote, though not fiction, it was written in the style of a work of fiction, and – as far as I’m concerned – is one of the finest books ever written, fiction, non-fiction or otherwise. The fact that Capote never did publish another word, just as Lee never published after 
leads me to believe that there are some authors who write a book that defines them, perhaps says everything they needed to say, and thus the necessity to publish again and again becomes redundant.
volume. I believe that Conan Doyle revolutionised crime writing much the way that Christie did. It was – essentially – a new genre that was created, and I think his plots are utterly masterful.
by Daniel Woodrell, and – once again – perhaps not classified as a ‘crime novel’, it is nevertheless a story about a criminal and the attempts by his daughter to find him when the Police come looking. Sparse, stunning prose. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
as this perhaps falls into the crime category most easily. Again, stunning prose. I always try to read those books that make me work harder as a writer. I like to read books that challenge me, and McCarthy does that.
) also used graphics (including a Power Point presentation). I suspect 
and 
