Crime Fiction Essentials

 

Every genre, literature to space opera, has its essentials. Essentials are the stories that shape, define, and/or mark the evolution of a genre or the progression of society through the lens of genre. Of course essentials are subject to each person’s taste, values, and development. Fan debates are fun, (Regency Romance folks throw elbows, yo). This is my list. As they say in the Army, it's easy to use, easy to clean. I’d LOVE to debate my picks. Just no elbows. I’m a bleeder.

  

5. The Hunter

The late-great Donald Westlake, (writing as Richard Stark) took traditional noir into an alley, mugged it. You will not find a more developed, completely understated anti-hero than his master-thief, Parker. In movies, Parker has been played by everyone from Lee Marvin to Jim Brown to Jason Statham. None do justice to the baseline sociopath who only truly comes alive in action.

A note on detail: through Parker, Westlake linked sexual dysfunction to heisters about three decades before criminal psychologists made the connection. 

4. Devil in a Blue Dress

Devil in a Blue Dress established Walter Mosley as the master of modern PI fiction as well as a master of place in fiction. His Los Angeles, Houston, and New Iberia are not simply backdrops, those places haunt Mosley’s characters like congental illness. His hero, Easy Rollins is a masterclass in what makes a gumshoe: smart, driven by an innate sense of right/wrong, and tough. He is also a black man in 1940s Los Angeles, facing racial violence and exploitation that we still flail to address today.

3. Carlito’s Way/After Hours 

Retired Judge Edwin Torres’ literary career only spans three novels. Of the three, Carlito’s Way and After Hours, are the best. You MUST read them together—as tight, terse studies of crime, bookended by one life. Carlito Brigante is relentlessly and compelling in his determination to beat the streets. Older, world-weary, (but no less compelling) ex-con Carlito fights to escape the prison of his past. Torres’ prose is as rich as the Spanish Harlem culture Carlito springs from. You’ll have to dig to find these gems but you’ll be glad you did.

2. The Talented Mr. Ripley 

Patricia Highsmith’s brilliant psychopath, Tom Ripley is a killer but only incidentally. His is yearning for a life beyond his stagnant existence. Like Hannibal Lecter, Ripley is a cultured intellectual with a taste for life’s finer things. If Ripley lacks Lecter’s education, OCD-levels of focus, and self-possession he makes up for it in grueling envy, paranoia, and ruthless determination. In short he’s far-more one of us than Dr. Lecter. Highsmith uses suspense, dread, and yearning to hammer Ripley in a psychological crucible. She hammers the reader too. I can’t tell you when I went from disdain, to grudging respect, to outright rooting for Ripley. That’s how light her touch is. Side note, with Ripley’s world-wide acclaim, a whole generation of LGBTQ folks got an anti-hero who reflected the persecution and dread they live with on a daily basis.

1. The Friends of Eddie Coyle 

George Higgins wrote over two dozen books from crime to baseball to politics. The Friends of Eddie Coyle was his first novel and remains his best. Like the United States in 1970, (the year of publication) Eddie Coyle is at a crossroads. In his own words, he’s “listened to the stories, eaten the hotdogs, and drank the bad coffee,” as a sideman and small-time hood. But Eddie is facing the downhill with little to show for his life as a “stand-up guy.” After a conviction for running stolen freight, Eddie is trying to dodge prison by giving up small-timers like himself to a tooth-chipping ATF agent. All the while he’s shielding a crew of heavy-hitters, (his customers in a gun-running hustle). There’s a reason why writers from Robert B. Parker to Elmore Leonard name check The Friends of Eddie Coyle in their books, Eddie is the hood we’re most likely to meet on the street, if not in our own family.

I own none of the photos above. All are used for educational/illustrative purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.

Hamilton, Humor, and Tone Breaks

 

Musical theatre, as with music in general, tells a story in highly condensed form. The fine detail is left to the reader/listener. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is a masterpiece of musical theatre. Thing is, Hamilton is also a masterclass in storytelling. 

 

Miranda’s production covers Alexander Hamilton’s 49 years in 2 hours, 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission. Sure, movies do similar things (without an intermission). But movies don't tell stories almost entirely in song. Song dictates a special economy to do the heavy lifting. And the songs kinda have to NOT suck.

 

Hamilton succeeds in aces with nary a flat number—which might be why the show has been on Broadway for four years with two national tours. Full of heart and life, the songs convey an epic story in intimate human terms. Specifically through moments of humor 

 

My writing buddy and veteran actor, Fulton Fry says whether your desire is to knock out a page-turning thriller or an edge-of-your seat space opera or coma-inducing technical manual, you have to and I quote “get off the readers’ chest and let them breath.” Too many authors use backstory or information dumps or cookie recipes to dial down the tension. I suggest humor.  

 

A gag-on-the-fly saves your reader from peril fatigue while lending humanity to your story that few other devices can manage. Most importantly, a sarcastic remark or off-key observation or a cute turn of phrase won’t derail your pace like an extended character genealogy or chronicles of organized crime and banana imports. 

In Hamilton that's what King George reminds us of—the power of laughter.

 

With over-the-top outraged, King George infuses humor—and humanity—into high drama with on-the-nose petulance and tone-deaf insecurity. Songs titled, You’ll Be Back and What Comes Next? gives the audience breathing room to segue between Hamilton’s early introduction, Revolutionary War service, and fundamental philosophical differences that would form his finest and darkest hours.

 

Granted, it takes a deft touch and a thorough knowledge of both genre and audience. There is no harder translation than humor. I get it. Every single Spenser novel showcased Robert B. Parker’s talent at making witty dialogue and colorful asides look all-too easy. Every pale imitation illustrates how hard it is to write “fun” prose. 

 

I can hear the “oh, no, that won’t work for me—I’m writing serious fiction” chorus. To which I say E. Annie Proulx.

That’s like saying “your momma” but classier.

As required for any great-American-novel aspirants, Proulx’ Postcards, is unrelenting in it’s misery bordering on morose. Her follow up, The Shipping News, with family absurdity and local eccentricities, is joyous. True, cultural secrets and generational abuse shades each character. However, Proulx' light-touch humor gives the reader a smile through the catharsis.

 

So, I have to write jokes, now?

 

Of course, humor is not necessary. Thomas Harris, Cormac McCarthy, and John Updike have produced celebrated works without a note of (intentional) humor. Those aren’t the books I recall most fondly or even re-read.

Likewise, Walter Mosley’s Easy Rollins is a compelling, competent, courageous protagonist. Easy is our guide through social upheaval and racial tension in post-war Los Angeles. The Easy Rollins books have earned every bit of success that has shined on them.

On a lighter note... Walter Mosley’s other detective, Paris Minton—craven and neurotic in his frightful investigations—is just a joy to hang with. I reread the Fearless Jones books every couple of years, (Jones is a brawling Watson to Paris Minton's Holmes) for Paris and the master-class in FUN. 

 

It bears stating that every humorists isn’t the “card” they think themselves. Seriously, Philip Roth is not everyone’s cup o’ chai. The trick is nuance to avoid nausea. Ideally the humor is on the corners of the stories just as in life.

 

Think of it as stretching to find the funny in your daily experience. You don’t have to be a David Foster Wallace, (please don’t). Daily, circumstantial hilarity, like a joke in four-four time, is the divine music that links all our dances together. King George brings the funny in Hamilton—but he also brings the "what the hell?" humanity. 

 

Honestly what’s more human than a crown, ermine cape, and knee-pants with stockings? Um, asking for a friend.

The photo above, King George III from the studio of Allan Ramsay and covered by fair use, details here.