All is well

[John Dean]

I have given a couple of talks on crime writing recently in which the same question cropped up in the Q and A afterwards – ‘Is it important to you that your detectives solve the crime?’

It’s a good question. Of course, in real life many crimes go unsolved, even murders (for which the detection rate is pretty high) but I like my detectives to solve the crimes, yes.

Why? Because for all crime writers do horrible things to people (on the page only, honest!) we can also offer a sense of reassurance - and seeing crimes solved achieves that.

In addition to being a novelist, I am a journalist and spent many years covering crime and any police force Press Officer will tell you that ‘Man arrested for spate of burglaries’ is much more reassuring to the reader than ‘Spate of burglaries is committed.’

I have heard a lot of people say the same about crime novels. The reader is reassured when the baddie is arrested by the hero. It creates a sense that all is well with the world.

For all crime writers try to make their stories as realistic as possible, there is strong sense of escapism about the process. Yes, thinks the reader, there may be mad axemen out there but they’re not coming for me!