One of the consequences of my recent exercise regime (I’ve lost 25kg in a year!) is that I churn through audiobooks. I tend to waft through genres, moving on when I get bored. A couple of months ago I stumbled into the Modern English Detective Story and have wince listened to ten or so books in the genre. It’s unusual for me, as my taste in detective fiction was previously confined to short stories from the Golden Age. I think I’m ready to move on to pastures fresh, so thought I would share my observations before doing so.
1/ There must always be a pantomime villain, and they are never the culprit. You are usually sympathetic towards them by the end of the book.
2/ When the penny drops and the protagonist finally figures out who the culprit is (usually many chapters after the reader), they must go and confront them alone in some remote location.
3/Regional English police forces are chock full of attractive, but jaded, young policewomen and rugged, bruised middle-aged men who live alone in dishevelled apartments.
4/ Senior Officers must speak in management jargon and care only about PR.
5/ Coffee must always be served in mugs and must always be ‘steaming’.
6/ If you are a male author, you must signal your impeccable musical taste by having the male protagonist play some improbably niche music. You must also define every female character by her attractiveness the first time she is introduced.
7/ If you are a female author…. Um, here I have to admit to not enjoying any books in this genre by female authors. There is a similarity of style and it’s a style I don’t like: think community college writing classes with lots of adjectives doing the heavy lifting. Also lots of damaged, vulnerable women escaping to the country and rapidly befriending other women who are obviously going to screw them over. Please recommend me some alternatives. I admit that I have been leaning on the free books available in Audible, so this may be a sampling error on my part. I enjoy plenty of female authors in other genres.
8/ By book three, any series has descended into soap opera.
I probably have one or two books in this genre left in me, so I’m keen for recommendations. I won’t list what I’ve already read for fear of stepping on toes (some of the titles I found from threads on this forum). I have one called ‘The Dentist’ by Tim Sullivan loaded and ready to go, if there are any opinions on that.
A tangential addendum: Trying to maintain an element of surprise over the length of a novel is a hard ask for any detective author, which is why I think the short story is the preferred form. One of the biggest impediments the author faces is that the reader knows exactly how much of the story is left, so false endings are rarely plausible. Given that the author is following a few basic rules of the genre (that there will be a resolution, that the culprit has been previously introduced and that the book will end shortly after the culprit is revealed) this is a big problem.
I think that technology has finally provided a solution. Imagine if you could get your audiobook/kindle to hide the time remaining, or alter it by some random element. Would you enable this option?
I have read quite a few Kindle books that finish around the 90% mark because they have tacked a sample chapter from the next book in the series or similar. That enables a surprise ending.
A couple of Chris Brookmyre’s early books have short stories at the end which has the same effect. Can’t remember if it was him or another writer who put a short story at the end and prefaced it with an explanation that it was deliberately done to make the reader unaware that the main story was about to end by thinking they still had another 30 pages to go.
Wish I could remember the details but I am old and remembering anything is an achievement these days.
Clever!
More about the exercise regime please. Well done!
I’m sure I’ve written about it on here before, but this is roughly what I did:
Diet: Stopped eating bread, pasta and rice. Use bagged salad or zoodles (zucchini noodles) instead and pile whatever I would have put on pasta or rice on top. Became very aware of the caloric content of food per 100g (legally required on food labels in Australia so really easy) so take that into account when making eating decisions. Favour protein (and fat) over carb wherever possible. I’m not keto, and I’ll still eat carbs, but I’m just aware of it and limit intake.
Exercise: I do a workout at least 6 days per week. I have some basic weights and a bench at home, and this is all I need. I have two simple workout routines and alternate between them. I finish each by doing a 16 minute Tabata (look it up) set of Navy Seal Burpees (look them up). I’ve recently started going for the odd run and getting in the zone, something that’s never happened before. That 25kg I lost doesn’t include the substantial amounts of muscle I’ve gained over the past year.
Most importantly, JUST DO IT. I literally made the decision one morning and had started by that afternoon. Also, BE CONSISTENT. This is easier once you start to see results as you become paranoid about losing gains. My only regret is that I didn’t start this 20 years ago (I’m 52). In retrospect, it has been incredibly easy to make substantial gains.
It is my personal opinion that regular exercise and a healthy diet is good for you.
Who would have thought.
I’d like to see any story of this type feature a diligent detective who works hard, has a positive outlook on life, has a happy marriage and lovely kids.
I know. Ridiculous.
And where the culprit was a complete unknown who only came to attention six months later when he dumped his alibi-providing girlfriend.
Wasn’t Maigret like this? Going home for lunch every day to see Madame Maigret, and working respectfully with all his colleagues – no “you’ve got 24 hours to solve this or you’re off the case.” His home life was certainly a contrast to Simenon’s own.
If he was created now, the novels would seem like a radical alternative to all the clichés which are mentioned in this thread.
I read the reviews for The Dentist when it was offered as a Kindle cheapie a while back – Stephen Fry gives an endorsement of his books. I wasn’t tempted, but one review stuck in my mind (& I trawled through to find the quote)
From an American reader “ got this book because I am a dentist. The dentist did not appear until p. 80 or so. I did not know this was a story about a detective with Asperger’s Syndrome”
I started The Dentist last night, just after I had watched a few episodes of The Onion’s autistic journalist, Micheal Falk. It has somewhat spoiled the main character for me.
7/ Have you tried any Clare Mackintosh? I Let You Go doesn’t save the twist until the end, and has a hard-working happily married male detective in it.
Wishlisted. Thanks.
Can also recommend Clare Mackintosh.
@podicle I totally understand. For long dog walks, I can’t focus properly on non fiction and get all distracted constantly pausing and scrolling back because I missed something important while scraping dogshit off the pavement or something. So, I’ve become addicted to audible’s free thrillers. A different genre to the detective novel and yet, so similar in the identikit set ups.
They are usually generated by authors with names like AB Smith, CD Jones, EF Williams, GH Patel, etc.
There are gushing reviews, from Netgalley or similar readers which tend to the obsequious. “AB Smith does it again!” “CD Jones is an evil genius” “EF Williams’s latest kept me up all night on the edge of my seat chewing my nails behind the sofa” etc
There’s always a breathy prologue, usually set in the moments after someone’s been topped and the narrator is running away through a forest or multi storey car park, suddenly, inexplicably, remembering the smell of their dad’s aftershave
Chapters are announced something along lines of “Chapter One. Tamsin. Then” “Chapter Two. Veronica. Now” etc
Frequently set in offices (a new staff member, an attractive younger woman joins, charms everyone but narrator knows they are evil) domestic setting (new cleaner/home help/dog walker charms husband but narrator knows they are evil) or a dream holiday on an island (large group of guests arrive in remote location, everyone is charmed but there’s one secret alcoholic, one person about to melt down due to childhood trauma and nobody knows the narrator is evil)
I tried a few of those and fled in terror. When the author is 32 and onto their 26th book, it’s a good sign that quality may be questionable.
I would add to your fourth point that the senior officers must display a level of incomprehension bordering on incompetence with respect to the solving of the crime(s), that you wonder how they ever got recruited in the first place, never mind work their way through the ranks to a position of responsibility.
An additional point is that there should be a strained relationship with a teenage child, who lives with the former spouse and their new partner.
Literally within the first two chapters of the new book I started, the senior detective was described as speaking in ‘management speak’.
It unfortunately seems very plausible to me that incompetent people climb the corporate ladder. I remember when The Office first came out and some critics were denying the plausibility of a character such as David Brent rising to the position of branch manager. Ricky Gervais made the point that the critics were revealing their own lack of corporate experience.
No reason to assume that incompetents aren’t “promoted out of the way” in the police service too.
“Out of the way” to you might well mean they’ll be “in the way” for someone else, but heigh-ho that’s their problem, not yours any more.
It’s an easy option in any bureaucratic work environment where sacking useless people is very, very difficult.
I have recently been reading/listening to a series of crime novels by Sally Rigby. The two lead characters (Cavendish and Walkerare both female but not necessarily damaged – both strong characters. One is a senior police officer and the other a university lecturer on criminology. Admittedly, the senior policeman is a fast track no real experience man but, that apart, most of the tropes are ignored. There is one about Walkers addiction to coffee/caffeine which grates little but other than that.
They aren’t high literature but they are very listenable for dog walks and commutes. And 1 Audible credit gets you 3 novels. Ideal.
Wishlisted. Thanks.