Writing in the "Age of Plague"

When Daniel Defoe published his novel A Journal of the Plague Year in 1722, people did not think it was a novel at all, but an actual account of events in the year 1665. If anything, they considered Defoe (who would have been five at the time) as the editor, and that his editorial contributions were minimal. The book was even more detailed than the celebrated diaries of Samuel Pepys who actually wrote during the Great Plague (1665-1666). In the work, Defoe mentioned real neighborhoods, real people and even wrote about individual houses.

The book was well received when published and was still well regarded in 1780, but by then it was considered a realistic novel. This is a tribute to Defoe's research skills, for he read hundreds of original documents and interviewed oldsters who had lived through the calamity that struck London, adding to it his own childhood memories. Of course, not every literary scholar and historian considers the case closed on whether or not it's a novel. It lacks the structure of a novel, reads like a memoir and carries a gravitas greater than many historical accounts of the period. The question will probably never be settled.

It's been 298 years since the publishing of the book, 355 years since the setting of the novel, and modern readers probably don't know that Defoe wrote anything other than Robinson Crusoe (another book taken initially as real history), and even fewer remember their history lessons about the Great Plague. Of course, that may change a bit now that we find ourselves beset by the pestilence out of China, which now goes by the name of COVID19 (it's a trendy thing, giving everything an easy-to-recall acronym or portmanteau designation). Being stuck inside for a few weeks, some people might actually pick up that history book they kept from high school, for some reason.

A few years ago, I had a series of dreams that I converted into plots for novels. Pulling a novel out of a dream is nothing new for me, but this was unusual in that it happened over a two-month period and resulted in about forty different plots. The genres were varied, from science fiction to crime to fantasy to western. When I have more ideas than I can immediately do anything with, I usually jot down the idea, include some mnemonics (to jog my memory later) and sketch a few rough ideas as to characters and setting. This time, however, I gave the stories titles, wrote detailed plots and extensive characterizations, and developed cover ideas using GIMP and Canva. I also typed out the first several pages of the story so I could hit the ground running if/when I came back to it.

After finishing the fifth DCI Ravyn novel, Murder Amongst the Rushes, I thought it was time to take a brief vacation from dark and legend-haunted Hammershire County and pursue a few other projects. I looked in my files and saw that Behind Thick Walls, an amalgamation of the Crime and Post-Apocalyptic genres was the most developed of the stories. It seemed to me that with a working cover, a complete list of characters with full biographies and about a dozen pages of the novel written, it would be a fairly easy matter to dive into the project and get going. And so, in early November 2019, I started work on the novel and wrote in the beginning blurb...

"...but there was nothing natural about the plague that swept the world, seemingly in the twinkling of an eye. Earth’s peoples went to sleep in a time beset by wars and rumors of war, secure in their empires of technology and commerce, and awoke to an Age of Plague."

And then, as I worked off and on on it (personal and family situations prevented a concentrated and sustained effort), I found events in the real world warping to mimic the fictional situation. Oh, there were differences, of course. The story is set in Mexico and COVID19 is nowhere near as terrible as the plague in the story, at least not yet. And, while it seems we need only wait out COVID19 (as we did Spanish Flu, Asian Flu and SARS), the plague of the book ("Rot") seems to be the gift that keeps giving.

When I first started, I drew a measure of inspiration from Defoe's book, Pepys' diaries, and the crime novels of Elmore Leonard. As the year turned, and we entered January and February, I discovered my fictional inspiration pushed aside by the news of the day. And now, with California on lock-down for the foreseeable future, I find myself writing about a society beset by plague while living in a society beset by plague. Am I (are we all) trapped in a meta-novel? If so, I hope the cosmic writer is not as cavalier with characters, as I often am.

Hopefully, we won't hear the sound of a Typewriter in the Sky...

Making Adjustments

Whenever I start reading a crime or mystery novel, the first thing I do is take a look at the copyright date. My reason for doing this is twofold. First, I need to know whether the film that will play out in the theater of my mind will be in color or black and white. My rule of thumb is that anything before 1960 will be B&W, while anything from the Sixties forward will be in color. Needless to say, that will also affect the garb of the characters and the vehicles they drive. Second, I need to understand the context of the currency, and that's the hardest part of reading a period crime novel. 

For example, Philip Marlowe is always paying off some informant, slipping him a dollar for some valuable information. Nowadays, try to buy info for a buck and your stoolie might say, "Hey, buddy, where's the other nineteen to go along with that?" On the other hand, he might decide to loosen someone's tongue with some liquor, some slugs of Old Forester. Even then, it's a cheap investment, since he can get an informant drunk, have a few shots himself, and still get change back from his $5...and that includes sliding a dime to the bartender as a tip. Even Marlowe's rates ($25 a day, plus expenses) sound picayune by today's standards, where a lunch can cost that much easily. It helps, though, when I remember that my grandfather was at the time making $3,500 per year, and that was a excellent salary, him being a stationary engineer. In comparison, a journalist on the same census report was listed as making $2,800 a year, with a teacher earning slightly less. Understanding Marlowe's rates also helps me to understand his clients. Somebody who could pay him $25 a day, plus expenses (let's call it $35) is pretty well heeled. Could you hire a detective for $450 a day? It explains why Marlowe's clients often wore diamonds.

In crime books, there are often robberies, kidnappings and murders. More often than not, the motive is money. When I read about a robbery that nets a cool $5,000 or even $10,000, my first thought is, You could have got that with a job at Burger King...no guns involved. Even a ransom demand of $50,000 seems petty, less than a year's salary in a mediocre job. I remember an episode of the old TV series The Saint where an actress and an actor were kidnapped from the stage of an Italian sword & sandal film. The kidnappers wanted $25,000 for the actress, but only $5,000 for the musclebound actor. When the aggrieved actor complained to the kidnappers, he was told, "Well, we had to ask for something we thought they would pay." An insult in comparison, perhaps, but still a princely sum, equal to about $60,000 today...well, I guess it was rather insulting after all since that's still a mediocre job these days. When you move into the rather rarefied air of millions you begin to get away from actual sums and start dealing with ideas and concepts. A title like Million Dollar Murder evoked a response from a reader that had nothing to do with the actual sum. A million dollars was an unreachable amount, a synonym for "more money than you can imagine"...which was also a common line in crime novels back in the day. Today, a million bucks is a lot of money only in an abstract sense, a tenuous tie with tradition. In reality, it's not much to get excited about. Anyone in a mediocre job ($50,00/year) will earn that much in just twenty years. The whole point of citing a million dollars was to evoke the feeling that that was more than the average reader could ever make...doing something legal,

Even the lofty billion ($1,000,000,000) is on the verge of becoming an endangered species. If a million bucks was unimaginable, then a billion was inconceivable, the sort of thing that might cause an embolism if a crook considered it too long. Nowadays, billion has become the new million, which has become the new thousand. If this keeps up, the next time you pay your bill at McDonald's, you might have to say, "Sorry, I don't have anything smaller than the new Booker T. Washington $20,000,000 bill." It can get quite depressing reading a period crime novel, not for any action in the book itself, but because the devolution of our money really hits home. Sure, wages were low, but so were prices, and the money you earned actually had value. People might look down on what my grandfather earned in the Thirties, but his six kids never went hungry and always had shoes. 

So, when I read crime novels and money invariably enters the picture, I have to make adjustments to keep the amounts in perspective. However, it's too depressing to think of what that would be equal to now. I find it is better to immerse myself in the story and the times, adjusting myself to the book rather than the book to me. Yeah, I'm happier that way.

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It's a crime!

If you're the kind of person who thrives on contention, argument and bare-knuckle conflict (you know, you think that firecrackers and ant hills were made for each other), there are all sorts of things you can do to amuse yourself -- throw a T-bone into a pack of junk yard dogs, toss chum and sharks into a municipal swimming pool, put $2 price tags on plasma TVs on Black Friday or shove a pork barrel into a Congressional meeting. Or you could just ask fiction fans to define genres. When I attended a World Fantasy Convention, a panel discussion on science fiction vs fantasy led to a battle royal, and I don't mean a war of words. The only agreement was in the need for ice afterwards. You might get a similar reaction if you asked fans to define "crime fiction."

I used to engage in those sorts of futile literary arguments all the time, but not so much anymore. Back in the day, however, I was usually the intransigent force standing firm against the voices of reason and compromise; in the case of crime fiction, I define it pretty much the same way as the National Rifle Association interprets the Second Amendment -- very strictly, and with a tommy gun (metaphorically) close at hand.

Lists of the best crime writing are easy to come by, especially in this age of electronic flummery, but I eschew them in favor of The Armchair Detective Book of Lists edited by Kate Stine. A quick perusal of the Haycraft-Queen list, the Julian Symons list compiled for The Sunday Times, H.R.F Keating's 100 Best list, and the complementary lists submitted by the Crime Writers Association (British) and the Mystery Writers Association (American) reveal one obvious fact -- people are ready to call just about anything a crime novel. I beg to differ. First of all, no spy novels allowed, which eliminates The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Riddle of the Sands and From Russia with Love. I'm also giving the old heave-ho to the thriller Day of the Jackal, the adventure story Rogue Male, and Conan Doyle's best, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Just for good measure, so long to The Big Sleep, Rebecca and Murder on the Orient Express.

Mystery fans usually had daggers in their eyes (or hands) by this time, and none were at all mollified by the fact that I allowed The High Window, Tiger in the Smoke, Strangers on a Train, The Glass Key, The Grifters, The Third Man and the entire Lovejoy series of books. The ire of the fans (short for fanatics, of course) is understandable, expected and probably even deserved. So, what makes for a crime novel?

Before we look at what aspects are integral to the crime novel (as opposed to mystery or spy novels) we should consider what traits are not necessary for this peculiar and particular sub-genre:

Good guys/Bad guys

Mysteries

An investigation

Justice

Okay, that cuts out a lot of books that masquerade as crime novels in the best-of lists and in publishers lists. So, what is required? Some obvious, and some not so much:

Crime

Criminal(s)

Victim(s)

Motivation

Philosophy

To quote a detective named Zero: "There are no good guys; there are no bad guys -- it's just a bunch of guys." Whereas the heart of the mystery is morality, the core of the crime novel is, if not amorality, then ambiguity.

Detectives and police, other than in supporting roles, generally get in the way in the crime novel, as does any sort of investigation. An obvious example of that is The Maltese Falcon where Sam Spade finds himself tossed back and forth between the antics of criminals and adventurers Kaspar Gutman, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Joel Cairo and gunsel Wilmer Cook. Everybody thinks Spade is investigating the whereabouts of the Black Bird, but all he's really doing is watching the principals of the crime, and even at the end, when he pegs duplicitous Bridget for the murder of partner Miles Archer, it's neither the result of investigation nor deduction, just an observation of an obvious crime he can't ignore, no matter how much he's tempted. The Maltese Falcon -- no investigation, no police other than knuckleheads  Polhaus and Dundy, and no justice, just the moral ambiguity of Bridget heading off to prison, only because the gunsel is not around to take the fall, and Gutman and Cairo are heading back to Constantinople. Plot and motivation rule, with Spade as a passive nemesis. Not the greatest detective or mystery novel, as some bill it, but certainly the greatest crime novel.

For the crime novel, criminals are essential, but they need not be masterminds, or even competent.  In fact, it may help the plot for them to be small fries in thrall to an organization as ruthless as the Mafia or Wal-Mart. Such is the case in The Grifters by Jim Thompson, where Lilly Dillon works for bookie Bobo Justus. The plot is propelled by Lilly's conflict with Bobo, who thinks she's cheating him, and by Lilly's competition with her weak-willed son's moll for his affections. The novel is infused with crime, criminals, victims, criminals as victims, motivation and the moral ambiguity of the crime novel universe that guarantees there will be no justice, at least not a justice based in a lawful morality. The philosophy of the crime universe is not one of good vs evil, or even of evil vs eviler; the crime philosophy sets aside the concepts of good and evil more deftly than ever did Frederick Nietzsche, who might be considered the patron saint of the crime novel. The Nietzschean race of the television series Andromeda, based on an idea by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, perfectly embody the moral orientation of the crime novel -- "I'm on your side, as long as it's my side too; situations may change, but I don't -- I'm always on my side."

While spies might be considered just as morally ambiguous as the crime novel's protagonists, they really are not; they are agents of constituted authority, possessors of a rigid morality oriented to lawful order, even when they act in chaotic-unlawful ways. You can get an idea of the part played by moral philosophy in the crime novel from the graph to the right. Characters like James Bond, Quiller, Matt Helm and Harry Palmer are going to be either Lawful Good or Lawful Chaotic, for their goals, no matter their actions, always support society. Likewise, Sherlock Holmes is going to bounce between Lawful Good (Hound of the Baskervilles), Chaotic Good (The Adventure of the Devil's Foot) and Lawful Evil (The Final Problem). Contrast that with Sam Spade's nature as Lawful Neutral or Lilly Dillion's Neutral Evil. Killers like Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr Ripley) and Dexter Morgan (from Jeff Lindsay's popular crime novel series) fall into a neutral crack in the universe as well, this time Chaotic Neutral, because their actions neither advance nor retard the course of society; one of Tom Ripley's victims nails the dichotomy  between the mystery/detective/spy universe and the crime universe when he exclaims, "I cannot understand your total disconnection with the truth of things!" There lies the great divide, that which singles out the crime novel as a unique sub-genre to the mystery.

Crime novels are much more difficult to write than other kinds of mystery novels, not so much in the plotting, characterization, motivation or atmosphere, but in the conclusion. Even in a crime novel, where many of the rules go right out the window, the conclusion must still be satisfying to the reader. That's not always an easy task when main characters may be hoods, where everyone may die, where the innocent and the guilty are equally liable to end up in prison, or on a marble slab. When it's handled wrong, you just shake your head, drop the book in disgust and wonder why you wasted your time; when done right, even brilliantly, you have a novel that can be just as cathartic as any morality play by Christie, Chandler, Fleming, P.D. James or Conan Doyle. A toast, then, to crime...and the criminal in all of us.

A small Christmas gift to crime fiction and noir fans: