Stavros
10-22-2013, 12:04 AM
The Crime Writers Association (UK) will next month reveal their top crime novels chosen by its 600 members. Advance leaks indicate Agatha Christie is challenging Raymond Chandler, with Conan Doyle and other more contemporary figures in the mix, but not the Scandinavians and not much written in a language other than English.
It is not my favourite genre, mostly because it has become part of the global holocaust against women (including transwomen) we are living through. Nevertheless, I have read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, probably his best novel; quite enjoyed Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley for her bleak humour but really liked the sick humour of a story she wrote about a creep in New York who steals rich people's dogs and then blackmails the owners. I suppose In the Name of the Rose is a crime novel, and crime features in some of Borges' stories, but mostly I would rather see it occasionally on film, especially in the case of Chandler and Hammet, although tv has in a manner of speaking murdered the genre on the small screen with crime stuff on several times a day every day, badly written, ill-conceived and soaked in cliches.
However, real life murder mysteries seem to me to present puzzles that are more complex than the fiction. This evening I watched a BBC report on the murder of Saad al-Hilli in the Alps a year ago, and it remains a grim but compelling story which could have two or three explanations. In some cases of the past, I find that the more I read about the Jeremy Bamber case the more I believe he is innocent, whereas the man who was cleared of murdering his foster daughter (Sion Jenkins) is I think guilty. And next month, a very real American murder will be 50 years old, and there are still many claims about that one.
I think the Cuban author Carlos Sarduy once used a transexual/transvestite detective in his books, not sure.
What do you prefer -fictional crime or the real thing?
It is not my favourite genre, mostly because it has become part of the global holocaust against women (including transwomen) we are living through. Nevertheless, I have read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, probably his best novel; quite enjoyed Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley for her bleak humour but really liked the sick humour of a story she wrote about a creep in New York who steals rich people's dogs and then blackmails the owners. I suppose In the Name of the Rose is a crime novel, and crime features in some of Borges' stories, but mostly I would rather see it occasionally on film, especially in the case of Chandler and Hammet, although tv has in a manner of speaking murdered the genre on the small screen with crime stuff on several times a day every day, badly written, ill-conceived and soaked in cliches.
However, real life murder mysteries seem to me to present puzzles that are more complex than the fiction. This evening I watched a BBC report on the murder of Saad al-Hilli in the Alps a year ago, and it remains a grim but compelling story which could have two or three explanations. In some cases of the past, I find that the more I read about the Jeremy Bamber case the more I believe he is innocent, whereas the man who was cleared of murdering his foster daughter (Sion Jenkins) is I think guilty. And next month, a very real American murder will be 50 years old, and there are still many claims about that one.
I think the Cuban author Carlos Sarduy once used a transexual/transvestite detective in his books, not sure.
What do you prefer -fictional crime or the real thing?