Crime Writers Aren't Literary Artists, Are They?

Paul Johnston

The Blood Tree, the fourth novel I've set in an independent twenty-first century Edinburgh (Hodder and Stoughton). Like its predecessors Body Politic, The Bone Yard and Water of Death it features investigator Quint Dalrymple. This time he's dealing with a couple of murders in which the victims are mutilated and covered with blood-drenched branches; he's also on the trail of three missing teenagers - a trail which leads him to the much-feared but apparently prosperous democratic state of Glasgow. The series is really my take on contemporary society rather than a prediction of life in the new millennium. The futuristic setting is retrograde and Orwellian rather than sci-fi. I've also cast a satirical eye on Scottish history and culture. In The Blood Tree I lay into Macbeth, genetic engineering and the traditional hostility between the East and the West sides of the country - among other things.

I wrote Body Politic, the first of the series, when I was living on a small Greek island - in abject poverty, I hasten to add - and the novel reflects a desire to come to terms with changes in my home city of Edinburgh and the UK in general. I wrote three unpublished novels before Body Politic was taken up by Hodder and Stoughton. Although those weren't strictly within the crime genre, they contained plenty of mystery and violent death - so I was probably working my way towards crime fiction without realising it. I've always been a keen reader of the genre, especially of American crime writers, and a film noir devotee as well.

I came back to Edinburgh in 1995 to do academic research into reading. I suppose I thought that might illuminate the writing process, but it didn't. The best I could say is that reading and writing are interrelated on numerous levels - and that any crime writer who tells you they don't read crime fiction is bullshitting. Apart from the American masters - Chandler, Hammett, Crumley, Ellroy, Burke - I'd put Rankin, McDermid and Dibdin at the top of the tree. (The fact that the first two are Scots is purely coincidental.) Also excellent is the latest Gold Dagger winner Robert Wilson, an old friend from university - if you haven't checked out his books, do so immediately. A few years back I was impressed by Philip Kerr's A Philosophical Investigation, but Kerr doesn't seem to think much of crime writers so maybe he should be deleted from the list. I try to read non-genre fiction too. If pressed to come up with favourites, I'd go for Lawrence Durrell and Malcolm Lowry - weird, huh?

Most writers will tell you that they're self-taught and, if encouraged, will rant on about the lengthy and unpaid apprenticeship they put in. I'd go along with that (my apprenticeship was seven years, if you must know), but I did have one advantage - my father Ronald Johnston used to write thrillers. Not that he opened the doors of the publishing industry for me; unfortunately it doesn't work that way. But he did give me the benefit of his technical expertise as well as a lot of general encouragement, which kept me going as the mound of rejection letters grew.

According to some self-appointed experts, crime writing is supposed to be all about plot and character. Well, yes, I suppose so - up to a point. For me there are two other major attractions to the genre. One is the spirit of place (to steal a phrase from L Durrell). Edinburgh is a very stimulating city to write about, with its juxtaposition of rich and poor, neo-classical centre and housing scheme suburbs, Jekyll and… - no, let's move on from that old chestnut. The other big draw is that crime fiction is a very happy hunting ground if you're into political satire. Quint operates in a totalitarian state, though it's supposedly benevolent (if you believe that, you'll believe anything) - and corruption and violence are never far from the surface. I'm not interested in preaching a particular ideological or party political sermon; or a religious one for that matter, as the ruling class in my vision of 2020 is strictly atheist. But I find the balance between individual characters and overarching power structures very stimulating. It's all a question of free will, don't you know? How do citizens react when, in a nominally crime-free state, violence suddenly erupts?

As far as I'm concerned, crime fiction without at least some depiction of violence simply isn't telling the whole story. Not that the mayhem has to be physical - psychological cruelty is just as vicious. To some extent, the same goes for sex. In 2020's Edinburgh the tourists visit sex clubs and the locals are assigned sex sessions with a different partner every week - chosen by the state, naturally. Crime writing is about bodies. No sex and violence, no boogie.

Which brings me to music. Quint is a blues freak and that reflects my own taste in music, though I do listen to plenty of other forms of noise. There's a particular reason for Quint's fascination with the blues; they've been banned by the state because they're seen as subversive, so they have, appropriately enough given their role in American culture, an anti-establishment slant. More generally, I think music and other forms of artistic activity always have a part to play in fictional worlds - after all, our characters are meant to be recognisable human beings, so they hear music, they see paintings and so on.

People are often envious of professional writers - or at least they say they are. Not having to go to the office sounds fantastic. So does working at your own speed rather than your boss's or your company's, and so does being paid for doing something you get a kick out of. Well... The problem is that if your books do well, then your publishers want you to do more and more signings, radio shows, events etc etc - and all those eat into your thinking and writing time big time. On the other hand, publishing is a business like any other. If you don't get on the road, your sales won't be anything special. The best thing to do is drink the free booze and shift as much of your product as you can. After all, crime writers aren't literary artists, are they?

As for the future (real as opposed to fictional), I've finished the fifth Quint book -. After that I'm planning something different. Still in the broad genre of crime, but that's all I'm saying at the moment. Quint might come back further down the line, then again he might not. To some extent that depends on you people, the readers. All feedback gratefully received