The Homicide Report

The Homicide Report is an experiment by the LA Times to act as a counterbalance to the glamourous and sensational true crime coverage in the tabloids and TV. The FBI promulgated the out-of-control spectre of black on white (female) crime even after crime levels fell off dramatically in the 1990s. (Remember FBI estimations of 200 serial killers roaming America?).

TV shows reinforce this stereotype as do the multi-million selling True Crime books which ignore the reality that the majority of crime across America is perpetrated by young urban poor Hispanic and Black males on young urban poor Hispanic and Black males.

The Homicide Report addresses this imbalance in perception and manufactured fear by outlining each death in LA with the unadorned details that are so compelling and gruesome as you scan through them.

Death Becomes Them

The current issue of Newsweek has an essay by senior editor, Malcolm Jones on this subject.

Jones recalls that in 1945 Edmund Wilson wrote a scathing put-down of detective stories titled “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd” – a ‘snide way of saying crime fiction was worthless.’

Jones feels that Wilson would not do so now (except in Ireland – maybe!) because ‘writers such as James Ellroy, Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, Donald Westlake, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, James Salis, Megan Abbott and George Pelecanos have managed to infuse crime novels with a quality of writing not seen since the days of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain.’

The crossover to crime fiction by literary authors may have started with William Faulkner (Sanctuary) and Theodore Dreiser (An American Tragedy), continued by Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Cormac McCarthy and the up to date examples of Denis Johnson (Nobody Move) and Thomas Pynchon (Inherent Vice). John Banville (Booker Prize winner) not mentioned in the article (US bias) but he would be another example of the crossover.

Jones reflects that when literary fiction authors write crime/noir fiction they may not be as authentic as the true greats of crime fiction. He gives several examples of this including Mailer, Pynchon and Johnson. So no one is safe!

Jones maintains that because of so much exposure to crime drama, true crime and cross over authors joining the crime fiction writing camp the distinction between literary and crime fiction is very blurred and indeed he concludes that noir isn’t a genre any longer!

This issue of Newsweek also has other essays such as True Crime: The Roots of an American Obsession by Walter Mosley, The Haunting by James Ellroy and The Manson Murders at 40 by Vincent Bugliosi (Author of Helter Skelter – the biggest true crime seller to date).

Panic Attack Book Launch

Panic Attack, Jason Starr's 12th book was launched Aug 9th at Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. Otto is the kingpin of crime editing and publishing. He is the series editor for the annual "Best American Crime Writing" and a wide variety of other series and anthologies. Joyce Carol Oates and James Ellroy are friends. Irish writers who have been welcomed and read there include Ken Bruen, John Connolly and Declan Hughes.

Jason in the Q&A showed that he was open, self-deprecating and a quick thinker. He talked about collaborating with Ken Bruen on three books (a fourth is in the planning stage), written collaboratively across the Atlantic and across the web. He recounted the fun they had writing chapters and scenes and submitting to each other. He recalled Ken walking up to him at a book launch for one of their books and saying that's a great line you wrote there and Jason replying you wrote that! Then after a brief silence Ken saying – I know!

Their editor for those books was in the audience, Charles Ardai, author and publisher of Hard Case Crime, a recent but very significant force within noir crime fiction publishing. (Most of the Hard Case Crime covers however objectify women and glorify the women/violence fantasy, a very regrettable situation).

Jason told the audience he has resisted efforts to write a series of books with a recurring character because he likes the novelty of starting with a new set of players each time; that he gets bored easily so he prefers to avoid series and that he is very stubborn (so the more people (editors probably!) say it to him the more resistant he is).

He prefers to write psychological based crime fiction and he finds that his books are tending to get longer. In Panic Attack he uses Multiple Points of View, which is difficult to effect without losing the reader – a capital offence.

He is a recent convert to crime fiction. When he did an MFA in Creative Writing he didn't know there was any other way to write apart from the 'literary' approach so when he was introduced to crime fiction he was amazed by its power and inherent skill (James M Cain, Jim Thompson for example).

His approach to writing is scene-based rather than character based as opposed to George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly who both feel that all books (at least theirs) are character driven. There was some banter in the audience about who these guys Pelecanos and Connelly were!

Many crime fiction writers were at the book launch including Daniel Judson, Wallace Stroby,Megan Abbot, Russell Atwood, Alison Gaylin, and Persia Walker.

The award winning film maker and writer Tim McCann was also at the launch filming for a feature length documentary on crime fiction writers (so far, Jason Starr, Lawrence Block, Megan Abbott and Duane Swierczynski), basically examining their life and process.