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It’s All About the Fantasy
It’s no secret that I write about that most terrible of crimes — murder — for fun and profit. The murders in my novels are fictional and genteel; they may involve violence, but said violence is never on-camera and is not generally deeply disturbing: it arises out of personal conflicts and histories, specific murders of specific people for specific reasons. That keeps it safe: the random violence that so often occurs in the real world is avoided, and at the end of each book, justice is served. That is, I think, one of the great draws of detective fiction and murder mysteries: they all come right in the end, and things end up being more or less fair, more or less balanced out.
Which is in stark relief, of course, to real life.
I don’t just write these stories; I read them, too, and watch great numbers of mystery movies and shows for the same reasons. There’s something comforting about knowing that somewhere out there are brave and clever police forces making sure we can all sleep safely at night. I especially love the British versions of the detective shows, where the most devious of cases are solved using wit and, often, compassion.
