I've read a lot of mysteries for fun and for work, and I can tell you that the genre has changed in recent times. I've read mystery novels for readers of all ages, and it ain't Encyclopedia Brown or Nero Wolfe anymore.
For one thing, the audience has changed, and publishers know it. Men used to read as many works of fiction as women, maybe more; now women almost completely compose the audience. For another, it seems that readers' tastes regardless of sex have been shaped by movies and television, requiring the kind of implausibility one more often has seen on screen than in books of the past. But worst of all, American readers now -- probably more than in the last 75 or even 100 years -- want to see their prejudices confirmed in books. It's ruining the Whodunnit.
What does this mean? In the 1930s it could mean knowing the guy with the German accent was guilty; in the Reformation, a Catholic priest would be suspect.
These days it's probably not risen to the level of propaganda, but more of a way for the writer to signal sister solidarity with her readers. Whereas formerly Motive, Opportunity, and Means were the big things to understand in determining suspects, now the big things are Attitude, Profile, and Personal Relationship. They will lead you to the killer pretty much every time.
ATTITUDE
The bad guy will be introduced early in the book, because there has to be a Big Twist and Shocking Reveal when the person's wickedness is revealed. For that reason, he must be super helpful to the hero, someone the reader may even like. The reader may be 'shipping away, imagining the villain and the heroine to be a love item, and be shattered when the truth comes out. That's because the reader didn't read this blog entry.
PROFILE
Yes, the killer is a straight white male, but considering that most killers are men, most Americans are white, and the vast majority of humans are straight, the numbers support that. It's a little samey when the killers are always straight white men, of course, especially when the writer has to prove her bona fides by filling the book with characters of other colors, sexualities, and gender identifications. Then the killer is a minority in his own country.
The killer is almost certainly wealthy, at least compared to the heroine, and thus capable of putting up a show of menace with his filthy lucre. However, the heroine's badassery will come through in the end.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
To make the Big Twist a Shocking Reveal, there's got to be some personal relationship to the hero. This has become the new Cop-As-Villain trope. Whereas it was becoming impossible to find a movie cop that was not a villain, now everyone related to the heroine must be considered a suspect, especially any you-know-whats (SWMs). The personal relationship may have formed in the course of the book, or it may be a childhood friend or a relative, but one of them is going to have blood on his hands, however improbable it may seem.
The perfect villain, then, would be a seldom-seen wealthy white uncle of the heroine who enters the story all smiles and helpfulness. By the end of the book he will be exposed as a creepy lecherous bastard with no qualm against killing who almost takes out the heroine.
I've seen a number of things that make me think people don't know what readers want anymore. I've read books that had be going right up until the end, and in the end the villain was not only obvious but arrested off stage and never seen again. What fun is that?
But mostly it's the modern profile that makes it easy and boring to pick out the bad guys. Seriously, pull a book off the shelf of the bookstore* that looks like a whodunnit written for women, and I'll bet you doughnuts to dollars** that you pick out the killer as soon as he shows up. Agatha Christie is rolling in her grave.
* If you can find one.
** Old version of this expression doesn't work anymore as doughnuts now cost more than a dollar each.
3 comments:
Very interesting analysis. My tastes run more to 'mystery thrillers' which tend to be mostly thriller with maybe just a soupcon of mystery. E.g., John Sanford, Lee Child, CJ Box. Coincidentally (or not?) these are much more male-oriented and the heroes tend to be white males, but not always, as Joe Pickett (C.J. Box novels) has on several occasions been rescued from sure death or worse by his wife and/or daughters; Jack Reacher (Lee Child) routinely partners up with random bad-ass women to solve mysteries and generally create mayhem; Sanford is now starting a series featuring one of his main male characters' (Lucas Davenport) daughter who has become a detective.
I used to read Daniel Silva thrillers; I liked them so much I would buy a hardcover copy on day of publication, like buying a new Beatles album the day it came out.
The most recent one opens with a dedication to the valiant efforts of the Capitol Police force in defeating the attempted violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. I dropped the book in disgust at that point. Silva's wife is a senior producer for CNN by the way, which explains a lot.
Smoking. The bad guy will be smoking cigarettes.
PLW - the valiant Capitol Police who shot (in the back of the head) and killed the unarmed woman, or the one who clubbed the unconscious unarmed woman to death? They got awards for their "heroism". Their victims? Memory-holed. Never happened. Move along, citizen.
Modern written fiction is almost as badly woke as modern TV fiction. They cram it down your throat like ghastly tasting medicine' If I feel mysterious, I'll reread any Sherlock Holmes tale. Always a treat - "Hound of the Basketballs".
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