The Myth of Crime

Abstract

Crime novels say something, imaginatively, about the way crime affects society. Readers may wonder how seriously they say this, and it is easy to think that the hard-boiled novel of Hammett and Chandler has a greater claim to genuine social observation than the classic detective tale, which may appear to be a frivolous game, without much more claim to represent the real than has Cluedo or Monopoly. We shouldn’t accept the view too readily. Hammett and Chandler and now Paretsky have their myth, the myth of the detective as the person of integrity in a corrupt society. The myth is obviously one that appeals to many readers, though it might be hasty to assume that it appeals because it is true. Christie has her own myth, in which the detective is the person of insight in an inert society. If the formulation of the myth, in terms of one or two families in an English village, is no longer fashionable, and especially does not capture the multiple and rapid social and technological change that has affected the United Kingdom and other advanced countries since she reached maturity, that does not mean that it is fundamentally false or that it is simply sentimental or self-indulgent. On the contrary, we shall see that the image of crime in society is one that combines a sharp critique with a sense of possible resolution.