The Ten Commandments of Crime Fiction

 

10 Commandments of Detective Fiction; Rebooted

We are probably all familiar with most of the ten commandments of golden age crime fiction as they were written by Mr Ronald Knox, a Catholic priest who belonged to the  Detection Club. Nowadays the club hosts such luminaries as Martin Edwards, Simon Brett, Michael Ripley and many others who know a lot of things. And are good on a quiz team.

 In the days when Knox was active, it would have been Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterson etc.

 Red Herrings, the magazine of the CWA, has a feature of the Ten Commandments this month, and on Knox himself. It would have helped if I’d read that before writing this blog but the magazine and I are in two places 150 miles apart.

Do these rules stand up to modern fiction?

Could we apply Stephen Moffat’s idea of there’s nothing new, things just change, i.e. when he was writing Sherlock in the modern day he looked at the originals very carefully. Organised crime was a big thing in those books, it was a new threat to the audience and it was very scary. By the time the TV series came along with Cumberbatch and his cheekbones, it was suicide bombers and cyber terrorism  we were scared of. Different song but the same tune.

Here's Ramsay’s tongue in cheek guide to the ten rules of crime fiction- rebooted.

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

I think this still stands. Unless you are writing Rodger Ackroyd again….or filming Taggart in which case the killer is the last man standing.

2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

Or maybe not. The lovely James Oswald has a distinct sixth sense present in his novels. Obviously no good if a ghost turns up and says, 'by the way, Jimmy did it'. But a wee bit of spookiness sometimes doesn’t go amiss.

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.

Unless there’s an architect in the book and the house has signs of being recently remodelled. You were warned dear reader, you were warned.

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. 

Ha, I think Tom Clancy did okay with the latter bit. And my recent book does have a bit of explanation of reverse DNA searching. I think that covers number 9 as well. Plus, thinking about  it, the poisoning of various persons from a certain country ( the fatal poison on the door handle) was both terrifying and fascinating. So weird poisons  are okay, especially when inflicted on an innocent bystander by a government.

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.

Bloody hard to do if the book is set in China.

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

I think the latter part of this is anti feminist. Of  course female detectives have an intuition re who the baddie is, something just not right about him/ her/ it. It makes up for us having to go for chapters without going to the toilet, and for having to take a handbag to every crime scene.

7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.

Yes because that never works out does it? *See note at end not included here because rule eleven should be ‘no spoilers.’

8. The detective must not alight on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

Still true I think.

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader. 

You do need one character to explain things out loud for the readers benefit, a few thoughts machinating in their head. It’s when two professionals doing the same job explain things to each other that the trouble happens. I mean, if they need that explained, they shouldn’t be doing their job!!

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. 

Or not prepared for them but the DNA may or may not be identical, Same DNA different fingerprints. Sorted.

·       Totally unsuccessful like the longest running stage show on the face of the planet. Or London’s West End, Same thing.

Any rules you’d like to see rebooted?

The hero must not forget he has a mobile in his pocket i.e. he could have called it in  on page 3 and saved us the bother.

Electric cars have a limited range. They don’t last the length of the book, the way the detectives' bladder seems to.

Cheers

C