Does Crime Fiction Require Violence?

In most crime fiction, there is a kind of balance between the violence of the crime and the violence of the resolution.

Some crime fiction has genteel characters, plots that are mostly puzzles, solutions that are arrived at with dialogue, not guns. Any violence mostly takes place "off stage." Think Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Or Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. The crimes can often be violent - murder, for example - but we don't witness the violence. We just see the aftermath. The solution is more a mental exercise than a physical one.

On the other end of the spectrum are stories like Lee Child's Jack Reacher books. The violence simmers throughout, serious, nasty violence that often boils over. The resolution of the Reacher stories is mostly violent. Reacher rights the wrongs of the bad guys by bringing serious violence to them, breaking bones and often killing them as well. The body count can get very high. Sometimes I think Child took as a model Shakespeare's tragedies, where nearly everyone dies at the end, onstage.

Regardless of the writer's approach, many people read crime fiction because it usually provides justice at the end. This is unlike the real world, where justice is often absent or unsatisfying in some basic way.

A writer doesn't need to have violence to tell a good story. But a writer does need a balance between the violence perpetrated by the bad guys and the violence enacted by the hero during the resolution. If the crime is presented as a puzzle, then we expect the solution to be largely mental, a thought process that solves the puzzle and delivers the bad guy to the legal system. Those stories may have little or no violence. 

If, instead, like Shakespeare, the violence takes place before our eyes, we come to expect that the resolution of the story will have violence. To be satisfying, those components need some balance.

Violence within the story should at least be partly balanced by the violence resolving the story.

We recently rented a multi-episode show on Netflix that was well-written, smart, had interesting characters, and a good backstory. (I won't say the name of the show for the same reason I don't write one-star reviews. Nothing is gained by it.)

But it was unsatisfying because this violence equation was off. The show depicted horrific crimes involving the trafficking and selling of young women. There was also murder and torture. It wasn't a blood bath, and the worst of the crimes took place offstage. In this regard it was like so many crime shows. Not a gorefest, but a realistic depiction of crimes that happen every day.

As the show went on, we "knew" that the resolution would have a kind of emotional payback. Not only would the bad guy get caught, but there would be at least some violence directed at that bad guy. Like most viewers, we didn't want the bad guy to be tortured for his crimes. But we wanted to see him make a run for it, and in the process see him experience at least some kind of pain or physical injury, a taste of what he's done to his victims.

Unfortunately, after 90 minutes of watching the good guy trying to catch the horrific criminal, the resolution was seeing them put handcuffs on the bad guy. Nothing more. The bad guy who'd caused so much terrible suffering suffered nothing. 

This left us feeling disappointed and even a little cheated. The writer/director apparently thought that despite a story about violent crime, having no violence happen to the bad guy at the end would satisfy sophisticated viewers who are "above" prosaic shows that depict violence. The show was probably realistic. But unsatisfying. And it's my guess that this approach is why this otherwise smart show was canceled after two seasons.

We writers need to remember the lessons of Shakespeare. If you want to satisfy readers and viewers, you need to give them at least a little bit of payback and bring some bring pain to the bad guy who caused so much pain.

The scales of justice in the world of fiction need to have more balance than those in the real world.

More Animals (Birds) That Reveal We Humans Aren't So Special

 The way we humans think we're so special would be funny if it weren't so sad. Less than 100 years ago, people still thought we were the only creatures with culture. We thought animals were not only dumb, they had no complexity to their society. They certainly didn't teach each other complex tasks. They didn't make and use tools. And they didn't carry on cultural traditions. They didn't mourn their dead. They didn't invent new behaviors and then teach those behavior to others. They didn't make plans and then carry them out. They didn't have self-awareness. And they didn't recognize themselves in mirrors.

Now we've learned that many animals do all of these things and more. Whales, dolphins, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, elephants, dogs, pigs, and birds such as parrots, pigeons, and crows.

New research shows just how dramatic and impressive animal intelligence is.

Dolphins are bilingual. They speak a language specific to their own species when they are around their own kind, and they switch to a more generic language when they encounter other dolphin species. They cooperate with whales to help each other hunt fish.

After chimpanzees watched humans using sign language, they began to develop it themselves and then taught it to their young. 

Orangutans can use a hammer and nails, and - if it suits their needs - hide items from people. One stole a key from a zookeeper and nonchalantly hid it in his mouth when the man came looking for it.

Elephants are so socially sophisticated and empathetic, they will sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. 

Parrots can learn hundreds of words and their meanings. Pigeons can recognize different people and can learn the difference between impressionist paintings and abstract expressionist paintings. Crows can invent tools to suit their needs and memorize the routes of garbage trucks so they can be in the best places when the trucks come by with potential food. Crows also have complex death rituals when one of their group dies.

Now, magpies have shown altruistic behavior, helping each other to remove tracking devices that humans put on them.  There is no advantage to a magpie to help others like this. It is a cultural characteristic much more complicated than doing something that merely helps find food or a mate.

You can read about it here:

https://theconversation.com/altruism-in-birds-magpies-have-outwitted-scientists-by-helping-each-other-remove-tracking-devices-175246

And when one cockatoo learned to open a wheeled garbage container in Australia, it taught the technique to others. Now, cockatoos all over have learned the trick:

https://theconversation.com/clever-cockatoos-in-southern-sydney-have-learned-to-open-kerb-side-bins-and-it-has-global-significance-164794

Tahoe Moon (Owen McKenna Mystery #20))

 The 20th Owen McKenna is in the pipeline and due out August 1st! Yay! Who woulda thought when the first book, Tahoe Deathfall, came out 21 years ago, that I'd make it to #20. Was it dumb luck? Or dogged persistence? No. It was you readers supporting and cheering me on for two decades. Thank you so much!

In Tahoe Moon, Detective Owen McKenna finds a lost girl, 8-year-old Camille Dexter. She's waiting at a hotel near Northstar Resort for her grandfather, Grandpa Charlie, to come and pick her up. McKenna tries to talk to her but finds out she's deaf. McKenna and his friend Sergeant Santiago learn that her grandfather has died, crushed by a tree that he apparently felled as a job earning money as a tree cutter.

As McKenna pursues figuring out what to do with Camille, he runs into the meanest, sickest bad guy he's ever met, a man who may be a hired killer. 

The action in Tahoe Moon is as intense as Camille Dexter is sweet. I think readers will grow to care very much about her life, her hopes, and her dreams. Deaf from birth, she's never heard spoken language. But she's learned to talk very well. She's a brilliant kid and is also learning Spanish and French in American Sign Language. Having lost her only family, her heartbreaking dilemma is countered by her determination and grit. 

I will be doing a bunch of events at book stores and libraries. And it will also be available on Kindle. Here is the Kindle Pre-order page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09V33F6KF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p2_i7

Massive Boulder Smashes Hwy 50 An Hour After We Drove By

 File this in the category of Unexpected Risks. We all plan for some risks. And we know that there are risks you can't plan for. Like Earthquakes.

But risks often come from a direction we don't usually think about. In this case? Look up.

Late Thursday afternoon, we drove over Echo Summit. A short time later, a big chunk fell off of the cliff above. That single boulder was big enough to crush any vehicle. Fortunately, it appears no one was hurt.

Photo credit: CHP