Crime

I've just finished reading The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais. For those not in the know, Crais is a superb American crime/thriller writer most lauded for his character creations Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. The Two Minute Rule, though, is one of his equally excellent stand-alone novels (I urge you to check out Demolition Angel and Hostage also - the latter was Hollywood-ised a few years ago but the movie isn't a patch on the book) and follows the story of an ex-serial bank robber, Max Holman, who gets out of prison after a ten-year stretch with the hope of 'putting things right' with his immediate family. Holman's plans are torpedoed when he discovers that his wife died of terminal illness a few years previous and his son (who'd become a cop) murdered in the line of duty. In an intriguing twist of fate, Holman turns to the FBI agent who caught him and stopped his campaign of robbery, Agent Pollard, who no longer works for the 'Feeb' and is busy struggling to make ends meet with two kids whilst dealing with her disapproving mother. The plot takes more twists and turns than the average M Night Shyamalan movie and ramps the tension up right to the end. I won't spoil it by revealing the denouement here, but it has a very pleasing cyclic quality that left me reaching for the next Crais thriller.

So what is this rant all about? You'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm doubling as Crais's press agent or that this is just a glowing book review but, no, it prompts something else, something key in any writer's arsenal - the notion of reading widely. We've all got our favourite genres, right? Of course we have. But the importance of tapping into multiple genres and experiencing the prose of many authors is paramount for a writer. I write fantasy and science fiction but my favourite novel genre is crime. Crais, Connolly, Child (what is it with the 'C's' - maybe I should change my name to Cyme?) : they are all fine exponents of this genre and probably my three favourite authors. As well as the genre differential when compared to fantasy and science fiction, they also each offer something different within their field. Crais paints a wonderful milieu within which the action takes place. He creates deep and emotive characters with lives, hang-ups and issues, his plots are twisting and cunning; Connolly is darker, grittier in many ways. His novels are harder to get into but offer shades of horror as well as what might be expected to be ubiquitous in most crime novels (I like this dark slant to his narrative and it's prompted me to seek out another author who delves more fully into this sub-genre, Justin Gustainis, but more of this later...). His novel will have you re-checking locked doors and windows, surveying the street outside that one last time and jumping at the slightest incongruous noise or half-imagined shadow; Child is as different again. Dialogue-heavy, organically information-laden narrative ploughs along with all the power, intensity and inexorability of a freight train. True fans of crime - I defy you to try and put one these lightning-paced thrillers down (it's the literary equivalent of super glue - you can't do it). Child has Jack Reacher, possibly the most uncompromising, double-hard hero of the lot. An itinerant ex-MP (and I mean Military Policeman not Member of Parliament, folks), Reacher lives off the grid but kind of like John Rambo in First Blood (an excellent movie that far, far outweighs the less than accomplished sequels), trouble follows him and before you know it he's gun-toting, sleuthing and skull-cracking with the best of them. These three are all inspiring authors and offer a new narrative dimension that might be found in the majority of fantasy and science fiction stories, less concerned with world building and illusory vistas.

Truth be told, it was a mixture of crime and science fiction that made me want to write seriously in the first place (a combination of Demolition Angel that I picked up at an airport, and Snow Crash by the superlative Neal Stephenson that I read as part of Media Production course I was enrolled in). It just goes to show that inspiration lies around every corner and can take many forms.

I think I've taken up enough page space for now. I'm off to pick up the next Crais thriller or maybe the latest Lee Child or what about that dark fantasy by Justin Gustainis...