Each year, authors, editors, and members of the mystery community gather together in New York City to award the nation’s most prestigious honor for crime writing—the Edgar Awards, organized by the Mystery Writers of America. This year, as the pandemic rages on and the quarantine continues, will of course be different. The awards will be presented on Twitter starting at 11am on Thursday, April 30th. Ahead of the online ceremony, we caught up with 20+ nominees for a roundtable discussion on the state of crime and mystery literature. We decided to split the discussion into two parts—in this first installment, nominees react to the extraordinary events of the year so far, and reflect on the genre at large; in the second installment, nominees give writing advice, talk big breaks, and think back on the little details and small moments that make the grand project of writing worth all the effort.
You can see the full list of Edgar Nominations here.
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DO YOU THINK CRIME NOVELS HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN TIMES OF CRISIS AND COLLECTIVE ANXIETY?
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Samantha Downing (Nominated for Best First Novel – My Lovely Wife): I do think crime novels have a role to play. Most of us will not commit a major crime in our lives, let alone investigate one. Crime novels offer an escape, and now more than ever people are looking for one.
Naomi Kritzer (Nominated for Best Young Adult – Catfishing on CatNet): In times of crisis, I find it deeply soothing to read a book where the puzzles actually have solutions and the questions actually have answers. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Laura Tucker (Nominated for Best Juvenile – All The Greys on Greene Street): Yes; I’m gobbling mysteries like Chiclets right now, at an approximate rate of one a day. The armchair tourism aspect of reading mysteries has always been important to me, but never more than now; frankly, it’s a balm just to read about people going places. The high stakes seem utterly appropriate. And logic and science (usually) prevail. Hallelujah.
Mo Moulton (Nominated for Best Critical/Biographical – The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women): Reading for pleasure is always good; in stressful times, it’s a balm. Dorothy L. Sayers originally wrote Lord Peter Wimsey as an escapist fantasy. When she was hard-up and lonely, she could live vicariously through giving him a gorgeous flat, expensive books, and a perfectly understanding butler. And in a time of particular uncertainty, I find it comforting to read a story that I know will end with a puzzle neatly solved.
Hank Phillippi Ryan (Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – The Murder List): One of the things that has vanished, for me at least, is the ability to focus. I start one project, then another, then decide to do something else. Crime fiction, though—a really good book—somehow changes that. Whether in a world that’s familiar, or a completely fictional one, the joy of a good book is that you get to live someone else’s life. You get to be someone else. Someone you can root for and cheer for, or even dislike—but the unreal reality is somehow comforting. We always talk about restoring order from chaos in crime novels, and I think that holds true now even more. But more tantalizing to me is the idea of solving a puzzle, solving a crime, turning my poor terrified brain to a different channel. So yes, crime fiction. Bring it on. It’s better than most of reality these days. It’s always safe in a story.
Tara Laskowski (Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – One Night Gone): I do! At least for me. I’ve found that I enjoy the soothing nature of a book where something goes terribly wrong, but I know in the end the case will be solved and it will all work out.
Carol Goodman (Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – The Night Visitors): Absolutely! Any art that engages and distracts serves a valuable purpose in times of anxiety. Crime fiction in particular is satisfying in these moments because the very nature of crime fiction is to pose a disruption to the world and then, by the end, restore some order and justice. The idea that the world can be restored, even if it’s not entirely the same anymore, is tremendously reassuring at times like these.
John Billheimer (Nominated for Best Critical/Biographical – Hitchcock and the Censors): Any well-written book, fiction or nonfiction, will have the power to divert the mind and help time pass in periods of crisis. Most crime novels end by relieving the reader’s anxiety over fictional plot developments, which can be comforting when the world at large isn’t behaving according to plan.
Catriona McPherson (Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – Strangers at the Gate): Oh, absolutely. My favorite quote about why people read crime fiction comes from Jill Paton Walsh, who said they offer “a dream of justice”. When life is so relentlessly out of all control and fairness isn’t a factor, maybe the dream of justice is needed even more.
“When life is so relentlessly out of all control and fairness isn’t a factor, maybe the dream of justice is needed even more.”–Catriona McPhersonBarbara Bourland (Nominated for Best Novel – Fake Like Me): I am of exactly two minds on this subject. Firstly, with regards to the interiors of our books: Literature is a pleasure, and personally my own life’s work, but it is a privilege that, like so many privileges, is fundamentally a resource of time and education afforded to the few, not the many. I don’t think it’s appropriate to argue that crime novels—or novels of any kind—have a role to play during a crisis as significant as the one we are undergoing now other than, perhaps, as examples of the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor. In this exact moment, novels represent the lucky people safe at home going through their TBR list, while they wait for the unlucky to risk illness and ring their doorbells with the latest delivery. Crime novels do not have a role in fighting crime, or in this case, pandemics. They are inanimate objects of leisure.
However, that very status—inanimate object, inedible durable good—brings me to the second half of my answer, which is uncomplicated: healthy supply chains, now more than ever. I hope that people who have the time and space to read will continue to buy and read books, as long as there is a safe and sanitary replication and distribution process. I worry about all the workers who make our work possible, and I know that other authors do, too. I hope to hear more from my publishers, here and abroad, about what they are doing to protect workers in our industry who cannot work from home.
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Which books and authors do you turn to for comfort?
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Gigi Pandian (Nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award – The Alchemist’s Illusion): I don’t eat comfort foods when stressed, but I comfort read. Whenever I’m feeling anxious, I know I can read a few pages from an Elizabeth Peters mystery (be it Vicky Bliss, Amelia Peabody, or Jacqueline Kirby) and life is better.
Elizabeth Peters is the author who made me want to become a mystery novelist. Her novels were mash-ups of adventure, travel, romance, and humor, all wrapped up in clever mysteries with happy endings.
I’m reading more widely than rereading favorite Elizabeth Peters novels this spring, but right now I’m sticking to mysteries where I know I’ll get a happy ending.
Samantha Downing: I tend to read many of the authors I grew up reading—John Grisham, Michael Crichton, John Sanford, Mary Higgins Clark. Maybe it’s nostalgia for a time when things weren’t as complicated (though they didn’t seem that way at the time!)
Lara Prescott (Nominated for Best First Novel – The Secrets We Kept): In times of great uncertainty (like the present moment), books allow us to escape to new times and places. Some of my favorites are: Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, and John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
John Vercher (Nominated for Best First Novel – Three Fifths): I’m always drawn to character studies. Books—and films, for that matter—that take a deep dive into the major players while still having a propulsive narrative. That usually takes something terrible happening to that character, such that instead of being heavily plotted, the story is driven forward by the character’s motivation to improve his/her circumstances. Call it literary fiction or noir, those are the types of books I gravitate toward when looking for comfort—when I want to truly lose myself in a world of someone else’s creation. When it comes to authors who write that way, Jesmyn Ward is at the top of my list.
Mo Moulton: Naturally, I love Golden Age detective fiction. I like a little low-stakes murder, some careful plotting and fussy clues, and lots of atmosphere. I also find myself turning to poetry and music that I know well. Carol Ann Duffy’s “The Bees” is next to me right now, for example; it’s a perfect volume that balances grief and a fierce vitality.
John McMahon (Nominated for Best First Novel – The Good Detective): For comfort, I love to read a really detailed book from James Lee Burke. He has that ability to transport me to a location like no one else. I find myself hearing the off-board motor. Smelling the choking Japanese water lilies. Finding myself off the coast of Louisiana. And on and on.
Naomi Kritzer: My top comfort-read authors are Lois McMaster Bujold (specifically her fantasy), Sarah Dessen (who writes mainstream YA), and Mary Stewart (who wrote romantic suspense). What all these books have in common is the ability to distract me without losing me—if I need a highlighter pen and a notebook to keep track of who the characters are, that’s asking too much of me when I’m looking for a comfort read. But the book still needs to have enough going on to take me out of the world for a while.
Catriona McPherson: I just re-read Stephen King’s The Stand, in the long version. It was comfort of a kind, in that coming back out of the world of Captain Trips to the world of COVID19 was an improvement. I might re-read Pet Sematary too, since I won’t be on my own at night anytime soon, what with my husband not traveling for work. My King consumption is a balancing act between fandom and cowardice.
Tracy Clark (Nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award – Borrowed Time): I like PIs and flat-footed cops, serial killers, and demented stalkers. I go for grit and dark alleys that reek of sour milk and rancid garbage. Dark streets. Mean streets. Chandler. Hammett. Give me that. However, I have been known to bask in the gentle glow of a good cozy. They’re good fun, nice palate cleansers. A good Agatha Christie’s always a good choice on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Put the kettle on, open a tin of biscuits, and sit back and follow Hercule Poirot through a confounding case. I’ve read Murder on the Orient Express like a bazillion times. I know whodunnit, but I read it again because cracking it open is a little like visiting an old friend. I know that dirty little baby napper’s going to get it, but the setup, the devilish twists (sigh). Now I feel like reading it again.
Tara Laskowski: It’s not a book, but I’ve been watching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote while physically distancing from the world, and it’s been very therapeutic to me. Jessica Fletcher has a very satisfying way of stitching up the tears in the world and making it all better again. But I think generally traditional mysteries and cozy mysteries provide this sort of comfort. I also enjoy the puzzle of a locked-room mystery. I guess I’m cool with murder, mayhem, and chaos as long as it all gets better in the end.
Dave Zeltserman (Nominated for Best Short Story – “Brother’s Keeper,” from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine): Yes, certainly, especially during a pandemic when we’re in isolation it’s comforting to spend time with old friends, even if they’re literary friends. At the moment I’m rereading Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout so I can spend time with Archie needling Nero Wolfe, and Wolfe saying, ‘Phui.’ Other literary friends who I wouldn’t mind idling away the tile with now would include the Continental Op, Lew Archer, and Sherlock and Watson. And if I were in the mood for a rougher crowd, there’s always Rickard Stark’s Parker and his cadre of criminal associates.
John Billheimer: I find poetry and light verse to be comforting. A. E. Housman, E. A. Robinson, Philip Larkin, E. B. White, Dorothy Parker, Don Marquis, and Shel Silverstein are a few of my favorites.
Adam Price (Nominated for Best Paperback Original – The Neversink Hotel): I’ve always found Elmore Leonard’s novels extremely comforting. They are basically all essentially the same book—I believe it was Martin Amis who described his plots as essentially an update of The Pardoner’s Tale by Chaucer, i.e. “death wanders the landscape disguised as money.” They are comforting for this reason, and for the incredible strength and durability of the prose, the feeling of being in the sure hands of a master.
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What’s the most pressing (non-pandemic) issue facing the crime fiction community today?
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John Vercher: It almost goes without saying that the recognitions of writers of color and from other marginalized communities is still a hurdle—though I will say that in my short time in the community as a debut, strides are being taken to shed the ways of the old guard, so to speak. The creation of imprints such as Agora that focus on giving voice and platform and leveling the playing field for writers such as myself is one of those strides that shows change can be made if one is willing to step up.
Carol Goodman: Inclusion of all voices.
Edwin Hill (Nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award – The Missing Ones): Oh, I would say money. We talk a lot about the importance of inclusion in our community, and so much of inclusion is tied into money and who can afford this profession as a career.
Mo Moulton: As in the publishing world at large, diversity is the issue I’d like to highlight. We need a broader range of stories and voices encouraged, published, and celebrated.
John McMahon: The question of how we connect with an audience in a world where so many books are bought online is one I worry about. We have so much in terms of data, but that data is held by the few, for their commercial interest. We have all these fans that love to read, and want to engage. And it’s a privilege to be trusted with their attention. But how do we keep them engaged? How do we connect with them?
John Billheimer: An over-abundance of sub-par fiction (much of it self-published). Like bad money, bad fiction tends to drive out (or at least make it more difficult to sell) good fiction. This problem is exacerbated by the steep drop in local bookstores, which I understand are beginning to make a comeback.
Catriona McPherson: Piracy is facing all of publishing. Low incomes for writers too. The crime fiction community in particular though…Well, we need to keep working on inclusion and representation so we reflect reality. The Crime Writers of Color are doing sterling work and new imprints like Agora (if it’s okay to pick one out) are heartening. There’s still complaints and ruffled feelings from some straight whites who’re not ready to climb down out of privilege into fairness. Pfft.
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Is there a crime fiction trope that you wish would be retired?
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John Billheimer: Serial killers.
Barbara Bourland: Innocent dead female victims as the canvas for the author’s most violent, misogynistic fantasies. Oh, and Woman Who Has Abortion as a signifier of Woman Who Turns Out To Be an Amoral Monster. That one really bums me out.
Adam Price: I don’t know about it needing to be retired out right, but I think the reflexive use of a dead young (white) woman to drive plot needs to be questioned. Dead Girls, by Alice Bolin, who I reviewed and interviewed for The Millions, smartly addresses this topic in various essays: why do we seem to never tire of this trope, and what does that say about our culture in terms of our attitude toward young female agency? One answer, of course, is that young women do suffer violence at the hands of men. But there’s a way of treating the subject that is thoughtful, e.g. The Silence of the Lambs and a way that is simply recycling a kind of received image of young women as victims. The latter, I would personally like to see a whole lot less of.
Hank Phillippi Ryan: Is it a trope that every single question has to be completely answered? Yes, of course, we have to reveal the villain, and the reason for the villainy. And there has to be some kind of justice, on some level. But I am haunted by the reality of life—that sometimes we know what happened, or know what we thing happened, but look at how juries work, and how iffy some crime-solving can be, let alone justice. Say—the OJ case. We think we know what happened, and we think we know a story about it, but—a jury found him not guilty. Will we ever know what really happened? I’m not sure how that could happen. Was there—”justice”? In a way, a karmic way, possibly, but not in every way. I think that can be just as compelling and thought-provoking as a nice tied-up-with-a-bow ending. If the main characters and the readers know what happened, as well as they can know—but maybe there’s not a fight to the death or a slamming prison door. Maybe, instead, a deep and poetic realization that the bad guy, in some way, got what was coming to them.
Maureen Callahan (Nominated for Best Fact Crime – American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century): I have a love-hate relationship with the ever-present creepy vicar in British crime fiction—who, by the way, is never the killer.
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Is there something distinct or new about the current popularity of true crime? Or are these just the new iterations of longtime popular fascinations?
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Maureen Callahan: Yes, there is definitely something new and specific happening. True crime narratives have become remarkably sophisticated—think everything from The Jinx to Tiger King. We consume them on multiple platforms, from books to documentaries to scripted series to unscripted series to podcasts—reliving one mystery over and over. Add the Internet, which allows for open-source investigating and theorizing by armchair detectives, and it’s easy to see why and how true crime has exploded—and I think it’s not a moment we’re in, but a golden era. My favorite recent example: The Golden State Killer would never have been caught if not for the late Michelle McNamara’s incredible book I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.
“The democratization of the true crime genre by the podcast world has upended the traditional roles of storyteller and audience.” –Peter HoulahanMo Moulton: Dorothy L. Sayers certainly loved true crime, back in the 1920s and 1930s. Her characters often refer to some of the most famous cases of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, such as the “Brides in the Bath” murders. She also wrote about the real-life murder of Julia Wallace in the 1937 book The Anatomy of a Murder by members of the Detection Club. So I would say that the current popularity of true crime is a modern version of a very old fascination. (Martin Edwards has a terrific blog post on the subject of Sayers and true crime, well worth a read.)
Peter Houlahan (Nominated for Best Fact Crime – Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History): Very new. The democratization of the true crime genre by the podcast world has upended the traditional roles of storyteller and audience. The most popular shows do not just tell a story but become part of it by unearthing new evidence (In the Dark) prodding law enforcement to reopen cold cases (Finding Maura Murray), triggering new trials for those wrongly convicted (Serial), and even locating a missing person (Up and Vanished) or solving the crime itself (To Live & Die in L.A.). And they don’t just do it alone, often bringing their listeners right along with them. Being a true crime podcast listener is a dynamic, interactive experience. The most hardcore audience members become amateur sleuths, actively participating and contributing to the production by exhaustively researching the internet, chasing down leads, and contributing clues. The whole thing still has the raw recklessness and DIY energy of the early punk scene in which both artists and audience blindly jump in together without really knowing where it’s all going to end up. Better enjoy it now, because the big money has caught on to the gig and is about to suck the soul out of the place…. Again.
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What’s the strangest item or factoid you found in research?
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Mo Moulton: Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot went to the same dentist in the 1940s—and one time, she took advantage of meeting him there to ask him to look at Muriel St. Clare Byrne’s draft memoir! It worked: he published it at Faber & Faber.
Peter Houlahan: That Los Angeles is “The Bank Robbery Capital of the World,” with one quarter of all bank heists in America taking place within the jurisdiction of the L.A. field office of the FBI.
John Billheimer: In researching Hitchcock and the Censors, I found the censors’ aversion to toilets to be exceedingly strange. The Production Code adopted in 1934 explicitly stated that the policy of the censors was to “eliminate from scripts and pictures scenes and sequences played in, and in connection with, bathrooms.” Not only did censors advise against setting scenes in bathrooms, if a scene were set in a bathroom, filmmakers were not allowed to show a toilet. This ruling affected several of Hitchcock’s films, including such diverse entries as The Lady Vanishes and The Wrong Man. The director even had to expunge the off-screen sound of a toilet flushing in Mr. and Mrs. Smith by replacing the forbidden sound with the rattling of heating pipes.
Hitchcock eventually triumphed over the bluenoses by showing Janet Leigh flushing evidence down a toilet in Psycho. The censors were forced to admit this breach of the Production Code because a bit of paper that survived the flush was critical to the film’s plot. But Psycho contained one of the only shots and/or sounds of a toilet seen or heard on American movie screens between 1934 and 1968, when the Code was replaced by the current rating system.
Maureen Callahan: In declassified FBI docs I obtained, someone forgot to redact the reclassification of the Israel Keyes investigation from “serial murder” to “terrorism.” The FBI, to this day, denies that Keyes is under investigation as a domestic terrorist.
“George Remus did not wear underwear. Apparently in the 1920s an aversion to underwear was cause for great alarm—it was potentially the sign of an unsound mind…”–Karen Abbott
Karen Abbott (Nominated for Best Fact Crime – The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America): I was really fortunate to have found a 5,500 page trial transcript during my research. It was full of incredible details about the bootlegger George Remus and his staggering empire; for example, at the height of his operation, he owned 35 percent of all of the alcohol in the United States. There were also great details about Remus’s extravagant party favors: diamond stickpins for the men; a $1000 bill tucked under everyone’s plate; and, for every women attendee, a brand new 1922 car. Not surprisingly, Remus was one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s inspirations in his creation of Jay Gatsby.
But by far the strangest detail I found in the transcript: George Remus did not wear underwear. Apparently in the 1920s an aversion to underwear was cause for great alarm—it was potentially the sign of an unsound mind…
Axton Betz-Hamilton (Nominated for Best Fact Crime – The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity): The strangest factoid I found was the perpetrator in my book had said to at least one other person that I was going to marry my Ancient History professor. Not only was that an outright lie told by the perpetrator, it was an impossibility as I never took an ancient history class in college!
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In writing about real crimes, is there a responsibility owed to victims? How do you meet that responsibility?
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Maureen Callahan: Yes, yes, yes. I thought about the victims every day I sat down to write, and included only those details that went to establishing a pattern—because this serial killer is unique in that his patterns are extremely hard to detect. The hope is two-fold: That law enforcement can learn as much as possible from this book (and I’ve heard as much from l.e.) and that other high-profile cold cases around the country, several of which I include in the book as likely committed by Israel Keyes, will be re-opened.
Axton Betz-Hamilton: In my book, I am one of the victims, but the perpetrator left many victims in her wake. I felt a responsibility to tell my story accurately, along with the voices of the other victims. This involved visiting with them and being willing to hear their candor about their experiences with the perpetrator and what they remembered about me as a child and, in turn, conveying that in the text of the book.
Peter Houlahan: No. Our responsibility is to tell a true story as truthfully as possible. In doing that, we fulfill our responsibility to everyone in the story.
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Is there a kind of crime novel overdue for revival or reinvention?
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Carol Goodman: I love the romantic suspense travel novels of Mary Stewart and would happily read books in this vein.
Adriana Mather (Nominated for Best Young Adult – Killing November): Comedy! I’d love to see a modernized version of an Inspector Clouseau type character. What an amazing way to introduce mysteries and thrillers to kids through humor. And how incredibly difficult from a writing perspective!
Mo Moulton: I would love to read more modern takes on the classic ‘puzzle’ genre, in which all the clues are presented to the reader and it is, in theory, possible to deduce the solution yourself.
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What’s the most encouraging recent trend in crime fiction?
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Catriona McPherson: I’m going to answer these two together, because I would have said, for me, the PI sub-genre was overdue for something—although even as I write that I immediately think of Walter Mosely and Sara Paretsky and George Pellecanos and Laura Lippman—but I’m sticking with it. Then came Kristen Lepionka and Tracy Clark. I’m a huge fan of both these new PI series.
Gigi Pandian: I love that readers are rediscovering the joy of reading traditional puzzle plot mysteries, like those from the Golden Age of detective fiction between the two world wars.
I’ve always loved that style of fair-play mystery, especially locked-room impossible crime mysteries, so I’ve been excited to see both that publishers are reissuing classic mysteries that had gone out of print and that a new generation of mystery writing are creating books and stories in a similar vein.
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Are there lessons from other areas of literature you wish mystery would adopt?
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Emma Rowley (Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – Where the Missing Go): I’ve noticed it happening the other way at the moment—mystery plots being used to give other genres that essential narrative drive. I think genres borrowing from each other can help fiction develop in fresh and interesting ways, so long may it continue in every direction.
Catriona McPherson: This is publishing, not writing, but I do wish they would stop putting the first chapter of the next book on the end of the current book. I don’t know any reader who likes it and I can’t be the only one who hates it with a passion. I carefully portion out the last reading session of a crime novel so that I can enjoy the denouement properly. When I discover that my sweet, sweet forty pages is really only ten and it’s all over, but here’s the start of a book you can’t buy for a month? Grrrrrrr.
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We’re so sad to lose Barbara Neely before honoring her at the (now virtual) ceremony. Do you have a memory you’d like to share, or thoughts about her books or her legacy?
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Catriona McPherson: Barbara Neely was one of many writers I heard about for the first time after moving to the US and Blanche on the Lam was a revelation and inspiration. It was funny—truly funny, and not at all bleak even while it cast such a clear gaze on the reality of American lives. Come Edgars night, I was planning to say a quick thank you—for the masterclass in warmth and honesty—if I got the chance without being too annoying.
Tracy Clark: I wish I had a memory to share. I had hoped I’d have an opportunity to finally meet Barbara Neely in person after enjoying her books for so long. Blanche on the Lam, Blanche Passes Go, Blanche Cleans up. These books are sitting on my bookshelf right now. To see characters that finally looked like me, that spoke to me culturally, and to know a black woman created them, was so awe-inspiring. Blanche White is one of the first African-American fictional detectives, and Neely broke the trail for writers of color like me. I wish I’d had the chance to thank her in person.
