*Death and Dickens

Yesterday I attended a panel with three crime novel writers: Anne Perry, Laura Wilson, and Kate Summerscale. The topic for the discussion was Dickens and the Victorian crime novel. Anne Perry has written several books with Victorian detectives, Kate Summerscale has a nonfiction book out about a real Victorian detective, and Laura Wilson has written several crime novels as well as a few things about Dickens and the Victorian period.

Specifically, the discussion covered the appeal of the Victorian period. They made the point that the period was the beginning of the "detective inspector" in both real life and fiction. They all agreed that as the attitudes of people became more private, the more it was necessary for detectives, and the more their interference was resented. Detectives were compared to rat catchers, both considered necessary evils that you let in through the backdoor and hoped no one else knew about it. They also discussed that having a Victorian detective with a good family life, as they often had, was far more appealing than the recent trend of a drunk detective with a badly broken relationship. In addition, the working class man turned cop provides a different style than the meddling aristocrat that just happens to come along and solve everything like it's a hobby. I noted with interest that in order to do something new with the crime genre they've turned back to the old style.

Another point they raised was the setting of Victorian London. Perry remarked that you could make the city as romantically beautiful or as rottenly disgusting as you like. The city had its rich parks and cobblestone streets with carriages and people rushing about. But it also was incredibly dirty, filled with sewage and lowlifes. Being such a large city in the middle of a large empire also meant that you could encounter anyone and everyone. All nationalities and cultures met in the city. And the feature they adored most was the lack of modern technology. Crime is much easier to write without mobile phones and DNA. They laughed at the points when other writers would have to make a dead zone for their hero's phone to move the plot forward. Another good feature with working with a large city is that the crime rate is believable and real. They all agreed that they wouldn't want to go to a party with Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher as someone will undoubtedly end up dead. They laughed even more wondering where all the people were coming from in the small country villages where it seems a dead body is discovered every other week. Surely they'd run out of people to be murder victims? While the little old lady in the country and the passing aristocrat at a country manor house may be old fashion in the world of crime novels, the Victorian city is back in style.

I really enjoyed listening to the panel discussion, both as a student of literature and a writer. They brought up some amazing points about the Victorian era and Dickens. Anne Perry mentioned that Charles Dickens will never go out of style because he captured human emotions so well. And I really agree. Good fiction not only captures the imagination, but it has that element of human feeling. And if that is what it takes to write lasting novels, the crime novels are bound to stick around for forever. What better way to capture human emotion than driving it to the extremes with a murder or a stolen precious item?