Snuff Enough

For a while now, I’ve been considering writing about murder -- specifically, murder mysteries. I adore them. I like old witty English ones and gritty noir. I inherited and read my father’s collection of 60s-80s arrogant male asshole detective fiction. I have not one but two favorite Dutch mystery authors; I wish the second had as good a translator as the first. Who doesn’t love a good mystery?

Murder is by definition violent, catastrophic and tragic. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about fictional mysteries. They can be Marx Brothers level funny, or as complex as chess. The structure of a mystery is similar to science fiction/fantasy in its lack of realism. Come on, a real witness to violence wouldn’t calmly remember the clock or that the spoons were upside down.

Let me tell you what happened. I was reading at the gym. A friend asked what it was. I showed him the cover, Ngaio Marsh, circa 1966. He scoffed. He said that reading mysteries was the same thing as watching a snuff film. That’s a quote, and he meant it. He angrily brushed aside my talk of puzzles and metaphor, and denied the separation between death and fiction. I gave up arguing with him after a while.

Now I can’t stop imagining Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher talking to the press about police progress in the latest urban atrocity, or David Suchet mincing around the scene of a drive-by. Insert the goofiest TV detective you can remember into today’s headlines. It might mitigate the tragedy for an instant.

Some stories are just stories. It’s reality that bites. Elementary, my dear Watson.