Our theme for the month of June is “confessions.”
I, Emily Stroble, hereby acknowledge that I have been duly apprised of my rights and afforded opportunity to be represented and advised by counsel and give written confession to being a murder junkie.
And I have committed crimes in pursuit of my obsession with mystery stories. I once idly occupied a treadmill in a crowded gym beyond the thirty-minute limit, spellbound by the final climax of And Then There Were None, to say nothing of numerous counts of Ignoring Bedtime and Obstruction of Library Book Return.
Of course, the seeds of crime were planted in my childhood. After my parents had tucked my siblings and I into our beds, I would fall asleep to the questioning, patiently plodding theme song to BBC’s Hercule Poirot with David Suchet. It was comforting, to be snuggled under one’s comforter, safe and content while some stuck-up prig gets creatively offed in a British country house.
Maybe that’s part of the appeal of murder mysteries—the delicious security of not dying in agony after ingesting arsenic or ground-up tiger whiskers (rumored ancient means of assassination in Asia and premise of an episode of the charming and compassionate mystery show, Father Brown). Mysteries put one’s problems into perspective. At least you aren’t sweating bullets because you put one through a relation on the very afternoon Hercule Poirot stopped by. There is, hypothetically, a British family, richer than yours, certainly, but also much more messed up.
The authors of the golden age of mystery wrote largely about an era, a society, and frankly, a socio-economic class far removed from the average person’s contemporary experience, creating a sense of safety, even superiority. Today’s writers have honored the tradition of fantastical settings. The TV procedural, Castle, features a ridiculous premise where millionaire, bestselling mystery author, Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion), solves murders with Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD, a relationship built on banter and PG sexual tension. Despite having no law enforcement credentials, Castle tags along for interviews, stings, and busts. Despite being a writer, he somehow lives in a penthouse. And it’s a stretch to imagine that this middle-aged, divorced single father has to practically beat women off with a stick, despite looking like…well…Nathan Fillion. It’s the self-indulgent fantasy of a crime writer.
As my friend and fellow writer, Allison, says, most stories are fantasy and escapism. While The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle takes the reader on a Quantum Leap-esque journey through the minds of suspects, most of us imagine ourselves in the shoes, or the trench coat, of the sleuth—calm, capable, relentless. This is particularly appealing to the anxious, the analytical, and the atypical. To the fictional detective, opaque human behavior is easily decoded and the world makes sense. The sleuth takes the supernatural, inexplicable, and convoluted in stride and is celebrated for their quirks and peculiarities. The audience is assured that the world is ultimately just, orderly, and logical. Maybe we even dare to hope that there is a place for our quirks.
Like in Psyche, a farcical, self-aware show, Shawn Spencer fakes being psychic to help the Santa Barbara police solve murders. Shawn is a screw-up. A loser. He is immature, irresponsible, and selfish, and that’s just the faults his friends and family know about. He builds a life and a business on an elaborate lie. And yet he is surrounded by people who love, accept, support, and forgive him, eventually enabling him to grow and positively contribute to his community.
Most of us are not pretending psychic abilities, but many of us live with load-bearing lies, things we fear to confess lest we lose the respect or love of others. But if Shawn Spencer can find purpose and acceptance after continually squandering opportunity and failing spectacularly then maybe…
For the most part, I don’t feel all that guilty about my guilty pleasure. But I do sometimes wrestle with the ethics of being a murder junky. Law-enforcement features heavily in most crime stories. In most cases, law enforcement are heros. At worst, a police officer might be painted as bumbling or dull compared to the brilliant sleuth. But in the hundreds of books and episodes I have consumed, few if any address brutality, corruption, or deeper, systemic issues. Often, characters are lauded for bending the rules as a means to a confession. Justice, and the systems supposedly created to safe-guard it are greatly, maybe criminally, simplified.
Exceptions exist. In the BBC series, Grandchester, a young parishioner’s execution takes a considerable mental toll on Sydney, a murder-solving Anglican priest. The Mentalist (my personal favorite of the genre), tackles corruption and conspiracy through its central plot, sometimes in ways so believable and frightening, I methodically locked every window in my first-floor apartment after a particular episode. And the original—Sherlock Holmes—sides with the criminal or enacts his own idea of justice as often as he aids the police (e.g. “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” and “The Speckled Band.”)
And maybe the great Sherlock Holmes provides the solution that exonerates me somewhat.
If Sherlock Holmes expresses a truth about the world, it is that while evil and injustice can appear at first glance to be inventive and clever, they are really nasty and ordinary, as common in the vaulted halls of power as in the corners of desperation. Systems and authorities, whether noble or corrupt, are not enough to ensure justice. The world needs writers, Belgian eccentrics, and fake psychics to solve problems. You don’t need to be official to help. You don’t even need to be “normal.” Anyone can hone their truth detection.
And one way to do that is to mindfully consume crime stories.
Emily Stroble is a writer of bits and pieces and is distractedly pursuing lots of novel ideas and nonfiction projects as inspiration strikes. As an editorial assistant at Zondervan, she helps put the pieces of children’s books and Bibles together. A lover of the ridiculous, inexplicable, and wondrous as well as stories of all kinds, Emily enjoys getting lost in museums, movies old and new, making art, the mountains of Colorado, and the unsalted oceans near Grand Rapids. Her movie reviews also appear in the Mixed Media section of The Banner and her strange little stories of the fantastic are on the Calvin alumni fiction blog Presticogitation. Her big dream is to dig her hands deep into the soil of making children’s books as an editor…and to finally finish her children’s novel.
