Turning to Crime

When I first started plotting my culinary murder mysteries, it never occurred to me to connect food and crime. What first grabbed my attention was the number of baby-boomers moving into small towns and coastal villages looking for some kind of 'life transformation' that would take them away from the soul destroying demands of the city. Basically I was interested in character development, on that emotional journey which drives folk to love, hate, be generous or exploitative, offer friendship or rationalize their less praiseworthy actions and even murder someone they may once have loved. Of course there's always a little 'biblio-therapy'. Like many authors I use my writing to explore areas into which I don't dare tread.

I had only to visit bookstores and libraries to see how popular the crime genre is. My local library buys more crime than any other fiction, including fantasy. I think there are several reasons. Firstly the structure of any crime story, much like those folktales read to us when we were young, is ultimately satisfying. The crime novel posits a bad deed that must be solved before the end of the book. The wicked are always found out, vanquished and brought to justice. Because I also write for children, and children's books are implicitly moral, I like the idea of good overcoming bad.
Secondly, I quickly realised that I could use this genre to focus on the south coast of Australia and the general concern with inappropriate development. I could also write about the success and failure of many small businesses and the fate of the elderly in a youth obsessed society. What interested me is what happens to a small community when innocent people become involved in a major crime because it is then that their true character is revealed.

Thirdly there are all those celebrity chefs that manage to make cooking so complex, so over the top, so unattainable. So much easier whilst we nibble on a cheese sandwich to watch someone else prepare 'boned pouched quail served on a champagne and truffle roulade rather than attempt this complexity oneself.

Nevertheless I had a problem. It seemed as if I was attempting a retrogressive act. Books like everything else are trend-driven. My idea was a sub-genre and difficult to sell. Though culinary/murder/mysteries are popular in the US, so far no one had published any here. Hadn't we managed to get away from smug villages where elderly spinsters are replaced by psychological profilers, forensic experts, hard hitting if flawed cops, PI's, and testosterone driven women. What cheered me on was that if I was tired of reading blood and guts, if I considered some of those 'gung-ho' female detectives and blemished P.I's as being too improbable, maybe other folk might feel the same?

Australia has a distinguished history of crime fiction where we have freely borrowed from the English and Americans to produce a successful hybrid that features our distinctive vernacular. Quite understandably our fiction reflects our history. It follows our convict beginnings, plays a role in creating bush myths, uses our gold diggers and squattocracy to create thrillers which mirror our early ambivalence between imperialism and independence, explores our dreadful treatment of indigenous people and reflects the contemporary political and social conflicts that make up our multicultural society. Australian crime fiction can be serious in intent or purposefully escapist. Whichever, it can never be mistaken as emerging from any other culture and that of course, is its great strength.

Val McDermitt makes the point that a lot of Literary Fiction with its emphasis on literary and critical theory has gotten away from narrative. Readers still want narrative. Convincing characters must be placed into a story that has a beginning, a middle, a climax, and an end. It is not enough to have characters doing inexplicable things no matter how delicate or how meditative that text might be. In my humble opinion a good crime novel contains three important elements: intrigue, intimacy and style. The intrigue is the 'whodunnit' part – that aspect which involves the writer in careful research, plotting, sub-plotting and some convincing red herrings. Predicated on this is that no novel can be quite perfect. Like a good Turkish carpet, there must be some flaw to help discover the culprit(s). The intimacy comes from developing the major characters' personalities, to show how they handle the crime, to illuminate their private thoughts and prejudices, and as anyone who has ever lived on a small community will have experienced, the gossip and interest we have in our friends and neighbours' affairs. Style is how these aspects interweave. Is there anything experimental in the writing? How is language used? Is there anything original in the way these elements combine? Is there any way we can make that novel become a page-turner and jump off the shelves? Writing a novel is a very strange business. Yet in spite of its frustrations and anxieties, I can't think of anything else I want to do. Novelists tend to obsess about characters, plots, the various ways their stories can be improved. For my own part, I find it hard to read anything I have written that is published because I know that there will be some word, some phrase, I will be desperate to change. Besides, there is always the fear that one day my brain might run out of characters or, heaven help me, ideas.

Thus in my first culinary-murder-mystery novel UnJust Desserts Not Just Desserts, the deli and catering firm owned by Olivia Beauman, is also fearful of becoming bankrupt. Though many people hate the local entrepreneur Harry Oldritch, it is his long suffering wife Queenie and his mistress Bettina who die after old fashioned pesticide is placed into meals Olivia has prepared. It is through Olivia's cooking and that of her friends that I could insert my recipes, all tried and true.

When I came to write the sequel my major characters had developed such strong personalities, I couldn't tear them away from their chosen paths. In UnKind Cut Kingston Ellis, the celebrated Shakespearean actor has retired to Grevillea on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. There the Galahs, a local amateur company, are trying to raise money by staging their debut production of Julius Caesar and Kingston offers to play the title role. Subplots include the general comings and goings of a small community when the occupants mingle with the rich and famous.

My major problem was how to put in enough detail to make the sequel stand on its own, yet not bore anyone who had read UnJust Desserts with too much retelling. This became a delicate balancing act. Though crime writers are sometimes perceived as primarily focusing on plot, good plots are by their very nature character driven. Even the most dastardly of villains has something 'good' in him or her, and the most likeable of characters, something nasty. Though all my murder-victims are in many ways either unfortunate or unpleasant, the ripples from their untimely end changes other lives. I suppose that is really what those books are about. I already have the third novel in mind. But I'm still not sure of who the victim is, and the reasons for his grisly end. But I am sure that just by keeping an eye on the media something will come to me. Have you noticed how often fiction is far less scary or improbable than fact.