Since December 4th when United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead in midtown Manhattan, a continual panorama of news coverage has filled our devices and our minds.
An awful lot of "golden age" (and other) style murder stories do centre on better off victims, at least in stuff I read . Being a lord or a child or relative of a lord does seem to be quite dangerous. The investigators are quite often titled too for some reason and often oxbridge educated. This may be part of being "cozy" of course - I don't read many thrillers or things described as psychological. I wonder if a lot of this is to do with finding an interesting motive for the plot - titles or wealth tend to imply inheritance and for some reason dark secrets. Ordinary people tend not to have these which makes them less interesting victims, unless they have a characteristic attractive to a serial killer.
Being a detective seems to imply that you're damaged in some way or have a hidden past. I wonder what the statistics on that are. If not damaged then dashingly handsome of course.
Thanks for your thoughts. Interesting point about whether authors find it harder to attribute an interesting motive to people on the lower rungs of society. The trope of a detective with a wound is so common now it makes us think all detectives are like that. Stories are powerful. Do you think setting a lot of murder mysteries among affluent or upper class people makes us forget that murder afflicts the underprivileged more? Or are readers just seeking escape from painful realities?
I think that setting things amongst the affluent and the rich just makes it easier to complicate things for the writer. Murder amongst the rest of the world tends to be a bit more simple and boring and harder to embellish. More recent crime fiction is a bit more diverse in its settings though I think, especially in the darker and psychological works - not really my thing though. There seems to be a liking for cold cases now too and they often have more general settings as the investigation is harder.
But yes escapism is definitely part of it, both as seeing the a different world or as revenge on one's oppressors :-)
An awful lot of "golden age" (and other) style murder stories do centre on better off victims, at least in stuff I read . Being a lord or a child or relative of a lord does seem to be quite dangerous. The investigators are quite often titled too for some reason and often oxbridge educated. This may be part of being "cozy" of course - I don't read many thrillers or things described as psychological. I wonder if a lot of this is to do with finding an interesting motive for the plot - titles or wealth tend to imply inheritance and for some reason dark secrets. Ordinary people tend not to have these which makes them less interesting victims, unless they have a characteristic attractive to a serial killer.
Being a detective seems to imply that you're damaged in some way or have a hidden past. I wonder what the statistics on that are. If not damaged then dashingly handsome of course.
Thanks for your thoughts. Interesting point about whether authors find it harder to attribute an interesting motive to people on the lower rungs of society. The trope of a detective with a wound is so common now it makes us think all detectives are like that. Stories are powerful. Do you think setting a lot of murder mysteries among affluent or upper class people makes us forget that murder afflicts the underprivileged more? Or are readers just seeking escape from painful realities?
I think that setting things amongst the affluent and the rich just makes it easier to complicate things for the writer. Murder amongst the rest of the world tends to be a bit more simple and boring and harder to embellish. More recent crime fiction is a bit more diverse in its settings though I think, especially in the darker and psychological works - not really my thing though. There seems to be a liking for cold cases now too and they often have more general settings as the investigation is harder.
But yes escapism is definitely part of it, both as seeing the a different world or as revenge on one's oppressors :-)
Good points. Escapism vs. hard realism is a big divide in crime fiction.
Good Article with statistics to back it up. My favorite kind.