Crime fiction is often cited as the most popular genre out there, but why is it that we love it so much?
I think there are a variety of reasons for this. One is that it doesn’t shy away from dealing with difficult subjects. Instead, it tackles them head on. In short, it doesn’t treat people as idiots. It treats them as grown-ups.
There is also a realism in much crime fiction that people can relate to. The stories might be set in places that are unfamiliar to us and be about things that we have no direct experience of, but we all know what crime is and are highly likely to have direct or indirect experience of it ourselves. It’s something that is tangible in our own lives, something that we can connect to while at the same time allowing us to look at things from a safe distance.
It allows us to look into the lives of other people – often ordinary people, people who we could know or even be ourselves. There is something compelling about that; the fact that even though many crime novels wouldn’t happen in reality, there is a seed of truth in them and things happen in them that could be real.
They also engage the brain. The plots are interesting and often complicated. They require us to think and concentrate, and the genre boasts some of the most compelling characters in literature. Plus there is a huge amount of variety in the genre, from Scandinavian crime fiction to police procedurals, psychological thrillers, the traditional whodunit and gritty urban events. There is something for everyone to love, and plenty for crime lovers to devour.
We can never run out of crime stories, and there are always new interesting crime writers coming along and doing different things with the genre. With all of this to offer, it is no wonder that readers keep on coming back for more.