Dan Krokos

I write crime fiction.

But I don’t consider myself an expert. What is a crime novel, exactly? If it focuses on crime, is it a crime novel? Does it need gangs and contract killers and thieves and guns? Does the main conflict have to revolve around crime?

I don’t know.

But I thought about it the other day, and I realized that almost every novel can be considered a crime novel depending on what criteria you use.

Conflict is the driving force in any story. It’s why we read. We have a character who wants something and we read about how he/she tries to get it. We read because there is fun opposition to keep us interested. That conflict can be anything.

Quite often, it’s crime.

An example from a non-crime book I read recently:

CRACKED UP TO BE by the magical Courtney Summers. This is an edgy YA that focuses on a crime, the rape and disappearance of a girl. There are no cops, no gangs, no guns that I can remember. There was underage drinking, some vandalism.

But the central problem revolves around a crime, and yet it’s not a crime-novel.

So maybe a book needs more than just crime.

What about the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher? PI/Wizard Harry Dresden solves supernatural crimes in each book. And yet the focus is more on the magical world, and how he uses magic to solve crimes. Sure, there’s some conventional criminals like mob boss John Marcone, but they don’t feel like crime novels. You get a taste of magic, not squalor.

So maybe that’s it. Maybe we need to examine the darker side of human nature. The criminal in people.

Continuing down this road, read any swords and horses fantasy novel ever. Chances are the antagonists are doing something that goes against the law of the land. Maybe they’re trying to end the world. That’s a crime, people.

Look at your favorite protagonist. I bet he or she committed some crimes to attain their goals. Know why? Because playing by the rules is boring. We read to watch characters do things we don’t have the guts or will to do.

What’s the point in all this?

Crime is everywhere. It is driving our plots.

My new writer friend, Victoria Schwab http://veschwab.livejournal.com/ , recently did a post on her top five reads this year. It was so much fun I’ve decided to steal the idea and make one myself. But I’m lazy and sleepy, so I’m only doing three books.

1. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

I can’t say enough things about this book. I could write a book about this book. This book changed my life as a writer. It was the first crime fiction book I read that blew my mind out of my ass, and I mean that in a good way.

It evoked such emotion in me that I had to put it down several times to pace and think about the story. The love story in it will tear your guts out. The action is so crisp it feels like high def. The dialogue rips your ears off and feeds them to you.

The story switches between past and present, essentially two short novels that intertwine and connect by the end. Normally this would be off-putting, but the stories are so equally amazing you don’t mind the switch.

This book opened me up to crime fiction.

2. The Eternal Prison by Jeff Somers

Jeff cranks up the epicness in each installment of the Avery Cates series. In this one we go all over the world and meet cannibals and robots and fallen cops and every flavor of bad guy you can imagine. Futuristic crime fiction at its best.

What makes TEP special is the myriad twists it contains. Halfway through you will go NO WAY! Then at the end you will go NO WAY! Several times you will go NO WAY! So combining its twists with its epic nature gives this one the number 2 spot for me this year.

This is hard. I’m so glad I’m not a book critic. Moving on.

3. Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

Really, all these books are tied. I am ordering them for the sake of order. I want an orderly blog.

Caught Stealing had as much impact on me as Beat the Reaper. If you read my novel, you will see this. The way Huston takes his protagonist, Henry Thompson, on a trip from helpless failed-athlete/bartender to full-fledged avenger is astonishing. You root for this guy and cheer his victories when they come. He is an everyman with the boring parts taken out.

Caught Stealing is also special because it influenced the way I write more than any other book. Like Charlie Huston, I do not use dialogue tags. I do not use anything. Dialogue gets its own paragraph, forever. A character’s action or voice sets off who’s speaking.

This might sound strange, but after reading it for a page or two it seems natural. There’s nothing to muck up the flow, and the dialogue simply rolls down the page like melted butter.

My novels have better similes than that.

Edit: I just looked at my bookshelf and realized what a sham this post is. There are so many I want to include in my top three. Here’s a small sampling:

Contagious by Scott Sigler (Greatest, most heart-wrenching climax I’ve ever read. I closed the book with so many conflicting emotions I had to drown myself in scotch.)

The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski (Just pure fun. A pace that will literally break your neck or at least give you cramps.)

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Just a taut taut taut story. YA that doesn’t pull punches.)

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (The most vibrant, original novel I’ve ever read. His sensory details are the best in the business. His capacity to express human emotion makes me feel like a fraud, like I don’t have the right to write.)

Anything else by Charlie Huston. I read all his novels this year and the man has been such an inspiration that I would kiss him on the mouth if I ever met him.

There, I feel better now.