Genre conventions in crime fiction

The reproduction of certain patterns in crime literature as a mass field has long been noticed by both researchers and readers; it has also become a subject of reflection by authors (just to quote the famous “Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction” by Ronald Knox and “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” by Steven Van Dine). John Cawelty’s no less famous work “Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture” [Cawel-ty 1976] introduces the notion of the literary formula as a structure of narrative or dramaturgical conventions that are used in a great number of writings. Among more recent studies of Russian scholars we could refer to Ilya Samoru-kov’s thesis “Mass Literature: The Problem of Artistic Reflection” [Саморуков 2006] and Maria Cherniak’s textbook “Mass Literature of the 20th Century” [Черняк 2009], which examines the question of the genre-thematic canon. This issue is discussed repeatedly in the fundamental collection “Literatura krymi-nalna. Na tropie źródeł” [Gemra 2015], edited by Anna Gemra.

However, despite this heightened attention to the problem, a range of its important points still remain under-reflected. This is largely due to the traditional understanding of the “detective” as a genre, and, for example, the classic detective, the police novel, etc. – as its variants. In a comprehensive analysis of specific texts, unfortunately, this scheme does not stand up to criticism. It turns out that if we take into account the differences from the verbal level to the type of hero and the kind of relation to the extra-artistic reality of the author / reader (see the analytical review by N.D. Tamarchenko [Тамарченко 2011, 76]), then we are facing independent genres in accordance with the three-dimensional model developed by M.M. Bakhtin, which defines genre as “the typical whole of an artistic utterance” («типическое целое художественного высказывания» [Медведев 1993, 144]).

Thus, instead of a single convention governing the poetics of some abstract “detective,” we should be talking about several genre conventions which, consciously or not, are observed by both authors and readers, for these are, according to Viktor Shklovsky, “the conditions of the relationship of structures which the author involuntarily concludes between him / her / self and those to whom s/he makes messages, and are sometimes theoretically realized” («условия взаимоотношения структур, которые автор невольно заключает между собой и теми, кому он делает сообщения, и иногда теоретически осознаются» [Шкловский 1983, 96]). Thus, the conventions governing the poetics of different criminal genres will differ considerably as far as the functions of the victim character are considered. The following scheme, based on the traditional understanding of the problem, will only be true for the classical detective novel, but not, for example, for the police novel with its frequent sympathy for the victim (Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall’s “Roseanna”, Aleksandra Marinina’s “Death for Death”): “The victim, nominally being the starting point of the development of the action <...> in the course of the development of the action constantly appears in retrospect, at the same time the hero-victim is of interest more as a function” («Жертва, номинально являясь отправной точкой развития действия… по ходу развития действия постоянно возникает в ретроспекциях, в то же время герой-жертва интересен более как функция» [Николина, Литовская, Купина 2009, 70]). But the presence of the Great Detective in the system of characters does not yet make the work a classic detective, if the main part of the investigation in it is conducted by a potential victim or witness (Agatha Christie’s “Sleeping Murder”, Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”).

This is an example of a broken convention, where we see how a stable structure breaks down and the work balances on the boundaries of the genre or a synthesis of different genre models occurs altogether. Let us examine from this point of view the three most famous and venerable genres of criminal literature: the classic detective, the “adventurous investigation” (in the terminology of N.N. Kirilenko), the police novel and the one usually called the thriller, although due to the very vague content of this concept I propose to abandon it and call this genre “investigation of the victim” – by the nature of the main character acting as a detective.

The essential conditions that determine whether a work belongs to the classic detective genre is the presence of the figure of the Great Detective, who is a priori superior to the other subjects of investigation and the criminal and outplays them, and successfully solves the crime (see Natalia Kirilenko’s framework [Кириленко 2020, 130]). A detective of this type cannot lose to the criminal in any way, and the story necessarily has to be based on the event of the crime and its investigation. We observe this in Edgar Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, in Conan Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet” and “The Sign of the Four”, as well as in a number of his novels, and in a considerable number of Christie’s works on Poirot and Miss Marple. However, if even one of the elements of the convention is compromised, it immediately leads to the disharmony of the entire structure as a whole, due to which the genre specific nature of the work also changes. In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, both of the above conditions break down: there is no crime in the legal sense, since Irene Adler has every right to keep pictures of her former august lover, and Holmes also loses to “That Woman”, who at the very last moment denies him the chance to fully fulfill his client’s assignment. Take another text from the same corpus, “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”, where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, playing with a blackmailer, turn from detectives into hapless burglars, leaving too many traces and only because of their reputation, not falling under police suspicion. The change of roles within the character scheme also has a detrimental effect on the genre fabric.

Finally, the most fascinating example is “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, whose belonging to the genre of the classic detective is not normally questioned. However, this is a case where the genre, while retaining its overall identity, is at the same time nearing its extreme: the role of Watson’s parallel investigation is hypertrophied here; consequently, the great detective remains largely “behind the scenes”, taking little part in the direct action at the crime scene; moreover, Holmes himself becomes the object of surveillance and does not notice it until Watson appears in the cave. Finally, the most serious argument is that there is a danger of neglecting the client’s life out of love for “rounding the case”, which Holmes himself reproaches himself for: “I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case well rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life of my client. It is the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career” [Conan Doyle 1902, 192]. Only luck saves the case from failure – a fugitive convict dies instead of Sir Henry, as does his other travesty double, Dr. Mortimer’s spaniel.

The genre convention of the police novel, on the contrary, does not tolerate the detective having fun playing with the criminal, and this is the most important difference from the classic detective. In addition, the investigation here is always of a team character with the selection in this team of professionals of the main character (hence the traditional nomination of series of such novels by the name of the detective). But the team is always a limited circle of colleagues, usually working in the same organization or police station (as in the Ed McBain series “87th Precinct”). In James Patterson’s dilogy “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue”, the type of hero and his relationship with the main criminal, his FBI partner Kyle Craig, changes above all. They act as a sort of doubles, especially noticeable in the final stage of the investigation, when Detective Alex Cross takes on a punitive function in the last fight, which goes beyond the powers of a policeman. The hero himself recognizes that this could lead his personal identity to disintegration, afraid of turning into a monster like the murderer.

The team changes, growing to “the entire Washington DC police force” plus three or four hundred FBI agents (as does the number of criminals and the main antagonist’s masks increasing almost to infinity). The type of crime also changes – the police novel, unlike the classic detective, is not defined by unique and bizarre crimes, but here the criminals include real vampires who drink the blood of their victims (and there is no supernatural explanation for this). Finally, the principle of at least a relative happy-ending changes: thus, in “Roses Are Red” not only is there no return to the normal course of life, but the hero does not manage to establish the identity of the main criminal who kills his girlfriend companion at all. While remaining a policeman who follows the exact procedure of the investigation, Cross is powerless in his role as a detective. Only by acting like a hero of hard-boiled fiction can he outsmart, discover, and punish the criminal. It seems that the author in this case combines the features of the police novel and the “hard-boiled detective”, at the same time playing and trying to break through their stereotypes.

The play with genre traditions also determines the poetics of R. Nazirov’s unfinished crime novel “The Provincial Clockmaker”, which was apparently worked on at the turn of 1981–1982 (the text was first published in a specialized journal devoted to the heritage of the author, known primarily as a literary scholar and specialist in Dostoevsky and mythopoetics [Назиров 2016, 38–80]; in the same source see my detailed commentary on the features of this novel’s genre poetics [Федунина 2016, 112–118]). This work, which, unfortunately, was not completed by the author, mainly plays on the genre conventions of the police novel (in its socialist-realist version) and the “adventure investigation”, which had already taken shape in the works of Emile Gabauriot, Gaston Leroux and Maurice Leblanc. Continuing to develop at the present time (see a number of works by Boris Akunin, Claude Izner), it was not considered an independent genre of criminal literature for a long time and was relatively recently first described by N.N. Kirilenko [Кириленко 2020, 104–117]. Deprived, unlike a classical detective, of the exclusive right to establish the truth, the hero of an “adventure investigation” can make mistakes and fall into traps (a typical example is Akunin’s novel “The Mistress of Death”, where the truth is known to another character, also leading the investigation, long before Fandorin, and the fate of the main character in the denouement is decided by “blind chance”). However, what brings this genre closer to the classic detective is that the hero also has the pleasure of playing both criminals and agents of the law: Lecoq, Lupin, and Fandorin can all be named in this series).

In Nazirov’s novel “The Provincial Clockmaker”, police officers investigate a murder, enlisting the help of a lay detective who surpasses them in knowledge and ability. It would seem that this intervention of a layman hero breaks the basic convention of the police novel. However, the genre model of “adventurous investigation” is also destroyed, since the protagonist, watchmaker Vasily Zabluda is burdened both by the “paperwork” of an official investigation and by the need to enter into adventurous relationships with witnesses in order to obtain the necessary information from them. Colliding within a single work, the two mutually excluding genre conventions prevent the further formation of the character’s portrayal, also prevent the development of the plot, and, ultimately, its ending.

Let us address another criminal genre, where the main subject of the investigation is not the Great Investigator or a team of professionals, but the potential victim of a crime. Without dwelling in detail on all the elements of this genre structure, which I have already described earlier [Федунина 2013, 161–171; Кириленко, Федунина 2019, 162–178], I will note that the heroine (less often the hero) of this type leads a forced investigation in order to save her life, becoming an object of a game by the criminal (“The Dancing Detective” by William Irish, “La mort des bois” [The Forest Death] by Brigitte Aubert).

The dénouement involves an immediate and one-on-one confrontation between the criminal and the victim, preceded by the sequential removal of her defenders (the title of one of the final chapters of Ethel Lina White’s “Some Must Watch” is “Alone”). In Ira Levin’s novel “Sliver”, however, Kay Norris’s life is rescued in this final duel by her cat, which lunges at the offender and blinds him. This would seem to be a very minor digression from convention. However, it prompts a more dramatic one: at the end of the novel, the victim and her new friend, without any “benefit to the cause,” out of sheer curiosity, set out to spy on the tenants of the house, using for this purpose the equipment left over from the murderer. In fact, the victim begins to repeat the behavior of the criminal who was watching the tenants, and this change of roles destroys the very core of the genre, where the distribution of roles should be unequivocal.

Thus, we note that, first of all, each of the criminal genres epitomizes its own particular convention by which the works are composed and how they are perceived by the reader. The most important element by which genres are differentiated in this framework is the attitude toward the play inside the fiction world: from the rationally playful classical detective and “adventure investigation” [Кириленко 2020, 116] to the police novel and the “investigation of the victim,” where the play is initiated only by the criminal and is therefore judged adversely.

Secondly, breaking convention blurs the confines of the genre and can be a form of artistic play. For criminal literature, with its set of clichés, the slightest change usually leads to the collapse of the structure as a whole. However, any genre that has a very rigid design cannot, apparently, last long in its pristine form. If it is not shattered, it is either played out or becomes a “dead” genre altogether, like the classic detective, which no longer yields new texts. As N.N. Kirilenko notes, “the classic detective has withdrawn from the ‘living literary progress,’ remaining a canon, a model, as well as the main target of polemic, parody, etc., for other genres of criminal literature” («классический детектив ушел из “живого литературного процесса”, оставаясь каноном, образцом, а также основным объектом полемики, пародирования и т.п. для других жанров криминальной литературы» [Кириленко 2020, 29]).

In crime fiction, with its emphasis on detective intrigue, it is virtually impossible to hold the reader’s attention for long just by describing incredible crimes if the reader knows in advance that they will be effortlessly solved by the Great Detective. This is particularly why the classic detective has proven less viable than the relatively flexible police novel and “victim investigation.” It is also conceivable that there is a certain macro-convention common to crime literature as a whole, but its reconstruction and relation to genre conventions is a matter for a different study.

Translated by Alexander Markov.