Meta-murderers

The majority of current crime fiction adheres to a well-worn template, even if writers don't admit as such. A murder turns carefully crafted order into chaos, and the process of investigation not only unearths how deep those layers of chaos are but also restores a sense of order with the murder's solution -- however illusory. Nowadays, that template acts as a bass line for the progression of a variety of character-driven melodies and harmonies based on plot and setting, and the whiff of formula is fading into the background of literary chord progressions. Today's readers are invested more in human behavior at its most extreme than in the intellectual exercises of a previous age of mystery that we call a Golden one.

By Sarah Weinman

August 31, 2008