Anyone else write it? Like it? Just wondering as yesterday I heard a comment that suggested it was not a popular genre - that a lot of people have a resistance to reading it.
Views on historical crime fiction?
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Sorry to be so dense, 
but what do you mean by historical crime fiction? I am working on something but I'm not sure if falls into that category.
but what do you mean by historical crime fiction? I am working on something but I'm not sure if falls into that category.I have almost finished a crime novel based on fact set in 1692 so I guess that fits your description. One agent told me he loves that type of book but that he finds it difficult to place. Another publisher told me it is very popular. I hear varying accounts of its popularity but I hope I can place mine somewhere.
Barbara
Barbara
Sorry to be so dense,
I just mean crime fiction that is set in a previous period of history. So a cross between a historical novel and a crime novel. My own book is set in Russia in 1866.
Hi Roger,
Well I got into writing the novel because I read the Old Bailey trial of Henry Harrison when he committed the murder of Dr. Andrew Clenche. I was not only totally immersed in the trial but I thought it would make a fantastic book. I am still not convinced that Mr. Harrison murdered the doctor, nevertheless he was hung in April 1692. None of his witnesses were cross examined at the trial and there were eight of them. I suppose we will never know for sure whether he committed the crime.
One agent told me that he would be in the queue to buy the book if I find a publisher. He didn't offer to represent me though. It's with other agents who are reading it and I just hope and pray that it will get published by a mainstream publisher.
Roger,
What is your book about. I know it is set in Russia in 1866. Is it a murder, a trial etc.
What more does he want from a manuscript? I mean, if that isn't enough to persuade him to take the book on, then what is?
My book is called A Gentle Axe (The Gentle Axe in America) - it takes on the detective Porfiry Petrovich from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and puts him in his own sleuthing yarn. There's more about it on the second link below. Thanks for asking!
Roger
Ah! I personally love those kinds of books. Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" is one of my favorite books, among others.
But no, my wip is not the same. It is set in the present but deals with a real murder from the late 1800s. I would love to turn it into book about the murder some day according to me
(still questions about what really happened), but that's for a later date.Good luck with your wip, I hope you find a home for it! And for you, too, Barbara. I think yours sounds fantastic as well. My real person's story has similar elements.
Keep me posted if you ever get pub'd, I would love to read them.
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I was just looking through the threads here for some pointers and found this one. I've been mainly over at the historical section but my book is more of a historical mystery. It's set in 1642. I hope that type of book is still popular.
When that sort of work is done well, I love it. The setting adds a richness and depth that is just as much a part of the story as the plot.
HC
I've never heard that historical crime was a hard sell. There have certainly been a fair number of bestseller novels in this genre. I love reading them, if they're really well done.
I've never heard that historical crime was a hard sell. There have certainly been a fair number of bestseller novels in this genre. I love reading them, if they're really well done.
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Also see Diana Gabaldon's first Lord John Grey novel. I think she's doing historical mystery with these.
And if you like the Alienist, there is also a sequel to it....whose name seems to escape me at the moment. As someone who works in the criminal justice system, and has a degree in criminal justice, these books were well done...I particularly enjoyed the Alienist and its sequel because it paid so much attention to the forensic methods and theories that were employed at the time. What I remembered as dull boring reading material from college leapt off the page, which made these all the more enjoyable for me.
And if you like the Alienist, there is also a sequel to it....whose name seems to escape me at the moment. As someone who works in the criminal justice system, and has a degree in criminal justice, these books were well done...I particularly enjoyed the Alienist and its sequel because it paid so much attention to the forensic methods and theories that were employed at the time. What I remembered as dull boring reading material from college leapt off the page, which made these all the more enjoyable for me.
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'Angel of Darkness' is the sequel. I liked 'The Alienist' but I've still to get round to the sequel.
JessR
I like Historical Mystery. Couldn't write a Mystery to save my life, but I enjoy reading them.
Has anyone else noticed the direct corrolation of Historical Mysteries coming more to the fore as modern forensics becomes more and more commonly known?
I wonder if these trips into the past isn't a way to by-pass the readers' modern illusion that forensics will solve every crime within a matter of days and basically take all the fun out of the tale-telling. Or is it just me?
Has anyone else noticed the direct corrolation of Historical Mysteries coming more to the fore as modern forensics becomes more and more commonly known?
I wonder if these trips into the past isn't a way to by-pass the readers' modern illusion that forensics will solve every crime within a matter of days and basically take all the fun out of the tale-telling. Or is it just me?
I went to the Theakston's Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate in July, and there was a seminar given by two forensic investigators on forensics for crime writers. They said that books that rely on listing details of forensic procedures go out of date so quickly that they become unintentionally comic. Already books written in the early 90s sound odd.
So that seems to me the perfect justification for writing historical crime fiction. Lindsey Davis, who writes books set in ancient Rome, doesn't seem to be having any difficulty making sales
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Look at the Historical Novel Society's magazine, and you will find many reviews of published historical crime novels in each issue.
www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
Historical crime fiction, such as THE PALE BLUE EYE, as well as historical crime creative non-fiction, with books like THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, has become a mega big seller as of late -- I have 50, count 'em, 50 new ones on my desk right now. With the high sales of THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER (set in the early 1900s) and its subsequent sale to the movies, it's a hot genre.
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It's my favorite book to read and write. If it is correctly written and thoroughly researched, we can all feel as if we’ve been there. It is always instructive and fun and yet we can take a few extra creative liberties because hey, we don’t know some things didn’t or couldn’t have happened.
has anyone read Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell? Its about Jack the Ripper and is apparently great and really factual. I work in promotions for her new book, Book of the Dead, which is about criminal forensics as well but is set in modern times. Heres the link to her website, you can read and excerpt from the new book and get info on her old books.
www.patriciacornwell.com
www.patriciacornwell.com
My opinion: it's not great, it plays fast and loose with the facts; it's not even an admirable job of research.
She had a very strong belief that she knew the truth; she is an intelligent and persuasive person with a HUGE reading public and an almost unlimited budget (she actually purchased one of Sickert's paintings in order to rip it apart in her zeal to find DNA evidence).
I am a fan of her Scarpetta fiction but it's a lousy book; the writing is truly stilted. Too bad Ann Rule hasn't investigated Jack the Ripper.
And Cornwell's book isn't historical fiction; it's true crime.
Well, her new book is another Scarpetta installment and i've read some pretty good reviews of it. Did anyone happen to catch her on Good Morning America the other day? she definitely seems really intelligent
I read the new one yesterday -- The Book of the Dead -- and it's terrific. I think she's brilliant and exceptionally gifted... but her Jack the Ripper theory, and book, is truly not convincing. She was convinced she was right and she fit the facts to her theory, which is ass backwards in terms of writing true crime.
I'm with Donald Rumbleow on this one... but any one who writes true crime would salivate at her access.
I recommend you read her Ripper book, though, and see what you think. It's worth reading... though I wonder if she hadn't been who she was, if it had would have been published. Her weird style, which works for her fiction, is stilted for non-fiction.
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so glad to hear you liked Book of the Dead so much! i haven't had a chance to read it but i thought the excerpt from her website was really gripping. Heres an interview she did for ABC..she really knows her stuff!
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=books&id=5725936
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=books&id=5725936
Being something of a Ripper "fan" with an extensive library of books, I picked up Cornwall's book because it dealt with a suspect that I don't normally see and, honestly, thought was ridiculous, but figured I'd read the argument anyway. I wasn't impressed with the book, outside of her extremely nice description of the workings of DNA. That wasn't enough to keep the book in my Ripper collection, though.
If you want to read about the Ripper, stick with authors like Rumbleow and Beggs. If you want "lighter" reading on the topic, you're better served checking out www.casebook.org than reading that book.