Hi Reader,

I spent thirty years watching real criminals. In interview rooms, in courtrooms, in the back of police vehicles. I saw people who'd done terrible things as they sat across from me and tried to explain themselves. They always tried to justify their actions. Sometimes there was remorse. Sometimes there wasn't.

What I did see though, always, was an internal logic as they told their story and tried to make everything add up, to guide me to the logical outcome of whatever circumstance they were in. That story was for them, not for me. They were trying to convince themselves that what they were saying made sense. Usually, it didn’t.

I think about that a lot now that I'm writing crime fiction. Some criminals are pure evil. Some just make poor choices and end up somewhere they never planned to be.

The best fictional criminals, in my opinion, all share that same characteristic. They rationalise, either internally or out loud to whoever will listen. As a reader you get to follow their flawed logic all the way without the weight of any real consequences. If the story is written well, you get to feel their emotions and understand how they arrived at their decisions, and then you get to put the book down.

Like I said in an earlier email, crime-fiction sometimes makes us explore our own moral structure. It makes us think about the “what ifs”, about how things could have, perhaps, been different in our own lives if our circumstances were like those in the book. It’s the point somewhere in the story, where you realise you care less about the detective solving the case because you’ve formed a bond with the crook and just want to spend more time with them.

I've felt it. You probably have too.

The most compelling crime-fiction villains tend to look unremarkable from the outside. They’re neighbours. Colleagues. People who are funny at dinner parties, who always turn up on time. Their exterior, if not perfect, is at least admirable and likeable, but their interior is another matter entirely. There's something compelling about following a character through their ordinary daily life, knowing what you know, watching them navigate obstacles while everyone around them has no idea about their true identity. Crime-fiction does that better than any other genre.

Some villains grip you through sheer physical menace. They’re unpredictable, and violence sometimes arrives without warning. Others work through something colder: they’re the person at the centre of a system, making decisions that damage people who will never see their face. Both are frightening in their own way, but it’s the second kind of crook that always sticks with me. They’re the ones that become ingrained in my head, the kind I need to write about. The villains who don't stay with me are the ones built purely for menace. They snarl on cue, do terrible things, and you wait for the detective to catch them so the book can end. They serve the plot and nothing else. The ones who haunt me are the ones who seem, in some ways, entirely reasonable. Charming, even. They’re right about the smaller things, which is what makes the larger thing so hard to absorb.

Good crime-fiction is full of 'moral complexity'. It recognises the interior logic, the rationalisation, the way a person can build a coherent worldview around something monstrous and make it feel entirely reasonable. Most of us, fortunately, will get through life without committing a crime worth writing about. But that capacity to justify actions, to compartmentalise, to look at the damage we’ve caused, and then find a way to keep going? Well, maybe that’s something more familiar than it should be.

Crime-fiction gives us a safe distance to explore. There’s the thrill of vicarious darkness, and a chance to follow the reasoning all the way through without any real consequences.

I'm writing one of those morally complex characters right now. She's not the detective. She's not exactly what you'd call a villain either. She’s doing something the law would not forgive, but I suspect most readers won't want her to stop. Writing her is a little uncomfortable. It’s making me examine my own feelings about what she’s doing. I don’t think I want her to stop, either.

The next time you find yourself far more interested in the villain than the detective, enjoying what they’re doing, or even cheering them on. Don't worry about it. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You're doing exactly what good crime-fiction asks: staying in a dark place long enough to understand it. And that, I think, is what reading is all about.

P.S. - Who's your favourite crime-fiction villain and why do you cheer them on? Hit reply and let me know. I'd love to know what you think!

KEN LYONS Author ​kenlyonsauthor.com​ ​​

​