Master of murder, queen of crime

It’s intriguing how all crime fiction writers are propelled by one sole objective: to somehow flummox their readers about the true identity of the culprit. To do so, they resort to every imaginable ruse, keeping their readers on tenterhooks and guessing—invariably wrongly. Then, towards the end, they practically stun them with a totally unexpected denouement. This, quintessentially, is the modus operandi that keeps their readers craving for more, thus deservedly ensuring the writer’s continued success and popularity.

There are, of course, umpteen crime fiction writers, past and present, in India and the West, who continue to enthral their readers. And there are, perhaps, as many criteria to judge them by. So who is the most popular and most widely read of them all? Who is the best?

An infallible indicator of a writer’s popularity, of course, is book sales worldwide and critical acclaim. Another criterion is a crime fiction writer’s innovativeness and the ingenuity of their plots.

After pointing the finger of suspicion at many, one resourceful writer makes the narrator of the story the culprit! Others, like American writer Michael Connelly, make the unlikeliest and least suspected character the villain: the city police chief, of all people, is the knave in one of his books. Dorothy Sayers is yet another writer who excels in this regard. She uses the element of total surprise to create a telling effect: in one of her stories, the identity of the killer is disclosed only in the very last sentence. Indeed, the much-awaited ‘twist in the tale’ is the masterstroke that every crime fiction writer strives for.

Another factor ensuring an author’s success is their characterisation skills that help reinforce the charisma of their creations: life-like detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Jack Reacher, John Rebus, Peter Wimsey, Albert Campion, Harry Bosch, and our own desi sleuths like Detective Lalli, Prakash Kadam, Prachand Tripathi, Perveen Mistry, Muzaffar Jang et al. In the hands of a skilled writer, these fictional characters come vividly and vibrantly alive with their individual mannerisms, traits, fortes, and foibles. 

So who has created a detective who epitomises investigative skills and deductive powers of an unusually high order plus an uncanny understanding of human nature and an all-important eye for detail? Does Arthur Conan Doyle trump his competitors with Sherlock Holmes’s cerebral sleuthing? Or is it Lee Child’s Jack Reacher or James Patterson’s Alex Cross? Or does Ashwin Sanghi’s Prakash Kadam or Madhulika Liddle’s Muzaffar Jang ace the many other contenders?

Writing style is another crucial yardstick. Is it pretentious and bombastic or simple and straightforward, packing a punch in delivery and thus making it far more readable? Whose style is least pedantic and largely shorn of legalese? Whose books are just ‘unputdownable’?

Other benchmarks include: Whose readers are never able to correctly pinpoint the criminal before reading the final elucidation? Who excels inimitably at the masterly ‘twist in the tale’ that leaves readers absolutely stupefied? Who consistently bamboozles readers with a devilishly ingenious plot? Who expertly winds up a crime thriller better than anyone else, meticulously smoothing out the rough edges and satisfactorily answering all those unasked questions
in the reader’s mind? And whose classy master touch remains
unmatched? 

In terms of prolificacy, who far outruns the competition without compromising on quality? Whose modus operandi in crime fiction writing is copied more by upcoming aspirants than anyone else’s? Who, in other words, bags the prize for sheer professionalism and popularity in the genre?

Dispassionately viewed, it’s Dame Agatha Christie—the universally acknowledged ‘Queen of Crime’—who wins hands down on most counts. Having read all her 80 gripping ‘whodunits’ and a wide cross-section of other crime writers’ works, I am convinced there’s no storyteller who has perfected the art of baffling readers better than she has, nor is there a more accomplished exponent of the diabolic ‘twist in the tale’. Indeed, my repeated failure to correctly spot the culprit in any of her crime stories has only deepened my admiration for her. 

And, of course, Christie’s two outstanding sleuths—the conceited but brilliant Hercule Poirot and the prim but shrewd Jane Marple—outshine, by far, their competitors when it comes to using their ‘grey cells’.
In fact, they sometimes even bail Scotland Yard out of embarrassing situations! 

Almost five decades after Christie’s death—her 134th birth anniversary was on September 15—there are, reportedly, few crime fiction writers who enjoy the level of popularity and success that she did. Such is her mastery of her craft.

(The author is a Munnar-based freelance writer)