[repurposed from November 2010] An interview with Les Wanner of TheCrimeofitAll.com.
Len Wanner: Should crime fiction get more critical attention?
Dana Stabenow: No, I think it gets plenty nowadays, both online and off.
LW: Have you read any Scottish crime fiction?
DS: Scottish crime fiction isn’t separated out as a separate subgenre on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble, so I don’t know.
LW: What are the merits of crime fiction for you?
DS: The merits of good crime writing are the same merits of any good writing: The better I tell a story, the more engaged the reader will be.
LW: Did you choose this genre because it gives a voice to those we rarely listen to?
DS: If I wanted to bang the drum for a cause I’d write non-fiction. I do believe evil exists in human form, however, and the snake always has the best lines.
LW: How do you see yourself as a writer?
DS: I’m an entertainer. I’m the one sitting around the fire, spinning tales, hoping to get a few coins in my bowl before turning in for the night. If I don’t deliver, no coins, and no supper.
LW: Would you say that crime fiction is becoming ever more popular because it offers ersatz justice?
DS: Yes. Most of the time in crime fiction justice prevails. If we can’t have the reality of social justice, at least we can escape to it in fiction.
LW: Can the genre be too heavy-handed on questions of corrective measures?
DS: Only by accident, if the writer is doing their job properly.
LW: Does the genre afford us an opportunity to identify with a person driven to crime?
DS: Some people are just plain mad, bad and dangerous to know. No crime fiction writer can afford to underestimate the human propensity for evil. But no crime fiction reader should forget they are reading fiction.
LW: What makes a hero?
DS: All the best crime fiction heroes share at bottom the core characteristic of decency and many of them a willingness to sacrifice for their code or an individual or the common good. That’s what makes them heroes, they are better than you and me.
LW: Is the crime novel read as the new social novel – to identify with people in distress, to feel that we are not alone in our fears and uncertainties?
DS: The social novel has disappeared? Wait, I don’t even know what a “social” novel is. This could apply to any novel in any genre.
LW: Would you agree that crime fiction is read with a view to sounding out one’s own lived experience through the contrast between idealized patriarchy and how things actually work?
DS: Judging by my fan mail, some do. Some just read for the thrill.
LW: Do you write crime fiction because this genre doesn’t hesitate when it comes to the extremes that human beings are capable of?
DS: Crime fiction is a very versatile genre. There is nothing you can’t do in crime fiction and make it work. So yes.
LW: Who does it best?
DS: Reading is a wholly subjective exercise, and every book has a different effect on each individual reader. You’re casting a pretty wide net here. I will simply say that lately I’ve been enjoying Ariana Franklin, Craig Johnson, Barbara Cleverly, PD James and Reginald Hill.
Abduction of a Slave, the fourth Eye of Isis novel, publishes in January 2025. I'll be launching the book at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale. Hope to see you there!
Warning: Spoilers spoken here. And a contest! With prizes!* So I put it to the Danamaniacs–what should be the object from the twenty-first Kate Shugak novel? Imma just cut-and-paste the winning entry here: Thank you, Dagna! Because what could be more apropos than a compass of any kind as a symbol for Less Than…
Warning: Spoilers spoken here.And a contest! With prizes!* Upon returning home from New York City in 1994, clutching A Cold Day for Murder‘s Edgar in a sweaty fist, almost the very first thing to appear in my mailbox was a letter from Tony Hillerman, requesting a short story for the collection he was editing, The…
Warning: Spoilers spoken here. And a contest! With prizes! Scroll down for details.* It’s the Super Cub. It’s basic transportation in Bush Alaska and in Kate19 it is also the murder weapon. (And even if you took all that away, there is that fabulous Head of Zeus cover above. Although if you’re taking off from…
Warning: Spoilers spoken here. Man, I havered over this one. My pick going in was the secret drawer, or drawers, the one in Auntie Joy’s armoire that contained the manuscript, the one in Jim’s father’s writing desk that held the clue to his true parentage, and of course the one in Old Sam’s compass, which…
Warning: Spoilers spoken here. Some of you said Jim, but you weren’t working hard enough. Think Max. “Alaska’s Mounties,” he repeated, “that was us, the territorial police. TPs, they called us. Weren’t that many of us. I remember figuring once that if you divided the square miles of Alaska by the number of state…
Warning: Spoilers spoken here. There were some eloquent pleas for the glacier and the photo album in the comments, but the cabin has it. It was the cabin her father built to prove up on his homestead, it was where Stephan brought Zoya as his wife, it was where Kate was born, it was where…
Her first startled glance showed no one in immediate distress, with the exception of Mutt, who had been slumbering peacefully next to the fire. She shot to her feet, looked wildly in every direction, put her muzzle up in an emphatic and unequivocal howl of protest and vanished into the brush. Dieter had produced a…
Excerpt: In his authority as harbormaster Shitting Seagull retained the right to reserve transient parking for ships belonging to such extraterrestrial visitors as wandered out this far on the galactic rim. He had been doing so for twenty years, ever since he first took on the job. The mayor would have fired him for this…
