Suburban attractions.
Behind That Pretty Front Door.
Much of what I have learned came from the brilliant resources available through the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Joining them was well worth the relatively modest subscription fee (which is tax deductible in the UK) (https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/). Many of the indie authors I’ve spoken to over the years swear by them.
I love reading about nice people in nice houses with nice cars having horrible things happen to them.
There, I’ve said it. Feel free to judge me.
I don’t think it’s schadenfreude – I like to think I’m a pretty nice bloke myself – but I happen to find something especially creepy and disconcerting when people who live outwardly comfortable and ‘safe’ lives find themselves in dangerous and disturbing situations.
Judging by the popularity of the numerous domestic, psychological thrillers published each year – or turned into TV series – I’m not alone.
I’ve thought about it in some detail over the years, both as a reader of such books, and lately as I’ve started dipping my own toes in the genre. I suppose in many ways, it isn’t a new phenomenon.
Think back to the Golden Age of crime fiction and the popularity of the so-called ‘cosy’. There was no shortage of gruesome fare available at the time – the Penny Dreadfuls and their tales of brutal murders thrilled and shocked the burgeoning middle class of the time, and sold in huge numbers. But then look at Agatha Christie’s output – Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot – these books, rather than being set on the mean streets of London where Jack the Ripper once strode, are often in genteel settings.
The juxtaposition of the sleepy village, with the tastefully written but scary murders contained within, are one of the keys to the continuing success of the Miss Marple stories. When you live somewhere as pretty and peaceful as St. Mary Mead, you don’t expect one of your neighbours to be brutally killed.
The modern day domestic thrillers, I would argue, continue this tradition.
As all the statistics tell us, wealth can – to a limited degree – protect one from many of the dangers of society. Whilst the practise of leaving doors unlocked has largely ended, those with the means to do so often aspire to live in an area where you don’t assume that your neighbour is likely to hop the garden fence and make off with your TV if they see you’re out for the day. It becomes easy as a resident of a leafy suburb – where everyone knows each other’s name, happily takes in parcels and drags the bins out if you are on holiday – to see crime, and especially violent crime, as something that happens to other people. You only have to see the shocked faces of neighbours on the news when a (usually) domestic incident spirals into murder. “It’s such a quiet area – nothing like that ever happens here.” Stabbings and murders happen on housing estates or violent city streets, not small villages or wealthy suburbs.
Appearances can be deceptive is an over-used cliché. But clichés exist because they are based on truth. The same base, human desires, exist in all of us. They are just better hidden (or more wilfully-ignored) in the suburbs. Raised voices are better masked in a street of detached houses than a crowded block of flats. Better security (due to increased wealth) can act as a deterrent to burglary. Wealth undoubtedly negates some of the drivers of crime (your neighbour might be an alcoholic or have a prescription drug problem, but their partner earns six-figures a year, so there is no need to burgle or shoplift). But infidelity is as upsetting for the rich as the poor, although it’s easier to cool off in the spare bedroom of a six-bed semi than the single room of a one-bed flat. And if your business is on the verge of bankruptcy and the mortgage is months in arrears, doubtless you will lie awake as much as the single parent whose benefits are being steadily eroded by the rising cost of living.
When the front door closes, it doesn’t matter whether the door is to a communal flat or an expensive mansion, we can never really know what is going on behind it. And as crime writers, so much of what we write about has its genesis there.
The difference, is that it is somehow more shocking when a wealthy businessman murders his wife in a cosy four-bed bungalow, with a lovely garden, than when a person stabs their partner in a cramped bedsit on the third floor.
And so when I came to write The Aftermath, I wanted to channel that feeling. Seamus and his wife Carole appear to be living that suburban dream. They are wealthy, living on an exclusive country lane outside of a pretty little town. His brother Dominic, a self-made millionaire, lives nearby, insulated even further by his luxurious home. They seem to have it all. But then Carole kills herself in the most horrible manner imaginable and we start to probe beneath the surface.
In writing The Aftermath, I was writing the sort of book I really enjoy reading. I still love gritty, urban police procedurals, but sometimes I just want a glimpse of what’s going on behind the door of the nice house, with the nice people with the nice car…
So, what are your thoughts the appeal of the suburban-set domestic thriller? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
