How important is Setting in a Crime Novel?

[A.J.]

Morse without Oxford? Rankin without Edinburgh? How Important is Setting in a Crime Novel? Latest post at the Crime Readers' Association/The Crime Writers' Association http://www.thecra.co.uk/2014/03/21/a-...


The Blog of A J Waines: author of Girl on a Train and The Evil Beneath: http://www.amzn.to/14M9mSw

Both reached No 1 in 'Murder' and 'Psychological Thrillers' in UK Kindle charts.

[Sharon]

For me, it can be very important at least in some cases. I can't visualize Miss Marple or Miss Seeton in any setting other than a small British village. I'm not sure how well the "Prey" series with Lucas Davenport would work in a setting other than Minnesota and the same is true of the "Judge Knott" series and its South Carolina setting, as the only book I didn't care for in that series was one set primarily in New York City. I can't imagine Craig Johnson's "Longmier" in any setting other than Wyoming, though the one city setting was well done.

I think the issue can be author's actual familiarity with the location/setting ... even though the reader may not be familiar themselves with that particular setting, the authentic 'feel' comes through in the writing.

[A.J.]

Sharon wrote: "For me, it can be very important at least in some cases. I can't visualize Miss Marple or Miss Seeton in any setting other than a small British village. I'm not sure how well the "Prey" series with..."

Good points, Sharon. yes, Authenticity shines through in a well-crafted novel.

[K.A.]

Setting means a lot to me. I particularly enjoy books set in places I'm familiar with - Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight series, or Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee books, for example.

[Carmen]

I just posted on this for Omnimystery.com, giving 5 examples of great mystery settings. Here's 5 settings I gave as great examples of short and sweet to build a mood:

Cairo, Egypt
“In traffic jams all the cars hooted all the time, and when there was nothing to hoot at they hooted on general principles. Not to be outdone, the drivers of carts an camels yelled at the tops of their voices. Many shops and all cafes blared Arab music from cheap radios turned to full volume . . . Dogs barked and circling kits screamed overhead. From time to time it would all be swamped by the roar of an airplane.
“This is my town, Wolff thought; they can’t catch me here.”
THE KEY TO REBECCA
Ken Follett

Havana, Cuba
“Arkady took a taxi back to the Malecón and walked the last few blocks to Pribluda’s apartment past boys demanding Chiclets and men offering mulatas, and beyond conversation starters of “Amigo, qué hora es? De qué país? Momentico, amigo.” Overhead hung balconies, arabesques of wrought iron spikes and potted plants, women in housedresses and men stripped to their underwear and cigars, music shifting from window to window. Decay everywhere, heat everywhere, faded colors trying to hold together disintegrating plastic and salt-eaten beams.”
HAVANA BAY
Martin Cruz Smith

Mexico City, Mexico
“The bus passed block after block of sooty concrete cut into houses and shops and shanties and parking garages and mercados and schools and more shanties where people lived surrounded by hulks of old cars and plastic things no one bothered to throw away. Sometimes there wasn’t concrete for homes, just sheets of corrugated metal and big pieces of cardboard that would last until the next rainy season. It was the detritus of millions upon millions of people who had nowhere to go and nothing to do and were angry about it.”
THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY
Carmen Amato

Outside Riga, Latvia
“He looked out over the countryside: deserted fields with irregular patches of snow; here and there an isolated grey dwelling surrounded by an unpainted fence; here and there a pig rooting in a dunghill. He had the impression of endless misery . . . Skǻne might look inhospitable in winter, but what he was seeing here suggested a desolation that was beyond anything he’d ever imagined . . .
“It was as if the country’s painful history had covered the fields in grey paint.”
THE DOGS OF RIGA
Henning Mankell

Venice, Italy
“When he left Lele’s gallery, he turned left and ducked into the underpass that led out to the Zattere, the long, open fondamenta that ran alongside the canal of the Guidecca. Across the water he saw the church of the Zittelle and then, further along, that of the Redentore, their domes soaring up above them. A strong wind came in from the east, stirring up whitecaps that knocked and bounced the vaporetti around like toys in a tub. Even at this distance, he could hear the thundering reverberation as one of them crashed against its mooring, saw it buck and tear at the rope that held it to the dock.”
ACQUA ALTA
Donna Leon

[A.J.]

Carmen wrote: "I just posted on this for Omnimystery.com, giving 5 examples of great mystery settings. Here's 5 settings I gave as great examples of short and sweet to build a mood:

Cairo, Egypt
“In traffic jams..."

Thanks, Carmen - that's wonderful!

[Anthony]

I would kind of assume that the setting in these kinds of books is determinate of the kind of character you will find. In my experience with reading mystery/thriller (which might not be as grand as some of you), the character is in some way related to his surroundings. That's what makes them seem so impossible to imagine outside of that setting's context.

I guess to some extent we are all extensions of our setting. But I really feel like it is exemplified in this genre.

[Bonnie]

I agree and would go so far as to say that the setting actually IS a character in a good mystery. Sometimes it needs to be a specific city and no other place would work, other times it could be within a group of sites but it still has to fit within certain parameters such as southern small US town, English country village, hard boiled big city in the north, remote western ranges or Alaskan frontier towns... whatever place character it has needs to be as important as the people characters.

[Sally]

I am often attracted to a mystery because of the setting. I love the Donna Leon series that is set in Venice. The setting really is like a character.

[Eduardo]

Carmen wrote: "I just posted on this for Omnimystery.com, giving 5 examples of great mystery settings. Here's 5 settings I gave as great examples of short and sweet to build a mood:

Cairo, Egypt
“In traffic jams..."

Those are great examples of efficient descriptions of setting. My favorite is the one about the Malecon in Cuba... because I used to walk there as child. Good stuff.

[David]

As I said in my review of The Pusher, only Ed McBain could make the city a character in a book.

That whole series wouldn't work as well set anywhere else - even in a 'real' city (everyone who is a fan of his knows he's really talking about New York).

[Feliks]

There's plenty of 'exceptions' for any-side-of-the- table-facing-this-debate.

Sherlock Holmes is deeply associated with London; but he solved a fair share of mysteries elsewhere in the British Empire and in continental Europe. I think he even went as far as India for one mystery. And one of his greatest moments takes place in bucolic, pastoral, boring, Switzerland.

And one of Hercule Poirot's best cases takes place on a railway train. I suggest there is no one, hard, fast, inviolable, firm rule in something like this.

Remember that thrillers --for a long while--used to be held in one setting; but then the emergence of the 'international thriller' gradually came to the fore and was shown to be just as good (if not more) thrilling.

Setting is important though, for sure. Its part of the mechanics of the narrative; doesn't just serve as 'color' or 'flavor'. In a crime story you usually want a placid, stable, harmonious setting against which to present a startling, or shocking disruption. Order vs disorder. Right?

In another sense, it has the useful props a sleuth typically relies on to solve the crimes before him. A hard-boiled detective needs his 'blind newsie' informant at his usual streetcorner, etc etc etc