Crime Is the Least Interesting Part in a Good Mystery Novel

Crime is a symptom of a failing somewhere. In the home. In schools. In society. Crime springs from a lack of an essential thing that was needed but withheld or outright denied. This lack feeds anger and fear and hopelessness. Anger and fear turn hearts to stone and empathy quickly dies.

I’m not a sociologist, I’m a novelist, but both occupations require a deep understanding of people. When people lose empathy for others, when they forfeit their humanity to fear, the spark of humanness goes out. They are ghosts walking the earth.

Charles Dickens blamed this blight on society’s twin ills, Ignorance and Want. These two failures pointedly showed up in spirit form in his classic story “A Christmas Carol” as two street urchins, a boy and a girl, cowering beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Read more at The Daily Beast.