Crime vs Sin

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Don't worry, I'm not a christer or preacher.  I just want to examine something a little off the main track for crime writing. Or maybe it's not.

I was impressed recently reading something about this.  It said the difference is that a crime is something you do to other people, a sin is something you do to yourself.

Obviously some behavior fits both categories.   But with sin, it's really all about you, isn't it.  You're the one who committed it, you're the one who will pay for it.    You can go to a priest and fix the ticket without the victim having anything to say in the matter.

A crime might not hurt you at all.  Especially if you get away with it.

Obviously murder is like the worst crime and the worst sin.  That's why they're all murder mysteries instead of having jaywalking mysteries or indecent exposure mysteries.

Stealing from people, hurting people...these are so obviously and instinctively wrong that they fit both categories.  Fucking around makes a lot of sin lists, and few crime lists.  Have the Ten Commandments aren't even crimes.  Coveting?  Our economy is based on it.  Honoring your parents?  Our culture seems to based on breaking that one.

Jaywalking doesn't make a lot of sin lists because it doesn't harm anybody, and certainly not the perp.

Can you cheat on your taxes without feeling guilty?    Well, if you think tax is theft, how can it hurt you to not pay it?

Actually, I don't know quite where I'm going with this.  I'd been thinking of it in terms of crime fiction characters, mainly.   I think the sociopath who does things with no inner reverb at all is too easy.  I think it's more masterful to see the criminal damaging herself and aware of it.  Not as dramatically as "The Telltale Heart", maybe, but something there about the inner and outer ramifications of rotten acts.

I think dragging the church into it also makes it too facile.  If "sin" is a real thing, it shouldn't need any trappings or titles to make it stick.  It will be working its way into the sinner/criminal's being without any help from Father ORiely.

I trust you all to have some directions here, and that will be where it's going.  It's just something that I've been mulling and I wonder what you think.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Oh, I agree.  I said from the start that I'm not preaching or anything here.  I'm talking about things that are just WRONG whether there's laws against them or not.

But when that comes in conflict with the law, which way do you go?

I remember my Daddy saying that he would quit drinking if they brought Prohibition back.  He was a law-abiding old scoundrel.

I was shaking my head saying, "You'll keep drinking even though it's killing you and driving your family stark staring mad.  But not if some rascal in Washington makes a law against it?"

And he was like, "Yep".  And the crime of it all... he meant it.

[John McFetridge]

This is some nice grey area stuff for crime fiction. I've interviewed a few pot growers in Canada and they almost always mention now the bootleggers from prohibition became legitimate businessmen and they think the same will happen to them (I think the tobacco companies will will take over, but maybe that's just me).

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Ah ha! That's why "Grow House" was such a great read.

[John McFetridge]

Thanks, Ben. I wish there was a way to include the smell with the story.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

I'm sure they're working on a "Scratch n Skunk"  application for iPad.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Maybe there's a sort of cusp between these two.  Something about "codes".  Cultural, honor, type things.

Like a samurai of nobleman for whom it would be wrong not to "do the right thing" to respond to dishonor or disgrace.

And come to think of it, there are a lot of stories based on the conflict between some social honor code or "duty" and what is right or criminal or whatever.

I common theme in the work of Martin Cruz Smith  (who I will not flinch from calling the greatest living crime writer) is social or cultural mores that make criminals want to confess their crimes.  You see two very different forms of it in his Arkady stuff in Russia, with a cop saying that the lower class criminals can't wait to confess, just give them a bottle of vodka and leave the room and come back and they'll blubber it to you,  and a more subtle form in "December 6" from a Japanese cop.

[Susan]

Hey!  I also love Martin Cruz Smith. The class distinctions in Havana Bay are particularly well detailed, both by Arcady and the Cuban female detective he works with to solve the crime. I recently read  Stallion Gate, not an Arcady novel, about the A-bomb tests in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The protagonist is a Native American. The bio says "Mr. Cruz is part Indian."  Interesting novel, but all does not end well.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Have you read "December 6"?  Not Arkady, but a main character that's as complex and contrary.  They released the same book with the title "Tokyo Bay" for some reason.

It's an amazing portrait of pre-war Japan.  And as the title indicates, "pre-war" means "the day before".

But one think that tickled me was seeing some of Smith's pet licks emerging.  The MC, Harry, is hooked up with an impossible Japanese woman, another of those "can't stay and can't go" things like Irina, but kind of in reverse.

And the "bad guy" is pure Smith: exotic, chillingly menacing yet admirable, and obviously bearing the seeds of self-destruction as he destroys everthing else. 

[Susan]

Have not read December 6/Tokyo Bay. But I will at some point. Soooo many books in my TBR pile. The thing I love about MCS is is wry sense of humor. I saw it immediately with Arkady, but also in the other book. Not that he's like Elmore Leonard, but he has a similar facility to get inside the character's head and come up with some wildly funny thoughts. 

So based on that, I"m already laughing about this "impossible Japanese woman" and what Harry is thinking when he's with her ... something completely different from what he's SAYING, I'm sure, which is what makes it fun.

But wait, who is Irina? Arcady's wife?  Oooooh, you MUST read Havana Bay!

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Irina??  She was his love object through four books, two contents and the collapses of empires.  Remember, it was the Cuban girl who finally managed to shake him out of the suicidal mood he'd carried since her death?  For some reason I can can't recall who played her in the movie.  She was great, though.  William Hurt wasn't the best Renko by any means.  I keep thinking Tim Roth would have been perfect.

And yeah, Arkady is a caution, all right.  My favorite is when he's on the fishing boat and gets asked why he's on this freezing pile of fishguts heading to Alaska and he says he loves to travel.  They say,  "But they won't let you off in Dutch Harbor." And he shrugs, "I'm a purist." 

One thing Harry says about Michiko.  "To Michiko, mutual suicide would be a happy ending."

[Susan]

Oh, well of course I remember the Cuban woman ... I just thought from your previous post you hadn't read Havana Bay. Sorry!  :)   But you're way ahead of me with MCS.

My favorite part in Havana Bay is when Arcady recalls the horrible scene in the hospital ... with Irina ... what an incredibly horrible/ironic/ridiculous f***up and all because he went out to buy her a magazine ... pages and pages of black humor. They gave up smoking together and she dies because he went out to buy a magazine and a series of unfortunate events ... Okay, I'll stop. I guess I've just got to read the other 4 books. Pity I read the last of Irina first, eh?  

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

His relationship with her over the course of "Red Square" is just heart-rending.  But of course Arkasha just sucks it in and copes with a wry observation or too.