The mystery of our fascination with ‘cosy crime’

As October arrives and the nights draw in, there’s nothing we Brits like better than turning to a bit of ‘cosy crime’.

Whether you are looking forward to Season in the 4 of Only Murders Building, avidly keeping abreast of Richard Osman’s filming updates for The Thursday Murder Club, or taking refuge in your Poirot box set, it seems we can’t get enough of murder mysteries.

George Orwell noted this (unhealthy?) fascination back in 1946 in his essay ‘Decline of the English Murder’ in which he identified all the elements which made a real-life crime appeal to the popular imagination. These were a domestic setting, an outwardly respectable perpetrator, an illicit passion and a clever method. He cites Dr Crippen or The Brides in the Bath as examples of this sort of murder.

When it comes to our fictional murder mysteries, one might add an omniscient detective to this list of defining features. The so-called Golden Age of detective fiction arose partly as a response to some of these real-life true crimes but in a safe and, some would say, rather sanitised environment -hence the label ‘cosy crime’.

Dorothy L. Sayers, the author and theologian, would have objected to this label. Unlike her contemporary, Agatha Christie, there are no easy escapes for her murderers. They face the gallows, and her aristocratic detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, must wrestle with the consequences of being the one who sent them there. In a conversation with another character, Harriet Vane, who is herself a detective writer (and some say is an avatar of Sayers herself), Wimsey states that: ‘Detective stories contain a dream of justice. They project a vision of a world in which wrongs are righted, and villains are betrayed by clues they did not know they were leaving. A world in which murderers are caught and hanged, and innocent victims are avenged, and future murder is deterred.’ (Thrones, Dominations, Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh).

For Sayers, murder mysteries should be deeply moral, and this fictional conversation reflects her Christian worldview. As Wimsey muses: ‘Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course, people read them for fun, for diversion, as they do crossword puzzles. But underneath they feed a hunger for justice, and heaven help us if ordinary people cease to feel that’ (ibid). The problem with justice is that as much as we desire it, we should also fear it.

Murder is, of course, prohibited in the Ten Commandments, but as Jesus tells us, the definition is not limited to the simple act of taking a life. In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus raises the bar: ‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.’ 1 John 3:15 reiterates this: ‘Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.’ Our hearts are by nature full of hatred and anger: ‘For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder…’ (Mark 7:21).

Like the inhabitants of Midsomer, St Mary Mead or the Arconia building in Manhattan, we might look outwardly respectable. However, scratch beneath the surface and all manner of illicit passions and clever cover-ups come to light. We are no better than the fictional criminals we love to read about and watch. Yet the gospel has a lot to say about murderers. Barabbas, who was released instead of Jesus, is described as a murderer (Luke 23:25) and Acts 3:14 makes it clear: ‘You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.’ In fact, we are all murderers because we murdered the Lord of Life. Isn’t it amazing then that, through that action, we find ourselves in the position of Barabbas – the guilty go free and the innocent pays our penalty.

There is no easy get out as in Agatha Christie. There is justice. But thank the Lord, there is mercy too and we get the happy ending we do not deserve. Let’s remember that and thank the Lord Jesus as we enjoy our ‘cosy crime’ this Autumn.