Modern imaginative literature has two favourite themes: love and crime. Most people accept that love is a mystery full of twists and surprises that are not predictable by science or reason. It is natural that its infinite variations should be probed most interestingly by novelists rather than by experts and statisticians: no one has dared set up a Chair of Amorology. But what can untrained amateurs say that is new about crime, which has whole armies of lawyers, policemen, professors and politicians who claim to know all the answers? Is the literary concern with crime simply a game, indulging the pleasures to be obtained from hide-and-seek and from solving puzzles? Is it likely that as criminology becomes more and more scientific, the novelist will have to withdraw?

LRB 6 March 1980 | PDF Download