The State of the Crime Novel in 2021: A Roundtable With the Edgar Awards Nominees ‹ CrimeReads

Nev March (nominated for Best First Novel 2013 Murder in Old Bombay): Crime writers are an odd sort of moralist, I think, who rail at the way things are by making it all intensely personal. Crime stories show loopholes in the law, in statute of limitations and other crevices where evil hides.

We hear about tragedies and crime every day, but only when people feel injustice can we change minds. We're confounded by individuals who defy the law. I think some part of us wonders, could they really get away with it? Sadly, in real life they sometimes do, for decades. Crime fiction allows us to speed up the process of seeing justice served.