We are delighted to welcome novelist Chris Culver back to Omnimystery News.
Last year we had the opportunity to speak with Chris when his stand-alone psychological thriller Nine Years Gone was published, and when we learned his latest Ash Rashid mystery, Measureless Night (May 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats), was being published we asked if he would do a return visit. He graciously agreed, with a guest post titled "Why Detective Fiction Matters".
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Photo provided courtesy of
Chris Culver
Every time I publish a book, I do a couple of interviews around the time of publication, and I get many of the same questions each time. Among the many questions I'm asked, people want to know what my newest book is about, where the idea came from, and why I choose to write the sort of books I do. I'm going to focus on the latter question today because it's a good one, mostly because it masks a far bigger question: why does detective fiction matter?
My standard answer is that I write detective novels because I like reading them and always have. My favorite authors include Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, James Crumley, James Lee Burke, and dozens more. I'm honest when I answer that way, but I'm holding back as well. The other half of my answer, the one I rarely speak of in public, is that I write detective stories because they're important.
Already, I know certain readers are shaking their heads. Crime fiction, several academics have told me, is frivolous entertainment incapable of becoming real literature. Depending on what these academics mean, maybe they're right. I really don't know, and moreover, I really don't care. Even if a police procedural can't rise to the level of "art", it can have a profound impact on the world.
As a writer, I talk to law enforcement officials on a regular basis. Most of the men and women I know have great stories about their work, and they're oftentimes willing to share for the cost of a cup of coffee or a beer. In the past year or so, the tenor of some of these conversations has changed.
It's not an easy time to be a police officer in the United States. Many of the men and women I speak to feel as if they're under attack, and it's not hard to see why. Every other week, it seems, I'll turn on the news on TV and hear about officers in some distant city involved in an unjustified shooting. Most of the officers I talk to agree that these stories need to be heard because they bring up very important issues about race, legitimate use of force, inequality and a whole host of other issues.
At the same time, those same officers lament that the media rarely reports on the hundreds of thousands of other officers who admirably serve their communities day after day. Most of us rarely see that side of law enforcement. In fact, I'd venture to say that the vast majority of people have only or mostly negative experiences with police officers. They pull us over for traffic violations, they give us tickets for parking too far from the curb, they tell us to turn our music down if the neighbors complain when we throw parties. It's hard to avoid forming a negative picture of the average police officer in the face of all that.
This is one of the nice things about a good detective story; they remind us that the men and women who wear badges and patrol our communities are human beings. They have good days and bad, they do right and wrong, they get grumpy, they get tired, frustrated, etc. They're just like everyone else. It's an obvious fact, but it's one that's easily forgotten. It's also one worth repeating and writing about.
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After graduate school, Chris Culver taught courses in ethics and comparative religion at a small liberal arts university in southern Arkansas. While there and when he really should have been grading exams, he wrote The Abbey, which introduced the world to Detective Ash Rashid. Chris has been a storyteller since he was a kid, but he decided to write crime fiction after picking up a dog-eared, coffee-stained paperback copy of Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury in a library book sale. Many years later, his wife, despite considerable effort, still can't stop him from bringing more orphan books home. The two of them, along with a labrador retriever named Roy, reside near St. Louis.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at IndieCrime.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Measureless Night by Chris Culver
An Ash Rashid Novel
Publisher: Chris Culver
Detective Sergeant Ash Rashid wants little out of life: a steady job, a quiet place to call home, and a healthy family. Now three hundred days sober, for the first time he can see his happy ending forming on the horizon.
Then patrol officers find the body.
The victim has chemical burns on her arms, two broken legs, and a gash on her throat so deep it exposes the vertebrae of her neck. Then they find a second body and then two more. The killings aren't random, far from it. Each victim testified in a murder trial ten years ago, one that launched Ash's career. Each of them helped put a very dangerous man in prison, and now each of them has paid the price. Ready or not, Ash will soon learn the true cost of his happy ending. Because very dangerous men have a knack for reaching through walls.
Ten years ago, Ash helped send a predator to death row. Now someone plans to make him pay. And she's willing to kill everyone who stands in her way.
— Measureless Night by Chris Culver
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