Today’s guest blog is by Helen Giltrow the author
of The
Distance. She was born and brought
up in Cheltenham and read Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford. She has
worked extensively in publishing, including ten years as a commissioning editor
for Oxford University Press. Her work has been shortlisted for the CWA Debut
Dagger Award.
The ‘hero
from the wrong side of the law’ is a well-established figure in crime
fiction. The chances are you’ve met one,
whether it’s in Frederick Forsyth’s The
Day of the Jackal or Jo Nesbo’s latest, The
Son. My lead character, Karla, is
another: a woman who sells secrets to criminals, or manipulates data on their
behalf. You need the floor plans of a
bank, or the contents of a government server?
You need to disappear? You go to
her.
She’s a professional who takes a cool, pragmatic
approach to her business. It doesn’t
bother her that it’s entirely criminal.
Of course, as with so many criminal leading
characters, she has admirable qualities too.
She’s fiercely loyal to the members of her team. She protects those who are vulnerable. And there are most definitely lines she won’t
cross. She doesn’t deal with psychopaths
or terrorists, and violence is alien to her; to get the information she needs
she’ll work on people’s trust, she’ll manipulate technology, but when all else
fails, she must fall back on her wits.
She has a strong sense of empathy, too; she tries
to repress it, but it’s always there, and sometimes it slips out, drawing her
into an involvement that goes way beyond the professional.
So it came as a surprise when I met someone who
obviously found Karla troubling. The
reason? ‘She needs explaining,’ they said, adding, ‘in a way that a male character probably wouldn’t.’
In other words, she’s not just criminal. She’s criminal and female.
Another reader – who personally liked and ‘got’
Karla – touched on the same point, but went further: ‘Some people might be more
comfortable with Karla’s illegal activities if she had a mental illness.’ I was stunned – until I looked back at the
female leads in the big crime novels of the last few years. Gone Girl: Amy’s a sociopath. Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo: Lisbeth Salander’s borderline Asperger’s.
So did those two readers have a point? Are characters judged according to a double
standard, with different rules applied to women and men?
Cathy Rentzenbrink – interviewing Helen Walsh about
her recent novel The Lemon Grove – would
seem to think so. She summed up the
situation thus: ‘A transgressive woman is
a transgressive woman where a transgressive man is just a man.’
And perhaps for some – maybe not many, but a few – there
are acceptable ‘female’ reasons for criminal behaviour. To mental illness we could add revenge;
protection of a child; even simple lack of choice.
But Karla’s doing it because it’s her job.
And honestly – why not
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You can find Helen Giltrow on Twitter @HelenGiltrow
The Distance by Helen Giltrow is published by Orion and is out now. Price £14.99
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