Using Popular Culture in Crime Fiction by Lee Goldberg

It’s impossible to escape popular culture. Not only is it all around us, but it also shapes how we look at the world and, most of all, how we look at ourselves. It also impacts how we interact with the culture itself: the movies and TV shows we watch and the book we read. 

It’s a vicious circle. 

So, if you’re going to write crime novels, you can’t ignore popular culture. Crime fiction fans have been exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of crime stories in books, movies and TV…and they bring that experience to your work. 

That means as an author, you not only have to service (and some would say honor) the tropes and cliches of the genre, but also subvert them in new ways. And be aware that your readers are as familiar with them as you are.

Not only that, but your characters also have to be aware of what has come before…and what popular culture grooms us to expect. Your present-day detectives have watched Inspector Morse, The Sweeney, Midsomer Murders, CSI and the ubiquitous Law & Order, too. They come into their cases with the same cultural experiences that you have…and the expectations that come along with them. I would argue that any novel that doesn’t acknowledge popular culture – TV shows, movies, songs, etc. -- is existing in some parallel universe totally unrelated to actual life. You might as well be writing fantasy.

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino has often been accused of over-indulging his love of popular culture in his movies, but I would argue he’s actually underplaying the impact TV shows and movies have on us…and on even real-life cops. No police officer wore his badge on a chain around his neck until NYPD Blue came up with it and made is cool. And now juries in courtrooms unreasonably expect to be wowed by the same forensic magic that they see on CSI and NCIS…which, as one homicide cop complained to me, are about as realistic as Star Trek (note even he uses a cultural reference to ridicule the impact of culture).

How we navigate the parallels and conflicts between our lives and popular culture has been a consistent theme in many of my novels, most notably in True Fiction and in my on-going Eve Ronin series. 

So when I wrote Calico, a mash-up of a police procedural set in present day with a traditional Western set in 1883, it would have been author malpractice not to have my characters acknowledge the similarities between what they experience and aspects of popular culture that have covered similar ground….because that’s what readers will be doing, too. 

Readers of Calico will find the novel peppered with direct references to pop culture touchstones like The X-Files, the Gilligan’s Island theme, Marty McFly, the western TV series Bonanza and the cheesy Kirk Douglas movie The Final Countdown.

I don’t see those references an indulgence or a distraction. I think they not only make the characters and story more relatable to readers, but also more realistic and authentic, even as unbelievable things are happening. In fact, it’s grounding everything in authenticity (emotionally, culturally and otherwise), that makes a reader’s suspension of disbelief possible.

Stephen King certainly understands that…look how deftly he uses popular culture to seduce us into believing his fictional reality is our own…and scaring the crap out of us. Mick Herron often refers to James Bond in his excellent Slough House novels…because his “real-life” spies have seen, and been impacted by, those movies, too…and know they don’t live up to the fictional ideal.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go off and solve some real murders. Because, as Jessica Fletcher has taught me, that’s what mystery writers do….

Calico by Lee Goldberg (Severn House) Out 23 November 2023

There's a saying in Barstow, California, a decaying city in the scorching Mojave desert . . .The Interstate here only goes in one direction: Away. But it's the only place where ex-LAPD detective Beth McDade, after a staggering fall from grace, could get another badge . . . and a shot at redemption. Over a century ago, and just a few miles further into the bleak landscape, a desperate stranger ended up in Calico, a struggling mining town, also hoping for a second chance. His fate, all those years ago, and hers today are linked when Beth investigates an old skeleton dug up in a shallow, sandy grave . . . and also tries to identity a vagrant run-over by a distracted motorhome driver during a lightning storm. Every disturbing clue she finds, every shocking discovery she makes, force Beth to confront her own troubled past . . . and a past that's not her own . . . until it all smashes together in a revelation that could change the world.

More information about Lee Goldberg and his work can be found on his website. You can also find him on X at @LeeGoldberg, on Instagram @leegoldberg007 and on FaceBook.

J M Gulvin on John Q Texas Ranger

The second book in the John Q Texas Ranger series, this bears no relation to “Walker” on TV. I stress that because some people have asked me about it and I never watched the series back in the day. That’s not to be disparaging, just to say there is no comparison. John Quarrie was born out of a desire to write a character with old west values (such as they were) that embody the honesty, toughness and integrity you still find in small town Americans today. Having spent an inordinate amount of time in such locations all across the west, I’ve always found people with a spirit of adventure and lack of cynicism, that echoes the pioneering spirit of yesterday.

So many fictional heroes are beset with demons and issues (my own previous characters included) that I decided I would try to write someone who knew exactly who he was and what his role in life was. That had to be both as regards work and his relationships, and when people read John Q novels they’re as keen on his home life with his son as they are his work as a Texas Ranger. Living on a ranch in the Texas panhandle, he’s surrounded by friends he’s known since he was fourteen. A widower, he promised his wife he would always take care of their son. He does that whilst answering calls to various crime scenes large and small. In the first book THE LONG COUNT, John Q deals with a tragic family situation and its grisly repercussions, whereas in THE CONTRACT he's out of state and perhaps a little out of his depth, in the murky world of 1960’s New Orleans.

I’ve spent a lot of time in The Big Easy, more so than in Texas actually, so far, and always found myself in difficult and often dangerous situations. The people I know down there are largely either cops or criminals. There’s a whole sub-culture surrounding the French Quarter that regular tourists never get to see. I’m lucky enough to have been out and about with the FBI and the Department of Corrections, as well as a private detective who doubled as a rock n roll singer.

Back in the late 1960’s a real-life Ranger called Joachin Jackson was in New Orleans investigating a link to a crime at a country club in Texas. He had no jurisdiction down there, but when you kill a man in Texas (as John Q says) you have to pay. I knew about Jackson and used his experience as the original inspiration for this book, though the plot couldn’t be any more different. Recently I watched a Robert Duval movie called “Wild Horses” where Jackson had a cameo as himself, he died in 2016.

There’s something about Rangers that just appeals, their no nonsense, “The law is the law” approach has gotten under my skin. Although John Q is fictional, I gave him a veracity that John “DELIVERANCE” Boorman recognised, by making him godson to the most famous Texas Ranger of them all. Brought out of retirement to take down Bonnie & Clyde, Captain Frank Hamer wrote King George VI at the beginning of World War II. Long since retired but still tough as old boots, Hamer offered the king a personal bodyguard of retired Texas Rangers in case the Nazi’s rolled into London. Some people might think that was a bit naff, but I’ve always found it cool. A personal letter from John Q’s godfather to the King of England, he meant every word and - would have been as good as it - if he’d been called.

Now I think about it, perhaps that’s the reason an Englishman is writing about a Texas Ranger!

The Contract by JM Gulvin is published by Faber & Faber in April (£12.99)