Let's all raise a cheer for the (murder of? cabal of? gang of? what's the collective noun for a group of crime writers?) crime novelists who have ever so kindly decided to provide a reading list for Tony Parsons. Parsons, whose previous literary ventures have erred on the side of lad lit, has just made his first foray into crime writing with The Murder Bag, and has been doing the publicity rounds to promote it.
His interview with the Guardian's Decca Aitkenhead, while perhaps most notable for its revelation that Parsons is planning to vote Ukip, also provoked the ire of those more, shall we say, versed in the genre for his comment that he wanted to write a thriller "with a heart", because he loves crime fiction, "but what it tends to lack is the emotional power of a book like Man and Boy".
Now, crime novelists don't like it when their genre is knocked: just look at what happened when Isabel Allende said her own venture into crime fiction was a "joke" because she disliked those sorts of novels for being "too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there's no redemption there", and because "the characters are just awful".
Bookshops cancelled orders, readers were furious, and authors said lots of cross things. In Parsons' case, he's clearly just wrong, and authors have been quick to point this out. "Please someone send Tony Parsons some Brit crime writing from past 30 years so he can stop STUPIDLY saying 'thrillers lack heart'," tweeted Stella Duffy, before suggesting fans join her on the #tonyparsonscouldread hashtag, and providing the Man and Boy author with a range of suggestions.
Ian Rankin, for example. Gruff, grizzled and grumpy he may be, but Rebus has a big old beating heart there, when he lets us catch a glimpse of it. Duffy also mentioned Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Denise Mina, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, George Pelecanos, Fred Vargas… and was inundated with further suggestions. It's a reading list that will keep Parsons busy for some time, from Dennis Lehane to PD James, Dorothy L Sayers to Walter Mosley.
My own picks for thrillers with heart: Tana French, every single one of whose thrillers I have loved (although maybe start with her first, In the Woods), and every single one of which packs an enormous emotional punch. Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, because if you can't see the heart in A Judgement in Stone, for example, then you are heartless yourself. And Raymond Chandler, my current author of choice, because his writing has "a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips", as Philip Marlowe puts it so memorably in Farewell, My Lovely. Now it's over to you …
