Why do women read crime fiction?

[wordfactory]

I've been thinking about this a lot.
Women read far more than men full stop. And the two genres that sell the most are romance and crime.
Now romance I kinda get (tho that's a different discussion) but crime?

I'm a crime writer myself and the majority of my readership is female, which always makes me wonder why.

Does anyone have any ideas/theories? Is there any research out there?

Yes, it's similar to the grisly enjoyment that children get from fairytales, perhaps. A way of managing fear.

Good point.

I like crime fiction with strong female characters like Kay Scarpetta in Patricia Cornwell's novels. Also, Alex the prosecutor in Linda Fairstein's novels.

I love crime fiction. I even pre-order all my favourite authors as soon as possible on Amazon so I never miss a new release.

I like the strong female leads and the stories unfolding. Most of the ones I read have a back story/continuing wider story so there is a curiosity and desire to know what comes next too.

the scarpetta novels really went downhill after the author tried a bit of humour with the southern cross books.

Thank you everyone, you have given me so much food for thought.

I shall diarise next year's Internation Women's Day and pitch and article based on all these observations in good time next year

I misread that as Irritation Women's Day.

It's the day when we are free to express our irritations. :))

Agree about the Scarpetta novels, the later ones aren't as strong.

I have always liked detective books, starting from the Kinsey Milhone by Sue Grafton series when I was younger.

Agree with the not liking graphic violence, especially as it so often involves women or children, it's a different kind of pornography IMHO.

A bit concerned with all the mention of "strong women". It's a bit too much like having to be like a man to succeed. Can't we have average women? One of the things l like about the Kinsey Milhone books, is that although she was a bit of a hardarse, she'd still cry when she got scared.

I have always liked detective books, starting from the Kinsey Milhone by Sue Grafton series when I was younger.

Agree with the not liking graphic violence, especially as it so often involves women or children, it's a different kind of pornography IMHO.

A bit concerned with all the mention of "strong women". It's a bit too much like having to be like a man to succeed. Can't we have average women? One of the things l like about the Kinsey Milhone books, is that although she was a bit of a hardarse, she'd still cry when she got scared.

I think the "strong woman" is still allowed to cry, just its nice to avoid constant Bridget Jones' stylee "oooh did my bum look big in that" type references.

with strong woman I rather mean a strong, believable character. a character you would meet in day to day live oe someone behaving in a way that you could imagine behaving like yourself. iyswim

I've read crime fiction since working my way through my Mother's Agatha Christies as a teenager. But Patricia Wentworth was even better IMO. I like all the golden age women authors - partly because there's no pornography of violence, partly because it's such a different world, partly because they are charming.

For modern authors, my favourite is Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. I don't like any author who indulges in the pornography of violence. Kathy whatsherface who has the anthropologist detective is quite good but not as good as Rendell. PD James I read for the puzzle but find her irritating as she has absolutely NO sense of humour at all. And seems to dislike people. There's never anyone in her novels who is nice, or friendly, or human. Very cold writer with cold characters - I get tired of all the existential angst.

(Her Jane Austen novel was CRAP - how someone without an ounce of wit in their bones had the effrontery to think they could 'do' Austen is beyond me. None of the characters were true, they just had the same names as Austen.)

I once made the mistake of giving all my Christies away to a second hand bookshop as I'd read them all 20 times and was having a fit of tidying up. Then had to spend quite a lot of money buying them all back. Crime is my comfort read - sense of order, things being resolved, the guilty being punished, a world and a novel that has rules. Someone - it may have been Antonia Fraser - once pointed out they are like fairy stories for grown ups for all those reasons.

Wordfactory - You seem to make a lot of assumptions about male/female reading habits and preferences. How much of this is based on research and how much is just made-up? Has it not occurred to you that lots of crime fiction is well written with strong narratives, and lots of people (irrespective of gender) like that? Why should there be a gender bias in relation to quality?

You also imply that people like reading about things that are close to their experience, eg if they like a sense of order they read crime fiction for a sense of order. Isn't one of the main attractions of fiction that it can be a million miles from people's realities and that this is the attraction? I really think you're trying to draw some absolute conclusions where they don't really exist. And would advise against penning some authoritative IWD2013 article based on this thread.

One thing I enjoy about crime/thrillers is you know they'll have a proper ending! I find a lot of novels seem to trail off or not resolve things well, and that annoys me.

I am not usually a Bindel fan but this feature is quite interesting.

I just like reading about dismemberment and perversion, really. Personally.

And Sophie Hanna is good on the way that crime fiction is relegated a lot of the time to a so-called second class.

Also I like the blend of domesticity and/or relationship angst with aforementioned dismemberment and peversion. Camilla Lackberg is partiuclarly endearing in this regard.

Why is it strange for women to read crime fiction books?

What I don't understand is why women read chick-lit crap, and why they have to read books with female characters. I couldn't care less if the lead characters in a book are male, female, or hermaphrodite (actually, loved Middlesex) and would rather stick pins in my eyes than read idiotic drivel with a 500-word vocabulary about women's daily lives & problems with their hubbies and children.

Motherinferior - Some of those books mentioned in that piece sound hideous and they all do seem to feature violence against women and children. I think those authors realise that bigger shocks equal bigger sales and we'll hear of even more graphic depictions soon.

I think we are letting the presence of female characters disguise the fact that they are the ill treatment of women and children packaged up for mass entertainment.
Something I find deeply disturbing as a wider media trend.

I'm sure plenty of women watch CSI and SVU too, but it doesn't mean their popularity is any less disturbing.

I like crime fiction because I read it for escapism, and so like an easy read more often than not. I read instead of tv mostly, so my reading is the equivalent of Eastenders or something quite gripping but unchallenging.

I can't bear the weak and pathetic women in romantic fiction, so that is not often an option.

It generally sets up a well thought out plot, explains the thinking of the investigation, simplifies the science, and comes to a good conclusion - perfect!

Is ill treatment of men packaged up for mass entertainment OK, then? Or are you campaigning for the abolishment of the entire crime genre?

Cote - Considering all the classic writers of the genre (Christie, Chandler) etc, didn't feel the need for graphic depictions of torture, rape and dismemberment, the answer to your facile question is no.

The issue is, if any of the authors mentioned in the Bindel piece suffered a drop in sales, the first thing their editor would suggest to them is to insert something even more unpleasant happening to a woman or child and yes, I find that worrying.

I can tell you why I read crime fiction and it's for the 'whodunnit' aspect of the plot, the puzzle, the reveals and the resolution at the end. I don't much care about the victim or the manner of death, as long as it's an interestingly drawn set-up rather than overly graphic or contrived. I would definitely feel uncomfortable if the perpetrator got away with the crime.

What is it supposed to mean that Agatha Christie wrote her books in a different way to how crime books are written today?

There wasn't much graphic description of sex & violence in books, movies, nor song lyrics of that time in general. These days, there is quite a bit of sex & violence in all of the above. Times have changed. Readers and viewers can handle more detail now, and they are demanding it.