Then, in my late twenties, two things happened - I discovered the novels of Patricia Highsmith, and I began to write a story with a corpse on the very first page, which eventually turned into Caroline Minuscule , my first novel. I suspect that nowadays more people are writing crime fiction who, fifty or a hundred years ago, would have written mainstream novels. I like the fact that crime fiction is a form of popular entertainment. The genre is in a very healthy state. There is a lot of astonishingly good new writing coming up, too.
Most crime writers have both in our novels, to varying degrees.
Leaving aside the morality of the matter, I think a writer's most powerful tool is his reader's imagination - suggesting is often more effective than stating. Shocks tend to be more shocking, in terms of fiction, when they occur in isolation. As for politics, writers of fiction can hardly help being political in the broader sense. But good novels and party political broadcasts tend not to go together. Good crime writing is often full of anger.