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. My working methods involve a great deal of time spent not actually writing. Usually I don't plan very much - once I establish the theme, some of the main characters, one or two scenes, then I blunder off.