The FUTURE of CRIME (FICTION)
Does crime have a future? Or will the weapons and methods of the increasingly expansive security state—with its ubiquitous cameras and tracking devices, its increasingly sophisticated forensic science with genetic mapping and DNA matching—make crime as we know it all but obsolete?
How will criminals respond to this brave new world? More to the point for our purposes here, how will crime writers adapt? Is this the end of car chases, fistfights, gun battles? Will snappy banter get replaced by dueling tweets? Cagey criminals hammering away at keyboards (yawn)?
We put these questions to a number of the most successful, innovative crime writers today to get a glimpse of what the future may hold for the genre.
[Note: This article was written before the nationwide protests against police violence erupted in the late spring. Accordingly, the issue of how policing may change—or not change—in light of the reforms that should result from those protests is not addressed here. We hope to devote another article to that concern, specifically as it affects the portrayal of law enforcement and communities of color in the crime genre, in the future.]
THE UPCOMING LAW ENFORCEMENT LANDSCAPE
The most daunting prospect for most crime writers is the increasingly sophisticated array of tools at law enforcement’s disposal, making it harder and harder for anyone to get away with anything, at least for long. What specific changes on the horizon do
