Hallgrímur Helgason, Kjell Ola Dahl and Vish Dhamija in conversation with Ravi Subramanian

“We are now living in peaceful times” and the thrill of crime is missing from our lives, said Icelandic writer and artist Hallgrímur Helgason justifying the rise of crime fictions on Sunday at Times Litfest Kolkata.
The session — Whodunnit: Rise Of Crime Fiction — saw Kjell Ola Dahl from Norway, the author of the Oslo detective series; Vish Dhamija, who has seven crime fictions to his credit along with Helgason whose work on the genre of crime fiction brought him much accolades, in conversation with Ravi Subramanian, the bestselling Indian thriller writer.

It is always a question, rather, more of a notion, that crime fictions are driven by society but the speakers had varied takes on it. “Iceland is such a peaceful country that there is practically one murder in a year. I see it as more of a thrill that people miss in their lives as we are now living in peaceful times,” said Helgason. However, Dahl and Dhamija took a slightly different standpoint.

“People love mystery and there is a Freudian concept in the genre. I wanted to write about my society and thus I started writing crime fictions,” said Dahl while Dhamija said India is yet to develop a taste for crime fiction but the genre is slowly picking up pace in the country.

Writing several books on legal crimes, Dhamija spoke about his background of passion for law. “I had studied law for a year after I dropped it for something else but the feeling of something needs to be written on law was always there,” added Dhamija who has earned the name of ‘Master of crime and courtroom drama’.

The conversation took an interesting turn when the speakers were asked why there are less female characters in crime fictions. To this, Dhamija had a witty one-liner, “In jails there are more men than women”, reflecting how society too plays a role in shaping the genre of crime fictions.

Crime fictions are often left inconclusive, which generally keeps a reader thinking about what happened but authors are often forced to tie up the loose ends keeping their readers in mind.

“I was once asked to change a chapter by a woman because a character there had some resemblance to her mother. I did start to change it but I felt I was killing art so I apologised and kept my original write-up intact,” said Helgason while Dahl said he tries to stay loyal to the story and generally goes with the flow.

“Can books change society?” asked someone from the audience after the session was opened for questions, to which the speakers unanimously answered in negative, though a book by Dahl inspired cops in Norway to take up a case.

The authors were also asked what drives crime fiction and their unanimous reply was, “the readers”.