After having declared I don't do opinion pieces, here I am opining. But if the twitter tag #destroythejoint has taught me anything in the last couple of days it's that I'm sick of being shut up by a bit of intimidation. And besides, this issue has really given me more than a few moments pause for thought.
I don't suppose I'm the only reader of crime fiction that had a little bit of a sick feeling at the pit of their stomach when R.J. Ellory was outed as a sockpuppeting author(link is external).
I don't think anyone would for a moment consider that anything that he did wasn't wrong, but the thing that has me most discomforted is not the talking up of his own books, but the talking down of others. It's easy to see how a spot of marketing over-enthusiasm could maybe get in the way of sense, but how that stepped over into other book putdowns is what's making my brain hurt.
Having said all of that, I don't know R.J. Ellory, as I don't know about 90% of the authors whose books I class amongst my favourite. And I do regard many of Ellory's works as amongst my very favourite books. And I will continue to read his books. Why? Well for a start I don't review authors - I review books. There's a big difference in my mind. There's a distinct possibility that a lot of the authors whose books I like are or are not the nicest people or the biggest bastards in the world. No idea. Not my place to judge. I certainly hope Roger Ellory is okay - he's made a mistake, as have I at many times in my life.
But I do know that I do have a preference for crime fiction that explores the darker side of human nature. I do have a preference for the types of fiction that explore the inexplicable action, the accidental evil if you like. Maybe there's something in the experience of the author that informs the way that they write that sort of subject matter, maybe it's just one hell of an imagination on their part. Again - no idea. Not part of the equation when I'm considering whether or not the book, the work, the outcome is something that worked, informs, entertains or makes me think long and hard.
Having said that, it's the negative reviews that I'm really struggling with, not just because some of those seem to have gone against the writers of other of my all-time favourite books. And you can be sure that I'll be making a special effort to catch up with their books in the very near future, that's about the only "positive" stance I can come up.