Empathy and crime novels: How do you get readers to share in the excitement of the “unfathomable”? ‹ CrimeReads

In the new book by Nick Mason (An honorable assassin), Mason finds himself on the other side of the world, ruthlessly hunting down a target to assassinate. One of Mason's teammates, a hardened French assassin named Luna, has this exchange with him as they await rescue after escaping to a remote island:

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It took her a long time to answer. “You let yourself feel “It,” she said finally. “It will destroy you.”

“How can I not feel that? I'm still human. And so are you.”

“Yes, we are humans, the wildest animal on earth. We will never be more than that.”

Mason didn't know what to say to that.

“They kill people,” she continued. “Just like me. That's what we do. That's what we Are now. You can't hold on to this impossible idea that you are some kind of honourable murderer. There is no such thing. It is in your way and will probably kill you. Maybe both of us were killed.”

She is right that Mason is trying, perhaps in vain, to retain at least a small piece of his own basic humanity, something that Luna seems to have given up on long ago. It is true that Mason basically has no choice but to continue this mission, because if he fails, his ex-wife and daughter – the think They are safe in America — sure to find out otherwise. And yes, the man he is hunting happens to be Hashim Baya, a man who invests in international terrorism as if he were just another commodity.

But is that enough for you as a reader to feel real sympathy for him?

Before I attempt to answer that question, I want to go back to the very beginning, when I was just getting into crime fiction. My first main character was Alex McKnight, a former Detroit cop with a bullet in his heart who is currently retired to a remote cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He's a man who just wants to be left alone, but is still a sucker for a lost cause. If someone comes to the Glasgow Inn asking for help, Alex will never say no. Even if that means going back out and getting his ass kicked. (I didn't miss the word “Knight” being right there in his name!)

After a few books with Alex, I wrote a standalone novel (Night work) about a parole officer – whose job it is literally to be the last hope of keeping someone out of prison. (Not to be confused with a parole Officer who works as an extension of the prison system and watches you like a hawk in case you screw up and have to be put back in a cell.) Joe Trumble also likes to sit in his window above a boxing gym and play the saxophone very bad, so how could you not be for him?

In The Castle ArtistI finally used a criminal as a protagonist – but Michael is just an orphan when he finds out he has an unforgivable talent for opening safes. This makes him far too useful to the wrong people, and so a life of crime isn't even an option for him. Far from putting readers off, he ended up being the most “clingy” character of all.

In The second life of Nick MasonI finally felt like I was ready to test the reader's limits in terms of empathy with a main character. Mason is, after all, a professional criminal. He started stealing cars as a teenager on the south side of Chicago. He later moved on to taking down drug dealers with his partner Eddie. In the process, he developed a strict set of rules for himself. (“Rule number one: never work with strangers. Strangers will put you in jail or underground.”)

But as the first book begins, Mason has broken his own rules and now he is five years in A 25 years in a federal prison. All he wants is a chance to build a new life with his daughter and ex-wife, so he makes a deal with Darius Cole, a criminal mastermind serving a life sentence who still rules an empire from his prison cell. Not only does Mason leave prison, he enters a life of luxury – with a luxury apartment on the North Side, a 1968 390 FT Fastback Mustang, and $10,000 in cash in a bank safe deposit box on the first of every month.

The catch? Whenever his cell phone rings, day or night, Mason must answer the call and follow any instructions given to him.

I admit that Nick Mason is forced to commit increasingly brutal and dangerous crimes, but the fact that he is so Good I was genuinely worried that he wouldn't win over readers – that he would ultimately be the only character who was “unfathomable.”

It turns out I had nothing to worry about. To date, I have not heard from a single reader who has expressed anything other than sympathy for Nick Mason. Which makes me wonder: What is the point fiction that puts us in the shoes of a character like no other book, not even the most lively non-fiction?

I am not the only one who wonders this. In a study [On Being Moved by Art: How Reading Fiction Transforms the Self: Creativity Research Journal: Vol 21, No 1 (tandfonline.com)] Led by Keith Oatley, a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto (and also a novelist himself), his team divided 166 participants into two groups. One group was given the Chekhov short story “The Lady with the Puppy,” about a man and a woman who meet on vacation and engage in an extramarital affair. The other group was given a report that covered the same topic as the story, with the same details and length, but presented in documentary form. The subjects' personality traits and emotions were assessed before and after reading. Those who were given the story in its original, fictional form showed greater personality changes—they showed significantly more empathy and personal identification with the characters, and even became a little more like them. “I think the reason fiction, but not nonfiction, has the effect of enhancing empathy is because fiction is primarily about the interaction of selves with other selves in the social world,” Oatley said in an interview with The Guardian [Reading fiction ‘improves empathy’, study finds | Fiction | The Guardian]”In fiction, it's constantly about why she did that, or if that's the case, what should he do now, and so on. With fiction, we enter a world where that mindset prevails.”

I don't know if that fully explains everything, because to me, fiction's ability to create empathy in a reader's mind is still a true miracle – and beyond the ability of any academic study to measure it. But that's okay. I just love that it works, and I'm content to continue to admire the process and continue to try to create characters you can root for, even if you probably wouldn't want to meet them in real life.

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Meet Steve Hamilton on the AN HONORABLE ASSASSIN book tour! –