Crime and punishment

by Rick Blechta

Tom’s post yesterday got me thinking — as they often do — about justice and retribution. That’s hardly surprising considering how things are going on our little blue planet these days.

I’ll freely admit that I’m a news junkie. It started to get really bad when Toronto elected Rob Ford to be its mayor. Practically every day brought to light new outrages: bad behaviour, scandals, drug use. Canada’s largest city seemed to be circling the drain. I read all the papers and watched videos from news websites (We don’t have a TV.) Ford really kicked my news junkie-ism into high gear.

Later we got a certain political leader in the country to the south, and glory be, Rob Ford’s big brother got elected to lead Ontario, Canada’s largest province! Now I severely have to curb my news habit or risk accomplishing nothing all day long.

Now here’s where the whole thing above ties together with Type M for Murder’s mandate. (“There’s actually a mandate?” ‘Yes, there is.’) I’m finding myself constantly filled with Righteous Indignation at people who should be brought to justice but are getting away with it. So put me in the same camp as my blogmate Tom.

Since I’m also working on a novel, I’m finding it difficult not to do away with anyone who’s a bad egg. Sometimes I even succumb and kill them for fun, knowing I’ll have to remove that bit since my plot won’t work without that character.

Why am I doing it? Because I’m angry and doing away with these offending (and offensive) characters makes me feel better. It’s childish, but there it is.

Really, I’m not a violent person. If anything I bend over too far in the other direction, but well, tough times call for tough responses. If I can’t see real life lawbreakers being frog-marched off to the hoosegow, I can at least do it, or worse, in my story.

I have an idea the body count in this novel is going to be positively Shakespearian by the end — unless things improve dramatically in the next few months.