Edition: U.S. / Global

The Crimes They Are A-Changin'

Published: May 13, 2002

Maybe the butler did it. Maybe he didn't. Maybe the butler is part of the sad, festering underbelly of society, and it doesn't matter who did it anyhow. But this much is certain: in the brooding, nouveau-noir mystery novel, a genre enjoying a current renaissance, murder isn't what it used to be.

The detective novel has lately been jump-started by a new group of writers whose books are a far cry from the tidy, English, poisoning-the-vicar stories. In the manner of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, they cultivate doomy urban atmosphere and treat murder as a manifestation of a wider world. They also look toward ways of making that world a better place. And their approach has begun to resonate with readers in a major way. Long relegated to the pulp fiction ghetto, they have moved into the best-selling mainstream.

''There are a lot of crime writers who say that at the beginning of a novel there's a murder that sets the world off balance,'' said George P. Pelecanos, who bases his stories in the murkier regions of Washington. ''And that when you put that world back in order at the end of the book you're doing a service to the reader. But I don't believe you can ever solve a murder.''

He added: ''When somebody's dead, they're dead forever, and it ripples out into the community and into people's lives. The world is forever off balance. And I don't want to make people feel comfortable with it. I want them to be entertained but also uncomfortable by the time they finish a book.''

Mr. Pelecanos, who is in his mid-40's, recently met for breakfast in New York with his fellow mystery stars Dennis Lehane, whose ''Mystic River'' was a wrenching, ambitious book that centered on a Boston area shooting, and Michael Connelly, whose ''City of Bones'' moved up to No. 4 this week on the New York Times best-seller list. Their books have somber, striking cover art to differentiate them from more candy-colored popular writers. One of the mysteries about Mr. Connelly's new book, at least to him, is why it features a photograph of trees when it has the word city in its title and urban Los Angeles malaise at its heart.

The three are collegial enough to help one another, and to encourage up-and-coming new talent. They were with Ian Rankin, who is one of the bestselling mystery writers in Britain. His Edinburgh-based Inspector Rebus series prompted a 100-page analysis of his ''Black and Blue'' by an academic (''It's kind of scary to see the kind of stuff she thinks is in there that I don't,'' he said).

Mr. Rankin has been encouraged by the others but is hardly the new kid on the block: at 42 he has 16 Rebus books to his credit. ''I went into Barnes & Noble this morning,'' he told the others, by way of explaining the uncertain literary status of this flourishing genre. ''Two of us were in the mystery section, and the other two were in fiction.''

But these authors neither read nor write in a strictly mystery-minded way. ''I would love to start a book by saying who did it and how they did it on the first page and then saying, 'Now let's tell the story,' '' Mr. Rankin said. Like the others, he thinks more about character than clues when he develops his books. ''Sometimes I'll look at the last page and just find out,'' he says about checking out the competition, ''so I can enjoy it as a book and not have to play that game.''

When Mr. Pelecanos plots a story, ''I'll introduce the antagonist before the protagonist even, just to get that out of the way,'' he said. ''There are twists in the books, but not mysteries.''

Mr. Connelly, 45, puts it this way: ''You start off seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But all sorts of things can happen in the tunnel.''

In addition to deciding who will wind up dead in each new novel, these writers face an added challenge: how to keep the detective alive. As Mr. Lehane, 36, points out, recurring characters like Mr. Connelly's Harry Bosch and Mr. Pelecanos's Derek Strange are not conceived in the spirit of Miss Marple. As mystery writing has grown more determinedly realistic, reflecting social ills that lend their stories a dimension of tragedy, the old-fashioned repeating, unchanging detective has grown obsolete. ''How many changes can you put them through?'' Mr. Lehane said about serial protagonists. ''I can't keep sending them to the pit of hell and expecting them to come out with their brains intact.''

There was a simple way in which things used to work, he said, even in the age of Raymond Chandler. ''And it was like 'Starsky and Hutch': Starsky's girlfriend would be blown away, and at the end of the show he'd be standing at the cemetery knowing he'd never forget her. Then he'd have a whole new girlfriend next week.''

But nowadays these authors' characters sustain their war wounds from earlier stories and even learn from previous mistakes. That makes them substantial figures to the point where Mr. Connelly has to take periodic vacations from Harry Bosch in order to let him develop. His next book will feature a chemical researcher, an idea that he has been mulling over for a while. ''I'm fascinated by the way they work out problems,'' he said.