Death became her: victims, killers and gender bias in contemporary crime fiction [Presentation]

In this paper I will explore the relationship between gender and violence in contemporary crime and thriller fiction. Incorporating recent debates around ‘dead girl’ tropes, revenge dramas and theories of the gaze, I will explore the difficulties of writing in a genre that, until relatively recently, has been saturated with dead women. Focusing on a selection of pivotal novels, films and television shows from the past fifteen years including Gone Girl, My Sister the Serial Killer and Bad Sisters I will discuss the shifting fashions of female representation in crime fiction from faceless victims and unreliable narrators to ruthless cops and caustic murderers.

At the same time, I will consider my own position as a crime and thriller writer, interrogating the process of character creation and plot construction in relation to who might die, kill or survive on the page. If I invent a sharp female serial killer, how can realism be maintained when hardly any exist? If my ‘final girl’ triumphs how will readers feel when they put down the book and return to a world in which those girls rarely survive? In essence, this paper will explore how we might create and consume exciting thrillers when the genre we enjoy writing, reading and subverting is built on women’s suffering, exploitation and death. With violence against women and girls in the UK at ‘epidemic’ levels, can escapism and hope be found in radical crime fiction that reframes outmoded gender tropes and upends victim/killer archetypes?