The Lesbian detective in crime fiction

AfterEllen.com, a website devoted to gay and lesbian issues, has a nice feature on those writers who make use of a lesbian protagonist in their mysteries. They speak to Nicola Griffith, Ellen Hart, Lori Lake, Clare McNab, and others about the advantages and disadvantages they face in their choice of characater:

Nicola Griffith, author of The Blue Place and Stay, which feature Norwegian-American ex-cop Aud Torvingen, feels that lesbian mysteries focus too much on the “lesbian” aspect and ignore other, equally important, elements.

“‘Lesbian mysteries,’” Griffith explains, “that is, those books which are marketed as such, as opposed to crime novels that have lesbian characters, are focused on how the main character feels about being a lesbian. Often they are concerned with the main character’s coming out. This tends to overwhelm almost every other aspect of the book.”

“They become, in my opinion, unbalanced.”

Australian mystery author Claire McNab notes, “In the past it was assumed that lesbian novels must contain the requisite amount of sexual/romantic activity, but as the tendency is now to include intimate details of characters’ relationships in all mystery writing, this is no longer a defining quality.”

But while these authors do not agree on whether there really is a “lesbian mystery” genre, none hesitated to write about a lesbian character from the first page. “I didn’t choose to make Aud a lesbian: I didn’t choose to make her straight,” author Nicola Griffith clarified when I asked why she chose to make the Aud a lesbian. She continued, “I’ve never written about a straight person, just as I’ve never written about a man, or a blind person, or an old person. This is not to say I won’t write about such people, I just haven’t so far, because the stories I’ve wanted to tell aren’t their stories.”

Laurie King is also noted, not just because she’s a bit of an anomaly–a straight woman writing a gay protagonist–but also for the fact that the Kate Martinelli series will continue, with the next book due in stores sometime in 2006.