Trying to write an original serial killer story is a nightmare. Thomas Harris’s novels of the eighties are a touchstone for this thriller sub-genre, and hundreds of authors have attempted to replicate his gothic formula of gruesome murders by deviant, trophy-hunting, psychopathic monsters. “Your killer cuts a hand off all his victims?” Laura Lippman once joked. “Well, mine cuts off both feet!”
It’s easy to slip into cliché and, often, we have no idea why the murderer is even committing the act. The whole thing can feel cheap and tacky.
For this reason, I was reluctant to attempt a serial killer book – preferring organised crime themes instead – until my publisher challenged me to come up with a plot for one. Weeks went by without inspiration before I happened to pick up a discarded copy of the London Evening Standard magazine while travelling on the subway. The title of one article grabbed my attention: ‘Why are young men having less sex than they have for generations?’ Of course, I had to read on.
The piece sparked my interest in the phenomenon of online misogyny. In recent years, the internet has become a place where men who hate women can gather to share their views. Sadly, there is nothing new about men hating women or, indeed, being violent towards them. What is new is the ability to communicate that hatred – instantly, anonymously, globally – and the modern context of empowered, strong women in many domains of public life.
For some men, this empowerment constitutes a threat, to which they believe violence is a justified response. Coupled with the rise in self-proclaimed ‘life coaches’, pedalling recipes for success in dating and finding love, it’s easy for a romantically disillusioned young man to fall into an almost-radicalised state of mind. Women are denigrated, de-humanised, objectified, and blamed for every failure in men’s lives. There are various sub-cultures within this world, but one that is perhaps most worrying is that of the ‘involuntary celibates’, or ‘incels’.
The incel movement began in North America in the late nineties as a kind of online ‘lonely hearts’ club – for men and women – but eventually became dominated by misogynists. These men hated the fact that women could choose their sexual partners and, in their view, seemed to favour genetically blessed, tall, rich guys. Soon, their web-based expressions of rage took on a darker reality: three instances of mass murder in the US and Canada. These attacks claimed a total of 20 lives and injured 35 others. Incels now refer to those killers as ‘saints’ and ‘gentlemen’.
As a psychologist by training, I tried to imagine the mindset behind that type of violence and how it might develop. What kind of experiences could inspire such hatred? And what personality traits would make a person react to those experiences by embarking on a campaign of murder? Now, I knew I had a topic I felt sufficiently motivated to write about. These themes form the basis of my new novel Knock Knock. In the book, soldier-turned-detective Dan Lockhart seeks the help of his psychological therapist Dr Lexi Green, an American living in London, to catch a serial killer.
For me, this is where crime fiction is at its best: giving us a window into the social issues of the day and taking us inside the minds of perpetrators as well as victims. Of course, there are certain conventions in the way those stories are told, which can easily slip into trope if we’re not careful. But, when rooted in reality – as I hope Knock Knock is – then, clichéd or not, the serial killer novel can stay relevant for many more decades.
Knock Knock is available in e-book via Amazon Kindle Unlimited and in print-on-demand format from Amazon and most other retailers from March 17th.
