John Connolly talks about Irish readers’ lack of interest in crime novels. He says the Irish naturally clash with systemic qualities of crime fiction, such as urban life and respect for police. An Irish inferiority complex may come into play too.
After all, crime fiction is less about the world as it is than the world as it should be. As William Gaddis wrote in his novel JR (1976): “Justice? – you get justice in the next world, in this world, you have the law.”
Crime fiction refuses to accept that this should be the case, and in doing so it reflects the desire of its readers for a more just society. Even at its darkest it is, essentially, hopeful by nature.
Perhaps, for the Irish, that hope is yet to come. (via Books, Inc.)
Maybe the counterpart to the crime story in a culture that despises the legal authorities is the caper yarn, where the audacious hero outwits the venal, plodding powers-that-be.