The Mean Streets of Suburbia

Few things get your undivided attention quite like a dead fish on a suburban sidewalk.

I found the poor soul one evening while walking my dog. At first, I thought it was a figment of my imagination. But standing over it—and as I dissuaded Lola from taking advantage of an impromptu sashimi snack—I realized that, yes, a fish of indeterminate species was lying in decayed repose on the concrete.

While a dead fish on a sidewalk is a rare sight in my ‘hood, other forms of trash are not. The streets around us are often littered with the mortal remains of shattered glass bottles, crushed aluminum cans, discarded fast-food containers, and other detritus better suited for a trash bin. Each and every bit of this rubbish tells a story, as in this unsightly litter lies the kernel of inspiration for mystery and other forms of crime fiction.

True, the ‘burbs lack the palpable grit of urban settings where the likes of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, Harry Bosch, V.I. Warshawski—heck, even Sherlock Holmes—ply their trades. Then there are the wide-open spaces, mountains, and small towns where rural crime fiction taps into a vein of dread and despair foreign to those of us who live in cul-de-sac hell.

Yet the mean streets of suburbia are a well-traveled world unto themselves, where, if you put your mind to it, anything can and will happen, as authors who write noir , suspense , mystery —even cozies —have proven.

Perhaps it’s the banal sameness of the suburbs. Near-identical houses sit on near-identical sized lots, divided by cinder block walls that assure privacy…for better and for worse. Or it could be the fact we don’t know, much less pay attention to, our neighbors.

The mundanity of suburbia means not much happens here. Oh, sure, the renters two doors down managed to set their house on fire (by tossing warm coals from a grill into a plastic trash can filled with yard waste), porch pirates regularly make off with untended deliveries, and late-night prowlers break into cars parked on driveways (because nobody can fit their SUVs in jam-packed garages). But when something serious does happen, tongues wag, and can lead imaginations to run amok.

• One morning, a police officer appeared at our door and asked if we heard gunshots the night before; he explained that the boyfriend of the woman who lived across the street shot her (I don’t remember if she survived, but still). Now, what prompted him to do it? Drugs? Money? A love triangle? And how was the woman’s teenage daughter involved?
• A while back, joyriders roamed our ‘hood, randomly shooting at houses and cars. But what if it wasn’t random? Who were they targeting and why? And what if one of those rounds had hit and killed someone, notably a child? And what would the parents do in response?
• More recently, there was a murder a few blocks from our house. Henderson’s homicide rate is well below the statewide and national figures; so, why him? What could possibly motivate someone to kill a 65-year-old man, no doubt minding his own business at home? Or was he? What did he do to deserve it?
• A few days ago I found a child’s shoe in the bicycle lane of a nearby street. Did somebody merely lose it? Or did was the child the victim of an abduction? And if so, who took them? And why?

?So many unanswered questions, so much fictional mayhem to exploit.

Perhaps on its own, a dead fish on a sidewalk does not a crime yarn make. But behind the protective cover of our cinder block walls, in our red-tile roofed bungalows, on our patios, in our pools, and at our grills, there are plenty of stories to be told.

?

??

?

?

?

?

?

?

??