Most people believe that it’s wrong to take a life. Many allow for exceptions such as wartime or defending oneself or one’s family, but for the most part, we believe that murder is wrong. With that strong social sanction against murder, it can be hard to have sympathy for someone who’s killed. In crime fiction, it means that the author needs a motive that’s compelling and a killer who’s nuanced enough that readers can see some good in that person. It’s not easy to do, but it can make for a fascinating character as murderer.

Agatha Christie created more than one murderer like that. In Death on the Nile, for instance, Hercule Poirot takes a cruise of the Nile. One of his fellow passengers is Linnet Ridgeway Doyle and her new husband Simon. They’re on their honeymoon, which includes the cruise. On the second night, Linnet is shot. The first suspect is her former best friend Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ De Bellefort. Linnet’s new husband is Jackie’s former fiancé (hence the end of the friendship), so there’s a definite motive. However, it’s soon proved that Jackie could not have committed the crime, so Poirot has to look elsewhere for the murderer. Then there are other murders. When Poiriot finds what’s behind the murders, he does have sympathy for the killer and admits as much. It doesn’t mean he condones what happened (Poirot does not approve of murder). But it does mean he feels for the culprit.

L.R. Wright’s The Suspect begins as eighty-year-old George Wilcox is standing over the body of eighty-five-year-old Carlyle Burke, whom Wilcox has just killed. From the beginning, we know who the murderer is. What we don’t know at first is the motive. As RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg soon discovers, Wilcox and Burke had known each other for years. When Alberg questions him, Wilcox admits he never liked Burke, but why wait until now to commit murder? As the novel unfolds, Alberg begins to suspect Wilcox, but he doesn’t have direct evidence, and he still can’t find a motive. When he learns why Wilcox killed Burke, the crime makes sense, if I can put it that way. Alberg has sympathy for Wilcox, and the reader is invited to do so as well.

In Louise Penny’s A Fatal Grace (AKA Dead Cold), Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is faced with a puzzling crime. Famous life coach C.C. de Poitiers has recently moved to the small town of Three Pines with her husband and daughter. She soon succeeds at alienating everyone in town, and she does some very hurtful, damaging things. On Boxing Day, C.C. suddenly dies during the traditional local curling match. At first it’s hard to see how she was killed, since the murder was committed more or less in public view. But soon enough, Gamache and his team find out how the crime was committed. As the novel goes on, we find out who was responsible and what the motive was. There’s a lot of sympathy for that person, and Penny writes compassionately about the individual.

Keigo Higashino’s Malice is the story of best-selling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka. One day, his wife, Rie, and his best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi, discover his body. The police are called in, and Inspector Kyoichiro Kaga begins an investigation. As you would expect, he first considers Hidaka’s wife and his best friend. But neither has a motive. What’s more, both of them have solid alibis. This means that Kaga will have to look elsewhere for the killer. And that means reviewing Hidaka’s finances, history, and so on. It takes some time, and it’s a complex mystery. But in the end, Kaga finds out who the killer is and what the motive is. It’s not hard to have some sympathy for this killer, once we know about the events that led up to the murder.

In Dennis Shock’s Murder on Liberty Bay, Lily Pine has recently moved from Ohio to the Pacific Northwest, where she is planning to open a restaurant. Her husband had always wanted to have a restaurant there and, in fact, bought the property before his death. Now, Lily wants to fulfil that dream. One day, she goes to the property to see what’s needed before the place opens. Inside, she finds the body of Clark Robbins. The police are contacted and begin the investigation. While they’re gathering information, the restaurant has to stay closed, so Lily is eager for the police to find the killer as soon as possible. She starts asking questions and finds that more than one person might have wanted the victim dead. In the end, she and the police find the killer. And when we know the whole story, we can have some sympathy for that person.

It’s not easy to inspire sympathy for a fictional killer. After all, murder is a horrible crime. But it can be done. Some authors do it by making the victim(s) very unsympathetic (e.g.  Håkan Nesser’s Woman With Birthmark). Others do it by creating a nuanced and complex killer, so that readers can relate to that person. Some authors have other strategies. When it works well, the end result can be a compelling character.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For the Devil.