I’ve been pondering that age-old question lately: are people born rotten or do they turn into dirtbags later? Maybe this is an age-old question only for crime novelists and psychologists but I find it fascinating. Take a class full of 6-year-olds and statistically, one are two are going to end up in prison (especially in the jail-happy U.S.) Why can’t Johnny obey the rules? Why does Janey stab Susie with a pencil? Or why do good Johnny and Janey end up going bad many years later.
I think it’s 10 percent nature and 90 percent nurture, which is why I like to give my villains a developed past. When Brandon Blake or Jack McMorrow square off with a bad guy or gal, it’s usually the result of decades of complex dirtbag development. Of course, there are exceptions, where characters are just bad to the bone. But sometimes I think that’s more for plot expediency than it is reflective of real life. I like to think that there are reasons for most behaviors, if you dig deep enough. It takes a messed-up village to screw up a child.
So this week I’m mulling a certain sort of criminal: the embezzler, often a woman of a certain age, steadfastly responsible, a broad-shouldered caregiver who has never shirked responsibility. Until she starts to skim the receipts, fiddle with the books, funnel off in small bits what ends up being a pile of money. And when the crime is revealed, no one can believe it. “We trusted her completely,” is the quote you see in the stories. So what happened? A slippery slope, stealing once, stealing twice. But where does it lead? What would someone like this do to keep from being unmasked, to keep the facade of the trusted bookkeeper, accountant, manager in place?
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Also, I’m speaking Friday, March 12, 11:45 A.M., Boothbay Harbor (Maine) Memorial Library. For more information, call 207-633-3112 or email barbh@bmpl.lib.me.us
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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Gerry,
As an educator who has observed middle school kids for the past twenty years, I agree with you completely on the nature/nurture argument. Of course, in college Educational Psychology (my favorite course, taught by a cute young Ted Coladarcci) we studied tons of research to support this. Sadly, today I was thinking of this very issue as I drove into downtown Waterville and saw yet another of my former students, walking with a near-school-age child. It’s so sad, and you always hope that just one of ‘those’ girls will make it out, make it through her first few years of high school without dropping out and having a baby, but all too often they just perpetuate the cycle. They are hopeless at 13, and by hopeless I mean without hope. They have “seen it all” and are wearily jaded and suspicious of any attempts to introduce to them an alternative, a life beyond the South End or Elm Street apartments or even of Waterville. I guess the upside is that we can affect the environment a whole lot more easily than we can change genetic coding.
As to the embezzling females, that’s an interesting topic. (one of my students was shocked to know that Martha Stewart had gone to jail
I think of the case of the woman who stole from every sports team or boosters or class money that crossed her desk at Lawrence High, and she was eventually caught. (she parked her shiny, 30,000 dollar car in the school secretary slot for 2 years first…) She served her time, and I’m sure she’s never lived it down socially, but now I see her working at McDonald’s as a cashier, and occasionally dropping off or picking her grandchildren up at school functions in, you guessed it, Fairfield. I wonder what happened to make her risk everything? I wonder if everyone except me has forgotten? I don’t know how good we are at forgiving, either. I wish I could look past her behavior. Maybe she lived a spotless life up until that point. Maybe she was in financial straits at one point, and then it just got easy. How did she ease her conscience about the kids who saved up for their baseball card club to see the Red Sox, and never got to go because she pocketed their meager 2,000 dollars? And does she think of it when she purchases fund raiser candy bars from her grandkids, that someone might steal from them so that she can support herself more comfortably, with vacations and a shiny red sports car? Criminologists must have all these answers, but I always like your spin on things. You manage to be sympathetic when you expose that side of life we think we can dismiss with a simple “dirtbag” comment.
I am not as sympathetic as you most of the time, but it breaks my heart every year when I get a fresh crop of tired, suspicious, jaded 13 year old girls who already know what their future holds.
Hi Andrea: yes, teachers are the front line. You see some kids with all possible advantages and some with none. Education is the only possible equalizer. But after twenty or more years, you must see the next generation, the mistakes repeated and compounded as they’re handed down from parent to child. The hope is that a good teacher will break the cycle. I’m sure you’ve done it many times, but it seems like more and more a daunting challenge as standards break down, and there is no example or role model for a child to follow. Except in school.