The template is the bare bones for the rest of what the speech contains: I always reshape, sharpen, bring in ideas more directly relevant to whatever I have been asked to speak about. This is the difficult part.

In this case, the Historical Society had proposed an idea to me that I had not considered before: a crime-free society. Thinking about it I was struck not only by the possibilities but also by my ignorance of the subject.

While still at home I had tried to work this out calmly. I had never visited Dearth, had barely even heard of it. None of the reference books I usually looked in even mentioned the place. Online encyclopaedias were not much help. Dearth was treated as an anomalous island, secretive, run by a hardline seignioral family who were rarely seen in public. They encouraged industrial expansion and the performing arts, but restricted personal freedoms of both the vassal class and the citizen serfs. It was described as a stimulating but challenging place to visit. The mountainous wilderness on the eastern side was said to be ideal for activity holidays. The island was the site of several gravitational nodes which had erratic side effects. The idea of a crime-free state on the island of Dearth was described as ‘alleged’. Alleged by whom? I wondered. There was still an active police force.

I sensed a risky subject.

One approach suggested itself. I could discuss the impact such a policy might have on my own work, whether it were real (I suspected it was not) or aspirational (more likely). I make no pretentious claims for what I do. I write crime fiction, pure and simple, and make my living from it. I am a commercial writer. I complete about one novel a year, sometimes with a couple of short stories written when inspiration on the novel temporarily fails.

Thrillers assume crime is a reality in the world, that murder is an intermittent but common event, that every killing or grand larceny needs to be dealt with firmly. A police force is therefore a requirement to catch the wrongdoer, as is a system for punishing or rehabilitating the offender. Crime should be discouraged. Mysteries need to be solved. Justice must be done.

But how would that sort of fiction work if the reader, as well as the writer, lived in a world without crime? What would be the point of fiction assuming the presence of something that no longer existed?