The Duns Gang of Women-Haters - The Case of David Hewson

Over the last few months, I have been blogging here about the work of the right-wing, public school thriller writer Jeremy Duns. His work is often a celebration and glorification of rape and violence against women, creating a culture in which men find it acceptable to beat, rape and sometimes kill women.

I have been routinely abused and threatened by Duns and his supporters for doing that.

Duns has a little circle of rape-deniers and abuse-deniers who are his enthusiastic supporters.

Now that I have looked into their work I find that they  as well appear proud to hate women, and think that extreme and graphic depictions of violence against them is completely acceptable.

I will start with the case of David Hewson.

Hewson is the author of several thrillers, but I will start with his most recent book, 'The Killling II'. This is a spin-off from the TV series - we must assume that Hewson does not do original ideas.

In the very first chapter, the detective in the story discovers a body. Inevitably, it is a woman. Here is how Hewson describes it. "A woman was tied to the centre pole,  hands behind her back, bound with heavy rope round her torso. Blonde hair soaked with rain and worse, head down, chin on chest, crouched awkwardly on her knees. A gaping wound at her neck like a sick second smile.She wore a blue dressing gown slashed in places all the way to the waist, flesh and skin visible where the frenzied blade stabbed at her. Her face was bruised and dirty. Blood poured from her nostrils, had dried down the side of her mouth, like make-up on a tragic clown."

Note the use of the description of a 'gaping wound' that is 'like a second sick smile'. I can assume that Hewson is trying to compare it to a vagina. Sick.

Just a one off? Before that Hewson published 'The Killing I'. That book opens with the murder of a young woman called Nana Birk Larsen. Again, Hewson goes into loving, detailed descriptions of the killing because, we can assume, that is what he enjoys writing about.

Now, I have no doubt that Hewson and Duns and all the other rape-deniers in their little public school club will immediately point out that the main detective in both The Killing books, as in the TV series, is a woman, and therefore that they should not be accused of sexism.

This is at all not true.

The use of a female protagonist is just a fig-leave that disguises but does not excuse the women-hating that underpins these books.

Why is it that the victims have to be women?

In fact, serial killers are very rare in Denmark where the story is set. According to this source Denmark has only two known serial killers - very low by global standards.

So Hewson is not in any way attempting an honest or accurate description of police work in that country. He is deliberating creating the kind of case that does not really exist there. Why is he doing that? And what does it say about his view of women and how they should be treated.

Some people in the crime writing community have had enough of the way its writers have started celebrating violence against women as a cheap way of selling books. For example, the reviewer Jesscia Mann stopped reviewing books because she was disgusted with the way they used graphic descriptions of horrific crimes against women - you can read about her brave stand here. 

But writers like Hewson have decided to ignore that.

Clearly, the only type of story they can think of is one that involves killing women - even if it is very far from reality.

That is because they think that women have become too powerful, and have to be put in their place - by men of course.

It is typical of the attitude

Raping women is 'sweet', according to the writer that Duns thinks is the best ever.

Rape is the stuff of male fantasies. It is only a small step from raping them to killing the. After all, that is the best way to make sure the 'bitches' (another favourite word of the Duns circle of rape-deniers) don't talk.

And killing them is a good subject for a book - hey it will sell some copies.

It is disgusting, and it has to be stopped.