We don’t need another hero

I'm wary of heroes, modern ones anyway. The classical type are fine. They’re flawed, miserable, doomed creatures, nothing like the too-perfect marionettes you meet on occasion today. If you’re thinking about writing about one of the latter – you know the kind, great teeth, perfect hair, indefatigable, and always willing to pat small dogs on the head between saving people – please stop for a moment and consider what you’re doing.

Here are some of the characteristics stereotypical heroes tend to have. They’re . . .

• Handsome
• Decent
• Brave
• Invincible (and often seemingly incapable of noticing pain like the rest of us.)

Are you yawning yet? I am. Who wants to hang around goody-goodies like that?

The ancients understood this problem intrinsically. From the outset they gave their heroes flaws. So Achilles came with his heel (and we all knew from the moment that came on the scene where his fate would one day lie). They also made them difficult human beings. Achilles was a bloodthirsty, bad-tempered maniac. The first two lines of the Iliad run . . .

Sing, Goddess, of the rage, of Peleus’ son Achilles
The accursed rage, which brought pain to thousands of the Achaeans.

And that’s just the beginning. In a little while he starts to get really mad.

Modern heroes try to pick up on the Achilles trick but it’s often an afterthought. Superman was born in 1932. Kryptonite, his Achilles heel, first appeared in a radio play in 1942. It wasn’t until 1949 that the one thing that could kill Superman finally made its way into the comics. So for seventeen long years the guy was utterly indestructible, bound to win every encounter in the end because no one could do him any serious harm. Fine for a comic, obviously. Boring if you only have words.

The most intriguing characteristic of a real hero is something very simple. It lies not with his or her strength but their weakness, their fallibility. Not every reader likes this idea, of course. I once got one of those whiny so-called Amazon ‘reviews’ from a punter railing against a Costa book simply on the grounds that Nic was a ‘bad detective who makes mistakes’. That reader wanted a comic book hero: the perfect good guy bringing evil to book. Costa, like most of the protagonists I write, certainly wants to do the latter, but he often struggles to define precisely what evil is, and he fumbles things along the way.

In Baptiste: The Blade Must Fall, a key element in the story is a huge mistake on Baptiste's part: he's sent someone to the guillotine only to realise on the day of the execution he seems to have nailed the wrong man. The same with my new book When The Germans Come. Renard, the detective in wartime Dover, knows there's a flaw in the tale he's being told about a showgirl's murder, but to begin with he goes around in circles trying to find out just what. He’s a mere mortal after all because that’s the kind of fiction I write. I stoutly defend my Amazon correspondent’s right to hunt for Superman in fiction but why he was looking for him in one of my books is beyond me.

Heroism in heroes is predictable and liable to induce yawns without something to add a little texture and interest to the mix. They would act like that, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t you too if you knew you were invincible and couldn’t feel pain?

What can be much more illuminating is heroism in ordinary folk, people who don’t think of themselves as heroic in the least, yet discover an inner, unknown core of strength when some extraordinary situation demands it. This is just what happens in The Garden of Angels where I was principally interested in exploring what's make unassuming individuals risk their lives to fight tyranny during occupation and war. I did a lot research into real cases of people turning partisan in Italy during World War Two. Often the trigger was something very simple, almost mundane. An act of cruelty that sparked a sense of anger and outrage.

On a more mundane level, there’s a news story you read from time to time that sums this up. It’s the one where someone jumps into a river to save a drowning child, or a dog even, and dies in the attempt. Only later do we discover that they couldn’t actually swim.

That says more to me about real human heroism – the sense of self-sacrifice, the hatred of seeing a life going to waste, the blind determination to do something whatever the cost – than some bloke flying around in a cape and red underpants.

There’s something inspirational about blunt, simple, selfless bravery in someone who becomes aware of a tear in a universe that’s supposed to be in harmony, and wants to mend that. For me, that’s often all the hero – and character – I need.