Crafting Ethical and Moral Dilemmas in Crime Fiction

By Chris Berg and Paul James Smith

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In crime fiction, the most powerful moments often aren’t about car chases or shootouts—they’re about impossible choices. Think of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. At the climax, undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) faces off against corrupt officer Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Costigan has proof Sullivan is a mob mole; unfortunately for him, his cover’s blown too. Both men have a decision to make—cling to their oaths or focus on staying alive. Neither option comes easy, and whichever path they take, both moral and ethical consequences follow.

These are the crossroads we construct as thriller writers. They're neither black nor white; they thrive in the gray spaces that test characters' mettle, deliciously unsettle readers, and propel plots into uncharted territory. Incorporating these dilemmas into your narrative can evolve a simple crime yarn into something truly memorable.

Building the Perfect Dilemma

A moral or ethical dilemma isn’t just a tricky choice. It’s a collision of imperatives: follow one, and you sacrifice another. There’s no safe option, no loophole. A detective may bend the law in pursuit of justice. An officer might cover for a corrupt partner at the expense of his or her own integrity. The power lies in the personal and professional damage they cause.

The reason they matter is simple: dilemmas pull readers deeper into your story. They imagine themselves in the character’s shoes—Would I do that? Could I live with it?—and the suspense turns personal. This is where thrillers move beyond plot mechanics to something that lingers with the reader.

Thrillers hook readers with action, but it's these dilemmas that leave a longer-lasting impression. When characters fight with right and wrong, they feel human; when choices carry heavy consequences, suspense clings through the last page; and when these decisions shift the story, the narrative gains depth.

Compelling thrillers reveal the world as it is—messy, complicated, morally uncertain. They reflect life’s tangled ethics and blurred lines between right and wrong.

Ethical Battles at the Heart of Thrillers 

At their core, many crime thrillers circle the same inescapable questions—for example:

• Justice vs. Law: Do the ends ever justify breaking the rules?

• Loyalty vs. Duty: Protect a partner—or expose their corruption?

• Greater Good vs. Personal Cost: Is it just to sacrifice one to save many?

• Truth vs. Harm: Is the truth ever worth the cost of an innocent life?

Used thoughtfully, these tensions box characters in and pull readers with them.

Building Choices With Real Consequences

Effective dilemmas live in the character’s DNA, not just in plot mechanics. Begin by connecting the choice to your character's past. For example, a detective who delays reporting misconduct may be afraid not just of professional fallout but also of reliving past wounds.

Then, raise the stakes. If the outcome doesn’t alter lives, careers, or relationships, readers won’t care. Make sure every choice matters. And consider timing and consequences—dramatic shifts, unexpected turns, pivotal moments—when decisions matter the most.

Avoiding Missteps

Even the strongest ideas can falter. A scene overloaded with conflicting pressures quickly loses focus, while a dilemma wrapped up too neatly robs the story of tension. Preaching to the reader rarely works—let them wrestle with the consequences themselves. And characters must remain true to who they are; a cautious cop doesn’t suddenly take reckless risks without careful buildup. These dilemmas aren’t tidy. Show the cost of choices, reveal the fallout, and leave readers to navigate the gray areas on their own.

Consequences in Motion

In real life, decisions don’t disappear with the turn of a page—and in crime fiction, they shouldn’t either. A detective who plants evidence doesn’t just secure a conviction; he carries the fear of exposure, the hit to his integrity, and the strain on his friendships. A protagonist who shields a corrupt partner may find that the betrayal festers, eventually detonating at the worst possible moment. The aftermath matters as much as the choice itself. By showing this, your thriller reflects a fundamental truth: these decisions change people.

Make the Choice Matter

If you’re working on a manuscript, choose a single storyline and place your protagonist in a true moral or ethical squeeze. Force him or her to choose between two bad options. Heighten the cost. Resist the urge to offer a safe escape hatch. Then, see how the story shifts around your choice.

Readers stay hooked not by the action itself, but by the choices that lead to it. When a character is trapped by a dilemma, forced to confront who they are and what they’re willing to risk, the reader leans in, breath held. That is the moment when a thriller truly comes alive.

In crafting these tensions, prioritize authenticity over resolution—let the gray areas stand. This approach not only sustains suspense but mirrors the complexities of real ethical terrain. Apply it deliberately, and your story will gain the weight it deserves.

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Chris Berg and Paul James Smith: Claymore Award Winners | PageTurner Award Finalists | Authors of The Night Police Novels

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This article is adapted from a presentation delivered at the 2025 Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference. It explores how moral and ethical dilemmas elevate crime fiction, giving readers moments of tension that linger long after the story ends.

Natural Born Writers, Ready Made Stories: Writing and the Law / Author Robert Rotstein

The legal system abounds with conflict, quirky characters, mystery, and moral ambiguity. This is why writers tend to draw often and steadily from this familiar well, says author Robert Rotstein. This week’s guest blogger, Rotstein spells out why writers, many of them lawyers, find inspiration at the courthouse.

Happy Reading! And until next time, read like someone is burning the books.

Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine

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Natural Born Writers, Ready Made Stories:

Writing and the Law

By Robert Rotstein

Stories about the legal system abound and have for centuries. There are novels, some of them classic works of literature, like Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd the Sailor, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, and Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent.  There are great movies, like 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Philadelphia, and A Few Good Men. And there are the long-running TV shows: Perry Mason, L.A. Law, Law & Order, The Good Wife.

Not only do authors write about the law, but many lawyers have become authors. Henry Fielding, Wallace Stevens, and Franz Kafka had legal backgrounds, as do thriller writers Grisham, Turow, Steve Berry, and Lisa Scottoline, among many others. I’ve written two legal novels and still practice law full time.

If you accept the stereotypes, writers and lawyers are nothing alike. Attorneys are supposedly combative, social, linear thinkers. Writers are imaginative, introspective loners. So why are fiction writers fascinated with the legal system? And why have so many lawyers become successful writers? I believe it’s because lawsuits are real-life dramas.

The most basic piece of advice that aspiring writers hear at workshops in seminars is that the story has to create conflict. Lawsuits are all about conflict. The legal system is set up that way—it’s an adversarial system, and where there are adversaries, there are stories. Take the most basic slip-and-fall lawsuit. The plaintiff says he fell on a banana peel in the supermarket-produce section. The store manager says they’d swept the area two minutes earlier. A video from the security camera shows a shadowy, unidentified figure, taking something out of her pocket and dropping it in the area where the slip and fall occurred. Even with those sparse facts, you have the germ of a story. In a sense, lawyers are trained to become storytellers. (And I don’t mean to add the misguided stereotype that attorneys make things up; often, there really are two sides to the story.)  Conversely, the law provides raw material for the writer, automatically creating conflict. Lawsuits also create mystery, because the facts are almost always ambiguous—an automatic whodunit.

There’s another reason why writers are drawn to the law and lawyers are drawn to writing—as author-lawyer Daco Auffenorde has pointed out, lawsuits have a classic three-act structure. http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2014/04/22/daco-romance-authors-lawyers/8013569/.  The attorney files a complaint and learns about the witnesses (characters) (Act I); conducts depositions and fact investigations, where confrontation occurs (Act II); and resolves the conflict at a trial (Act III). In a sense, trial lawyers live out a drama each time they handle a case. And authors of legal drama have a ready-made structure just waiting to be molded into a novel.

While it’s not the most pleasant part of the job, attorneys also have to become conspiracy theorists. They make judgments about their own client, about the other side, and about the third-party witnesses. Lawyers must ask questions like, “Who’s lying?”

“Who’s self-motivated?” “Who’s ethical?” “Is he nervous?” “Will the jury think her arrogant?” In other words, the lawyer, like the writer, engages in character studies, and the legal system provides ready-made characters for the writer. In my own recent novel, Reckless Disregard, my lead character, attorney Parker Stern, represents a video-game designer known to the world only as Poniard, who’s becomes a defendant in a libel action after accusing a movie mogul of kidnapping an actress twenty-five years prior. Poniard will only communicate with Parker through e-mail, which makes the attorney’s usual “character study” of his client impossible. And this inability to evaluate his own client leads Parker into great danger.

Lastly, our adversarial system of justice assumes that there’s a right side and a wrong side, and where there’s “right and wrong,” there’s a moral judgment to be made. Writers thrive on raising moral questions. Melville’s Billy Budd shows how earthly justice and divine morality sometimes conflict. To Kill A Mockingbird explores personal courage in the face of violent racism. The never-ending lawsuit in Dickens’s Bleak House casts an unjust legal system as the novel’s antagonist.

So lawsuits have all the attributes of a good story—conflict, characters, mystery, and moral ambiguity. That’s why the legal system has provided grist for fiction and why so many lawyers are equipped to become authors.

At least, that’s this lawyer’s story.

If you would like to read more about Robert Rotstein’s books please click here.

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Robert Rotstein is a writer and attorney who’s represented many celebrities and all the major motion picture studios.  He’s the author of Reckless Disregard (Seventh Street Books, June 3, 2014) about Parker Stern, an L.A.-based attorney, who takes on a dangerous case for a mysterious video game designer against a powerful movie mogul. Reckless Disregard has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. His debut novel, Corrupt Practices (Seventh Street Books), was published in 2013.

Visit his website at robertrotstein.com

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