Murder in the Stacks Reader's Advisory for Mystery & Detective Fiction |
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My theory is that people who don't like mystery stories are anarchists. -- REX STOUT
Additional resources for RA librarians:
Murder on the Internet: Web resources for mystery & detective stories
The Reference Shelf: A bibliography of print resources for mystery & detective stories
AN OVERVIEW OF THE MYSTERY GENRE
Why are we here? The mystery genre as literature
- Edmund Wilson: "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" (New Yorker, June 20, 1945)
- George J. Demko: "Detective Fiction and Edmund Wilson: A Rejoinder"
- David Lehman: "The Mysterious Romance of Murder" (Boston Review, Feb/Mar, 2000)
Beginnings: 1841 - 1918
- Edgar Allan Poe: Father of the Detective Story (Dupin in "Murders in the Rue Morgue", 1841)
- Eccentric detective and sidekick (Dupin and his assistant/narrator)
- The least likely suspect
- Locked room mystery
- Codes and cyphers ("The Gold Bug")
- Armchair detection
- Fictional investigation of true crime ("The Mystery of Marie Roget")
- 'Ratiocination': intellect rather than brute strength
- Hide in plain sight ("The Purloined Letter")
- Emile Gaboriau: First detective novel (L'Affaire Lerouge, 1866)
- Arthur Conan Doyle: Creator of The Great Detective (Holmes & Watson in A Study in Scarlet, 1887)
- Anna Katharine Green: Grandmother of the American Detective Story (Ebenezer Gryce in The Leavenworth Case, 1878)
- Wilkie Collins: The professional police detective (Sgt. Cuff in The Moonstone, 1868)
- Fergus Hume: The detective story as formula & best-seller (The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, 1886)
- E. C. Bentley: Reaction against the infallible (& increasingly eccentric) detective (Trent's Last Case, 1913) and beginnings of the Golden Age of classic British detective fiction
Important points:
- Development of the sensational (Gothic) novels of the 18th & 19th centuries
- Increased interest in crime: The Newgate Calendar (1760, et seq)
- Golden Age of the short story: magazines & other serial publications
- Professional police and detective forces had strong influence
- Beginnings of formal detective story:
- The detective as outsider
- The Watson as stand-in for reader; match wits with the detective
- Ratiocination and deduction
- Scientific investigation (R. Austin Freeman)
- Two strands: sensation (thriller) and detection (pure puzzle)
For online sources on the history of detective and crime fiction, visit the following sites:
A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection by Michael E. Grost
An extensive series of connected essays on classic mystery writers, from E.A. Poe through the Golden Age. An indispensable introduction to the genre.
Mystery Greats Time Line, a production of MysteryNet.com.
An abbreviated list of classic writers, including Poe, Doyle, Sayers, Queen, Hammett and McBain.
The Thrill of the Chase by Mike Ashley
A survey of collectible crime and detective fiction by classic writers, from the Crime Time Online site.
Detective Fiction
Wikipedia entry.
Classic Detective Fiction: The Golden Age between the wars (1919 - 1939)
Development of formal rules for detective stories- S.S. Van Dine: Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories (1928)
- Ronald A. Knox: Detective Story Decalogue (1929)
- Detection Club Oath: No Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo-Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God (c.1928)
- Rules broken almost immediately: Christie, Iles, others
Closed societies
- The village (Colin Watson: 'Mayhem Parva' in Snobbery with Violence)
- The university (Oxbridge)
- Murder in the manor (and locked rooms)
- Upper and upper-middle classes (the butler didn't do it)
- Clues, clues, clues -- and lots of red herrings
- Campion (with royal connections): Margery Allingham
- Wimsey (younger son of a duke): Dorothy L. Sayers
- Philo Vance (American aristocrat): S. S. Van Dine
- Henry Gamadge (old New York family): Elizabeth Daly
- Inspector Roderick Alleyn (brother of baronet): Ngaio Marsh
- Snobbery with Violence (Colin Watson, 1971)
- 'Sapper': Bulldog Drummond
- E. W. Hornung: Raffles
- Edgar Wallace: J. G. Reeder
- Schticks: 'yellow peril'; gentlemen-crooks; violence; all for England
- The detective story as novel of manners: Dorothy L. Sayers
- Growth in characterization: Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, Ellery Queen (later novels)
- 'Inverted' stories: R. Austin Freeman, Francis Iles (and Columbo)
- Psychological complexity: Michael Innes, Michael Gilbert, Nicholas Blake, Helen Eustis (The Horizontal Man, 1946)
- American Masters: Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, Elizabeth Daly, Phoebe Atwood Taylor
- Locked rooms and impossible crimes: John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson, Christie, Queen, Anthony Boucher
- HIBK ('Had-I-but-known'): Mary Roberts Rinehart, romantic suspense
Other Golden Age writers (and their heirs):
- Cyril Hare
- Philip MacDonald
- John Rhode
- Josephine Bell
- Edmund Crispin
- P.D. James
- Amanda Cross
- Jane Langton
- Emma Lathen
- Robert Barnard
Important points:
- Murder investigation as intellectual game with reader
- Importance of physical 'clews'
- Relatively bloodless: murder offstage
- Emotional effects of crime rarely seen
- Amateur investigators: the Jessica Fletcher syndrome
- Increasing use of the novel rather than the short story form
- Return to 'moral order' when crime solved - W. H. Auden, "The Guilty Vicarage" (Harper's, May, 1948)
For online resources on Golden Age mysteries, visit the following sites:
Crime Fiction Database
Short bios and bibliographies for a number of Golden Age writers.
The Curse of the Title Change
Many UK detective stories mysteriously changed their titles as they travelled across the Pond. Herewith a database of some of those transmigrations.
GAdetection: The Golden Age of Detection
Yahoo groups homepage for the GAdetection e-mail discussion list.
The Grandest Game in the World
Website devoted to several Golden Age authors: Gladys Mitchell, John Dickson Carr, H C Bailey, Nicholas Blake, and Edmund Crispin, with book reviews and links.
Golden Age of the Detective Story
Wikipedia entry.
Golden Age of Detection Wiki
Fan-generated collection of material relating to the Golden Age of Detection - roughly from 1920 to 1960 - covering authors, books, magazines, ephemera and other details. In progress.
The American Revolution: The Hard-boiled School
(Giving murder back to the people who are really good at it)
Pulp magazines (1920s)- Carroll John Daly
- Race Williams
- Raoul Whitfield
- Black Mask Magazine - Joseph T. Shaw, editor
- The Continental Op: Red Harvest; The Dain Curse (both 1929); short stories (1923 on)
- Sam Spade: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
- Nick and Nora Charles: The Thin Man (1934)
- Philip Marlowe: The Big Sleep (1939); The Long Goodbye (1953)
- "The Simple Art of Murder": manifesto of the American crime story (The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1945)
- Ross Macdonald
- Mickey Spillane
- John D. MacDonald
- Robert B. Parker
- Marcia Muller
- Sara Paretsky
- Jeremiah Healy
- Walter Mosley
- Cornell Woolrich
- James M. Cain
- Jim Thompson
- James Hadley Chase
- Patricia Highsmith
- Private investigator as lonely fighter for justice
- Violence onstage
- Fear/hatred of women and the 'other'
- Corruption permeates society at all levels
- The city as character
- No 'return to moral order' as in classic (British) detective novels
For online resources for hardboiled mysteries, visit the following sites:
Twists, slugs and roscoes
A glossary of hardboiled slang.
The Thrilling Detective
Website devoted to private eyes and hard-boiled fiction. Includes definitions, title lists for hundreds of authors, as well as information about TV and movies. As the site owner, Kevin Burton Smith says: " It's not about cops, plucky librarians, nosey old spinsters or talking cats..."
RARA-AVIS
Homepage of the RARA-AVIS e-mail discussion list, devoted to hard-boiled fiction, and named in honor of Hammett's Maltese Falcon, a 'rare bird' indeed.
The mystery today: two main strands continue -- the thriller and the puzzle
Increasing diversification of the genre:
- Legal thrillers: The Bellamy Trial by Frances Noyes Hart (1927), John Grisham, Scott Turow, Linda Fairstein, Robert Tannenbaum
- Culinary mysteries: Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout (1938), Virginia Rich, Katherine Hall Page, Nancy Pickard
- Regional mysteries: Jane Langton, James Lee Burke, Dana Stabenow, Sharyn McCrumb, Tony Hillerman, Massachusetts mysteries
- Unusual sleuths: Joe Dereske (librarian), Lillian Jackson Braun (cats), Nevada Barr (park ranger), Emma Lathen (investment banker), Aaron Elkins (forensic anthropologist), Iain Pears (art dealer)
- Mary Daheim
- Charlotte MacLeod
- M.C. Beaton
- Elizabeth Peters
- Jeff Abbott
- Elizabeth Daniels Squire
- Carolyn G. Hart
- Founders: Lawrence Treat, Hillary Waugh (Last Seen Wearing, 1952)
- Grand Masters: Ed McBain, Elizabeth Linington, Dell Shannon
- American cops: Joseph Wambaugh, James Lee Burke, Archer Mayor
- British cops: Colin Dexter, Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, Peter Robinson
- Lawrence Block
- Parnell Hall
- Loren D. Estleman
- Stephen Greenleaf
- Joseph Hansen
- Bill Pronzini
- Sue Grafton
- Sandra Scoppettone
- Earl Derr Biggers: Charlie Chan
- Dana Stabenow: Kate Shugak
- Tony Hillerman: Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee
- Dale Furutani: Ken Tanaka
- Walter Mosley: Easy Rawlins
- Marcia Muller: Elena Oliverez
- Michael Nava: Henry Rios
- Edna Buchanan: Britt Montero
- Harry Kemelman: Rabbi David Small
Out of the Anglo-American ghetto: the mystery goes worldwide
- Italy: Umberto Eco, Donna Leon, Leonardo Sciascia
- Scandinavia: Peter Høeg, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, Poul Orum
- France: Georges Simenon
- Netherlands: Nicholas Freeling, Janwillem van de Wetering
- Switzerland: Friedrich Durrenmatt
- Germany: Hans Hellmut Kirst
- Spain: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
- South Africa: James McClure
- Latin America: Jorge Luis Borges, Paco Ignacio Taibo II
- Japan: Edagowa Rampo, Seicho Matsumoto, Takagi Akimitsu
- Israel: Batya Gur, Robert Rosenberg
- G.J. Demko's Landscapes of Crime: discussion & lists of regional mysteries throughout the US & the world
The historical mystery: solving old crimes & imagining new ones
- Classic beginnings: Josephine Tey (The Daughter of Time; 1951)
- Robert van Gulik: Judge Dee mysteries (ancient China)
- Leonard Tourney: Elizabethan England
- Ellis Peters: medieval England
- Sharan Newman: medieval France
- Philip Kerr: Nazi Germany
- J. Robert Janes: occupied France
- Steven Saylor: ancient Rome
- Laurie R. King: Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes' wife(!)
- Kate Ross: Regency England
- Lynda S. Robinson: ancient Egypt
- Anne Perry: Victorian England
Thrillers, serial killers and modern horrors: noir lives
- Mary Willis Walker
- Patricia Cornwell
- Val McDermid
- James Ellroy
- Elmore Leonard
- Jeffery Deaver
- Thomas Harris
- Minette Walters
- Andrew Vachss
Additional resources for RA librarians:
Murder on the Internet: Web resources for mystery & detective stories
The Reference Shelf: A bibliography of print resources for mystery & detective stories
Originally presented:
WMRLS Reader's Advisory Training Workshop
Deadly Pleasures: Reading Mysteries
June 13, 2002
Updated for Workshop:
Whodunit? Mysteries, Their History and Appeal
April 12, 2007
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