One of the things that I realized subconsciously predisposed me against mysteries is that when I was young they always had lurid covers that made them look positively trashy to anyone like myself with literary pretensions. And, they were always scrappy paperbacks. Double heh. I have to laugh at myself today because of the turnaround this English major made. After reading P. D. James' novels in the early 1980's I became almost exclusively a reader of mysteries for thirty years now. Before then, mysteries were considered, in general, to be not literary quality novels. But a funny thing happened. Excellent writers of terribly good literary quality began writing mysteries in droves and getting them published in the '80's. James herself was brightly anointed as "literary" and her career took off. So did mysteries.
And writers have not looked back. Since that time the proliferation of mysteries is quite amazing. After moving to Florida I was shocked to learn about a "seminar" type event on mystery writing in little ol' Gainesville, open to anyone interested in writing mysteries, complete with real live mystery writers giving talks and critiquing one's writing, for a fee. Was that happening everywhere? There seemed to have been 75 people attending the three day, not too costly, workshop.
Do you read mysteries? If not, continue below the squiggle. If so, continue as well.
Is it possible some novel readers still suffer under the illusion that mysteries offer no challenges, no surprising revelations about oneself and the world, no cerebral excitement? No psychological twists and turns, no enlightenment? No philosophical conundrums? Certainly, my own assumption in college and the two next decades was that mysteries were quite formulaic. That meant second class, boring, not worth my time. For anyone who has not tried reading a mystery, that is not the case!
The mystery novel has come very far in the past thirty years. At least, that's my observation. Earlier writers of mysteries included many, many fabulous writers,* but popular perception denigrated the genre as something below "The Serious Novel." Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Even "great" novelists considered to be horribly serious-- Joyce Carol Oates comes to mind --have written their share of mysteries for some reason. Because they can? Because they sell? Another time perhaps.
Monday Murder Mysteries has made it glaringly obvious to me how far the mystery novel has come in the last thirty years. As a genre it has exploded. It was just starting in the mid-80's, I believe. At that time, P. D. James was the acclaimed new Queen of Mysteries, the first post-Christie, "literary" mystery novelist to achieve that appellation. Her An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, with Cordelia Gray, was rare at that time. (Sheesh, I sound like ancient history.) Of course Christie (who sold billions of copies but was not considered so much a novelist as a mystery author) had the brilliant amateur, Miss Marple, but James was among the first to use an actual female detective. In the novel of mine that she read 30 pages of I had a female detective, a psychologist who had plenty of money and style, and James** told me she liked that I had created a "new detective." Still makes me smile. Since then female detectives have proliferated.
Confining oneself to a format which at bare minimum contains a beginning, a middle and an end, can be liberating to a writer. Readers who love stories become hooked on mysteries which deliver a good plot. "Plot" sounds such a boring word today. Isn't "puzzle" more fun?
It's fascinating how many different types of mystery novels there are today. Besides the general and sub-genres of cozy, amateur detective, police procedural, thrillers, crime and so on, are those of different countries. Those reading this probably have certain types they most like, or that they stick to. For instance, I like cozies, so called partly because they do not have blood and gore, etc., but I pretty much detest those that are too cute, or overly fussy about some aspect of life such as cooking, crafts, church or ghosts. Nothing against these, just not my taste. Perhaps because usually the puzzle is not sufficiently complex---at least that's, again, my perception. And I dislike gore so too realistic crime scenes are out. The multiplicity of types is quite incredible.
Perhaps this is because murder, the crime we most care about, takes place everywhere, all strata of society, all types of communities, in all time periods, and all around the world. Yet we are not so much jaded as fascinated. But I believe it is less about the crime and how it is committed as much as how the criminal and his or her act becomes revealed. The puzzle of that is crucial, but without characters the reader identifies with it would be nothing.
Why I love mysteries ~~ personal notes:
Some love mysteries within a certain country or location, and British mysteries have been my favorites. A few years before reading James's books, I had spent a few months in Britain, living a good part of the time with British friends and traveling about. Until the last ten years I didn't even branch out into Europe though I spent time there. Donna Leon was my first, and I love spending more time in Venice with her characters.
Mysteries that I do not read are those that center on CSI, have bloody or grizzly details, true crime, violent or very dark crimes, or ones that elicit lots of fear. Just personal preference.
The things I love about mysteries are probably the same things most people like:
~ a fascinating puzzle of a crime
~ interesting characters
~ believable location into which I can escape
~ only the most subtle of clues
Surprise endings are good but not that many authors can successfully pull them off. One was Margaret Millar, an Edgar Award winner, whose Beast in View's ending was delightfully surprising, a fact I remembered for more than 25 years, after reading hundreds of other mysteries. Recently I read a couple of her others, happily re-printed, and enjoyed them very much. Her books received much critical acclaim though she is not well known. Recent reprints in paperback include a one volume An Air That Kills/and Do Evil in Return.
Many others seem to love series of mystery novels where the same detective or group of detectives work on solving the crime. These are my favorites as repeating casts of characters who develop personally and in their relationships with each other add enjoyment, make one eager to pick up the next book. Novelists of series reel in devoted series readers, other things being right, sometimes to as many as 25 or even 50 novels. That's quite a feat. I'm not sure who was the first of such mystery series authors to be successful, but it must be Agatha Christie with Poirot and Miss Marple. Dorothy Sayers' and Marjory Allingham followed. Current British series: foremost, for me, are Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin, Elizabeth George (American), Deborah Crombie, Peter Lovesy, then there are Robert Barnard, Natasha Cooper, Clare Curzon, M.C. Beaton and many others.
I'll leave you with this:
Another type of mystery I enjoy sometimes is offbeat because the mystery may not be "conventional." Patricia Highsmith is a case in point, also "literary," and highly acclaimed, especially in Europe! She wrote the Ripley novels some of which were made into very famous movies. Ever hear of Strangers on a Train? Her 1950's novels -- which I'd call existentialist, but what do I know -- remind me of Albert Camus. One of the two I recently read, Deep Water, was a suspenseful and unusual mystery from the murderer's point of view. In The Tremor of Forgery (which the New Yorker called her best novel) the crime is more of an accident without a real motive, except disliking a person. It centered on what the protagonist would do about it, if he had to tell, if he'd get caught, if it would mess up his relationship. The fear that it would cause catastrophe was palpable--to the reader if not to the character--and made it exciting. And no, I won't tell you what happens. If you read this far you'll have to go read the book, out again in paperback last year.
Note to regular MMM readers: Hope I haven't made too many glaring errors, just written from my own P.O.V. I am completely and interestedly open to exposure of errors and discussion of contrary opinions! Have at it!
* Last week's Monday Murder Mystery includes a lit of excellent mystery writers (literary quality! if you will) from P.D. James' 1985 B.U. course, including mostly English language writers of the first books known as mystery novels up to the 1980's.
** P.D. James, now 90, has written about 20 novels, mostly featuring Adam Dalgliesh, some of which have been made into movies. Revered in Britain, she recently published Death Comes to Pemberly, a Jane Austen-like novel, which got some good reviews but is not universally loved, I take it, though I have not yet read it.
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