Talking About Detective Fiction (thoughts)

Along with fantasy, mystery has always been one of my favourite genres. I’m sure that my mother passed both of these loves along to me…when I was 9 years old, we made one of our summer migrations north from central Texas all the way to upstate New York, since my mom’s family all live outside of Buffalo. While there, my mom came out of the attic with an old, beat-up cloth suitcase covered with flowers in a particularly 60s range of colours: mustard yellow, dull orange, and a shade of green I can’t quite name. Inside were all of the Nancy Drew books she’d collected as a girl, perhaps 30 or 40 of them! I still remember immersing myself in The Mystery of the Old Clock, and for the next few years every Christmas would see a handful of new Nancy Drews under the tree waiting for me. Eventually, around 12 or 13 I graduated to Agatha Christie, and I’ve never really looked back since. Mysteries have always been a comfort read for me…I prefer the traditional ones to the harder ‘crime fiction,’ and when all isn’t right in the world, I long to escape to St. Mary Mead or 110A Picadilly all over again.

While my love of mysteries was first nurtured by British classics, nowadays several contemporary authors from both sides of the Atlantic also number among my favourites: Laurie King and her Mary Russell, Donna Leon and her Inspector Brunetti, Kate Ross and her Julian Kestrel, and of course, P.D. James and her Adam Dalgleish. I’ve also been on a bit of hunt for mysteries from around the globe, and have had quite a few successes with debut authors; given a few years, I hope to add several international names to this list. Less relevant to a book blog, I also enjoy several of the BBC mystery series…right now, I must say Foyle’s War is my favourite with the newest Miss Marple adaptations running close behind. And while I’ve yet to make it even one hundred pages into The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novel, I loved the HBO adaptation all the same.

The point of all this is that I am the perfect audience for P.D. James’ Talking About Detective Fiction, a slim nonfiction treatise on the genre written on the request of the Bodleian. When I heard about the book, I had incredibly high expectations; after all, James is one of my favourite authors in the field, in particular for her literary sensibility. Guess what? She lived up to all of those expectations! My only problem with the book was that I had to return it to the library; this is one that I’ll be definitely be on the lookout for, as I plan to give it a place of honour in my permanent collection.

For such a small volume, James manages to cover both the history of the genre in its English-speaking British and American forms (with more of an emphasis on the British, I’d say) and more philosophical points, such as why readers enjoy books full of ‘murder and mayhem,’ how literary critics view mysteries, various writing styles, etc. I ended up with not only a more thoughtful view of one of my very favourite styles of literature, but also a whole new list of authors both contemporary and classic to try out!

Whether you’ve been a lifelong fan of mysteries, or you’re skeptical that such genre fare can possess any literary merit, I believe that Talking About Detective Fiction is well worth a read. I picked it up for the Bibliophilic Challenge, and it truly is a booklover’s delight! Erudite without being pretentious, comprehensive without being tedious, it’s the perfect way to spend an afternoon. I would warn you, though: have a mystery or two on hand for once you’ve finished, because if you’re anything like me, reading this will leave you craving them! :)

I’ve kept my post pretty brief, since unfortunately I don’t have the book itself to refer back to. However, Danielle of A Work in Progress (one of my best sources for new mystery authors!) did three wonderful posts on the book that you can read here, here, and here for a more in-depth discussion.

Do you have a favourite mystery author or book to suggest to me? I’m always on the lookout for more!