Mystery is a
fiction genre
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
A num ...
where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains
mysterious
Mysterious may refer to:
* ''Mysterious'' (album), a 1988 album by Shizuka Kudō
* "Mysterious" (song), a 2005 song by Jentina
* "Mysterious", a song by Scorpions from the 1999 album '' Eye II Eye''
* Mysterious Walker
Frederick Mitchell Walk ...
until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
(such as
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are
non-fiction
Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...
. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a
whodunit
A ''whodunit'' or ''whodunnit'' (a colloquial elision of "Who asdone it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the cl ...
. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with
hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism.
Mystery fiction can involve a
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
s of the 1930s and 1940s, whose titles such as ''Dime Mystery'', ''Thrilling Mystery'' and ''Spicy Mystery'' offered what were then described as complicated to solve and weird stories: supernatural horror in the vein of ''
Grand Guignol
''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in natura ...
''. That contrasted with parallel titles of the same names which contained conventional hardboiled crime fiction. The first use of "mystery" in that sense was by ''Dime Mystery'', which started out as an ordinary crime fiction magazine but switched to "
weird menace
Weird menace is a subgenre of horror fiction and detective fiction that was popular in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and early 1940s. The weird menace pulps, also known as shudder pulps, generally featured stories in which the hero was pitted a ...
" during the later part of 1933.
Beginnings
The genre of mystery novels is a young form of literature that has developed since the early 19th century. The rise of literacy began in the years of the
English Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...
and, as people began to read over time, they became more individualistic in their thinking. As people became more individualistic in their thinking, they developed a respect for human reason and the ability to solve problems.
Perhaps a reason that mystery fiction was unheard of before the 19th century was due in part to the lack of true police forces. Before the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, many towns would have constables and a night watchman at best. Naturally, the constable would be aware of every individual in the town, and crimes were either solved quickly or left unsolved entirely. As people began to crowd into cities, police forces became institutionalized, and the need for detectives was realized – thus the mystery novel arose.
An early work of modern mystery fiction, ''
Das Fräulein von Scuderi
''Das Fräulein von Scuderi'' is an East German crime film directed by Eugen York. It was released in 1955.
Cast
* Henny Porten as Fräulein von Scuderi
* Willy A. Kleinau as Cardillac
* Anne Vernon as Madelon
* Roland Alexandre as O ...
'' by
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819), was an influence on ''
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
C. Auguste Dup ...
'' by
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
(1841) as may have been
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
's ''
Zadig
''Zadig; or, The Book of Fate'' (french: Zadig ou la Destinée; 1747) is a novella and work of philosophical fiction by the Enlightenment writer Voltaire. It tells the story of Zadig, a Zoroastrian philosopher in ancient Babylonia. The story ...
'' (1747).
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for ''The Moons ...
' novel ''
The Woman in White'' was published in 1860, while ''
The Moonstone
''The Moonstone'' (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. The story was serialised in Charles Di ...
'' (1868) is often thought to be his masterpiece. In 1887
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
introduced
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
, whose mysteries are said to have been singularly responsible for the huge popularity in this genre. In 1901
Maurice Leblanc
Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc (; ; 11 December 1864 – 6 November 1941) was a French novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective Arsène Lupin, often described as a French c ...
created gentleman burglar,
Arsène Lupin
Arsène Lupin (French pronunciation: ʁsɛn lypɛ̃ is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazi ...
, whose creative imagination rivaled the "deduction" of Sherlock Holmes, who was disparagingly included in some Lupin stories under obvious pseudonyms.
The genre began to expand near the turn of the century with the development of
dime novel
The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...
s and
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
s. Books were especially helpful to the genre, with many authors writing in the genre in the 1920s. An important contribution to mystery fiction in the 1920s was the development of the juvenile mystery by
Edward Stratemeyer
Edward L. Stratemeyer (; October 4, 1862 – May 10, 1930) was an American publisher, writer of children's fiction, and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He was one of the most prolific writers in the world, producing in excess of 1,300 ...
. Stratemeyer originally developed and wrote the
Hardy Boys
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that stumped their adult counterpa ...
and
Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew is a Fictional character, fictional character appearing in several Mystery fiction, mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published ...
mysteries written under the
Franklin W. Dixon
Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels for the Stratemeyer Syndicate (now owned by Simon & Schuster). Dixon was also the writer attributed for the ''Ted ...
and
Carolyn Keene
Carolyn Keene is the pseudonym of the authors of the Nancy Drew mystery stories and The Dana Girls mystery stories, both produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In addition, the Keene pen name is credited with the Nancy Drew spin-off, ''River H ...
pseudonyms respectively (and were later written by his daughter,
Harriet Adams
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (December 12, 1892 – March 27, 1982) was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many boo ...
, and other authors). The 1920s also gave rise to one of the most popular mystery authors of all time,
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
, whose works include ''
Murder on the Orient Express
''Murder on the Orient Express'' is a work of detective fiction by English writer Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 1 January 1934. In the U ...
'' (1934), ''
Death on the Nile
''Death on the Nile'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at s ...
'' (1937), and the world's best-selling mystery ''
And Then There Were None
''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as ...
'' (1939).
The massive popularity of
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
s in the 1930s and 1940s increased interest in mystery fiction. Pulp magazines decreased in popularity in the 1950s with the rise of
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, so much that the numerous titles available then are reduced to two today: ''
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
''Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine'' (AHMM) is a bi-monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime and detective fiction. ''AHMM'' is named for Alfred Hitchcock, the famed director of suspense films and television.
History
''AHM ...
'' and ''
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fict ...
''—both now published by
Dell Magazines
Dell Magazines was a company founded by George T. Delacorte Jr. in 1921 as part of his Dell Publishing Co. Dell is today known for its many puzzle magazines, astrology magazines, as well as fiction magazines such as ''Alfred Hitchcock's Myste ...
, a division of Crosstown Publications. The
detective fiction
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...
(
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
of
Frederic Dannay
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...
and
Manfred B. Lee) is also credited with continuing interest in mystery fiction.
21st century
Interest in mystery fiction continues to this day because of various television shows which have used mystery themes and the many juvenile and adult novels which continue to be published. There is some overlap with "thriller" or "suspense" novels and authors in those genres may consider themselves mystery novelists.
Comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s and
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s have carried on the tradition, and
film adaptation
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
s or the even-more-recent web-based detective series, have helped to re-popularize the genre in recent times.
Classifications
Detective fiction
Though the origins of the genre date back to ancient literature and
One Thousand and One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
, the modern detective story as we know it was invented by
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
in the mid-19th century through his short story,
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
C. Auguste Dup ...
, which featured arguably the world's first fictional detective,
C. Auguste Dupin
''Le Knight, Chevalier'' C. Auguste Dupin is a fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe. Dupin made his first appearance in Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", widely considered the first detective fiction story. He rea ...
. However, detective fiction was pioneered and popularized only later, in the late 19th century, by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for '' A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
's
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
stories, considered milestones in
crime fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...
.
The detective story shares some similarities with mystery fiction in that it also has a mystery to be solved,
clue
Clue may refer to:
People with the name
* DJ Clue (born 1975), mixtape DJ
* Arthur Clues (1924–1998), Australian rugby league footballer
* Ivan Clues
* Tim Cluess
Arts, entertainment, and media ''Clue'' entertainment franchise
* ''Cluedo ...
s,
red herrings
A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question.
Red herring may also refer to: Animals
* Red herring (fis ...
, some
plot twists
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist or surprise ending. It may change the aud ...
along the way and a
detective denouement, but differs on several points. Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories feature no suspects at all, while mystery fiction, in contrast, features a large number of them. As noted, detective stories feature professional and retired detectives, while mystery fiction almost exclusively features amateur detectives. Finally, detective stories focus on the detective and how the crime was solved, while mystery fiction concentrates on the identity of the culprit and how the crime was committed, a distinction that separated
And Then There Were None
''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as ...
from other works of
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
.
True crime
The true crime is a literary genre that recounts real crimes committed by real people, almost half focusing on serial killers. Criticized by many as being insensitive to those personally acquainted with the incidents, it is often categorized as
trash culture
The term "trash culture" entered into common use in the West from the 1980s to indicate artistic or entertainment expressions considered to be of a low cultural profile but able to stimulate and attract the audiences. It refers to books, movies, ...
. Having basis on reality, it shares more similarities with
docufiction
Docufiction (or docu-fiction) is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) a ...
than the mystery genre. Unlike fiction of the kind, it doesn't focus much on the identity of the culprit and has no red herrings or clues, but often emphasizes how the culprit was caught and their motivations behind their actions.
Cozy mystery
Cozy mysteries began in the late 20th century as a reinvention of the Golden Age whodunit; these novels generally shy away from violence and suspense and frequently feature female amateur detectives. Modern cozy mysteries are frequently, though not necessarily in either case, humorous and thematic. This genre features minimal violence, sex and social relevance, a solution achieved by intellect or intuition rather than police procedure with order restored in the end, honorable and well bred characters, and a setting in a closed community. The murders are often committed by less violent tools such as poison and the wounds inflicted are rarely if ever used as clues. The writers who innovated and popularized the genre include
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
,
Dorothy L Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
and
Elizabeth Daly
Elizabeth T. Daly (October 15, 1878 – September 2, 1967) was an American writer of mystery novels whose main character, Henry Gamadge, was a bookish author, bibliophile, and amateur detective. A writer of light verse and prose for ''Life'', '' ...
.
Legal thriller
The legal thriller or courtroom novel is also related to detective fiction. The system of justice itself is always a major part of these works, at times almost functioning as one of the characters. In this way, the legal system provides the framework for the legal thriller as much as the system of modern police work does for the police procedural. The legal thriller usually starts its business with the court proceedings following the closure of an investigation, often resulting in a new angle on the investigation, so as to bring about a final outcome different from the one originally devised by the investigators. In the legal thriller, court proceedings play a very active, if not to say decisive part in a case reaching its ultimate solution.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author. He is best known for the Perry Mason series of crime fiction, detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of ...
popularized the courtroom novel in the 20th century with his
Perry Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a c ...
series. Contemporary authors of legal thrillers include
Michael Connelly
Michael Joseph Connelly (born July 21, 1956) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller.
Connelly is the bes ...
,
Linda Fairstein
Linda Fairstein (born May 5, 1947) is an American author, attorney, and former New York City prosecutor focusing on crimes of violence against women and children. She was the head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's offi ...
,
John Grisham
John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Am ...
,
John Lescroart
John Lescroart (; born January 14, 1948) is a ''New York Times'' bestselling author known for his series of legal and crime thriller novels featuring the characters Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky, and Wyatt Hunt. His novels have sold more than 10 mi ...
,
Paul Levine
Paul J. Levine (born January 9, 1948) is an American author of crime fiction, particularly legal thrillers. Levine has written 22 mystery novels which include two series of books known by the names of the protagonists. The ''Jake Lassiter'' ser ...
,
Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline (; born July 1, 1955) is an American author of legal thrillers.
Life
Born in the Lower Moyamensing neighborhood of Philadelphia, Scottoline attended Lower Merion High School and then went on to earn a B.A. in English magna cum la ...
and
Scott Turow
Scott Frederick Turow (born April 12, 1949) is an American author and lawyer. Turow has written 13 fiction and three nonfiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies. Turow’s novel ...
.
Police procedural
Many detective stories have police officers as the main characters. These stories may take a variety of forms, but many authors try to realistically depict the routine activities of a group of police officers who are frequently working on more than one case simultaneously, providing a stark contrast to the detective-as-superhero archetype Holmes brought. Some of these stories are whodunits; in others, the criminal is well known, and it is a case of getting enough evidence.
In the 1940s the police procedural evolved as a new style of detective fiction. Unlike the heroes of Christie, Chandler, and Spillane, the police detective was subject to error and was constrained by rules and regulations. As Gary Huasladen says in Places for Dead Bodies, "not all the clients were insatiable bombshells, and invariably there was life outside the job." The detective in the police procedural does the things police officers do to catch a criminal. Writers include
Ed McBain
Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino,(October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author and screenwriter best known for his 87th Precinct novels, written under his Ed McBain pen name, and the novel upon which the film ''Blackbo ...
,
P. D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...
and
Bartholomew Gill
Bartholomew Gill was the pen name of Mark C. McGarrity (July 22, 1943 – July 4, 2002),Gravestone for Mark C. McGarrity/Bartholomew Gill, Newton Cemetery, Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. an Irish-American crime fiction and mystery novelist an ...
.
Howcatchem
An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describes the detective's attempt to solve the mystery. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, and they are explained or resolved during the story. This format is the opposite of the more typical "whodunit", where all of the details of the perpetrator of the crime are not revealed until the story's climax.
Hardboiled fiction
Martin Hewitt, created by British author
Arthur Morrison
Arthur George Morrison (1 November 1863 – 4 December 1945) was an English writer and journalist known for realistic novels, for stories about working-class life in the East End of London, and for detective stories featuring a specific detect ...
in 1894, is one of the first examples of the modern style of fictional private detective. This character is described as an "'Everyman' detective meant to challenge the detective-as-superman that Holmes represented."
By the late 1920s, Al Capone and the Mob were inspiring not only fear, but piquing mainstream curiosity about the American crime underworld. Popular pulp fiction magazines like Black Mask capitalized on this, as authors such as Carrol John Daly published violent stories that focused on the mayhem and injustice surrounding the criminals, not the circumstances behind the crime. Very often, no actual mystery even existed: the books simply revolved around justice being served to those who deserved harsh treatment, which was described in explicit detail." The overall theme these writers portrayed reflected "the changing face of America itself."
In the 1930s, the private eye genre was adopted wholeheartedly by American writers. One of the primary contributors to this style was
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...
with his famous private investigator character,
Sam Spade. His style of crime fiction came to be known as "hardboiled", which is described as a genre that "usually deals with criminal activity in a modern urban environment, a world of disconnected signs and anonymous strangers." "Told in stark and sometimes elegant language through the unemotional eyes of new hero-detectives, these stories were an American phenomenon." According to the best-selling author Michael Connelly,"Chandler credited Hammett with taking the mystery out of the drawing-room and putting it out on the street where it belongs."
In the late 1930s,
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
updated the form with his private detective
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe () is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler, who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The hardboiled crime fiction genre originated in the 1920s, notably in ''Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiel ...
, who brought a more intimate voice to the detective than the more distanced "operative's report" style of Hammett's Continental Op stories. Despite struggling through the task of plotting a story, his cadenced dialogue and cryptic narrations were musical, evoking the dark alleys and tough thugs, rich women and powerful men about whom he wrote. Several feature and television movies have been made about the Philip Marlowe character. James Hadley Chase wrote a few novels with private eyes as the main heroes, including Blonde's Requiem (1945), Lay Her Among the Lilies (1950), and Figure It Out for Yourself (1950). The heroes of these novels are typical private eyes, very similar to or plagiarizing Raymond Chandler's work.
Ross Macdonald, pseudonym of
Kenneth Millar
Ross Macdonald was the main pseudonym used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featur ...
, updated the form again with his detective
Lew Archer
Lew Archer is a fictional character created by American-Canadian writer Ross Macdonald. Archer is a private detective working in Southern California. Between the late 1940s and the early '70s, the character appeared in 18 novels and a handful o ...
. Archer, like Hammett's fictional heroes, was a camera eye, with hardly any known past. "Turn Archer sideways, and he disappears," one reviewer wrote. Two of Macdonald's strengths were his use of psychology and his beautiful prose, which was full of imagery. Like other 'hardboiled' writers, Macdonald aimed to give an impression of realism in his work through violence, sex and confrontation. The 1966 movie Harper starring Paul Newman was based on the first Lew Archer story The Moving Target (1949). Newman reprised the role in The Drowning Pool in 1976.
Michael Collins, pseudonym of
Dennis Lynds
Michael Collins is the best-known pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (January 15, 1924 – August 19, 2005), an American author who primarily wrote mystery fiction.
Over four decades Lynds published some 80 novels and 200 short stories, in both myster ...
, is generally considered the author who led the form into the Modern Age. His private investigator, Dan Fortune, was consistently involved in the same sort of David-and-Goliath stories that Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald wrote, but Collins took a sociological bent, exploring the meaning of his characters' places in society and the impact society had on people. Full of commentary and clipped prose, his books were more intimate than those of his predecessors, dramatizing that crime can happen in one's own living room.
The PI novel was a male-dominated field in which female authors seldom found publication until
Marcia Muller
Marcia Muller (born September 28, 1944) is an American author of fictional mystery and thriller novels.
Muller has written many novels featuring her ''Sharon McCone'' female private detective character. ''Vanishing Point'' won the Shamus Awar ...
,
Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky (born June 8, 1947) is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski.
Life and career
Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa. Her father was a microbiologist and moved the ...
and
Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton (April 24, 1940 – December 28, 2017) was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" (''"A" Is for Alibi'', etc.) featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fic ...
were finally published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Each author's detective, also female, was brainy and physical and could hold her own. Their acceptance, and success, caused publishers to seek out other female authors.
Historical mystery
These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime (usually murder). Though works combining these genres have existed since at least the early 20th century, many credit
Ellis Peters
Edith Mary Pargeter (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her ''nom de plume'' Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translat ...
's
The Cadfael Chronicles
''The Cadfael Chronicles'' is a series of historical murder mysteries written by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter (1913–1995) under the name "Ellis Peters".
Set in the 12th century during the Anarchy in England, the novels focus on a Bene ...
(1977–1994) for popularizing what would become known as the historical mystery.
Locked-room mystery
The locked-room mystery is a subgenre of detective fiction. The crime—almost always murder—is committed in circumstances under which it was seemingly impossible for the perpetrator to commit the crime and/or evade detection in the course of getting in and out of the crime scene. The genre was established in the 19th century. Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) is considered the first locked-room mystery; since then, other authors have used the scheme.
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn.
He lived in England for a number of years, and is ...
was recognized as a master of the genre and his
The Hollow Man was recognized by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers as the best locked-room mystery of all time in 1981.
The crime in question typically involves a crime scene with no indication as to how the intruder could have entered or left, i.e., a locked room. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.
References
External links
Stop, You're Killing Me!is an
Anthony Award
The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. Among the m ...
-winning website that compiles resources for lovers of mystery, crime, thriller, spy, and suspense books.
Mystery Weekly Magazinepresents crime and mystery short stories by some of the world's best established and emerging mystery writers.
German Mystery Blogwith daily news.
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Literary genres