The Endless Poisoned Chocolates Case

Anthony Berkeley's Poisoned Chocolates Case has gotten a lot of praise over the years, and deservingly so - but no reviewer to my knowledge has ever noticed what in my opinion makes it a truly unique experiment.   Mysteries aim at finitude - the story is over once the puzzle is solved; there is nothing …

The Dull Genius of Roderick Alleyn

  Warning: The following essay heavily borrows from, and expands on, this earlier one. It doesn't mean that you can skip either or both, but we warned if you proceed that you may find some familiar arguments here and there. Ngaio Marsh's placing in the Pantheon of Golden Age writers is a paradoxical one. She …

Nécessaire séparation

L'affaire Polanski a ramené sur le tapis une énième fois la vieille question "faut-il séparer l'homme de l'artiste" que l'on croyait tranchée et s'avère ne toujours pas l'être. Je me garderai bien pour ma part d'y apporter une réponse définitive comme beaucoup ne se gênent pas pour le faire dans un sens ou l'autre - …

Les Deux Centenaires

Nous commémorons cette année le centenaire de la première publication de "La Mystérieuse affaire de Styles" d'Agatha Christie, un livre fondamental dans l'histoire de la littérature criminelle, d'abord parce qu'il s'agit de la première apparition d'un certain limier belge voué à devenir l'une des vedettes du genre, ensuite parce qu'il marque aux yeux de la …

Too Little or Too Much?

Another consequence of crime fiction aligning itself with "literary" standards that I didn't discuss yesterday is that modern authors as a rule are far less prolific than their predecessors. Your typical vintage crime writer averaged two or three books a year, not to mention the short stories that came in between (I'm not counting phenomenons …

Title Matters. Kind of.

Genre fiction overall, not just crime fiction, has become more "respectable" in recent years. Sure it hasn't yet reached the same level of "respectability" as proper "literary" fiction but the days when it was seen as disposable, trivial entertainment-only stuff are long gone. Don't worry: I'm not about to embark again on a long-winded jeremiad …

The Name is Legion

I bought Edward D. Hoch's posthumous collection The Future is Ours upon its publication four years ago but I'm only reading it now, something which will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me and my oh so curious reading ways.   No one will be surprised either that I'm reading the stories …