We know Carr called the genre "The Grandest Game in the World" and he certainly meant that but did he actually write detective stories? I am increasingly less sure of that, and here's why. A detective story as traditionally understood (and since the genre is very conservative, this definition still stands today with a few … Lire la suite The Curious Case of the Detective Story Writer Who Didn’t Actually Write Detective stories
While 2018 had its few ups and many downs like any other year, it was a very good one reading-wise as I averaged my higher number of books in nearly a decade. I won't disclose it as there's nothing to brag about - it's more a testimony to how anemic the previous years were than … Lire la suite The Ten
Tocqueville famously said of the French Revolution that it was already over when it started, meaning that its basic elements had already been there for a long time before the Sans-Culotte took to the Bastille. To some extent the saying applies just as well, and perhaps even more so, to that other Revolution that took … Lire la suite It Had to Happen
One of my fondest memories as both a viewer and a mystery fan occurred some years ago as I was watching the French equivalent of Good Morning America, Télématin. The show's resident book reviewer was discussing a recently published crime novel and as is now the rule when doing so, extolled its many literary virtues … Lire la suite The Lost Art of Entertaining Crime Fiction
Readers of this blog and people overall who followed me over my two decades online know that the relationship and differences between the American and British schools of crime writing are a major area of interest of mine. They also know how prone I am to say and write outrageous things with no other purpose … Lire la suite The Brits vs. The Yanks
Fellow blogger and most importantly best friend Noah Stewart has passed away today. People dying are never good news but this one hits very hard as he didn't tell anyone about his health problems. For what we know he was doing okay, though he had been much less active lately than he used to be. … Lire la suite Adieu L’Ami
Il y a trois catégories d'auteurs étrangers méconnus chez nous. La première, et la plus nombreuse, est celle des malchanceux dont l'oeuvre n'a jamais ou peu été traduite: au moins leur obscurité s'explique-t-elle aisément. La seconde, assez fournie elle aussi, regroupe ceux dont une partie plus ou moins importante de l'oeuvre a été … Lire la suite Un célèbre oublié
