We realize it’s the job of the press to find new and intriguing angles to not-so new and intriguing stories. We appreciated this article on mystery fiction because the author took it up a notch. As it turns out, mystery novels reflect some very basic aspects of life. And they do it with immediacy and relevance. (Via
ls focus on murder, violence and the aftereffects of such acts, right away they examine differences of class, family structure and social imbalance,” [Sarah] Weinman says. “But what the best books in the genre do is take their cues from the social novels of old and concentrate more on character and motivation and less on furthering the plot along. The influence of John O’Hara, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, and those that followed them, is just as important, if not more, than (that of) Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler now.”
