Brief history (novelsuspects.com)
Detective fiction can be traced back to the 1800s, around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Before this time, most people lived in smaller towns, worked and socialized in closer circles, so people generally knew those they came in contact with.
But with the rise of industrial jobs, people began moving to cities, interacting with strangers, and therefore had a heightened sense of suspicion and uncertainty, and yes, more crime.
Around this time, police forces were first established--London’s in 1829, and New York City's in 1845. With more people living in cities and crime rates on the rise, the setting was right for detective genres to flourish.
Brief history (novelsuspects.com)
Most writers on the history of the detective novel cite Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, a short story published in 1841 that introduced private detective C. Auguste Dupin. In fact, detective fiction was so new when Dupin entered the literary world that the word “detective” hadn’t even been used in English before.
NOTE: according to the OED, it first appeared in 1843, in Chamber's Journal; by 1850 in Charles Dickens, Household Words
The first detective novel followed soon after with British author Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone. The story was first serialized in Dickens’s journal All the Year Round. And in 1868, it was released as a complete novel.
NOTE: 1952-53 serialized Bleak House, often also considered, in part, a mystery. Dickens knew Wilkie Collins
This novel is significant not just because it’s the first detective novel, but also because it established many of the classic tropes and attributes of the detective novel. The Moonstone‘s detective character Sergeant Cuff was based on the real-life detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher, one of the first ever detectives of Scotland Yard.
Brief history (novelsuspects.com)
The detective character who really shaped the way we see literary detectives to this day, however, is of course Sherlock Holmes. Not only is he the most famous detective character ever written, Sherlock Holmes is one of the most popular characters ever created in fiction.
Holmes was inspired in part by Poe’s detective Dupin, but he was also based on a real man: Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Conan Doyle met Dr. Bell in 1877, and Doyle has said he modeled Holmes’s quick wit and intelligence on Bell.
The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, came out in 1887, and Doyle continued to write Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories until around 1927.
Brief history—the Golden Age
The years from 1920 to 1939 came to be known as the Golden Age of detective fiction. And the queen of this age was Agatha Christie. Other cozy authors in this time period included Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, and others.
During her lifetime, Christie wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. Her novel And Then There Were None remains one of the best-selling books of all time. As of 2018, the Guinness World Records listed Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time. She created not one but two of the most famous detectives in literary history: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Her first was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1921, with Hercule.
Christie and other authors from the Golden Age established some of the basic characteristics of detective novels as a genre; they focus on gathering clues and solving crimes as if they were puzzles the reader can solve, along with the detective. In contemporary literature, this style has evolved into what we now call cozy mysteries.
Cozies—characteristics
The term "cozies" was coined in late 20th century when writers attempted to re-create the Golden Age of mystery fiction; it is one of the many subgenres of mystery fiction.
Such novels emphasize a puzzle-solving plot and character development while de-emphasizing sex and violence. The more modern plot is fast-paced, with several twists and turns, as well as red herrings.
Murders frequently take place "off stage" and involve relatively bloodless methods such as poison or falls from heights. Cozies infrequently dwell on the details of the murder, wounds, or injuries, and these are seldom used as clues.
But because they are women, such amateur detectives frequently see a clue, or understand it, when men don't. It is in part the female perspective that solves the crime.
Cozies are about the triumph of the individual (the amateur sleuth) over evil (the murderer). They’re about restoring balance in the world, of righting a wrong, or, in the case of murder, punishing the killer. The sleuth always figures it out (with the help of her family and friends).
Cozies—characteristics
The crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community, frequently a small town, village, or other community constricted enough to make it believable that the characters know, and have long-standing relationships with, one another.
Cozy detectives are nearly always amateurs and frequently women, often middle-aged or older. Typically they are well educated, intuitive, and hold jobs that bring them into contact with other residents of their community—caterer, innkeeper, teacher, librarian, dog trainer, shop owner, reporter, etc. These amateur detectives are gregarious, well liked, able to get community members to talk freely.
They have a contact with the police who can give them access to information on a case, typically a spouse, lover, friend, or family member. Although generally dismissed by authorities as nosey busybodies, they are free to eavesdrop, gather clues, or use their intuitive intelligence within the social dynamics of the community to solve the crime.
Supporting characters are often broadly drawn and may be used as comic relief.
Cozies—characteristics
Murderers are generally members of the community where the murder occurs and able to hide in plain sight. Their motives are greed, jealousy, revenge, or some other of the 7 deadly sins, and often rooted in events years or generations old. They are typically rational and highly articulate which enables them to explain their motives when unmasked.
When the puzzle is unraveled and the culprit revealed, the story ends. Rarely is the murderer handcuffed and taken away by police, nor does the story include a trial and imprisonment. Identification of the perpetrator is sufficient; justice and the social order, so rudely disrupted by the crime, have been restored. The moral code and good manners once again reign. In one sense, therefore, these books have a happy ending.
Mary Roberts Rinehart is considered the American equivalent of Agatha Christie for "cozy" novels, beginning with The Circular Staircase.
These conventions have become so well established that readers of mystery fiction expect novels to follow them and are disappointed when novels deviate. For example, readers have been critical of Tana French's In the Woods because it solves only one of its murder mysteries rather than both.
Hard-boiled detective fiction
American writers, perhaps in response to the social fabric of Golden Age mysteries, began to reconsider the formula for detective fiction. Many considered puzzle-solving crime fiction as too unrealistic and too clean. They were looking for crime novels based more firmly in reality and the social milieu in which crimes happen.
And so the hardboiled detective genre was born; also called noir. These crime novels feature weathered and cynical private detectives who see the dark, edgy side of the city in which they live; these stories are dark and often violent. Hardboiled crime novels create a world where it’s every man for himself, and the detective can trust no one.
While hardboiled detective fiction emerged as early as the 1920s, the detective genre really took off in America in the 1930s-1950s. According to the encyclopedia Britannica, hard-boiled fiction is "a tough, unsentimental style of American crime writing that brought a new tone of earthy realism" to detective fiction. It used graphic sex and violence, vivid, often sordid urban backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue.
Hard-boiled detective fiction
Credit for the invention of the genre belongs to Dashiell Hammett, a former Pinkerton detective. He combined "his own experiences with the realistic influence of writers such as Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos" . . . to create an American "detective fiction that was separate and distinct from the English mystery story usually set in a country house populated by cooks, butlers, and relatives, a pattern that had been slavishly followed by American writers for generations."
His novels include Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, which introduced Sam Spade, his most famous sleuth. The Thin Man was the last of an extraordinary quintet of novels.
Hammett’s innovations were incorporated in the hard-boiled melodramas of James M. Cain, particularly such early works as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity.
Another successor was Raymond Chandler, one of the most popular writers from this period, with such novels as The Big Sleep, which introduced Philip Marlowe, and Farewell, My Lovely. Another lesser-known author from this period is Cornell Woolrich, author of the short story that became Rear Window.
Hard-boiled detective fiction
As you probably noticed, many of these novels became films, in the noir tradition, a darker view of people and society.
The hard-boiled detective genre is still with us, thanks to authors such as Walter Moseley and his Easy Rawlins series of novels, starting with Devil in the Blue Dress. Although there are such recent entries to the genre, it has fallen out of favor in contemporary mystery fiction. Perhaps it’s because when a genre is so oversaturated, the tropes of the genre begin to feel cliché.
In the political climate of the cold war after World War II, this genre morphed into the spy or espionage novel, such as those written by Daniel Silva.
It also influenced early Australian detective fiction because American soldiers had brought these paperbacks with them.
Mystery subgenres
The mystery novel has consistently remained one of the most popular genres with readers, but with the passage of time, and the influence of multiple authors, the original genre has been adapted into various subgenres.
Note, many authors adapt these genres, borrowing elements from more than one subgenre, and therefore could be categorized under more than one heading for subgenre.
Note also that writers on this subject have differing opinions about the subgenres. The following lists the types most commonly cited:
Mystery subgenres
Cozy
Agatha Christie Louise Penny
Dorothy L. Sayers Sue Grafton
Margery Allingham Sara Paretsky
Rhys Bowen Jacqueline Winspear
Hard-boiled detective
Raymond Chandler Walter Moseley
Dashiell Hammett James Elroy
James M. Cain Sara Paretsky
Ross MacDonald Sue Grafton
Mystery subgenres
Private detective novels focus on a private investigator and his or her journey to gather clues and ultimately solve a crime. It is the most common and inclusive category within the mystery fiction genre.
Agatha Christie—Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple
Sue Grafton—Kinsey Milhone
Sara Paretsky—V. I. Warshawski
And many others
Mystery subgenres
Police procedurals are a popular subgenre of the mystery novel. As the name indicates, these books follow a police detective or team of detectives hunting down a killer or the perpetrator of a crime. They sometimes switch back and forth between the detective’s and the criminal’s perspectives. You're probably familiar with a number of these:
Martha Grimes, and her Scotland Yard Detective Richard Jury
P. D. James and Inspector Adam Dalgleish
Elizabeth George's novels featuring Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers
Mystery subgenres
Forensic science mysteries appeal to those who prefer a mystery solved mainly through science and careful investigation. The protagonist is generally a medical examiner, forensic pathologist, coroner, or another professional who deals with the dead. Because of the main character's work, the novel tends to describe the gruesome details of the crimes. Because of the protagonist's relationship with legal authorities, this subgenre can be considered an offshoot of the police procedural.
Patricia Cornwell is a prime example, as is Tess Gerritsen's series featuring Rizzoli and Isles.
Legal mysteries (courtroom dramas) appeal to readers more interested in the justice side of crime fiction than the police or detectives. Legal thrillers usually star a lawyer or some other court official working to get to the truth behind the crime.
The Last Trial by Scott Turlow is one example of this genre as are the novels of Lisa Scottoline. From days past, the Perry Mason series by Erle Stanley Gardner is a classic example.
Mystery subgenres
Historical mystery is a subgenre of two other literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. In these works, the central plot involves solving a mystery or crime set in an historical time period while remaining faithful to the specifics of the historical period in which the mystery is set. "From a small group of writers with a very specialized audience, the historical mystery has become a critically acclaimed, award-winning genre with a toehold on the New York Times bestseller list."
Though works combining these genres have existed since at least the early 20th century, many credit Ellis Peters' Cadfael Chronicles for popularizing what would become known as the historical mystery. A Morbid Taste for Bones was published 1977. Examples:
Elizabeth Peters, Amelia Peabody series, Victorian archaeologist
Anne Perry, Victorian era mysteries Lindsey Davis, Roman empire
Peter Tremayne, Sister Fidelma Margaret Frazer, 15th C Oxford
Abir Mukherjee, British Raj Umberto Eco
Josephine Tey, Richard III
Mystery subgenres
Psychological thrillers have always been a popular subgenre, with similarities to Gothic and horror fiction and their "dissolving sense of reality." Typically these psycho-thrillers deal with characters in psychological distress, usually because of some harrowing mystery, suspenseful situation, or traumatic event.
The recent novels also reflect the more modern sensibility in which reality is a personal construct rather then an established and accepted fact or truth. Famous among them are:
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn Girl on a Train, Paula Hawkins
Woman in the Window, A. J. Finn Minette Walters novels
Patricia Highsmith, Ripley novels
Mystery subgenres
True crime is a genre of non-fiction that focuses on real-life crimes, usually violent in nature, and the individuals involved in them. This can include murders, kidnappings, robberies, and other criminal activities.
True crime stories often explore the motivations and psychological factors that drive criminal behavior, as well as the consequences of such actions. True crime has gained immense popularity in recent years, with a growing interest in the criminal justice system and the inner workings of the minds of those who break the law. Examples:
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The Defense Lawyer by James Patterson
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Mystery subgenres
The locked-room mystery, a subgenre of detective fiction, features a crime—almost always murder—committed in circumstances under which it is seemingly impossible for the perpetrator to commit the crime and/or evade detection in 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 was recognized as a master of the genre; his The Hollow Man was named 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.
Mystery subgenres
Caper/Heist—this subgenre places a crook (or band of crooks) in the role of anti-hero. He (or they) plan a major crime, with intricate detail, though it never goes right. (Often the word "Caper" appears in the title itself.)
Donald Westlake was the reigning master of this story type, with his "Dortmunder" novels and others.
In Elmore Leonard's oddball novel The Switch, a wealthy kidnap victim ultimately takes the side of her abductors.
Mystery subgenres
Serials or Series—is a descriptive category, in which a strong protagonist drives many novels.
Beginning in 1878, Anna Katherine Green developed this subgenre in the US, with her "Ebenezer Gryce and Amelia Butterworth" novels.
Ever since 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" franchise has towered over mystery fiction.
Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series, starring female detective Kinsey Millhone, began in 1982 with A is for Alibi AND
Sara Paretsky, also in 1982, introduced V. I. "Vic" Warshawski in Indemnity Only; on April 16, 2024, yesterday, Pay Dirt was published, #22 in the series.
Women and the mystery genre
Around the 1980s, according to statistics compiled by publishers, women had taken over the mystery genre; they wrote, bought, and read as much as 85% of all mystery novels. In response, men authors used pseudonyms or initials to disguise their identity. All this according to the article published in The Atlantic, summer of 2016.
So, what did women do with the genre after they had claimed it. That of course was the question that prompted this course back in 2017.
So, if the mystery genre was now in the hands of women authors and readers, what did they do with it?
What better evidence could there be for the fact that genres are suggestions, guidelines, frameworks that morph over time, that writers adapt to serve their purposes (at least the good ones!) They are not a set of fixed rules. This is the substance of Mikhail Bakhtin's essay on the novel and the epic.
Theory of genres
In his essay, "The Novel as a Literary Genre," Bakhtin attempts to outline a theory of the novel and its unique properties by comparing it to other literary forms, in particular the epic. He sees the novel as capable of achieving much of what other forms cannot, including an ability to engage with contemporary reality, and an ability to re-conceptualize the individual in a complex way that interrogates his subjectivity and offers the possibility of redefining his own image. He also stresses the novel's flexibility, arguing that it is a genre with the unique ability to constantly adapt and change, partly because there is no generic canon of the novel as there is for epic or lyric poetry.
The epic, on the other hand, is a "high-distance genre"; that is, its form and structure situate it in a distant past that assumes a finished quality, meaning it cannot be re-evaluated, re-thought or changed by us. Bakhtin compares the novel to clay, a material which can be remodeled, and the epic to marble, which cannot.
The epic past is irretrievable and idealized: it is valorized in a way that makes it appear hierarchically superior to the present. The epic form is a "walled" one; it builds boundaries which block it off from the present.
Female mystery genre
Women initially adopted conventions from both the cozy and the hard-boiled detective mystery, genres that were the standard when they began writing, and adapted them.
In the more modern female mystery genre, reality is not quite so gritty and their detectives are not quite the social "outliers" that detectives are in men's fiction.
Both Kinsey Milhone (Grafton) and Vic Warshawski (Paretsky) are professional private investigators, not amateurs, nor police, although both have a background in the law. Kinsey has been a cop, Vic a lawyer, but both left those jobs to start their own PI businesses.
They are independent, self-sufficient women. Both are tough, self-reliant, a bit hot tempered and sharp-tongued; they are not the "gentlewomen" of traditional women's mysteries, nor are they the ever-faithful secretaries or "femme fatales" and "vamps" of men's fiction.
Both are single, although both have been married, are now divorced, and have no children. They are loners, as most detectives are, without immediate family but with a consortium of friends and professional colleagues who assist with solving crimes and provide social connections. People come and go throughout the novels, only a few stay and consistently reappear.
Female mystery genre
Setting:
Grafton sets her novel series in Santa Teresa with familiar California themes—jogging on the beach, deserts nearby, not especially important as location for crime.
Kinsey's apartment is her safe haven—small, compact, efficient, with few "frills." It fits her lifestyle of note cards and fast food, and her one all-purpose black dress.
For Paretsky, the setting in south-side Chicago functions almost like a character; her website even includes maps and photos. Unlike P. D. James's stable, structured, historic London, Paretsky's Chicago is corrupt; Vic's cases often combine crooked business people and corrupt politicians incomparably more powerful than she is. At the end of a novel, Vic may get a partial victory, although the murderer remains too powerful for the law to touch.
The same is true for Sue Grafton: both detectives often take on cases of social injustice rather than criminal infractions because the crime is something that the legal system will not, or cannot, rectify. In the end, they provide some measure of justice for the victim, often female.
Female mystery genre
At the end of Grafton's novel X, the narrator says:
The more I see of the world, the more I understand that justice isn’t cut and dried. There are more compromises than you’d image, and rightly so. Law and order, punishment and fair play, are all on a continuum where there are far more gray stretches than there are black and white. I’m making my peace with this. In the main, I believe people are good. In the main, I believe the judicial system works.
Like Agatha Christie, neither novelist dwells on the details of the crime. As readers, we see the aftermath of violence more often than the act itself. The violence we as readers are "present for" usually involves an attack on the detective.
In more traditional mystery novels, the worlds of murdered/murderer and that of the detective are separate. Although Miss Marple finds analogies to the suspects in St. Mary Mead, she is outside the world of the crime.
The same is true for Kinsey Milhone in Santa Teresa and V. I. Warshawski in Chicago. Although both interact with people in their lives, and their past, the detectives' personal lives are separate. They are not part of the criminal world that they investigate.
Female mystery genre
While the legal system was the solution in the classic "cozies," it's not generally the solution in these more modern women's mysteries. But they do achieve a kind of justice for their victims.
In the hard-boiled fiction tradition, the detective always "wins," sometimes within the legal system, sometimes outside it, but the detective is always victorious. It's the "action" focus of male novels; women writers are a little more "fuzzy."
As women novelists continued to write their mystery series, and re-invent the genre, they also began to explore alternative structures. Women writers introduced social issues as part of their debate between the legal system and justice or fairness, and most of the social issues focus on people underrepresented in the population. As the times progressed, they also took on ecology or environmental issues.
Female mystery genre
In Margaret Maron's novels, for example, her detective Deborah Knott is both a lawyer and a District Judge and as such represents justice from the legal perspective. But her internal little "voices"—Internal Preacher and Pragmatist—represent the contest between justice and ethics or morality. She runs for office specifically because, from there, she can impose a reasonable, moral justice within the confines of the law.
But she is also a woman in a profession traditionally dominated by men. In Bootlegger's Daughter, for example, another woman judge who is African American says:
"I thought my big problem was going to be race. Honey, race is nothing compared to being a woman in a good ol' boy system."
Unlike other detectives, Deborah has an extensive family and friends; she is the last child and only daughter of Kezzie Knott's 12 children from 2 marriages. Initially she's single but marries midway through the series, Dwight Bryant, sheriff's detective, with stepson Cal. Dwight is a continuing character as is her Aunt Zell, her mother's sister, and Uncle Ash, as well as her father Kezzie.
Female mystery genre
In these novels, place or setting occupies center stage as it does in Paretsky's novels. "The land," in this case North Carolina, is all but a viable character—who owns the land, who has owned it, what are they doing with it. Throughout the novels, Maron is concerned with issues people and the state of North Carolina face as they move from agrarian to high tech.
The books also focus on the culture and traditions of the South where social status, correct manners, and a long family history count. Social relationships and social issues are at the core of these novels, from fancy teas to Kezzie's pig roast for Deborah's election, and from prejudice against women and African Americans to homosexuality. In that sense, these novels also qualify as "local color."
Although Deborah is a lawyer and judge, these novels are about justice, fairness, and equality more than law.
Female mystery genre
With Martha Grimes, and her Scotland Yard Detective Richard Jury, and sidekick Melrose Plant, we seem to be back in the British tradition, with P. D. James and Adam Dalgleish, or Elizabeth George and Inspector Lynley.
But Grimes also develops an alternative perspective on murder and detectives with her Emma Graham series and her Andi Oliver series.
In Cold Flat Junction, for example, Emma Graham is a 12-year-old girl trying to solve murders in a derelict small vacation town in West Virginia. It's an insular community where everybody knows everybody, and all their history. With this Dickensian cast of characters, the novel has a "southern" feel, like Margaret Maron's novels, and an emphasis on discovering the past because of the role it plays in the present. For Emma, it's also a "coming of age" novel.
It's a first-person novel so the reader sees the action unfold through the eyes and perspective of a 12-year old girl.
Female mystery genre
The novels include little detail about the murder itself, but focus on the "who" and "why." History and past relationships are big clues, as are small details like photos, hair color, and fabrics. Few social issues take center stage.
But Grimes corrects that lapse in the Andi Oliver series with its attention to environmental issues.
In Biting the Moon, Andi Olivier awakes alone in a Santa Fe motel with no memory of who she is or how she got there--only the vague sense that she must flee before "Daddy" returns. She finds a deserted cabin and begins a new life rescuing trapped animals.
In Dakota, Andi moves from one waitress job to the next, from Idaho to North Dakota, where she is hired at a massive pig farming facility that specializes in the dark art of modern livestock management. But two men are on her trail, a gunman hired to kill her, and another who has followed her across three states demanding something from her forgotten past.
So, Grimes is adhering to the traditional mystery genre, more or less, but examining alternative perspectives on the world, and crime, through two female detectives who have a limited understanding, one because of age, the other from amnesia.
Female mystery genre
To sum up, at this stage in the dialectic of the mystery novel, women novelists:
Have created a tough, independent female detective with a circle of close friends rather than family.
Although they have some experience of the legal system, it has all too often failed them, and their crime victims; theirs is a system of justice and morality that "rights the wrong" done to their victims when the legal system can't, or won't.
More often than not, the victims of crime in these novels are women, children, or members of the underrepresented population whom society tends to dismiss or overlook.
Social issues are at the center of these novels, and often environmental issues as well. And both detectives and victims provide an alternative perspective on the world and "give voice" to members of society too often ignored.
Female mystery genre
According to the original Atlantic article cited, "Male crime writers seem never to have fully recovered from the loss of the private eye as a viable protagonist. [Women writers] don’t seem to believe in heroes as much as their male counterparts." They don't abide by Raymond Chandler's advice to fellow novelists: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”
Novels written by male authors tend to focus on action and on heroes who "win the day," defeat the "bad guys" (whomever they might be) and celebrate their triumph as they exit the last pages of the novel.
Women authors, on the other hand, tend to create a more complicated, inclusive, realistic, but ambiguous world in which victories are considerably smaller and less definitive.
In short, they provide an alternative perspective on the world and its people, one that male authors tend to ignore or overlook. It is this alternative perspective that women provide that defines their contribution to genre development, mystery novels, as here explained, and then of course historical novels as well.
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YouTube video on history of detective novels (8:14)
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