Posts Tagged ‘detective fiction’

Catching up with Mma Ramotswe

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

Recently I undertook the reckless act of making a trip to a different library branch to the one I normally frequent – and there, quietly perusing the crime shelves, I had quite a serious shock, I can tell you. Time was when the publication of the latest in Alexander McCall Smith’s gentle series about Botswana’s only lady detective used to send me fleeing into Waterstones in quest of its brightly-coloured jacket. Now, I was a bit chastened to discover, no less than four had been published that I had neglected to read.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe

Sunday, May 8th, 2011

It can be odd to read a work like this one, that defines a set of literary conventions which are now so commonplace as to be completely unremarkable. It’s necessary to work quite hard to get yourself in a mindset where you can properly appreciate its originality.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Dashiell Hammett, for anyone unfortunate enough to be unacquainted with his work, is (along with Raymond Chandler) the progenitor of some of the most definitive hard-boiled crime detectives around, including Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (who, incidentally, looks nothing like Humphrey Bogart on paper. But that’s another story.)