Author P.D. James has a book about detective fiction with an excerpt here. She writes:
And why murder? The central mystery of a detective story need not indeed involve a violent death, but murder remains the unique crime and it carries an atavistic weight of repugnance, fascination and fear. Readers are likely to remain more interested in which of Aunt Ellie’s heirs laced her nightly cocoa with arsenic than in who stole her diamond necklace while she was safely holidaying in Bournemouth. Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night doesn’t contain a murder, although there is an attempt at one, and the death at the heart of Frances Fyfield’s Blood from Stone is a spectacular and mysterious suicide. But, except in those novels of espionage which are primarily concerned with treachery, it remains rare for the central crime in an orthodox mystery to be other than the ultimate crime for which no human reparation can ever be made.
No comments Lars? I’m waiting for your reiew of the book. (Not really; I gather you’re not a fan of Lady James… Is that her title?)
She’s the Baroness of Holland Park, and I just looked up her website to see that she’s been placed into the international crime writing hall of fame.
I found her book at the library. After reading a couple chapters I dumped it. It’s not very interesting, and I didn’t learn anything at all. (I speak as someone who’s read very little about detective fiction.)
– I was surprised (to some extent) to learn she considers herself something of a feminist and cultural radical.
– I’ve only read one of her novels. I remember it with distaste. Halfway or so through the book we come across a major theme of incest. That was it for me; although I finished it I determined not to read another of her books. (I can’t remember the title.)
I’ve read a couple of her’s and thought they were very good. Original Sin deals with publishing and deep-seated hatred and vengeance. I enjoyed it, and there are moments when the lead detective asks big questions or feel the big needs about God’s watchfulness and man’s desire to worship.