 Mystery: January 18, 2006 Issue [#839] |
  Mystery
This week: Edited by: InkyShadows  
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Something mysterious is lurking out there ... just beyond the edges of your peripheral vision. What is it? Did that shadow move? Is that cigarette smoke I smell? Whose footsteps are following me everywhere I go? Eyes dart every which way, trying to catch a glimpse of the danger that lurks ... out there.
Such are the panicked feelings and thoughts of the victim in a mystery story...
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Looking back over the course of history of the mystery story, many chances have taken place in the acceptable style for writing such a story. It is this topic that I would like to take a look at in today's newsletter.
Writers such as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose main characters who were mentally superior to the common stock of human being. These characters -- Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes -- were deep thinkers who studied the minutiae of a criminal situation and saw in it what no other human being was able to see, not even, no scratch that -- especially not, the police. To enhance this study of minute detail, and to make the reader feel as if he or she could share in the crime solving process, these writers presented the reader with slow moving stories, packed with incredible detail about everything one could sense within the mise en scene of the story. The sheer amount of detail presented to the reader tended to slow the action down to a mere trickle, and indeed, the murder/crime generally took place off-stage, so to speak, since it wasn't shown in all its graphic detail to the reader. These writers wrote so that the reader was on the outside looking in, and yet did not give the reader any sort of view of the nasty crime except through the thoughts of the main character who was working it all out and who would eventually solve the mystery about who dunnit.
Then, in the middle of the last century, the main character/detective became more hard-edged and street wise. He existed in a world that could only be described as the underbelly of society. While he worked for the well-to-do to solve their little problems, he prowled the cesspool of criminal scum to bring wrong-doers to justice. He was a loner who believed that allowing himself to love would take away his professional edge and make him care. The Sam Spades, Mike Hammers and Phillip Marlowes of the fictional world are just this type of character. Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are writers of this sort of mystery. These stories are more fast paced and get the reader deeper into the criminal action than the earlier sort did.
Today's readers want much more from their mystery stories than earlier readers did, and today's writers provide them with just what they want. No longer acceptable are generic plots with the names and crime changed to protect the innocent. We want new and fresh sorts of detectives who have unusual talents. We also want to be challenged to try and solve the crime without being cheated out of any of the evidence that the detective/main character has access to. We want to feel that we stand a chance of beating the detective/main character to the solution. Writers who do this today include the likes of Nero Blanc and Parnell Hall with their crossword solving sleuths, Diane Mott Davidson with her food preparing caterer Goldie Schulz who always seems to be around where the next body is going to drop, and Gwendoline Butler and her Inspector Coffin who works in the more dangerous areas of London's second city -- a unique place of Ms. Butler's own creation which actually works quite well in her stories. Not only are we treated to action packed mysteries in these writers' novels, but we are given the chance to work out the crossword puzzle clues along with the detectives and prepare the same foods that the detectives and their guests eat while the crime and its solution are taking place. In other words, we, as readers, are much more involved in interacting with the action of the story these days than we were in the past. Since readers seem to like this, it is my feeling that we should all be trying to come up with a gimick that will hook in the audience we are aiming for and reel them into the most interactive experience of a mystery novel that they have ever had.
Think about it!
Till next time, this is InkyShadows signing off... |
My picks for your reading perusal this week are:
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Novel about a serial killer stalking the contestants of the Miss America Pageant.
#1030951 by zappanstance |
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#1023143 by Not Available. |
See if any of these pieces meets your needs as a mystery reader. Be sure to rate and review any of these stories that you choose to read. |
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| Be sure to let me know what comments you have on my editorial letter, and alert me to what you want me to write on next. The one thing that I would like to ask is that if you write a comment to me, please address it to Inky so that I know it is for me. Thanks! |
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