The Special Relationship, Contn’d
This post is bilingual. Please scroll down for the English-language version. La différence essentielle entre une histoire de fantômes et une histoire policière n'est pas une différence de nature, mais...
View ArticleSlow Writing, Slow Reading
Probably the most glaring difference between the American and British schools of detective fiction is that of pacing. American mysteries tend to move significantly faster than their British...
View ArticleSome Thoughts on Cyril Hare
Having FINALLY finished Death Is No Sportsman, I think it's time for a post summing up my findings and feelings about its author. Being still somewhat of a newcomer to his work as I have only read...
View ArticleConfessions of an Impossible Crime Skeptic
It may seem an odd thing to say for a John Dickson Carr fan like me but the truth is I'm not that into impossible crime mysteries. Not that I have anything against them; I liked them when they're well...
View ArticleOf Interesting Premises and Their Pitfalls
I am, as everyone here must know by now, a sucker for over-the-top mysteries; one of the many complaints I have about modern crime fiction is indeed that there are too few of them being written...
View ArticleQuelques mots sur la victime
This entry is bilingual. Please scroll down for the English-language version. Le traitement de la victime reste un point faible du roman policier, classique ou moderne. Ou bien elle est traitée comme...
View ArticleHybrides
La présence de Lovecraft sur ce blog peut surprendre de prime abord, quoiqu'elle ne soit pas à proprement parler une nouveauté: j'avais déjà écrit un article en anglais voici quelques années sur les...
View ArticleA Few More Thoughts on Boucher
Come to think of it, Anthony Boucher was one of the earliest proponents of auteurism in crime fiction, long before François Truffaut applied it to movies. As I'm rereading and enjoying his SF Chronicle...
View ArticleJohn Dickson Carr Begins
Carr may be unique among major mystery writers in that it took some time for his writing personality to fully emerge, probably because of the many and often contradictory literary influences that...
View ArticleMake the Narrator Reliable Again
There is a strong argument to be made for first-person narration being consubstantial to crime fiction. The first detective story ever used that device, which became an unofficial rule over all the...
View ArticleLa pire des choses… et aussi la meilleure
Critique partial et peu soucieux des conflits d'intérêt, traducteur contesté et contestable, fondateur d'un Grand Prix de Littérature Policière qu'il ne reconnaîtrait sans doute plus aujourd'hui,...
View ArticleA Bridge to Nowhere: Rex Stout’s The Mountain Cat Murders
As you may have noticed over time I don't do reviews, though it might be more accurate to say that I don't do those often. The primary reason is of course that this blog is not about books, but ideas -...
View ArticleThe Problematic Forties
Here I am again playing this favourite game of mine, trying to work out a reasonable and coherent Golden Age chronology. I'm not disavowing the one I suggested ten years ago but as my knowledge...
View ArticleA Few More Thoughts on The Problematic Forties
Upon rereading my previous post I realize that the phenomenon I described was primarily an American thing, as the contemporary British crime fiction landscape more or less remained the same as it had...
View ArticleSuspense, A Biography
Suspense is unique in that it is both an effect and a genre. The former has been an integral part of storytelling ever since human beings have been able to speak then write, and we can imagine...
View ArticleAnother Letter from the Editor
My decision to focus more on the analytical and the critical and going soft on the polemical seems to have done wonders for my blog as it has never been so popular (the fact that I'm posting more often...
View Article2019, un premier bilan/A First Look at 2019
Je sais qu'il est encore tôt pour un classement final, mais juste pour le plaisir la liste de mes toutes meilleures lectures de l'année à ce jour, par langue et ordre alphabétique d'auteur. Ne vous...
View ArticleLooking for Ms. Great Detective
Look at this picture. Yes I know, it serves as a banner for Brad Friedman's excellent blog - but it's not the point. Take a closer look at the picture. What do you see? What do you not see? You have...
View ArticleSunday Thoughts
This blog has always been billed as my "Random thoughts" though until now there hasn't been much randomness about it as my writing mostly focuses on one single topic: crime fiction. This post won't be...
View ArticleThe Accidental Mystery Writer
Holmesian scholars have spent a great deal of the last century and a half pondering this question: Why was Doyle's plotting so uneven? The fair-play issue set aside as mostly irrelevant - Doyle started...
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