Miscellaneous Monday—Number Forty-two

"What Is the Appeal of Detective Fiction?"

By Gavin Holman.

1981 Dissertation.

7 pages.

Online at Academia.edu (HERE).

  "The genre of detective fiction has so many aspects that it is impossible to evaluate a general reason for its popularity."

NOTE! The solutions to several mysteries—Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, and Ten Little Niggers—are revealed here. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Some excerpts:

Our author starts, like Rex Stout, by being careful to differentiate between mystery fiction and detective fiction:

  . . . with the detective story, the requirement is not a fast-moving piece of descriptive writing or an unresolved mystery. The interest is an intellectual one. The mystery exists, the crime or event has taken place and it is the detective's job to unravel the mixture of threads surrounding the truth to solve the mystery. In providing the initial mystery the author is challenging the reader to use his own powers of deduction, logic and reason to establish the true sequence of events and thence the ultimate solution, before his own detective does. If the reader fails, a case which is hoped for by the author or his sales would soon drop, the reader does not lose anything. The revelation he receives as the detective lays bare the facts of the case can often be more satisfying than solving it himself.

  . . . There are three basic elements to detective fiction: The crime or event which forms the mystery basis for the story. The detective. A series of observations and events, trivial, commonplace and apparently unconnected.

  . . . If the detective did not solve the mystery, the story would no longer be classified as a detective story, it would then be a crime novel or a mystery novel depending on conditions. However, I feel that the appeal of detective fiction lies mainly in the fact that it is essentially an intellectual challenge or an admiration of the prowess of the detective.

  . . . The conclusions reached by the great detectives, based on their phenomenal powers and years of research, are today reached by painstaking scientific analysis using modern technology. Consequently the modern detective uses his talents to investigate the immaterial clues, those of the situation, alibis, motives, contradictions and opportunities.

   . . . In these days of mass communication and information at one's fingertips, the amateur detective is in decline, and the emphasis is on the professional, whether official in the case of the police, or unofficial in the case of the private investigator, and retired examples of both.

  . . . I think that a proving of the improbable is perhaps the essence of detective fiction.

Resources:

- Somerset Maugham's essay, "The Decline and Fall of the Detective Story," is online at Archive.org (HERE; borrow only).

- Rex Stout's comments about mystery and detective fiction can be found (HERE).

- Our last Miscellaneous Monday was about how the media have treated Jack the Ripper (HERE).

The bottom line:

By John Longstaff. Click on image to enlarge.

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