Book description
This history of the various forms and masters of the mystery genre follows the trail through the first pinnacle of detection in the Master Detective stories of the 1930s up to the present
Why read it?
1 author picked Bloody Murder as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I’ve read Bloody Murder more times than any other non-fiction book. The first edition made a huge impression on me. Symons introduced me to countless fascinating authors and books (many of them obscure) which I’d never heard of and which have given me endless reading pleasure. Symons’ opinions were, and remain, controversial, and his disdain for ‘humdrum’ writing from the ‘Golden Age’ between the wars has attracted much criticism, some of it sensible, some of it over-the-top. His belief that the ‘detective story’ had metamorphosed into the ‘crime novel’ was eloquently argued, but I think mistaken. Today’s readers have…
From Martin's list on crime fiction, the world’s most popular genre.
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