Martin Edwards’s monumental The Life of Crime (724 pages!) will sweep whatever Awards BOUCHERCON and other groups bestow on BEST NON-FICTION MYSTERY BOOKS. Edwards wisely consulted with Art Scott (thanked on Page One–page 644–of the Acknowledgements). Edwards refers to Art’s Nero Wolfe knowledge on pages 101 and 172. And Edwards goes further to praise and recommend Art Scott and Wallace Maynard’s The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis on page 324. However, Art’s valiant lobbying effort to get Edwards to devote an entire chapter to Nero Wolfe…produced a vaporware chapter that cannot be found between these covers.
It took about 20 years for Martin Edwards to research and write this magisterial work. To attempt to capture all the facets of the History of the Mystery in less than a 1,000 pages is quixotic to say the least. I’m sure many readers will quibble about the coverage (or lack thereof) of their favorite mystery writers. The Editors of The Life of Crime pressured Edwards to “cut” and “reduce” his mammoth book. However, I’m pleased to report that Edwards managed to stave off many of the attempts to shrink his project. The result is a book that should be in the library of any serious reader of mysteries. GRADE: A+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — 1
Chapter 1 Revolution: Origins — 9
Chapter 2 Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe and the First Detective Stories — 20
Chapter 3 Guilty Secrets: Sensation Novels — 29
Chapter 4 Detective Fever: Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Early Detective Fiction — 37
Chapter 5 Poacher Turned Gamekeeper: The French Revolution: Vidocq, Gaboriau and their Worldwide Influence — 49
Chapter 6: The Great Detective: Sherlock Holmes — 58
Chapter 7 Rogues’ Gallery: Raffles and Other Villains — 71
Chapter 8 The Nature of Evil: G. K. Chesterton and Faith and Sin in Detective Fiction — 81
Chapter 9 Plot Minds: Marie Belloc Lowndes and Edwardian-era Detective Fiction — 92
Chapter 10 The Science of Detection: R. Austin Freeman and Scientific Mysteries — 103
Chapter 11 Had-I-But-Known: Mary Roberts Rinehart and ‘Women in Jeopardy’ Novels — 116
Chapter 12 War and Peace: The First World War and Detective Fiction — 127
Chapter 13 Treacherous Impulses: Early Spy Fiction — 135
Chapter 14 The Mistress of Deception: Agatha Christie — 149
Chapter 15 American Tragedy: Van Dine and the American Golden Age — 162
Chapter 16 Superfluous Women: Queens of Crime — 174
Chapter 17 Challenging the Reader: Detection and Game-playing — 187
Chapter 18 Locked Rooms: ‘Impossible Crime’ Mysteries — 199
Chapter 19 The Long Arm of the Law: Early Police Stories — 212
Chapter 20 Blood-Simple: Dashiell Hammett — 223
Chapter 21 Murder and its Motives: True Crime — 234
Chapter 22 Twists of Fate: Francis Iles and Ironic Crime Fiction — 245
Chapter 23 The Sound of Mystery: Radio Mysteries — 259
Chapter 24 In Lonely Rooms: Raymond Chandler — 270
Chapter 25 Brothers in Crime: Patrick and Bruce Hamilton — 281
Chapter 26 Cracks in the Wall: Georges Simenon and European Crime Fiction — 291
Chapter 27 Sensation in Court: Legal Mysteries — 304
Chapter 28 California Dreaming: Crime Writers and Hollywood — 314
Chapter 29 Carnival of Crime: Mystery and the Macabre –326
Chapter 30 Waking Nightmares: Noir Fiction — 336
Chapter 31 Dagger of the Mind — 347
Chapter 32 Whose Body?: Whowasdunins: Mysteries about the Victim’s Identity — 355
Chapter 33 Private Wounds: Transitioning from the Golden Age — 365
Chapter 34 Out of this World: Traditional Detective Fiction Evolves in the United States — 375
Chapter 35 Perfect Murders: Crime and the End of Empire — 387
Chapter 36 Mind Games: Post-war Psychological Suspense — 398
Chapter 37 Deep Water: Patricia Highsmith — 410
Chapter 38 Forking Paths: Borges and Postmodernism — 418
Chapter 39 Bloody Murder: Julian Symons and Crime Fiction Criticism –429
Chapter 40 People with Ghosts: Post-war Private Investigators and the Legacy of Vietnam — 443
Chapter 41 Killing Jokes: Comedy and Crime — 454
Chapter 42 Literary Agents: Post-war Spy Fiction — 466
Chapter 43 Nerve: Adventure Novels and Thrillers — 480
Chapter 44 Outsider in Amsterdam: Dutch Crime — 490
Chapter 45 Whodunwhat?: Theatrical Murder — 502
Chapter 46 Black and Blue: British Police Fiction — 511
Chapter 47 Home Discomforts: Domestic Suspense — 522
Chapter 48 Mystery Games: East Asian Detective Fiction — 533
Chapter 49 Early Graves: Difference and Diversity — 545
Chapter 50 A Suitable Job for a Woman: Women Writing about Private Investigators — 560
Chapter 51 A Feeling for Snow: Scandinavian Crime Writing — 571
Chapter 52 Fatal Inversions: Ruth Rendell and Modern Psychological Suspense — 581
Chapter 53 Dark Places: American Police Fiction — 591
Chapter 54 Long Shadows: Historical Crime — 601
Chapter 55 A Taste for Death: P. D. James and the Truth about Human Character and Experience — 613
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY — 623
Acknowledgements — 644
INDEX OF TITLES — 646
INDEX OF NAMES — 688
SUBJECT INDEX — 716
No one knows the subject better than Edwards and few could explain it as entertainingly as he. I look forward to reading this with great pleasure.
Jerry, THE LIFE OF CRIME, breath-taking in its scope, achieves instant Classic status!
How does he do it. Turnout novels, anthologies and history of crime books. Amazing.
Patti, I often wonder: When does Martin Edwards sleep?
What Patti said. Besides the anthologies he edits and his own novels, he’s written some great non fiction books already: THE GOLDEN AGE OF MURDER and THE STORY OF CLASSIC CRIME in !)) BOOKS were both outstanding.
This one is on my list.
Jeff, not only do Martin Edwards’s non-fiction books about mysteries present intriguing information, they feature clear writing, too!
$24.99 on Kindle. A bit steep. Put it on order from my library. Some chapters I can skip. I could care less about S.S. van Dine or radio mysteries.
Steve, THE LIFE OF CRIME is a browser’s delight! Some chapters are more interesting than others, but Martin Edwards goal of being comprehensive shows in the bulk of this book.
Like radio myteries, agree on van Dine.
Todd, Art Scott is my Go-To guy on radio mysteries.
The 2020 draft that Martin kindly asked me to review ran to 654 pages – without bibliography, acknowledgements & index – also 55 chapters, so apparently his editor capitulated and gave up on trying to downsize it. Just as well. Martin wanted to produce a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of the mystery and clearly he’s done so. My copy is somewhere in the supply chain at this writing, but I’m eager to see the finished product. And proud to have had a small hand in it.
Art, THE LIFE OF CRIME’s excellence is in part attributable to you and the others who helped Martin Edwards with this gargantuan endeavor!
This one looks good, George.
Maybe I can find it in the dealer’s room at Bouchercon.
As to your response to Patti and all the stuff you read, listen to, and watch, I often wonder – when do YOU sleep???
Beth, I get to sleep when Diane lets me!
With any justice, this will not be a Forgotten Book for quite some time, if ever.
Todd, Martin Edwards unearths dozens of forgotten books in THE LIFE OF CRIME. I already have a list of books from this volume that’s as long as my arm!
I admire and enjoy Martin Edwards’ work. But I do wonder — when he just has ten pages to describe an entire sub-genre, does he manage to get into any depth, or does it just have to be a flyover? The US Amazon doesn’t have a Look Inside. I went to the UK Amazon site, which does, but it just has the intro, first chapter, and the entire index at the end. That’s good to see what all he talks about, but I’d have liked to have seen one of the regular chapters.
Jeff, not true anymore. Go to the Kindle edition and it has the introduction and the first ELEVEN chapters (which, I guess, proves how short they are), including Poe, Collins & Dickens, Sherlock Holmes, R> Austin Freeman, Chesterton, and Mary Roberts Rinehart, among others.
Jeff, I didn’t check the KINDLE edition. Nice work! And, 11 chapters is a large sample!
Jeff, maybe Art Scott can email you part of the PDF so you can check out a “regular” chapter.