The geography of crime novels

[Mark Kohut]

Heavy readers of 'mysteries', crime novels always talk locale as reason,
the major one often.
Lit journalists have done maps of writers' areas. It is what I remember
best, usually, of ones I have read.

But, although I think the best wrriters have transcended it since, I am
still in the sway of Wilson's "*Who Cares*
*Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" In which he argues that the form reduces the
novel to the kinds of formula that David*
articulates and therefore blocks them from being open enough to have
overarching themes that Art needs.
Simple observation: You can't end a mystery novel as Pynchon ends his
fictions, reverberating themes with such
resonance that the work echoes itself full of ambiguities. Under the
formula, we learn the unambiguous ending.

There, that should get us a decent civil argument.

On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 3:21 PM Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk> wrote:

> Apart from being a lazy reader and crime novels being little strain on
> the brain, one reason I enjoy stories set in the US is exploring
> different parts of the country which has fascinated me since I
> discovered DC comics in the late 1950s and watched the Lone Ranger and
> Range Rider on the tube.
>
> Having realised that Land's End is the nearest I'm likely to get to the
> US, earlier in the year I decided to explore it by crime novels,
> starting with LA. With a list of lesser known LA based series, reading
> mostly using the Internet Archive Library I had Wiki and Google
> Maps/Streetview open and gradually got the layout and look of LA sorted
> in my head.
>
> I can't say I discovered any great prose or notable story telling but
> two authors I'd recommend as a result are Barbara Serranella and Timothy
> Hallinan. Street life stories from the former and crim world comedy from
> the latter - a burglar who does PI jobs for those who can't go to the
> police, i.e. other criminals - good fun. I read several African-American
> writers, which was good for social-economic perspectives but none as
> writers or storytellers a patch on Walter Mosley.
>
> So where next...
>
> On 21/10/2021 17:14, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/classic-crime-novels-that-still-thrill-today.html
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