Martin Edwards: The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books — Part 3: Chapters 11-15

From the chapters covering some of the key locations of classic British mysteries (the countryside, including and especially country manors, as well as London — of course — and domestic and international vacation resorts), we’ve now moved to an exploration of how the various writers used their “original” professional experience in their writing, and how classic mysteries worked when set in the worlds of science, engineering, politics, teaching — and of course, the world if the professional investigator, the policeman.

I find I am particularly enjoying these chapters; while those dealing with the various geographical settings were a huge enterprise of cramming as many titles into the introductory chapters as possible (with considerable “name recognition” value — this is, after all, the Golden Age mystery world 101, and you can’t possibly read classic British crime fiction without coming across at least a fair share of the novels mentioned in those chapters somewhere or orther eventually) — now we’re back to an analysis as to what exactly made the novels, and their writers and protagonists, tick … and how it impacted the various storylines.  That, in addition to being introduced to a plethora of new authors to read, was a major draw for me in the initial 5 chapters, too, where the focus was on how the “conventions” and hallmarks of classic British crime fiction were shaped.

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Addendum:

The associated reading lists:

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books & The Golden Age of Murder: List of all books referenced

The BookLikes Breakup:
The “100 Books” Presented

Other Books Mentioned:
Part 1: Chapters 1 – 5
Part 2: Chapters 6 & 7
Part 3: Chapters 8 – 10
Part 4: Chapters 11 – 15
Part 5: Chapters 16-20
Part 6: Chapters 21-24