In the second Lord Peter/Harriet Vane case, a walking tour of the English coast hardly goes according to plan when Miss Vane, mystery writer and once accused murderess, stumbles across a body on the beach. Exonerated of the poisoning murder of her former lover, Harriet is vacationing far from London in the hopes of distancing…
London, 1929 Miss Harriet Vane is on trial for murder. It's a most scandalous case. The victim, Philip Boyes, was not only an author who advocated free love and anarchy—he was the accused murderer's lover for more than a year. But following a nasty split, Boyes started falling ill, and always after a chance…
All too often, people assert that so-called “genre” fiction (a class that includes mystery fiction) is separate from “literary” fiction. I think not. Why should literary fiction and mystery fiction be mutually exclusive categories? Who makes such distinctions? If literary fiction is driven by plot, complex characters, serious tone, and elegant narration, then the subsequent…
The fun of reading mysteries laced with romance is the double plot: 1) solve the crime; and 2) watch the characters banter while solving the crime. Romance is often about how they compromise and learn to trust. There’s no better way learn that than if you’re working together to stay alive. Note: I left Nick…
This post includes spoilers, but if you haven’t read this classic series yet, what are you waiting for? I read my first Dorothy Sayers mystery– most of them, in fact–when I was in middle school. I enjoyed them quite a bit, but it wasn’t until I began rereading them in high school and college, and…
