epubbing with nicola furlong

In our previous posts we’ve investigated the ‘mystery novel’ crime scene. What evidence have we uncovered to help us discover the perennial popularity of this type of genre fiction?

Ah, here are the FOUR elemetary clues:

CLUE 1: The Shocking Out of Place Body

W.H. Auden was first on the scene by observing that there is potential for more horror in one single body on the drawing room floor, than in a dozen, bullet-riddled bodies down a large city’s mean streets.

That’s because it’s personal. We know the individual sprawled on the carpet.

The impact is always greater when it’s brought home to your own doorstep.

Why do you think the suspect in Murder She Wrote is always related to the main character, Jessica Fletcher?

Or why the serial killer, in any number of books like Dexter, Silence of the Lambs or The Bone Collector, always taunts and targets the protagonist or their family and friends?

If the writer has been successful, the reader cares deeply for and is emotionally connected to the protag, so any attack that hurts the main character is felt vicerally by the audience (at least, that’s the goal!).

CLUE 2: The Challenge of the Puzzle

Everyone loves a mystery, right? We all delight in being puzzled, challenged, intrigued and sometimes even friggin’ scared.

That’s because of the enduring allure of the unknown and our unending desire to know it. It’s just our basic human curiosity.

Okay. You’re in the interview room, the big light’s in your eyes and the detective’s questions keep on coming.

It’s confession time.

Admit it: you delight in trying to outwit the gumshoe and discover whodunit first. Some of you can’t stand the suspense and even read the ending first (horrors!), just to get the anguish over with!

After all, bragging rights are on the line!

So, the mystery of the perennial popularity of crime fiction is partially solved.

Two clues down, a pair to go. What might they be…

Guess you’ll just have to wait for the final post in this series.

Better yet, why not offer your suggestions?

Though its origins seem to be the British Isles, the mystery scene hopped across the Pacific into the US in the thirties and forties and was embraced by tough-talking private dicks.

Since then, the mystery scene has gone global and the plot just keeps getting thicker.



There are sleuths of all descriptions—even cats, quadriplegics, and Queen Elizabeth the second—and enough DNA and forensic evidence to choke a morgue full of coroners.

In today’s crime novels, however, the detective is explored as much as the crime. His or her personal life comes into play, colouring, sometimes muddying, the murder investigation. And the ultimate crime takes a serious toll on everyone affected.





In other words, it’s lot more like real life.



Not only are mysteries being written all over the world, they now explore an amazing variety of themes. And the writing styles range from crisp and hard as a revolver’s butt, to lyrical and smooth as a black mask.


If you want humour, nature, excitement or romance, there’s a whodunit for you. Seeking tragedy, passion, or insight into the human condition? Grab a good crime story and fill your gumshoes.





So, we’ve investigated the crime scene. What evidence have we uncovered to help us understand its perennial popularity?

The answer’s elementary, my dear Watson, as you’ll see in the next post.

(And thanks to my fellow Canadian crime writers for their cover pics.)

So, we know mysteries and mystery writing is incredibly popular. We also know that the first crime fiction originated and prospered in the UK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The British whodunits had a charming ’stiff upper lip’ genteel style where, on the surface at least, everyone had lovely manners and no blood or violence ever marred the pages.

But that was about to change when detective fiction went global, starting with a new wave across the pond, along the mean streets of America.

The Private Dick

Post World War II introduced a new character from the United States, the private dick, a hard-boiled, smart-talking fallen angel from the Underwood typewriters of giants like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M Cain.

These tough-guy outcasts—and they were always guys—gave as good as they got, skirting the lines of morality while usually solving the mystery at their personal expense.

The dialogue was snappy, the women voluptuous and the whiskey sour.

But that was just the start of the explosive global growth in the interest in murder, crime writing and detective fiction. C.S.I., anyone?

We’ll leave that for our next posting.

(And thanks to Islander Books for the vintage cover pic.)

Do you love a good mystery novel? Well, you’re not alone. The crime novel, be it in print, or adapted to the screen or internet, continues to be one of the world’s most beloved genres.

So over the next five posts, we’re going to investigate what’s lurking behind its popularity.

The British Grandfathers:

Historically, the mystery novel began in the mid 1800’s with Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins. Many say The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is one of the first novels of detective fiction ever written.

It’s a spooky and romantic tale, told through multiple POV narratives and is intriguing from the get go: “This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.”

221B Baker Street:

The English plot thickened with Arthur Conan Doyle’s splendid consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes; he of the deerstalker hat, the 7% cocaine solution and the famous phrase, “Elementary, my dear, Watson.”

The English Roses:



Not long after, the women took the reins, plotting and scheming at a raging gallop into the twentieth century.

These early queens of the so-called cozies were: Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.




Settings were often a small English village where evil lurked in the library but was never seen.

Amateur sleuths, like Jane Marple and Lord Peter Wimsey, used their personal insight and intellect to nab the killers, leaving the police plods in their wake.

In the end, though, you knew very little about the sleuths or murderers themselves, no one in the stories seemed changed and life went on as usual.

The excitement and drama of the puzzle, the chase and the unmasking of the murderer spread beyond British shores, all the way to the mean streets of America…where we’ll reveal up more clues in the next post.

(Thanks to Katya Lapierre and Jim Gardner for the cover shots.)