Although the British detective first appeared in novels by Wilkie Collins and later, Arthur Conan Doyle, it was brilliant female writers who brought the form well into the 20th century and beyond.
We begin with 2 of the 4 Queens of the Golden Age of Mystery fiction (between the 2 World Wars,): Dorothy Sayers, and Agatha plus a 3rd wonderful author of the period, Josephine Tey, They led the craze for mysteries featuring twisted, ingenious plots, murders most horrible, and cunning imaginative villains.
We will see the form they established and how the genre continued and changed as we look at a novel from 1962 by PD James, followed by 2 novels from the current century.
The first 6 weeks, each novel is the first in a series featuring a protagonist who goes on to carry multiple subsequent novels. The last week we have a very special novel by Josephine Tey. It was first published in 1951, is 5th in her Alan Grant series, and quite unique in its purpose and structure. It comes last because it is dessert.
We'll examine how these plots are structured, how they are similar and how different. We will ask how the notions of gender and class play in them. We will question why the mystery form has been so consistently popular from its beginnings and how the conventions have changed over time. We will wonder why so many woman were the best writers. Last but not least, we'll have a wonderful time visiting (or revisiting) these novels, all of them fun reads.
