P. James - Talking About Detective Fiction

Today there is undoubtedly an increased interest in detective fiction. New novels are being reviewed with respect, many of them by names unfamiliar to me. It is apparent that publishers and readers are continuing to look for well-written mysteries which afford the expected satisfaction of a credible plot but can legitimately be enjoyed as serious novels. A number of novelists have successfully moved between detective fiction, non-fiction and mainstream novels: Frances Fyfield, Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine, Susan Hill, Joan Smith, John Banville and Kate Atkinson being examples. Although I have mentioned the names of crime writers, alive and dead, to illustrate my text, I have neither the wish nor the competence to undertake the function of a reviewer. All lovers of detective fiction will have their favourites. But the variety and quality of detective fiction being produced today, both by established writers and by newcomers, will ensure that the future of the genre is in safe hands.

Our planet has always been a dangerous, violent and mysterious habitation for humankind and we all are adept at creating those pleasures and comforts, large and small, sometimes dangerous and destructive, which offer at least temporary relief from the inevitable tensions and anxieties of contemporary life. A love of detective fiction is certainly among the least harmful. We do not expect popular literature to be great literature, but fiction which provides excitement, mystery and humour also ministers to essential human needs. We can honour and celebrate the genius which produced Middlemarch, War and Peace and Ulysses without devaluing Treasure Island , The Moonstone and The Inimitable Jeeves . The detective story at its best can stand in such company, and its popularity suggests that in the twenty-first century, as in the past, many of us will continue to turn for relief, entertainment and mild intellectual challenge to these unpretentious celebrations of reason and order in our increasingly complex and disorderly world.

Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie . Collins, London, 1980.

Booth, Martin. The Doctor, the Detective and Arthur Conan Doyle . Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1997.

Craig, Patricia, and Mary Cadogan. The Lady In vestigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction . Victor Gollancz, London, 1981.

Keating, H. R. F., ed. Crime Writers: Reflection on Crime Fiction . BBC, London, 1978.

Lewis, Margaret. Ngaio Marsh: A Life . Chatto & Windus, London, 1991; The Hogarth Press, London, 1992.

Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie: A Biography . Collins, London, 1984.

Most, Glenn W., and William W. Stowe, eds. The Poetics of Murder: Detective Fiction and Literary Theory . Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1983.

Penzler, Otto, ed. The Great Detectives . Little, Brown, Boston and Toronto, 1978.

Reynolds, Barbara. Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul . Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1993.

Reynolds, Barbara, ed. The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist . Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1995.

Stewart, R. F. And Always a Detective: Chapters on the History of Detective Fiction . David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1980.

Summerscale, Kate. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House . Bloomsbury, London, 2008.

Symons, Julian. Bloody Murder . Faber & Faber, London, 1972; Viking, New York, 1985; Mysterious Press, New York, 1992.

Thompson, Laura. Agatha Christie: An English Mystery . Headline Review, London, 2007.

Thorogood, Julia. Margery Allingham: A Biography . William Heinemann, London, 1991. Now reissued as Julia Jones, The Adventures of Margery Allingham. Golden Duck Publishing, Chelmsford, 2009.

Watson, Colin. Snobbery with Violence . Eyre & Spottis-woode, London, 1971; Eyre Methuen, London, 1979, 1987.

Winks, Robin. Detective Fiction . Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1980.

P. D. JAMES is the author of twenty previous books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Departments of Great Britain ’s Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest . The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991 and was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2008. She lives in London and Oxford.