Varieties of Crime Fiction

Leading critic S.T. Joshi reviews 13 mystery and crime writers:

I. The Golden Age

Dorothy L. Sayers: Lords and Servants
John Dickson Carr: Puzzlemeister
Margery Allingham: Murder, Gangs, and Spies
Philip MacDonald: Expanding the “Cosy” Mystery

II. The Hard-Boiled School

Dashiell Hammett: Sam Spade and Others
Raymond Chandler: Mean Streets
Ross Macdonald: Family Affairs

III. The Psychological Mystery

Margaret Millar: Scars of the Psyche
Patricia Highsmith: Guilt and Innocence
L. P. Davies: The Workings of the Mind

IV. Some Contemporaries

P. D. James: The Empress’s New Clothes
Ruth Rendell: The Psychology of Murder
Sue Grafton: Hard-Boiled Female