Masterpieces Of Mystery: The Golden Age, Part I – Compiled by Ellery Queen, 1977 ★★

What Was So Golden about the Golden Age?

Detective fiction long ago moved from the whodunit to the whydunit; today it often employs a complicated, psychological approach. So what can be learned from this anthology of mystery writers from its simpler Golden Age?

Do any of them still stand up to modern scrutiny, apart from Agatha Christie, still the reigning Shakespeare of the form? After reading through these 350 pages, I’m still wondering.

The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers, 1934 ★★★

Ask Not for Whom the Bells Toll...

Classic English murder novels of the early 20^th century are sometimes called “mystery cozies,” conjuring up notions of tea at a warm fireplace, damask upholstery, and a pair of turned-up boots politely protruding from the farthest corner.

I’d like to call The Nine Tailors a “cozy,” in that it is an utterly English novel of strict social conventions and consummate discretion, except I was hardly cozy while reading it.

The problem wasn’t the goriness of the main crime, though a dead man found in someone else’s grave with his hands lopped off and his face bashed in is pretty gory territory, however discretely described. Nor was it the uneasiness of the setting, a small church in the English fenlands peopled by a community with dirty secrets to hide.