SPL Reads!

Lately, I’ve become a fan of mysteries.  At the library, the circulation of mystery titles is fast and furious, and we shelve them by the cartload.  But, in discussing mysteries, I’ve come to learn that it is a varied genre that inspires strong preferences and author allegiances in its readers.  There’s the hard-boiled crowd and the cat mystery crowd.  There’s the horse race mystery crowd and the police procedural crowd.  There are those who like humorous wise-cracking mysteries and those who prefer the darkest psychological suspense offerings.  And all that says nothing of the growing number of supernatural sleuth stories. Saying “I like to read mysteries” is a bit like saying “I’d like to eat food for dinner” in that either statement could entail a wide variety of flavors.  I’ve come to realize that when it comes to many of these flavors, I’m completely out of my depth.

I came to the mystery genre through the classics, and they are still my favorite.  Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Ross MacDonald, and David Goodis hooked me with their hardboiled, tough-guy narratives.  They led me to their narrative progeny: the crime fiction of the self-proclaimed Demon Dog of Crime Fiction, James Ellroy.  Then, I looped back again, and read some of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.  I found a wealth of great books that were just sitting there waiting to be read, books that I neglected because I’ve never cared for Agatha Christie-style mysteries.  How could I have known?

I’m continually trying to win people over to science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  I tell them that any genre is broad, and contains a wide array of material.  Just because you don’t like Star Trek doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to find some science fiction that you like.  Just because J.R.R. Tolkein is a lot of nonsense to you doesn’t mean you won’t like other fantasy authors.  I guess when it came to the mystery genre, I should have listened more closely to my own advice.  Just because I can’t ever see myself liking a book where a cat solves crimes and I can’t wrap my head around Miss Marple doesn’t mean I dislike mysteries.  It just means I prefer the Demon Dogs to the the Dainty Doilies.  And lucky enough for me, and for those who prefer the Dainty Doilies, the mystery genre is as varied as its readers.