Talking about Detective Fiction

by P.D. James

From the birth of crime writing with Wilkie Collins and Dostoevsky, through Conan Doyle to the golden age of crime, with the rise of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, P. D. James brings a lifetime of reading and writing crime fiction to bear on this personal history of the genre. There are chapters on great American crime writers - the likes of Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. James also discusses many of her favourite famous detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Philip Marlowe.

P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley, Children of Men and The Murder Room, presents a brief history of detective fiction and explores the literary techniques behind history's best crime writing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mystery, Writing, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, Crime, Detective

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2009

About the author

P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.

The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospital administration and, after her husband’s death in 1964, became a civil servant in the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. Her first mystery novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced Dalgliesh and was followed by six more mysteries before she retired from government service in 1979 to devote full time to writing.

Dalgliesh, James’s master detective who rises from chief inspector in the first novel to chief superintendent and then to commander, is a serious, introspective person, moralistic yet realistic. The novels in which he appears are peopled by fully rounded characters, who are civilized, genteel, and motivated. The public resonance created by James’s singular characterization and deployment of classic mystery devices led to most of the novels featuring Dalgliesh being filmed for television. James, who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” penned 14 Dalgliesh novels, with the last, The Private Patient, appearing in 2008.

James also wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), which centre on Cordelia Gray, a young private detective. The first of these novels was the basis for both a television movie and a short-lived series. James expanded beyond the mystery genre in The Children of Men (1992; film 2006), which explores a dystopian world in which the human race has become infertile. Her final work, Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)—a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1813)—amplifies the class and relationship tensions between Jane Austen’s characters by situating them in the midst of a murder investigation. James’s nonfiction works include The Maul and the Pear Tree (1971), a telling of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 written with historian T.A. Critchley, and the insightful Talking About Detective Fiction (2009). Her memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000. She was made OBE in 1983 and was named a life peer in 1991.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always up for a challenge, I took on an A-Z author challenge this year. For my J selection, I chose long time mystery writer P.D. James. Toward the end of her life, James penned an extended essay about the history of detective and mystery writing, mainly set in her native England but including a select few American detective writers as well. I found the essays to be informative, as James, through her expertise, relayed how modern mystery writing became to be.

The first prerequisite for a detective story is that a society has to be modern enough to necessitate a police force and other law enforcement agencies. James cites Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone as the first modern detective story. Pulled from real life events, Collins penned a story that had readers at the edge of their seats as they desired to know whodunit. And the modern mystery was born. Yet, James did not spend much time discussing Collins, even though he gave way to modern mystery writing. She did not even give that much ink to Arthur Conan Doyle although she did fault sidekick Watson for being slightly addle brained. Much to the author's relief, modern detective writers eventually let the sidekick fall by the wayside. Rather than discussing the precursors at length, the meat of James essays focused on the Golden Age of mystery writing.

Between the two world wars in England, a so called Golden Age of mystery writing emerged. James bestows much credit to her career as a mystery writer on four women who paved the way for her: Dorothy Sayers, Marjory Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and, of course, Agatha Christie. Each woman had distinct style, but James preferred the intellectualism of Sayers and later Allingham to Christie's puzzle. Even though Dame Christie brought the world detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple and had her readers use their little gray cells, James is critical in saying that Christie's cases are repetitive to the point of being clichéd. As a writer, James herself attempted to create new scenes and settings, and despite lauding Christie's success, did not enjoy reading case after case set in the same quaint village. Yet, readers enjoy reading about Miss Jane Marple in St Mary Mead even if these murder cases aren't realistic. Combine that with the success of Christie's books on film, including the ever popular Murder on the Orient Express, Christie is still widely read today.

Although the majority of this essay emphasizes English detectives, James gives a section to American hard boiled crime, citing Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett as the two writers responsible for modernizing American detective and mystery writing. James respects Chandler more as writer, citing that he was partially educated in England. These two writers eventually gave way to generations of modern mystery writers. Today, James says, that the modern writer, herself included, tend to write a series about one detective. Readers get attached to the private investigator and his/her private life away from detecting. She states that the modern writer who has been most successful with this formula has been Sara Paretsky and her long running V.I. Warshawski series. As a fan of this series, I can see how the emotional tug has factored into writing a series rather than stand alone stores. Being invested in a character has the reader coming back for each case even if not all the stories in the series are as stellar as the original. This, James claims, is the current state of detective and mystery writing today.

I found Talking About Detective Fiction to be informative as P.D. James walked her readers through the history of detective writing. A lot of this information, especially the early chapters, was new to me so I enjoyed hearing about the trailblazers. Yet, this slim volume was too short to delve into all that much information about any one subject, and James includes a bibliography for further reading. Although a little critical of my favorite writer Agatha Christie, I found P.D. James essay to be a worthwhile read and rate this extended essay on the history of detective writing 3.5 stars.

[Francesc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante ensayo. Muy ameno y entretenido.

Se centra, sobre todo, en la literatura inglesa, aunque le dedica un capítulo a la literatura norteamericana de Hammett, Chandler y compañía.

Me ha revelado que me quedan aún muchas personalidades literarias por descubrir.

Interesting essay. Very pleasant and entertaining.

She focuses primarily on English literature, although she devotes a chapter to the American literature of Hammett, Chandler and company.

She has revealed to me that I still have many literary personalities to discover.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short history and analysis of mostly British detective fiction from James. Nothing groundbreaking here, but I enjoyed her fierce championing of her genre - and all genre fiction - as a serious literary form. Some intriguing book recs in here too.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

It's a wise idea to consult the masters of a genre that you want to enter prior to making a foray into it. I though this was going to be more of a how-to than it was; it's still valuable for a tyro to read the high-level musings of a practitioner of the art of detective fiction.

Not terribly useful as a how-to writing guide, but rather as a why-to genre joining guide.

[Adia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detective fiction is among my favorite genres (putting me, perhaps, among that class of readers who enjoy what Matthew Arnold described in 1880 as "cheap...hideous and ignoble...tawdry novels"). this book covers the Golden Age authors and their sleuths and the four women (Christie, Allingham, Marsh, Sayers) whose work is still popular today; the basic structure of the mystery novel, the critiques and evolution of the crime novel; and gives a brief look at the American hard-boiled school of mystery. was a little surprised that Ellery Queen didn't even get a mention, and James disparaged Christie too strongly in my opinion, but otherwise i enjoyed it; nothing, however, groundbreaking.

[Bri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what audience this book was pitched to - but I wasn't it. This is no slur on the work or the writer: I have an academic interest in detective fiction and a readerly interest in P.D. James' novels, and I was hoping for either deeper personal reflections on her life and writing, or a critical analysis of detective fiction as it relates to her work, in the style of A. S. Byatt, whose non-fiction critical work provides the other half of her thought. This was more of a gentle meander through the genealogy of detective fiction, with none of the depth and footnotes other works have provided on the same subject, and insufficient reflection on her own writerly practice to raise it to a personal exposition of her work rather than a general, and alas fairly shallow, review of the genre's history.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are 8 chapters, beginning with a history which spoke well of Collins' The Moonstone, and then a whole chapter on Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. The Golden Age came next, but I was surprised that sandwiched between that chapter and one dedicated to Christie, Sayer, Allingham and Marsh, was a chapter on the Americans and hard-boiled novels. This latter was my favorite (of course?). In it were Hammett and Chandler, but also Ross Macdonald that I have shelved but not read and finally Sara Paretsky, a woman still writing and who I will explore. Next are two chapters that actually deal with the nuts and bolts of writing detective fiction - setting, viewpoint, characterization, and also criticism of the genre to which she adequately responds. The final chapter James writes positively of the future of detective fiction.

The admonition to business is "under promise and over deliver." I'm afraid for this one that my expectations were higher than what was delivered. As an example, James is certain that Sherlock Holmes is high on the list of favorites for those of us who read detective fiction, followed closely by Agatha Christie, most particularly her Miss Marple series. Neither of these would make my list of favorites, let alone be near the top. I also don't care for Lord Peter Wimsey and haven't read Allingham nor Marsh. I liked the novels by P.D. James that I have read. I guess I was hoping for something this isn't, and that isn't her fault.

That said, I placed stickies on several pages, so maybe my view of the title as a whole should be looked at for what it does deliver rather than for what it does not. I'm not going to up my rating based on my own admonishment to do so, but will include my favorite quote from the chapter where she argues successfully against the critics of the genre.

Some of this aversion has been from readers who dislike detective fiction as others might dislike science fiction, romantic novels or stories in which the protagonist is a child. The field of fiction is rich and remarkably wide and we all have our favourtie pastures.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll confess, I read this book because I wanted to see what one of my favorite authors had to say about my other favorite authors. However, this book is not just insight on Agatha, Marjorie and Dorothy; P.D. James actually discusses the processes she used (and continues to use) to create her wonderful mysteries. Yes, she talks about Sherlock, Father Brown, Lord Peter, Albert Campion, Miss Marple, Morse and Hercule Poirot, but she also discusses the origins of detective fiction, the "hard boiled" American detective fiction and the future of detective fiction. I would highly recommend the book to any detective mystery authors.

P.D. James is an excellent author, and even though this is literary criticism, and even though she is not the Agatha Christie fan I am, and even though she barely discussed Marjorie Allingham at all, I really enjoyed this book. So whether you want to know how one of the world's most successful authors does it, or what one of the world's most successful authors thinks of other works in her medium - read this book! You won't be sorry (and if you are at all like me, you'll get ideas for some good mysteries to pick up at the library).

[El Convincente · Rating 2 out of 5]

A P. D. JAMES le gustan:
- Las cosas inglesas en general
- Los escritores de la Edad Dorada inglesa, en especial Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham y Ngaio Marsh
- Hacer afirmaciones de una sensatez de tal calibre que roza el absurdo («Los lugares y, en especial los paisajes, suelen describirse con mayor eficacia cuando el escritor escoge un contexto que conoce bien.»)
- Escribir novelas de detectives que se parezcan mucho a las cosas inglesas que mejor conoce
- Disentir con los críticos extranjeros y coincidir con los ingleses.

Probablemente, James se mostró sorprendida cuando su agente le dijo que este libro se iba a traducir al español.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually object to the term 'nice' being applied to a book but in this instance I will make an exception. This was a nice and accurate study of the history of the British detective novel written by somebody who is not only highly thought of in the field of detective fiction but most importantly a real fan of the genre.

I have never read a single novel from the pen of P.D. James (Cover Her Face is on the horizon now) but I can see why she is so popular in the detective story market, her passion for the subject shines through in this essay and her knowledge is overwhelming to a mere enthusiast such as myself. Although I guess it's easy to have so much knowledge to hand at 90 years old, having been reading detective fiction from the dawn of The Golden Age that the majority of this book focuses on.

I think it is telling that I preferred the discussion of hard-boiled fiction to the analysis of Christie, Marsh, Allingham and Sayers, but more about my tastes than hers. As the subject drifts away from the classic period so too did my enjoyment in reading, I think this is again as a direct result of the authors enthusiasm for the subject not being quite so overwhelming in regards to later novels in the genre.

Well worth the read for anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of detective fiction AND proceeds go to a good cause, The Bodleian Library.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few days back I was looking for some light, breezy reading and when I looked at my bookshelves, ‘Talking about Detective Fiction’ by P.D.James leapt at me. So I took the book down from the shelf and read it. It was a fast read, and I finished reading it yesterday. Here is what I think.

What I think

In ‘Talking about Detective Fiction’ P.D.James gives an overview of British detective fiction in the past one hundred and fifty years. The key operative word here is ‘British’. She begins with how it all started, the debates on which novel can be regarded as the first ever detective novel and how the creation of a detective unit in the actual police force was a pre-requisite before a novel could be regarded as a detective novel. She then talks about Wilkie Collins’ ‘The Moonstone’ and how it was the pioneer in this area. She goes on to talk about the familiar icons – Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and the kind of influence Holmes had on subsequent detectives, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and how they were detective superstars for decades, though the overall structure of their stories was very predictable. She then talks about the Golden Age of British detective fiction and the authors and detectives who peopled those times. She takes a digression here and goes beyond British detective fiction and talks about American hardboiled fiction by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and talks about how they are very different when compared to the fiction written by the Golden Age authors. She goes on to talk about the four great women authors who wrote detective fiction – Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. She then describes the basic elements of a detective story and how different authors had improvised these elements in their own unique way, sharing her own experiences when she was working on her books. She then concludes by looking at why some critics like detective stories and others don’t and describes how the detective fiction landscape looks like today and gives her prediction on how it will look like in the future.

Before I started reading the book, I smiled at it. I have been reading detective fiction in different languages ever since I can remember and I thought I knew one or two things about it. One or two things that P.D.James might not know :) So, I first made a list of things that I knew, which I thought James may not include in her book. The list had these things :

(1) As the book is called ‘Talking about Detective Fiction’, I thought I will make a list of detective fiction authors who were American. My list had authors like Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Robert B. Parker, Walter Moseley (all American). I ignored the Scandinavian guys, Andrea Camilleri (Italian), the Russian Agatha Christie Alexandra Marinina and detective fiction writers in my own language like Tamilvanan, Sujatha, Rajesh Kumar, the famous Urdu writer Ibn-e-Safi and the Chinese writer Qiu Xiaolong, because I knew that P.D.James wouldn’t have heard of them. (If we get curious and ask the question – is it possible to write a global history of detective fiction? My answer – ‘Impossible’! There are too many writers in far too many languages!)
(2) I included Georges Simenon as a separate name on the list. Though Simenon wrote in French, he is a true legend of the detective fiction genre and he started writing detective fiction at the same time that the Golden Age authors did and his career coincided with Agatha Christie’s career for decades. So I thought that anyone who ignored Simenon did so at their own peril.
(3) I added a couple of British writers, who don’t seem to be so well known today as detective fiction writers, to the list. They are Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A.Milne. Milne wrote just one detective novel called ‘The Red House Mystery’, but I thought he deserved to be talked about. After a lot of reluctance, I also added Georgette Heyer to the list.
(4) I added a few writers of historical mysteries to the list. Though they wrote novels which are set in ancient times, I thought they were important, because they also wrote mysteries. The names I included were Ellis Peters (who wrote the Cadfael mysteries), Lindsey Davis (whose mysteries featuring Marcus Didius Falco, one of my favourite detectives, is set in ancient Rome), Margaret Doody (in whose novels Aristotle features as a detective), Umberto Eco (whose ‘The Name of the Rose’ can be regarded, among other things, as a detective novel), Boris Akunin (who wrote the Fandorin and the Sister Pelagia novels) and Susanna Gregory (who wrote the Matthew Bartholomew novels set in Cambridge university).
(5) I also added Edgar Allan Poe as a separate name on the list. Many people regard Poe as the founder of modern detective fiction because he was the first to introduce a fictional detective – Auguste Lupin in some of his short stories. Poe, however, never wrote a detective novel. I wanted to know what James thought about Poe and whether she gave him credit for inventing the genre.
(6) I also added James Hadley Chase to the list. Chase was regarded as the British Raymond Chandler. In my own opinion, in terms of plotting and pace, Chase was better than Chandler, though Chandler’s prose was better and beautiful. I wanted to know whether James mentions Chase anywhere.

After having made my list, I read the book carefully. I wanted to find out whether James missed out someone. Whether she tripped up somewhere. I was ready to catch her if she did and point out the omission. It was an interesting experience to read the book this way. The result of this exercise was this (in football terms) : PD James 1 – Vishy 0 :) James didn’t trip a single time! To make her position clear, she says at the beginning of the book that it is a survey of British detective fiction. However, she gives a separate chapter for American hardboiled fiction writers Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (though she doesn’t mention Mickey Spillane or Walter Moseley or Robert B. Parker). She writes a wonderful few passages about A.A.Milne’s ‘The Red House Mystery’ (I really thought I would catch her here :)), she talks about Ellis Peters and Lindsey Davis in one of the later chapters (though she doesn’t mention Margaret Doody or Umberto Eco, especially Umberto Eco whose ‘The Name of the Rose’ can be both treated as detective fiction and literary fiction), she writes about how Edgar Allan Poe created the first modern fictional detective (though she gives more weight to Wilkie Collins as the father of the modern detective novel). Unfortunately, she doesn’t mention James Hadley Chase anywhere, which is unfortunate, because though he is unknown and underrated today, he was one of the most wonderful storytellers there ever was. Maybe James thought that he was a crime novelist and didn’t really write detective fiction. So far so good. But on one item, I thought I will really score a point over James. I thought she wouldn’t talk about Georges Simenon. It didn’t happen till the last chapter. But in the last chapter she gives Simenon his due and gushes about him. She also talks about detective fiction from Scandinavia, Italy, Russia, Iceland, Japan. I have to say that by the time I had finished the book, James had won me over completely by her knowledge, her warmth, her beautiful prose, her comprehensive tackling of the subject, her wisdom. I had total admiration and affection for her.

I have two minor quibbles though. The first one is that James misses out Freeman Wills Crofts. Freeman Wills Crofts was one of the greats of the Golden Age and his books were regarded as forerunners of the modern day ‘police procedural’. Unfortunately, he is not so well-known today. I think he should find a place atleast in a book on the history of detective fiction. My second quibble is that James doesn’t talk much about herself, though she does share her thoughts on how she got ideas for her novels and the kind of research she did to write them and how she came upon the setting described in her novels. As a detective fiction novelist, James is one of the greats in her domain and so her being modest, though it is the polite thing to do, makes the reader yearn for more. The book compares Agatha Christie’s novels with Dorothy Sayers’ and Margery Allingham’s and Ngaio Marsh’s. We would have liked to know how James’ novels stacked against these great women’s novels. But this is one of the conundrums in the book – it is like asking Maradona to write about the history of football or Tendulkar to write about the history of cricket or Steffi Graf to write about the history of tennis – how much will he / she write about himself / herself but still continue to be polite? It is a tough situation to be in.

Agatha Christie fans will have a few things to quibble about in the book. For example, James says this about Christie :

Her style is neither original nor elegant but it is workmanlike.

And then she says this :

Agatha Christie hasn’t in my view had a profound influence on the later development of the detective story. She wasn’t an innovative writer and had no interest in exploring the possibilities of the genre.

And here comes the double-edged sword.

Above all she is a literary conjuror who places her pasteboard characters face downwards and shuffles them with practiced cunning.

However she also says nice things about Christie, and explores why Christie’s mysteries have been so successful across the decades. However the above comments stand out, and Christie fans might be irked by this.

After reading the book, I discovered that despite having knowledge of some of the arcane aspects of detective fiction, I haven’t read books by many of the legends of the genre. There were so many gaps in my reading. So, I thought I will make a ‘TBR’ list of detective fiction, based on the books that James mentions in her book. Here is what it looks like :

(1) Caleb Williams by William Godwin (published in 1794 and regarded as the first ever detective novel)
(2) Four Auguste Dupin short stories by Edgar Allan Poe – ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Mystery of Mary Roget’, ‘The Purloined Letter’, ‘The Gold-Bug’
(3) The Father Brown Stories by G.K.Chesterton
(4) Trent’s Last Case by E.C.Bentley (regarded as the novel which heralded the Golden Age of detective fiction)
(5) Two books by Edmund Crispin – ‘The Case of the Gilded Fly’ and ‘The Moving Toyshop’
(6) ‘Speedy Death’ by Gladys Mitchell (starring Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley – isn’t Beatrice Lestrange one of the villainous witches in the Harry Potter series? Why did J.K.Rowling give this name to one of the villains? Is there a story behind that?)
(7) Books by Michael Innes (starring Sir John Appleby of Scotland Yard – I really want to read these stories!)
(8) Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare
(9) Three novels by Josephine Tey – ‘The Man in the Queue’, ‘Brat Farrar’ and ‘The Franchise Affair’
(10) Books by Ross Macdonald (starring Detective Lew Archer)
(11) Books by Sara Paretsky (starring V.I.Warchawski)
(12) Three books by Dorothy L. Sayers – ‘Strong Poison’, ‘Have his Carcase’, ‘Gaudy Night’
(13) Two novels by Margery Allingham – ‘Flowers for the Judge’, ‘More Work for the Undertaker’
(14) Three novels by Ngaio Marsh – ‘Vintage Murder’, ‘Colour Scheme’, ‘Died in the Wool’
(15) Historical mysteries by C.J.Sansom
(16) The Lady Investigates : Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction by Patricia Craig and Mary Cadogan
(17) The Great Detectives ed. By Otto Penzler
(18) Bloody Murder by Julian Symons


I loved ‘Talking about Detective Fiction’ by P.D.James. It is a slim gem but it is comprehensive and it is a must-read for detective fiction fans. Highly recommended.

I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.

One of the criticisms of the detective story is that this imposed pattern is mere formula writing, that it binds the novelist in a straitjacket which is inimical to the artistic freedom which is essential to creativity, and that subtlety of characterization, a setting which comes alive for the reader and even credibility are sacrificed to the dominance of structure and plot. But what I find fascinating is the extraordinary variety of books and writers which this so-called formula has been able to accommodate, and how many authors have found the constraints and conventions of the detective story liberating rather than inhibiting of their creative imagination. To say that one cannot produce a good novel within the discipline of a formal structure is as foolish as to say that no sonnet can be great poetry since a sonnet is restricted to fourteen lines – an octave and a sestet – and a strict rhyming sequence. And detective stories are not the only novels which conform to a recognized convention and structure. All Jane Austen’s novels have a common storyline : an attractive and virtuous young woman surmounts difficulties to achieve marriage to the man of her choice. This is the age-long convention of the romantic novel, but with Jane Austen what we have is Mills & Boon written by a genius.

And however well I think I know my characters, they reveal themselves more clearly during the writing of the book, so that at the end, however carefully and intricately the work is plotted, I never get exactly the novel I planned. It feels, indeed, as if the characters and everything that happens to them exists in some limbo of the imagination, so that what I am doing is not inventing them but getting in touch with them and putting their story down in black and white, a process of revelation not of creation.

Certainly all the major novelists in the canon of English literature have told stories, some exciting, some tragic, some slight, some mysterious, but all of them have the virtue of leaving us with a need to know what happens next as we turn each page. For a time in the late twentieth century it seemed that the story was losing its status and that psychological analysis, a complicated and occasionally inaccessible style and an egotistic introspection were taking over from action. Happily there now seems to be a return to the art of storytelling.

(Comment : I am not sure whether novelists are back to storytelling these days, but I am happy that P.D.James feels that way.)

Have you read ‘Talking about Detective Fiction’ by P.D.James? Have you read books / writers in the above list? What do you think about them?

[Max Everhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aside from digging her work, particularly the Commander Adam Dalgliesh books, James has many brilliant insights on both British detective stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy Sayers as well as American hard-boiled fiction by Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. Anytime a master of the genre writes what amounts to a How To Write and/or Interpret Great Detective Fiction book, a mystery novelist would be well-advised to read and take notes. . .which I did. I’ve cobbled together my favorite bits below.

James on using setting, from pages 129-131:

Place, after all, is where the characters play out their tragicomedies, and it is only if the action is firmly rooted in a physical reality that we can fully enter their world…the setting is where these people live, move and have their being, and we need to breathe their air, see with their eyes, walk they paths they tread and inhabit the rooms the writer has furnished for them.

James on Raymond Chandler’s contributions to the detective genre, from page 86:

He showed crime writers that what is important goes beyond an ingenious plot, mystery and suspense. More important are the novelist’s voice, the reality of the world he creates and the strength and originality of the writing…he rejected the editor’s insistence in cutting out all descriptions on the grounds that the readers disliked anything that held up the action.

James on serial detectives, from page 153:

A serial detective has…particular advantages: an established character who does not have to be introduced afresh with each novel, a successful career in crime-solving which can add gravitas, an established family history and background and, above all, reader identification and loyalty.

James on why readers are drawn to mysteries, from page 14:

(Mysteries–my word) provide not only the satisfaction of all popular literature, the mild intellectual challenge of a puzzle, excitement, confirmation of our cherished beliefs in goodness and order, but also entry to a familiar and reassuring world in which we both involved in violent death and yet remain personally inviolate both from responsibility and from its terrors.



Bottom line, this book offers a treasure trove of great stuff, and it would be enjoyable for the avid mystery reader and educational for any mystery novelist, whether aspiring or already established. Often when you read a non-fiction book by a fiction writer, you can see why the writer’s novels are so good, and Talking About Detective Fiction is an excellent example of that.

[Dimitris Passas (TapTheLine) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for every aspiring crime fiction writer, along with Patricia Highsmith's ''Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction'' and Stephen King's ''On Writing''. P.D. James is a more than experienced author and in this book, she shares some of her knowledge on how to write detective stories from the narrative and structure of a novel all the way until the plotting and characterization. There are plenty of references to other writers, English in their majority, which act as examples that help the reader to interpret correctly P.D. James's remarks on a number of topics concerning the structure and the actual writing process of a detective/suspense novel. An advantage of this book is that the author doesn't try to impose her own views on the proper use of narrative techniques, character descriptions, settings etc. but introduces her notions as equal to a number of different approaches on each part. Personally, I found the sixth chapter of the book to be the most interesting one because the main elements of the novel are discussed thoroughly and one can find a lot of suggestions for further reading on the subject. ''Talking About Detective Fiction'' is a true classic and a book that will remain a reference point for those eager to endeavor in the artistic, creative writing process.

[Obrir un llibre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generosa tesis la de P. D. James en Todo lo que sé sobre novela negra donde explica de forma muy personal, y ejerciendo de mentoring para todos aquellos que quieran instruirse en la novela negra ya sea como escritor o como lector, desempeñando la función de guía para hablar de los inicios y del desarrollo de la novela de detectives y del hard-boiled. También hará un somero recorrido por la novela negra contemporánea.

Amena y para nada tediosa o confusa, la exposición será muy clara y está narrada para buscar el interés del lector. P.D. James se presenta en casi todo el libro hablando como una lectora más aunque también realizará algún apunte como escritora utilizando para ello ejemplos de algunas de sus novelas.

De manera absolutamente... http://www.abrirunlibro.com/2017/02/t...

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry to say that this book is as dull as its title. I've read almost everything James has written – most recently The Private Patient, with the usual Jamesian cast of cultured hyper-constipated characters. This book is a rather dutiful, altogether unnecessary survey of (almost exclusively British) detective fiction. It's Wikipedia with a cream tea.

What I really wanted, I realized, was her take on her contemporaries – Gossiping About Detective Fiction. Surely she's possessed of juicy insights that would satisfy the cravings of those of us who read mysteries by the pile. But apparently the Baroness of Holland Park does not permit herself such pleasures, and her conversation never ascends beyond the anodyne.

[Bev · Rating 2 out of 5]

A somewhat disappointing overview of primarily British detective fiction from a highly respected recent author in the genre. Disappointing in several ways. First, don't read this if you haven't read all of Agatha Christie and all of Josephine Tey and a smattering of others. James, who ought to know better, spoils several plots in her meandering walk through the Golden Age of murder mysteries. Some of her spoilers are mere references, but she comes right out and tells you whodunnit in Christie and the main plot point in Tey. Second, although she claims to have enjoyed these Golden Age authors, she comes across as slightly condescending towards them--all those delicate sensibilities of the Golden Age who had their murders decently off-stage and dealt in very little blood and violence; little depth to the characters (meaning that we didn't get to see all the motivations which drove the evil-doer to do the wicked deed). But then she turns round and decries the current trend towards angsty detectives with all sorts of emotional baggage and background, saying how it would be refreshing to have a nice, dull, happily-married detective instead. [I thought she was plumping for interesting characters? I guess she means suspects and not detectives.] Third, unless you're brand-new to the detective genre, she doesn't really have much new too say. Which may seem contradictory to my statement that you shouldn't read this unless you have read a fair amount in the field. That's part of the problem--a book of this sort should bring new insights into the genre, especially having been written by an author, without spilling the beans on her colleague's work. I mean--if you haven't already read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, why would you bother to do so after James told you straight up who did it? There are many other books that have come before [and since] that have provided fresh insights and interesting information on mysteries while avoiding spoilers--or, at the very least, when spoilers seem necessary, giving fair warning to the reader. I'm really a bit baffled why this book won both a Macavity and an Anthony Award for Best Mystery Nonfiction and Best Critical Non-Fiction when it contributed so little in fresh material--unless it was simply the name of the author.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief overview of the specific qualities and pleasures of detective fiction (as distinct from crime fiction or thrillers more generally), focussed on British writers and especially on the characteristics of the form as developed in the Golden Age (basically the interwar decades). It's not groundbreaking, nor is it meant to be--James says upfront that if you have ever heard her speak or be interviewed, there's little new here. But it's highly readable and driven by James's real pleasure in the form, as both reader and writer.

[Glenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read this little volume by P.D. James, I felt as though an older and wiser reader was filling in gaps in my knowledge of the Golden Age of detective fiction. I recommend this book to other readers who have some experience of reading mysteries and enjoy books about books. You may discover some authors or specific titles to add to your TBR list.

[James Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, easy-going review of mystery fiction, from The Moonstone to modern day. Ish.

Mostly focused on Holmes and up to James's contemporaries. Covers attitudes, changes in approach, style, expectations of readers, etc.. Even has a section on American pulp mysteries.

A very nice overview and worth it, if you are a mystery fan.

[Liz Nutting · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1980, on the plane home to California for Christmas holidays, after my first semester at Bryn Mawr College, I opened Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night for the first time. The book had been thrust into my hands by some older classmates, who assured me that if nothing else, I would appreciate the descriptions of Oxford, whose soaring College Gothic architecture and quaint academic traditions would remind me of college life at Bryn Mawr (which had been consciously modeled on "Oxbridge" by M. Carey Thomas, the college's president and life force). With finals over and having no good spy thrillers, I started reading. When the plane landed five hours later, I had been transformed into that most quirky of all creatures, a reader of mysteries.

About 10 years later, on another trek home for the holidays, this time from seminary in the Bay Area, my car broke down in an obscure farming town in the San Joachin valley and I was forced to spend the night. Again having nothing to read (a state of which I live in mortal dread), I picked up P.D. James' A Taste of Death and was introduced to Adam Dagleish. James quickly joined Sayers on my short list of "Liz's Favorite Mystery Writers."

This book had me reminiscing fondly for both those moments of discovery. It is a breezy, concise history of the mystery novel, focusing almost exclusively on the origins of the classic British police procedural (my favorite sub-genre, thanks in large part to Sayers and James). There's nothing profound or ground-breaking in James' analysis. Seasoned mystery aficionados will already be familiar with this history and will have likely read many of the authors and books she references. Even so, James had me rushing to my Kindle to download several early authors (and a few later ones) that I had yet to encounter. After all, there's few pleasures in this world as profound as curling up on the couch with a new murder to solve.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

P.D. James had a lovely way of laying out an argument and proceeding carefully through her topic, point by point. The history of detective fiction, as she shared it, broke no new ground but made me want to return to old favorites (Ngaio Marsh!) that I first read in my teens and early twenties. I particularly loved the chapter about the "Big Four" - Christie, Allingham, Sayers, and Marsh. The latter part of the book, which talked about the importance of setting and characterization, was also fascinating. There is also a comprehensive bibliography of biographies, literary criticism, and reference books on detective fiction. While she said she was not a critic and did not seem to want to press her own favorites upon her readers, it was clear who they were, and they included several of my own - her contemporaries Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter, and especially her friend Ruth Rendell. In Val McDermid's obituary for Rendell in The Guardian, she said (of Hill, James and Rendell):

"To lose all three of them in the space of two short years is hard to bear. All those books unwritten, unshared. Because if they’d had more time, there would have been more. All three of them were writing right up to the end. Some writers run out of steam. None of them did."

It would have been grand if Ms. James could have written more nonfiction like this, as well as more Dalgliesh novels, more Cordelia Gray, etc. Now their fans have the choice of re-reading their classics, or finding new novelists to follow. I'll be pursuing both options!

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reader of James' text evokes the author's perspectives, slight prejudices, critical thoughts and very sentimental memories of experiencing interwar detective fiction. If you need a primer on who wrote what, take some time with this work. Excellent critical examination of 20th century detective fiction, with background in 19th century and some mention of early 21st century authors. James, as usual, is aces.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read as audiobook.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of the mystery story from a mainly British perspective.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Más de medio siglo dedicada a escribir sobre detectives (catorce novelas protagonizadas por el inspector Adam Dalgliesh y un par por Cordelia Gray, todas éxito de ventas) sitúa a P. D. James en un lugar privilegiado para hablar sobre dichos menesteres; así, a propuesta del departamento editorial de la biblioteca Bodelian, en Oxford (James era oriunda de esta ciudad), escribió “Todo lo que sé sobre novela negra”, una serie de reflexiones en torno al origen, autores importantes, elementos representativos y el porvenir de un género que ha cautivado a millones de lectores desde hace más de un siglo.
Lo principal a destacar en esta obra es la prosa clara y amena con que la autora nos va guiando, sin acudir a terminología fastidiosa o engorrosa (de hecho, en alguna parte James aclara que ella no es ninguna crítica o experta académica); es muy divertido ir descubriendo los primeros autores, como Poe y Wilkie Collins; el paradigmático caso de Sherlock Holmes; escritoras de gran talento, como Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham y Ngaio Marsh; el contexto, el punto de vista y los personajes que integran una trama detectivesca; el “hard-boiled” (aquí cabe hacer mención de cierta manipulación mercadotécnica de los editores: la traducción literal del título del libro es “Hablando sobre ficción detectivesca”; lo de novela negra es solo un apartado, cuando la autora habla de escritores estadounidenses, pues el resto del libro se enfoca en autores de Gran Bretaña. Así que, si al lector únicamente le interesaba leer sobre esta vertiente, quedara desilusionado) y el futuro de los detectives.
“La mejor narrativa detectivesca se halla en posición de disfrutar de tal compañía [los genios de la literatura universal] y su popularidad indica que en el siglo XXI, como ha ocurrido en el pasado, muchos de nosotros seguiremos buscando el alivio, el entretenimiento y el pequeño reto intelectual que nos ofrecen estas sencillas celebraciones de la razón y el orden en un mundo cada vez más complejo y descontrolado”; con tales palabras cierra el libro P. D. James, y me parecen más que precisas para terminar esta disertación.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahhh...a book about books! A meta book, one of my favorite kinds! Short exposition of the detective genre, written as a fund raiser for the Bodleian Foundation, and concentrating mostly on British mystery. Part love letter to mysteries, part literary history, part defense and prediction of the style in the future. Detective fiction has changed as the world has changed, but it pretty much always comes down to a desire for reason and order in an increasingly chaotic and disorderly world. Even includes references for suggested reading.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

On audio. I’m not a huge detective fiction reader but I’m gaining a taste for mystery as I get older. PD James is an authority. One of her key points: murder mysteries aren’t about murder; they’re about restoring order. If you like a learned soliloquy on a topic of lifelong affection and labor (and give a hoot about golden era mystery in particular), this is a good one.

[norah · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️=4.5 | 😘=2 | 🤬=2 | 14+

thoughts: fascinating—something I’ll return to later for research, fun, book recommendations et cetera

[Iblena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Con la selección de este título tan poco acertado, entiendo perfectamente porque hay gente que tiende a confundir los subgéneros de la narrativa negro-criminal, si las editoriales son los primeras en alentar tal confusión. Asumo que "Hablando de ficción detectivesca" (la traducción del título original) resultaba menos atractivo como reclamo publicitario y poco chic.

Este libro contiene las reflexiones que como lectora y escritora realiza P.D. James, en torno a la novela policíaca de tradición inglesa, centrado su atención en el periodo conocido como Edad Dorada (época dónde el género policíaco inglés alcanzó su madurez y experimentó su mayor auge). Un análisis, amable y producto más de la admiración que siente la autora hacia esta corriente narrativa, que interesado en generar un estudio exaustivo y minusioso del mismo o algún tipo de polemica, ya que la autora se expresa con mucha cautela a la hora de emitir una crítica. James escribió este ensayo con casi 90 años, era de esperar que a esa edad, fuese menos reservada a la hora de juzgar la obra de sus compañeros de profesión, pero no ha sido así.

Muy interesante es el capítulo dedicado a la creación literaria. No se que tan útiles puedan resultar a un aspirante a escritor, los consejos de PD James, pero que una de tus autoras favoritas, te cuente cómo lleva a cabo su trabajo y además empleando como ejemplo sus libros, los cuales te son muy familiares, es un verdadero plus. Además se vale también de novelas pertenecientes a otros autores (algunos de ellos desconocidos para mí), lo cual motiva a un lector curioso, a conocer su obra

Una lectura amena y sencilla, recomendable y muy útil sobre todo como fuente de información para lectores aficionados al género policiaco, aunque poco conocedores de la narrativa detectivesca inglesa del período de entre guerras, que deseen ampliar sus listas de lecturas con las numerosas referencias literarias de una de las últimas grandes damas del género policiaco.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes a valuable, if somewhat incomplete, survey of the mystery genre. I think it's most suited to readers like me, who enjoy a good detective story, but don't have a particularly good sense of the genre's history and scope, and could use a little help finding more stories that they will enjoy. It's particularly ideal for readers who enjoy British mysteries, and particularly those of the "Golden Age" of detective fiction (roughly the period between the two world wars). James devotes a chapter to American hard-boiled detective fiction, and makes scattered mention here and there of contemporary novelists, but it's the works of Christie, Sayers, and their contemporaries that are really at the heart of this book. Serious mystery aficionados might enjoy the book as well, but I'm guessing that they wouldn't find much new information in it.

James is crisply opinionated in that way that articulate older British women can be. She covers a number of authors in a relatively brief space, and for the most part, is good at conveying their distinctive strengths and weaknesses, although once in a while you're merely left with the impression that she thinks someone is brilliant. I very much liked that she manages to be quite even-handed about the comparative strengths and weaknesses of British "Golden Age' fiction and the American hard-boiled novels.

There's surprisingly little in this book about James's own writing process - there's some, but I imagine a hardcore James fan would be eager to learn more. I'm not sure whether James is being modest, or if she doesn't like to analyze her own writing process, or if she simply didn't think it had a place in an overall survey of the genre.

The audiobook version of this is a delight to listen to, but in retrospect, I kind of wish I'd gotten the print edition, because I kept wanting to jot down authors and titles to look for, and that kind of thing is just much easier with print.