“Curse you, Agatha Christie!”
“Curse you, Agatha Christie!”
Again I say it, “Curse you, Agatha Christie!”
Why, you may ask, should I curse one of the most popular mystery writer of all times — not to be mention one of the best as well? Why? Because she was too good at what she did. She made murder a household term. Worse, she made it a genre standard. To this day when a writer says he/she is writing a “mystery novel” the immediate assumption is that there is a murder involved. If it is a book of mystery there must be a murder central to the plot.
All this being said it is perfectly understandable why murders have such an appeal. First, you have proof positive that an evil act has occurred. Second, someone had to have done it. Third, there is motive. So you have everything you need for three acts and a denouement. Then there is a final wrap-up where everything is revealed. Thus the murder as mystery was perfect for magazines of Agatha Christie’s day and between the two wars, the radio theaters. The story could be timed out to fit around the advertisements and still finish in time for top-or-bottom of the hour.
While this may be all fine and good to those who love murders — and the more foul the better — the fact of the matter is that a novel of mystery should be mysterious. After all, they both have same etymological root: something that is a secret or where there is no clear explanation. Yes, it is true, that murders in novels are “secret” but they are not mysterious. Everyone knows who got the knife; they just don’t know who wielded the weapon.
But there is a problem. Mystery is more that murder and left in Agatha’s Christie’s backwash was the impossible crime genre. Far more cerebral than murder, impossible crime novels force the reader to piece together not only what DID HAPPEN but HOW IT WAS DONE. Even more important, the denouement often points an accusing finger to no one in particular. There was no villain with a handle-bar mustache in THE GOLD BUG. There was reason but no murder in THE REDHEADED LEAGUE, THE PURLOINED LETTER kept the reader hanging with without a drop of blood and there was not even a dead body in THE PROBLEM WITH CELL 13. Yet it is a good bet that everyone reading this column knows of these stories. Three of them making the top 12 mystery stories of all times according to the Ellery Queen, list below.
The enduring power of the impossible crime genre is that it opens the door to ongoing speculation. Even after it has been revealed how the author robbed the Bank of England, the reader can still speculate how he/she would have robbed the bank if he/she had been at the author’s keyboard. Every technological advance opens the door for a more sophisticated way to enter a locked room and every time the authorities develop a new $20 dollar bill there is a writer who can “beat the system” with a cutting edge concept that just might work.
Best of all, the tremendous power of the impossible crime is that “it is not over when it’s over” and it is never over. That is to say, even after all of the facts are revealed, there are still options on the table. It is the same in real life. There were many ways the Bank of Nice could have been robbed. The Great Train Robbery of 1855 — and the “other” Great Train Robbery of 1963 — could have been done differently to the same effect. Murders as mystery novels are finished documents; impossible crime spawn their own spin offs. No one knows how the next writer is going to rob the Bank of New York and leave the vault empty without a clue as to how he got in or got out?
Which is why the impossible crime is coming back! Oddly, it is coming back courtesy of the very instrument that is killing the murder story: television. Programs such THE BLACK LIST, THE BLIND SPOT and TRUE DECTIVE are invigorating the genre. While all of these programs have episodes, they do not have wrap-ups. LAW AND ORDER has a wrap-up every hour but THE BLACK LIST is a gift that keeps giving. There is no wrap-up, just a continuation of the mystery. Yes there are murders along the way but the plot is not linked to any one murder. There is no denouement, simply ongoing intrigue. Proof of the popularity of the impossible crime genre is the television advertising surrounding these programs. Finally there is an intellectual product on the little screen that is raising the intellectual bar, not lowering it!
GREATEST DETECTIVE STORIES
Ellery Queen Magazine, July, 1950
- “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” by Thomas Burke
- “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Red-Headed League” by Arthur Conan Doyle
- “The Avenging Chance” by Anthony Berkeley
- “The Absent-Minded Coterie” by Robert Barr
- “The Problem of Cell 13” by Jacques Futrelle
- “The Invisible Man” by G. K. Chesterton
- “Naboth’s Vineyard” by Melville D. Post
- “The Gioconda Smile” by Aldous Huxley
- “The Yellow Slugs” by H. C. Bailey
- “The Genuine Tabard” by E. C. Bentley
- “Suspicion” by Dorothy Sayers
