The History of Mystery

by Max Allan Collins

Description by OLDIES.com:

From Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective Dupin in Murders in the Rue Morgue, to the modern detective story, the entire mystery field comes under sleuth-like scrutiny. The History of Mystery traces this dark genre from its birth in the pages of "memoirs" by the first real-life private eye, Allan Pinkerton, to its full flowering in the critically acclaimed P.I fiction of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. The author hunts down and unlocks the secrets of popular best-selling superstars Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert B. Parker.

Glorious illustrations abound, from pulp fiction covers to comic strips to portraits of the usual suspects, including Dick Tracy, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, and their veddy British counterparts, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. Leaving no clue unexamined in his thorough investigation of mystery, Collins focuses his magnifying glass on every aspect of the oeuvre. The result? A most delightfully comprehensive history of mystery.