AZ Murder Goes...Classic

Do you know: What career choices shaped the work of Joe Gores and Dashiell Hammett? How did Holmes feel of about marriage? What blueprint did Raymond Chandler leave other writers? Was Agatha Christie treated shabbily by her first publisher? What past master of the Golden Age is now virtually forgotten? Which Poet Laureate wrote successful crime novels? How much is a first edition of the first Perry Mason case worth? Is Sara Paretsky really the heir to Hammett and Chandler? How did Eric Ambler revolutionize the spy novel? Why did Brother Cadfael sleuth in Shrewsbury? Who made "impossible crimes" possible? How does Treasure Island still cast a spell? Who dared to write a bestseller with a main character dead before the opening chapter? Is the Detective Story dead?

What makes a mystery a classic? Here are Justin Scott (Stevenson), Laurie King (Conan Doyle), Joe Gores (Hammett), Michael Connelly (Chandler), Val McDermid (Hard-Boiled Detectives), Edward Marston (Carr), H.R.F. Keating (Sayers), Miriam Grace Monfredo (Du Maurier), Steven Saylor (Palmer), Robin Smiley (Gardner), Peter Lewis (Ambler), Susan Moody (Crispin, Innes, and Blake), Margaret Lewis (Ellis Peters), Janet Laurence (Publishing in the Golden Age), and Catherine Aird playing devil's advocate to tell you.