LITERARY CRITICISM / Mystery & Detective

Current paper · Semantic Scholar

This research article examines and analyzes how Agatha Christie employs deceptive sound as a central narrative device in her short story “The Mystery of the Blue Jar.” Christie constructs an acoustic illusion that shapes perception, directs suspicion, and manipulates both the protagonist and the reader. The repeated cry, “Help! Murder! Help!” functions not only as a mysterious disturbance but also as an engine of ps…

Reference · Wikidata

literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives, strictly restricted to literature (excluding film and theatre)

Encyclopedia · Wikipedia

Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are…

Book · DOAB

Vladimir Nabokov described the literature course he taught at Cornell as "a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary structures." Leona Toker here pursues a similar investigation of the enigmatic structures of Nabokov's own fiction. According to Toker, most previous critics stressed either Nabokov’s concern with form or the humanistic side of his works, but rarely if ever the two together. In sensi…

Full text · Open Library

In a perfect marriage of author and subject, P. D. James--one of the most widely admired writers of detective fiction at work today--gives us a personal, lively, illuminating exploration of the human appetite for mystery and mayhem, and of those writers who have satisfied it.P. D. James examines the genre from top to bottom, beginning with the mysteries at the hearts of such novels as Charles Dickens's Bleak House a…

Image · DPLA

Issue 14.6 of the Review for Religious, 1955.