Ned Fleming wrote:
>
> The latest National Review has an interesting
article about Ellery
> Queen, which describes his (really their) work as
the beginning of
> the golden age of "classic American mystery," from
about 1930 to
> 1950. Prior to this, the essayist says, there were
only puzzle
> mysteries and hard-boiled mysteries in Am.
Lit.
Huh? Ellery Queen is the quintessential writer of puzzle
mysteries. He began as a close copy of S.S. Van Dine who,
obviously, preceded him, and would more properly serve as the
beginning of the golden age, if you like that sort of
thing.
> And Hammett was so
> impressed or influenced by Queen that he wrote his
last good book,
> perhaps his best, The Thin Man, in the same vein.
Unfortunately, the
> NatRev essay isn't on-line.
Well, some of us think The Thin Man is Hammett's worst book,
since it's soft and filled with irrelevant digressions --
just the sort of thing, actually, that would appeal to fans
of Ellery Queen, but maybe not so much to fans of hard, fast
writing.
BobT
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