Kerry,
Re your comments below:
> I'm kind of surprised you're willing to
accept
> consensus on this. I know we're talking a
> technicality here, but I'm speculating on
where
> this would go if the technicality is not
> observed. If a romance was dark and
sinister
> and/or unrequited (doomed) but there was no
crime
> depicted, would it be noir if others said so?
Or
> would it be a romance with a noir(ish)
theme?
>
> Just asking,
Spying IS a crime. That's why domestic counter-epsionage, at
least in the free world, is almost always at least partly the
job of law enforcement. The FBI has its internal security
section. Scotland Yard has Special Branch. The Surete
Nationale has the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance.
And, in your neck of the woods, until comparatively recently,
the RCMP had the Security Service.
C'mon, Kerry. This goes way beyond consensus. Why is it even
an issue?
Way back in the pulp era, spy stories were a regular feature
in crime fiction magazines. Max Brand, for example, had a
regular series character named Anthony Hamilton who ran in
DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY.
Spy stories have been competing for, and winning, major
mystery awards for as long as there have BEEN major mystery
awards. The most recent Edgar for Best First Mystery Novel
went to a book by Alex Berenson called THE FAITHFUL SPY. Le
Carre's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was the first book
to win both an Edgar and a Dagger for Best Mystery Novel, and
was recently named the best of all Dagger winners in the 50
year history of those awards.
Spy novels are most likely to be found in the mystery section
of bookstores.
Spy novels are most likely to be found in the mystery section
of public libraries.
The well-known "mystery imprints" always offered spy fiction
along with other kinds of crime novels. I've already
mentioned Serie Noire. Another example is Doubleday's Crime
Club, under which line the Hugh North novels of Van Wyck
Mason, the Tommy Hambledon novels of Manning Coles, and the
David Audley novels of Anthony Price all first saw
print.
Every mystery bookstore in the world has an espionage
section.
And virtually every single detective with a long-running
series, of every stripe, cozy to hard-boiled and all the
degrees in between, from Hercule Poirot to Mike Hammer, from
Sherlock Holmes to Nero Wolfe, from Charlie Chan to Virgil
Tibbs, from King of the Royal Mounted to Dick Tracy, from
Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys, has had at least one story, and
usually several, involving espionage.
This list has had entire months devoted to writers like
Donald Hamilton and Edward S. Aarons. In fact, spy fiction
has come up so often, and so routinely, on this list that I'm
flabbergasted that you suddenly regard the discussion of it
as controversial
Indeed, a number of secret agent characters made R-A's list
of the 100 greatest hard-boiled characters of the 20th
Century, including, but not limited to, Philip Atlee's Joe
Gall, Trevanian's Jonathan Hemlock, and Adam Hall's
Quiller.
You may be suddently mystified that spy fiction is regarded
as a sub-genre of mystery fiction and if you really want to
consider the question, have at it. But that ship already
sailed more than a century ago.
As for my "accepting consensus," it never even occured to me
to question it. I'd be as likely to question whether or not a
cozy whodunit was a mystery, or a police procedural was a
mystery, as to question whether a spy novel was a mystery. I
always thought it was self-evident.
Are you serious or just yanking my chain?
JIM DOHERTY
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