William,
Re your question below:
"Huh? Hate to go all miker on you but can you give a single
example?"
An example of a mystery that achieves literary excellence, is
demonstrably a mystery, and isn't overcoming supposedly
inherent genre handicaps in order to achieve its excellence?
Besides the three I already mentioned? THE MALTESE FALCON,
THE BIG SLEEP, and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD didn't
convince you?
Okay, how about Wilkie Collins's THE MOONSTONE or THE WOMAN
IN WHITE? How about Joe Gores's INTERFACE? How about Meyer
Levin's COMPULSION? How about Vera Caspary's LAURA? How
about, since it's his month, Lawrence Block' EIGHT MILLION
WAYS TO DIE?
And that's just crime fiction. How about westerns like Larry
McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE? Romances like Jane Austen's PRIDE
AND PREJUDICE? Fantasies like Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE
RINGS? Military novels like Herman Wouk's THE CAINE MUTINY or
James Jones's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY?
Is that enough? Or when you said a "single example" did you
literally mean you only wanted me to name one?
JIM DOHERTY
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