Getting into the nuts and bolts of the mystery novel--

I checked out a book recently and read about another just released one in USAToday which both tackle the craft of mystery writing--from different angles. The newer book is Talking About Detective Fiction by long-time mystery writer P.D. James. It gives an illuminating, big-picture approach to mysteries with information about the history of the genre in certain literature titles (i.e., Charles Dickins's Bleak House) to present day works with writers like Colin Dexter as shared in Amazon's product description of the book.

Click here to read additional information including a Publisher's Weekly review about this book which says it does cover British writers to a major although not exlusively degree. Look for attention focused on Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh and more. The book is 198 pages.

James has a great expertise to lend to her book while the other book The Lineup: the world's greatest crime writers tell the inside story of their greatest detectives gives a multiple voice approach. Edited by Otto Penzler, the book features 21 authors talking about the characters that they have created--the inspirations and what makes up the characteristics of the detectives. I skipped around and read the entries about writer John Harvey's Charlie Resnick and Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan. The book is 406 pages.