Remembering the founding of Malice Domestic.

Barbara Mertz, by Sue Feder

My friend Dean James (aka Miranda James) and I were invited by Dr. Elizabeth Mertz (daughter of Barbara Mertz/Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters) to reminisce about the founding of the Malice Domestic convention in which her mother played such an integral role.  It's presented in two parts: Part 1, Part 2.

Clues 39.1 published: Domestic noir.

Volume 39, no. 1 (2021) of Clues: A Journal of Detection—a theme issue on domestic noir guest edited by Eva Burke and Clare Clarke—has been published. The abstracts follow below. To order the issue or a subscription, contact McFarland. 

Update, 5-10-21. This issue is now available on Kindle, Nook, and Google Play.

Introduction: Domestic Noir

EVA BURKE AND CLARE CLARKE (Trinity College Dublin)
The guest editors discuss the development of the domestic noir subgenre and the contents of this theme issue of Clues, including an interview with British author Julia Crouch, who coined the term domestic noir, and articles on Irish and Scandinavian domestic noir; women’s book groups; mid-century antecedents of domestic noir; and authors such as A. J. Finn (aka Dan Mallory), Gillian Flynn, Tana French, Paula Hawkins, and Evelyn Piper (aka Merriam Modell).

At Home in Irish Crime Fiction
BRIAN CLIFF (Trinity College Dublin)
The author discusses the connections among domestic noir, Irish crime fiction, and the wider Irish literature, including examples from works by Jane Casey, Sinéad Crowley, Tana French, Catherine Ryan Howard, and Liz Nugent.

“I Am Not the Girl I Used to Be”: Remembering the Femme Fatale in The Girl on the Train
ROSIE COUCH (Cardiff University)
This article situates Rachel from Paula Hawkins’s novel The Girl on the Train (2015) as a contemporary incarnation of the femme fatale, redeployed within the domestic noir subgenre. The analysis demonstrates how Rachel’s perspective works to enact a feminist backlash against postfeminist rhetoric.

The Girl Who Got Mad: Challenging Psychopathology in Domestic Noir’s Antiheroines 
via Sarah Vaughan’s Anatomy of a Scandal (2018)
LIZ EVANS (University of Tasmania)
The author argues that Sarah Vaughan’s legal thriller Anatomy of a Scandal (2018) challenges domestic noir’s questionable tendency to pathologize anger and badness in its female protagonists (often depicted as survivors of rape or abuse) while showing how the persistent alignment of negative emotion with psychological instability undermines these central characters by impeding their self-agency.

Smoke and Mirrors: Dan Mallory, A. J. Finn, and The Woman in the Window as Postfeminist Noir Pastiche
ROBERTA GARRETT (University of East London)
The author discusses The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn (pseudonym of Dan Mallory), examining Finn’s treatment of female characters and the tropes of the noir and domestic noir subgenres through the lens of postfeminist criticism.

“He Had It Coming”: Reading the Revenge Plot in Domestic Noir’s Gone Girl (2012)
KATHARINA HENDRICKX (University of Sussex)
This article examines Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) and its popularity with female readers. It suggests that female readers are not only interested in the portrayal of women’s experiences but also engage with the depiction of the revenge plot, which allows women readers to negotiate their frustration and anger with the current postfeminist climate.

Mystery radio plays from the Ohio Shakespeare Festival.

Illustration of W. W. Jacobs. NYPL

During the pandemic, the Ohio Shakespeare Festival has been performing original radio plays for at-home listening, including some based on mystery-related works. A few offerings:

• "The False Burton Combs" based on the story by Carroll John Daly
  
  
• Lady Molly of Scotland Yard based on the stories by Baroness Orczy
  
  
• "The Monkey's Paw" based on the short story by W. W. Jacobs
  

New versions of Glaspell's "Trifles."

Susan Glaspell, NYPL

In February, the Deos Contemporary Ballet in Michigan debuted a ballet version of Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" (1916), the play that preceded her well-known short story, "A Jury of Her Peers" (1917), in which the female characters learn more than male law enforcement officials about the murder of a farmer. 

Upcoming virtual performances of "Trifles":

• Ankeny Community Theatre (IA), March 28

• University at Buffalo–SUNY, April 9–11

More on Chester Himes.

Chester Himes in 1967.
Fotocollectie Anefo,
Dutch National Archives

On UT Austin's Harry Ransom Center Web site, Melanie Alberts highlights a few documents on Chester Himes in the Ransom Center's Knopf archive, concentrating in particular on Himes's novel Lonely Crusade (1947) and his autobiography The Quality of Hurt (1971).

Crime fiction from the Maghreb.

Whitefly, by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

On Al-Fanar Media,  M. Lynx Qualey discusses with Nadia Ghanem, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at University of London's SOAS, the evolution of crime fiction in the Maghreb (discussing, for example, works by authors from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia).

Sherlock Holmes, Ebenezer Scrooge, and Tiny Tim.

On February 22, the Westport Country Playhouse (CT) will offer the virtual "Script in Hand: A Sherlock Carol," a reading of a play by Mark Shanahan in which Tiny Tim asks the Great Detective to look into the death of Ebenezer Scrooge.

About the images. Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget. "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (New York, 1892), p. 93. Ebenezer Scrooge by Arthur Rackham. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Philadelphia, 1843), frontispiece.

The popularity of Inspector Maigret.

Georges Simenon,
10 May 1965.
Anefo, Dutch Nat Archives

On The Conversation, Véronique Duché (A. R. Chisholm Professor of French at the University of Melbourne) explains why Inspector Maigret is her favorite detective: "Sucking on his pipe, Maigret observes from a distance, inhaling the soul of people and places. Then he slowly closes in."

Edgar nomination for the Rankin companion.

The Edgar Award nominations were announced on January 25, and in the Best Critical/Biographical category is Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald (edited by me). 

This is volume 10 in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series. It marks the second Edgar nomination for a book in the series (the first was for the James Ellroy companion by Jim Mancall).

An evening with Walter Mosley.

On February 8, the Dallas Museum of Art will be hosting a virtual event with Walter Mosley in connection with his new novel Blood Grove.

"Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer."

S. J. Perelman, 1973,
by Jill Krementz. NYPL.

Cleo Zani of the Eventide Theatre Company (Dennis, MA) performs "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer," S. J. Perelman's 1944 spoof of hard-boiled detective fiction: "Her bosom was heaving and looked even better that way." Originally published in the New Yorker, it is included in this anthology.

"The father of Russian detective fiction."

Dostoevsky

In "E. A. Poe and A. A. Shklharevskij" in the Dec. 2020 SIC: Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation, Maja Pandzic (University of Zadar, Croatia) discusses the connections among Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Gaboriau, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Aleksandr Andreevich Skljarevski (the last dubbed here "the father of Russian detective fiction").

Turkey's first detective TV series.

 Read more about Alef, Turkey's first detective TV series.

Journalist, socialite, spy.

On the Spycast podcast of DC's Spy Museum, museum historian and curator Andrew Hammond and author Elizabeth Atwood discuss the life of US journalist, socialite, and spy Marguerite Harrison.

An honor to California Detective Fiction Collection librarian.

Anthony Boucher, an author in the California Detective Fiction Collection

    

On December 10, Randal Brandt, curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, received the Distinguished Librarian Award from the Librarians Association of the University of California’s Berkeley chapter. In this interview, he talks about his job, his favorite type of crime fiction, and the California Detective Fiction Collection (view a few collection highlights).

Situating Sherlock.

The Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute of Trinity College Dublin profiles faculty member Clare Clarke—guest editor of the upcoming Clues on domestic noir; author of the new British Detective Fiction, 1891–1901: The Successors to Sherlock Holmes; and leader of a new project that will map locations in the Sherlock Holmes canon.

Ray Bradbury's mystery fiction.

In the LA Review of Books, Cullen Gallagher reviews Killer, Come Back to Me, a new collection published by Hard Case Crime of Ray Bradbury's crime stories. Although Bradbury did not think much of his abilities as a mystery writer, Gallagher believes he was being too tough on himself.

Starrett spoofs Christie.

Vincent Starrett

On the Studies in Starrett blog, Ray Betzner discusses "The Other Woman," Vincent Starrett's 1927 parody of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. In it, Alexandre Dulau attempts to help Mrs. Hopewell Grange, whose husband is behaving oddly.  Says Dulau, "It is possible I have done Mr. Hopewell Grange a great disservice. On the other hand, it is possible that I have acted with my usual intelligence."

Erle Stanley Gardner and the wrongly convicted Native American.

Erle Stanley Gardner

In the December 2020 Smithsonian Magazine, Jack El-Hai discusses author Erle Stanley Gardner's taking up the case in the 1950s of Silas John Edwards, a member of the White Apache tribe who was convicted of killing his wife. It was consistent with the lawyer Gardner's concern with injustice (such as his Court of Last Resort).

Rex Stout and radio.

Rex Stout by Arnold Genthe, 1931.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Div.

Matt Barton, curator of the Library of Congress' Recorded Sound Section, discusses author Rex Stout's roles on the radio that are reflected in more than 40 LOC holdings. These encompass various incarnations of Stout's sleuth Nero Wolfe, Stout's appearances on Information Please, his hosting duties for Speaking of Liberty, and his participation in an episode about the detective story on the NBC program Conversation with critics Clifton Fadiman and Jacques Barzun. Said Stout in the Conversation program, "They're pretty bum stories, the Sherlock Holmes stories. . . . at least two thirds are pretty doggone silly." (It should be noted that Stout wrote the infamous essay "Watson Was a Woman.")