Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Collins Crime Club (2022), 736 pages
Description
In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world's most popular form of fiction. "The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded as his magnum opus, Martin Edwards has thrown himself undaunted into the breadth and complexity of the genre to write an authoritative - and readable - study of its development and evolution. With crime fiction being read more widely than ever around the world, and with individual authors increasingly the subject of extensive academic study, his expert distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors - from the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann to the novels of Patricia Cornwell - into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes for compelling reading"--Dust jacket.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member pomo58
The Life of Crime from Martin Edwards is that wonderful combination of a book you can enjoy reading as well as one you want to keep around for reference.
I think the main thing that will bring most readers to the book is the reference book aspect. Anyone who reads in any of the genres and subgenres
For those who like the reference aspect but intend from the beginning to read the entire book, you will be very happy with how the book is written. The facts are interwoven with wonderful anecdotes all presented in concise chapters. This will reward either standard method for reading such a book. If you want to read it quickly the chapters offer many stopping points so you don't feel like you have to commit to an extremely long chapter if you just want to read for another few minutes. If you want to read this one or two chapters at a time (how I often read collections of short stories or essays) you can fit in a chapter in a relatively brief window of opportunity. By the way, for those who mostly want it for reference, I would suggest at least using this second method to work through the book, you might be surprised just how good this is as a read as well as a reference.
This is as comprehensive as I imagine a single volume can be. Substitutions might have been made, though I am certainly not qualified to say what could have been substituted for what, but simply adding more would have been a little redundant as far as explaining the history and definitely have made the book unwieldy. I think the decisions for inclusion are excellent and answered many of the questions I had and even more I didn't know I had.
In addition to the various styles and genres/subgenres, what most interested me was the inclusion of influence, both into and from the crime fiction. Whether what went into the earliest examples or how recent works have reached into other genres, the reader gets a truly big picture view.
Reading the book itself will probably give you many new titles to read, and likely make you want to reread some you love. If your interest is in reading even more about the authors and genres, the bibliography is a rich source of information. I was happy to even see a couple of theory books, though if theory isn't your thing, don't worry, there aren't many.
While this is ideal for anyone with an interest in crime fiction (broadly speaking), I think it would also be of interest to those who simply enjoy literary history.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
I think the main thing that will bring most readers to the book is the reference book aspect. Anyone who reads in any of the genres and subgenres
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under the broad umbrella covered here will want to know about what influenced their favorite genre or their favorite writer. This book certainly satisfies that desire, in short and engaging chapters that can be read quickly (including the notes, which you don't want to skip, they are often as interesting as the text).For those who like the reference aspect but intend from the beginning to read the entire book, you will be very happy with how the book is written. The facts are interwoven with wonderful anecdotes all presented in concise chapters. This will reward either standard method for reading such a book. If you want to read it quickly the chapters offer many stopping points so you don't feel like you have to commit to an extremely long chapter if you just want to read for another few minutes. If you want to read this one or two chapters at a time (how I often read collections of short stories or essays) you can fit in a chapter in a relatively brief window of opportunity. By the way, for those who mostly want it for reference, I would suggest at least using this second method to work through the book, you might be surprised just how good this is as a read as well as a reference.
This is as comprehensive as I imagine a single volume can be. Substitutions might have been made, though I am certainly not qualified to say what could have been substituted for what, but simply adding more would have been a little redundant as far as explaining the history and definitely have made the book unwieldy. I think the decisions for inclusion are excellent and answered many of the questions I had and even more I didn't know I had.
In addition to the various styles and genres/subgenres, what most interested me was the inclusion of influence, both into and from the crime fiction. Whether what went into the earliest examples or how recent works have reached into other genres, the reader gets a truly big picture view.
Reading the book itself will probably give you many new titles to read, and likely make you want to reread some you love. If your interest is in reading even more about the authors and genres, the bibliography is a rich source of information. I was happy to even see a couple of theory books, though if theory isn't your thing, don't worry, there aren't many.
While this is ideal for anyone with an interest in crime fiction (broadly speaking), I think it would also be of interest to those who simply enjoy literary history.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
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LibraryThing member annbury
This book is just what the subtitle promises -- a history of the mystery genre, and of the authors who comprise it. I listened to it on Audible, going straight through from start to finish. That is not an approach I would recommend; it gets boring and feels repetitive. Instead, I would suggest
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dipping and nibbling, looking up one author and seeing where it leads you. And it should be stressed that this is a very valuable reference book. I shall buy it in hardcover, and keep it close at hand. Show Less
LibraryThing member PaperDollLady
This Edgar winner is for anyone interested in the history of mysteries. Extremely well-referenced, this is also an insightful read. In the introduction, the author, Martin Edwards, tells his reader, "The main narrative of THE LIFE OF CRIME follows broadly, but not slavishly, a chronological path.
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Typically, a chapter opens with an incident or a sequence of events in an author's life that had a bearing, however oblique, on his or her crime writing; the discussion then explores a particular subject or theme connected with that writer. I've adopted a flexible structure, so as to accommodate books and topics that I find worthy of discussion, but which don't fit in with a straightforward linear account." That just about sums it up on what made this book such a gem. It holds so many interesting tidbits I've not read or heard about before on a wide variety of crime and mystery writers' lives and their inspiration. This book is an informative and worthwhile addition to any--public or private--library. Show Less
Awards
Edgar Award (Nominee — Critical/Biographical Work — 2023)
Anthony Award (Nominee — 2023)
Crime Writers' Association Awards (Shortlist — 2023)
Macavity Award (Nominee — 2023)
Agatha Award (Nominee — Non-Fiction — 2022)
Crimefest Awards (Winner — 2022)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2022
Physical description
736 p.; 9.45 inches
ISBN
0008192421 / 9780008192426