Max Allan Collins Collins, Max Allan - The History Of Mystery - Art Fiction Series

English, Hardback/Gebunden mit Schutzumschlag, 29x31.5 cm, 196 pages - Follow the trail of the smoking gun. Look for clues in the dusty footprints - but watch out for broken glass! The game is afoot in the puzzling world of detective fiction and author Max Allan Collins knows whodunit. Spying through the misty shroud that enfolds detective stories and film noir, Collins exposes The History Of Mystery. From Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective Dupin in 'Murders In The Rue Morgue', to the modern detective story, the entire mystery field comes under sleuth-like scrutiny. The History Of Mystery traces this dark genre from its birth in the pages of 'memories' by the first real-life private eye. Allan Pinkerton, to its full flowering in the critically acclaimed P.I. fiction of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. The author hunts down and unlocks the secrets of popular best-selling superstars Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert B. Parker. Glorious illustrations abound, from pulp fiction covers to comic strips to portraits of the usual suspects, including Dick Tracy, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, and their veddy British counterparts, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. Author Collins even seeks out and finds the seldom-seen and largely forgotten female detectives who first appeared in fiction nearly 100 years ago, leading the way for the compelling heroines of modern mystery authors Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, and Patricia Cornwell. Leaving no clue unexamined in his thorough investigation of mystery, Collins focuses his magnifying glass on every aspect of the oeuvre. The result? A most delightfully comprehensive history of mystery.