Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #detective-fiction, aggregated by home.social.
“[TV detective Columbo is] a socialist figure,” Rankin says. “He comes into these very rich people’s lives and tears them apart, and they don’t know he’s doing it until he’s already done it. I just thought that was extraordinary.”
—“The crime fiction I’m interested in is political”: Ian Rankin on his new novel about the super-rich
#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #detectivefiction #novel #IanRankin
New on my #blog: https://aspi.blog/2026/10/10/a-new-find/
A brief look at Stephen Higgs' series of culinary capers involving Albert Smith and an autumnal #photo gallery featuring animals, plants and fungi.
#books #fiction #DetectiveFiction #photography #insects #butterflies #RedAdmiral #birds #swans #cygnets #starlings #redshank #muntjac #squirrels #autumn #fungi #conkers
📖 #vendrediLecture (n°66)
Cela devait arriver. Je crois que je commence lentement maizirrévocablement à ranger Josephine Tey dans la catégorie de mes auteurs favoris.
J. TEY, To Love and Be Wise.
Par contre, je feuillette en parallèle la traduction française ("Le plus beau des Anges" chez Rivages) et c'est vraiment plat et insipide. En plus, il y a plein de passages qui ont tout simplement disparu (!).
#Mastolivre #bookstodon #livres
#Books #AlanGrant #detectivefiction #JosephineTEY
Josephine Tey & the problem of time
20 Oct, Melrose. £6
According to Val McDermid, Josephine Tey is the bridge between Golden Age & contemporary crime fiction. Tey’s books were unconventional in their portrayal of sexuality & in their playful challenges to the norms of the genre, & also took unusual approaches to questions of time & space. Prof Timothy Baker investigates.
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #crimefiction #womenwriters #crimewriting #detectivefiction
Adding to my holds for Overdrive (Libby)...even though helpful pets aren't my favorite mystery sub-genre.
A Game of Cat and Killer by Akagawa
#mystery #DetectiveFiction
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jiro-akagawa/a-game-of-cat-and-killer/
Do you prefer a professional investigator, or someone who falls into a mystery sideways? This crime lineup ranges from PI and police work to amateur sleuthing and a psychotherapist solving a patient’s murder. What kind of sleuth makes you keep turning pages?
https://www.bookzio.com/latest-book-deals/
#DetectiveFiction #AmateurSleuth #MysteryBooks #CrimeReads #CozyMystery #EbookDeals #BookDeals #Bookzio #CrimeFiction #MurderMystery #ThrillerBooks
🌧️ Tuesday Update: New Chapters Arrived
Cozy light, old typewriter, and fresh stories waiting to be read. Leila Voss & Associates are on the case — dive in now!
🔗 detective156.com
#NewChapters #DetectiveFiction #LeilaVossSeries #WriterUpdate #CozyReading #1920sMystery #indieauthor
#MurderEveryMonday Weather affects the plot
After several heat waves, we finally got some rain yesterday’s evening that hopefully will last for the next days. So, for today’s #MurderEveryMonday I went full Winter and chose stories that are impacted by snow and all by Agatha Christie. These were the three titles my brain picked as soon as I read the theme. Love and recommend them all.
The first is the Murder on the Orient Express, one of the best known books by Christie, where the snow stops the train that allows the closed circle of the story.
For the second, I went for The Mousetrap, the longest run of any play in the world, where the snow traps the characters in a manor house.
And finally, I also chose a not so well known title, The Sittaford Mystery, where the snow also impacts the murder investigation. I really like this one and feel it deserves more attention and more readers. And I do like the young Miss Emily Trefusis as an amateur sleuth. And now I want to re-read it again!
Thanks to Kate Jackson for creating this hashtag and check her blog for the next themes here.
#AgathaChristie #BookCovers #BookLook #books #ColecçãoVampiro #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #MurderEveryMonday #Policiais #readings
Now, I will be writing a review of this soon, but I'm 144 pages in and it's another smack-in-the-chops success. Not heard of Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw? Go get The Puppet Show and read this series in order so you can catch me up!
Noir and Crime comics! If you love a gritty mystery, check out our top crime graphic novel recommendations at startercomicbooks.com. #CrimeComics #Noir #Mystery #StarterComicBooks #GrittyComics #DetectiveFiction #Brubaker Which comic creator would be on your dream creative team? https://startercomicbooks.com/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
I'm happy to report that I'll be offering two upcoming stand-alone modules for Autumn/Winter 2026 #online with the adult continuing education program at #SignumUniversity.
November 2026: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by #ShirleyJackson
Info: https://blackberry.signumuniversity.org/space/modules/iteration/2837/
December 2026: The #Dupin Tales by #EdgarAllanPoe
Info: https://blackberry.signumuniversity.org/space/modules/iteration/2840/
#Gothic #Mystery #CrimeFiction #Horror #DetectiveFiction #Thriller #Poe #Ratiocination #books #bookstodon
Forensics: Crime Scene Detective – v1.0.23
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://fitgirl-repacks.site/forensics-crime-scene-detective/
Secrets and spies in Scottish literature
21 July, Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Tickets £12
Prof Penny Fielding talks about the history of the spy novel in Scotland, and what sets spy fiction apart from detective fiction. Why do fictional spies so often find their way to Scotland? And why are Scottish authors drawn to its landscapes, borderlands and history of espionage?
https://www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com/whats-on/secrets-and-spies-in-scottish-literature/
#Scottish #literature #thriller #spyfiction #detectivefiction
New favorite review: "Dynamic narration, very entertaining characters and mystery, and tension that grabs you by the guts!"
ABOUT NATE SCOTT - future fantasy, very gay, a King in Yellow cameo... what's not to like?
https://ruthannereid.com/about-nate-scott
#newbook #queerwriters #queerfiction #detectivefiction #darkfantasy
#HappyPride! Have a queer meet-cute in the middle of stolen memory, a cultish family and its plans, and the King in Freaking Yellow.
It's a lot to handle, but Simon Night, PI, always closes the case.
ABOUT NATE SCOTT: by Ruthanne Reid. Buy now for $2.99:
https://ruthannereid.com/about-nate-scott
#queerfiction #queerfantasy #detectivefiction #darkfantasy #magicandtechnology
A Heart Full of Headstones – Reflections on Ian Rankin’s Rebus
I recently finished A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin, the twenty‑fourth novel in the long‑running series featuring the Edinburgh detective John Rebus. I came to the book for a very simple reason. Years ago, I watched the television adaptation starring Ken Stott, and for me he will always remain the epitome of Rebus. Stott captured that mixture of intelligence, stubbornness, and quiet weariness that seems to define the character.
One of the most remarkable things Ian Rankin has done with his long‑running series is something many writers avoid. He has allowed John Rebus to grow older. In many detective stories the central character remains almost unchanged across decades, as though time itself pauses for them. Rebus is different. Across twenty‑five novels we have watched him move through the seasons of life, carrying the marks of experience, family, regret, and persistence. Rankin has allowed his detective to age alongside his readers, and that may be one of the reasons the character feels so real.
A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian RankinRebus is no longer the relentless detective of earlier years. Time has left its marks. He now faces health issues. He has a daughter and a granddaughter. The world around him has changed, and so has he. Yet, the core of the character remains. He maintains a stubborn determination to pursue what is right, even when he himself is deeply flawed. That is part of what makes Rebus so compelling. He is not heroic in the traditional sense. He makes mistakes, but there remains within him an unshakeable instinct to confront injustice.
Another aspect I found fascinating is the way Rankin situates the story during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Rather than ignoring that moment in history, he weaves it naturally into the background of the narrative. The pandemic becomes part of the atmosphere of the book shaping how people interact, how investigations unfold, and how the characters navigate an unsettled world. For readers who have followed the series for years, this adds a layer of realism. Rebus does not exist in a timeless fictional bubble. He lives in the same changing world that we do.
Readers who have just finished A Heart Full of Headstones will also notice that the story of Rebus is not yet finished. Rankin has continued the journey in the next novel, Midnight and Blue, reminding us that even after many years the tenacious spirit of Rebus still has more roads to travel. Sometimes the most enduring figures in fiction are not the flawless heroes, but the stubborn souls who keep searching for justice long after the world has grown complicated.
Rebecca
#DetectiveFiction #FictionSalon #IanRankin #IMReadingABook #InspectorRebusSeries #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Scotland
When Fiction Walks Beside History: The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks
Every once in a while a book surprises me. The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks was one of those books. I have been enjoying a number of mysteries lately, but this one offered something more than an engaging puzzle. It opened a doorway into the lively world of the Jazz Age and into the fascinating personality of Zelda Fitzgerald. Before long I found myself wandering through that glittering era of music, literature, and restless creativity.
The novel centres around the enigmatic figure of Zelda Fitzgerald, one of the most fascinating personalities of the early twentieth century and the wife of the celebrated writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda has long lived in the shadow of literary myth. She has been portrayed as muse, rival, victim, genius, and scandal all at once. Because of this, choosing her as a central character in a mystery novel is no small act of courage. Everyone, it seems, has a theory about Zelda.
The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah FredericksMariah Fredericks approaches her not as a symbol but as a living woman. She is sharp, perceptive, complicated, and vividly alive. That alone makes the novel intriguing. This was not merely a mystery story set loosely in the past. The author clearly did her homework. The atmosphere of the Jazz Age rises from the pages that spoke of the music, the glamour, and the restless energy of a generation determined to break away from old conventions. I felt as though I had been transported into that era with the swirl of parties, the creative ferment, the ambition and the fragility of a world racing toward modernity.
At its heart, this is still a mystery and a story meant to keep the reader turning pages. I found myself enjoying the playful tension between fact and fiction. Historical figures move alongside invented characters, and the boundaries between documented history and imaginative storytelling blur in an engaging way.
I do not often expect a mystery to carry such a strong sense of historical atmosphere, but this novel reminded me that good storytelling transcends genre. When research, imagination, and narrative energy come together, a book can open a window into another time while still delivering the pleasure of a well‑told tale. In many ways, The Girl in the Green Dress feels like stepping into the smoky glow of a Jazz Age nightclub where literature, scandal, music, and modern life were all colliding at once.
The title itself adds another layer of meaning. The image of the green dress seems almost symbolic of the era. In the literature of the 1920s, green often carried associations of longing and possibility. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the famous green light across the water becomes a symbol of dreams just beyond reach. That colour has come to represent something essential about the Jazz Age imagination with its ambition, glamour, and restless energy. Seen in that light, the girl in the green dress feels less like a single figure and more like a symbol of the generation itself.
What stayed with me after finishing the book was not simply the mystery itself, but the reminder that history is filled with vibrant personalities whose stories continue to echo through literature. Zelda Fitzgerald remains one of those figures, still mysterious, still compelling, and still impossible to fully define. The Jazz Age may belong to the past, but through novels like this we can still glimpse its excitement, its daring spirit, and its complicated human drama.
Rebecca
Postscript: About the Author
Mariah Fredericks is known for writing historical mysteries that blend careful research with imaginative storytelling. She first gained recognition for her Jane Prescott series (I have not read any of these books) set in New York’s Gilded Age, where she explored the social worlds of earlier eras through the eyes of women navigating them. In The Girl in the Green Dress, Fredericks turns to the vibrant and turbulent Jazz Age, weaving a mystery around the compelling presence of Zelda Fitzgerald and inviting readers to step briefly into one of the most fascinating cultural moments of the twentieth century.
#DetectiveFiction #FictionSalon #MariahFredericks #RebeccaSReadingRoom #TheGirlInTheGreenDress #TheJazzEra
Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories
If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.
A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.
I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:
During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.
Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.
It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.
Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:
Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.
Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.
Things were more complicated for secondary figures:
Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.
Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:
The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.
to these eighty-two:
The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.
He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.
After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.
As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.
*
An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.
The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:
To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.
The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.
#AmericanLiterature #books #crimeFiction #detectiveFiction #editing #etymology #literaryHistory #literature #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #reading #rewriting #shortStories #verbing #writers #writing
Experience the suspense of The Gordian Knot by David O. Thomas. A gripping crime thriller full of twists, mystery, and edge-of-your-seat intrigue.
Read more: https://www.davidthomasthegordianknot.com/
#TheGordianKnot #DavidOThomas #CrimeThriller #MysteryNovel #Suspense #DetectiveFiction #ThrillerReads #PageTurner
"This story is like a train ride, starts off with a sure pace, picking up speed, then some twists and turns to keep you guessing and wondering what happens next, all ending in a shocking display of what humans can be capable of." - Jon Gregory, author.
viewBook.at/KMWID
#DanielBeckett #PrivateInvestigator #MustRead #Standalone #London #DetectiveFiction #BookBoost #CrimeFiction
Book mood! Catnip for those who enjoy #DarkAcademia, #CampusMystery, and #DetectiveFiction #novels, especially the delicious vintage stories: Academe in Mystery and Detective Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography by John E. Kramer (2000) and College Mystery Novels: An Annotated Bibliography, Including a Guide to Professorial Series-Character Sleuths by John E. Kramer, Jr. and John E. Kramer, III (1983). #Mystery #Bookstodon
New on my #blog: https://aspi.blog/2026/01/26/all-time-xis-detective-fiction/
An all time XI of players who have namesakes in detective fiction and a photo gallery.
#cricket #DetectiveFiction #AllTimeXIs #photography #birds #cormorants #heron #starlings #lapwings #sparrows #mammals #squirrels #muntjac #hare #fungi
The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld
”That was the thing about the butterflies. They could be kind when Celia felt bitter. They could encompass all the beauty of this world even when the skies smarted gray”
Rene Denfeld, “The Butterfly Girl”
I was only a few paragraphs into the first chapter when I knew, without question, that I had discovered an extraordinary book. Rene Denfeld’s “The Butterfly Girl” could only have been written by someone who had experienced what her characters endured, the profound sense of the loneliness, the fear, and the delicate hope that keeps her character’s alive. “The Butterfly Girl” is not just a story. It is a revelation of what happens when imagination becomes a means of survival.
The Butterfly Girl by Rene DenfeldAt the heart of the novel is Naomi, a private investigator with a haunted past who is searching for her missing sister. Her path crosses with Celia, a twelve-year-old runaway living on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Through these two intertwined stories, Rene Denfeld explores what it means to be lost and what it means to be found. She allows readers to feel the restlessness of those who search. Naomi for her sister and Celia for safety. Beneath the surface of the mystery, there is a deeper story about endurance. How stories, even imagined ones, keep us alive when the world feels too hard to face. The novel moves between danger and tenderness, grief and renewal, with a quiet current of hope running beneath the darkness.
The butterflies of the title are more than a symbol; they are a saving grace. They represent transformation and the capacity to change, to lift out of darkness, to find beauty in the midst of struggle. Their wings carry both vulnerability and strength.
What impressed me most about “The Butterfly Girl” was Rene Denfeld’s ability to enter the mind of a child, not through sentimentality, but through truth. She understands that imagination is not a retreat from reality but a way of surviving it. She does not romanticize the children’s lives, yet she never strips them of dignity. Her gaze is steady, respectful, and filled with compassion, her words come from a place that only lived empathy can bring. She enters the mind of a child not to dramatize pain, but to show how imagination, that fragile, shimmering thread, can hold life together when everything else falls away.
The contrast between the “street people” and the “day people” was a brilliant way to describe the gulf between children on the street and people who move through their routines, caring about the world but often unable to look directly at its deepest suffering. It is difficult to face issues of homelessness, addiction, lost childhoods, especially when there does not appear to be way to help.
“no matter how hard she tried, she could remember nothing more of her past. Terror had wiped her memory clean.”
René Denfeld, “The Butterfly Girl”
Rene Denfeld is an American author and investigator who has worked extensively with victims of trauma, including survivors of violence and those on death row. She has also served as a therapeutic foster mother. Her life’s work, which transforms her own hardships into compassion for others, gives her fiction its unmistakable authenticity. She has an ability to make these children visible, not as symbols, but as individuals with dreams, humour, and astonishing courage. They form their own communities, caring for one another when the world does not.
“The Butterfly Girl” is not an easy book to read, but it is an essential one. It reminds us that seeing is an act of love, and that the imagination is humanity’s greatest refuge. Reading “The Butterfly Girl” reminded me that awareness is not enough. Compassion must begin with respect. And respect begins with truly seeing.
Until the next page turns, may your days be filled with warmth, wonder, and a good story to share.
Rebecca
Postscript: Rene Denfeld is the award-winning, bestselling author of four novels: “The Enchanted” (2014), “The Child Finder” (2017), “The Butterfly Girl” (2019), and “Sleeping Giants” (2024). Her writing has been praised by Margaret Atwood as “astonishing.”
Her forthcoming literary thriller, “The Talking Bone”, will be published in July 2026 by HarperCollins. Inspired by her own justice work as a death row investigator, it promises to continue her exploration of trauma, truth, and redemption.
#DetectiveFiction #fiction #FictionSalon #IMReadingABook #ReneDenfeld #TheButterflyGirl #Trauma
Jaclyn Lurker wraps up the Year of Sherlock with "The Last Bow" - a final exploration of why mysteries appeal across seasons. From Christmas cozies to year-round whodunits, this post summarizes all twelve months of literary detective deep-dives and includes bonus content: an original short mystery comedy starring amateur detective Spurlock Tomes.
#SherlockHolmes #MysteryLiterature #DetectiveFiction #LiteraryHistory #ConanDoyle #ClassicMysteries
https://jaclynalurker.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-year-of-sherlock-years-end-2025.html
New on my #blog: https://aspi.blog/2026/01/18/the-museum-detectives/
A brief look at a classic series of novels by Jim Eldridge and a photo gallery.
#books #fiction #DetectiveFiction #TheMuseumDetectives #Museums #London #Railways #LondonUnderground #photography #birds #starlings #cormorants #lapwings #coins #CharlesIII£1
Non-fiction November: choosing non-fiction
I just found out about #NonFictionNovember through Liz Dexter from Libro Full Time, hosted by Frances Spurrier at Volatile Rune. Each week has a theme to encourage you to read more non-fiction and this one is “choosing non-fiction”.
I realised that when I choose non-fiction to read (that is not for work), I usually tied it up to my fiction favourite readings. The picture above is a good example of this:
This November, I’m reading Murder Will Out by T. J. Binyon. The book goes through several detectives, dividing its chapters through the different types of detectives: the professional amateur, the amateur amateur, the police, etc.. Binyon describes the differences between these characters when they belong to the same category and talks about the books and their creators so one can get an historical perspective or even see the evolution of the detective.
Now, back to you, do you read non-fiction by choice? And do you choose it?
#books #BooksAboutBooks #ClassicMystery #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #livros #NatureWriting #NonFictionNovember #NonFictionNovember #readings
October's Moonstone Musings explores the fascinating connections between Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Jaclyn Lurker traces the detective fiction lineage from the 1868 novel often considered the first full-length English detective novel through to today's adaptations. A thoughtful analysis for mystery lovers and literary enthusiasts.
#SherlockHolmes #MysteryNovels #LiteraryHistory #DetectiveFiction #WilkieCollins
https://jaclynalurker.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-year-of-sherlock-october-2025.html
🎥 💡 Streaming LIVE! Watch @hatnix on Owncast: https://live.hatnix.net/
#ArseneLupin #OnceAThief #MauriceLeBlanc #ThievingFiction #DetectiveFiction #owncast #livestream #stream #selfhosted
to Agatha Christie (v.tr.)
The conversion of nouns to verbs (to impact, to medal, to leverage, to architect) is a continual object of criticism and word rage. But language has been verbing for as long as it has languaged. In fact, there’s nothing that can’t be verbed if you put your mind to it.
‘What about someone’s name?’ you might ask. ‘What about Agatha Christie?’
I’m glad you picked that example. Because the new FX series Alien: Earth offers this great line in its second episode, ‘Mr. October’ (a mild swear word follows):
Context, with a tiny spoiler in the first line:
In the year 2120, a military search-and-rescue team are investigating a spaceship that has crashed to Earth. When a grisly but intriguing discovery threatens to detain them unduly, Siberian (played by Diêm Camille) makes the call to keep moving:
Okay, come on. We’re search and rescue. Let forensics Agatha Christie this shit.
To Agatha Christie something, then, is to figure it out; to investigate and solve a puzzling problem in the manner of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, Christie’s fictional detectives.
I like this verbing because it reads like improvised slang. There’s no suggestion that the phrase has currency as a verbal eponym, whether broadly in-world or more specifically in Siberian’s own usage or that of one of her speech communities. Rather, it’s an impromptu linguistic innovation that’s both playful and bookish.
It also celebrates Christie’s enduring popularity as a mystery author. What other name could fit in this semantic slot? Only a fictional one, I think: Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, or Sam Spade – but not Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett.
Other contenders include Jessica Fletcher, Perry Mason, Columbo, Jules Maigret, Nancy Drew, Inspector Morse, and Special Agent Dale Cooper. But it’s more of a stretch to imagine them being so culturally salient in a century’s time.
Alien: Earth was created by Noah Hawley, who also has the writing credit on the episode. He’s probably not even the first person to verb Agatha Christie, but for once I didn’t bother trying to Agatha Christie it.
*
Further reading:
In my A–Z of English usage myths, I wrote that peevers hate verbing, but only when they think it’s new – they constantly use verbings that were established earlier. Who remembers all the yelling and wailing over contact (v.)? Who would believe there even was such a controversy?
See also: ‘Verb all the things’; ‘Verbing weirds language – but in a good way’; and ‘Verbing and nouning are fine and here’s a quiz‘. And a few other posts about detective fiction.
#AgathaChristie #AlienEarth #conversion #detective #detectiveFiction #eponyms #humour #language #languageChange #NoahHawley #pragmatics #screenwriting #semantics #slang #TV #verbing #verbs #writing
Cherche l'intrus 👀
#Detectivefiction #Faunelocale 😁
Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin in Jaclyn Lurker's ongoing "Year of Sherlock" series. This "Poe Reprise" explores how Dupin's methodical approach in just three stories created the entire consulting detective archetype. From locked room mysteries to armchair detection, Poe established conventions that Doyle would later perfect with Holmes.
#EdgarAllanPoe #SherlockHolmes #DetectiveFiction #LiteraryAnalysis #Mystery #ClassicLiterature #BookLovers https://jaclynalurker.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-year-of-sherlock-august-2025-poe.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawMhfnVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFnOUd6VDNIdXNSOFpXMnVlAR7mJiUntKe4T6CZ77ufsoxfWvPvF2yOMdhicYwqrQVVLPZ5NdrIHGQVf8xQBQ_aem_IEj_BfoNRBXH6ERWLI9d_A
World Book Club: Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles
Available on BBC Sounds. Harriett Gilbert is joined by internationally bestselling crime writer Denise Mina & Dr Mark Jones, co-presenter of The Doings of Doyle podcast & editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal, to discuss Sherlock Holmes’s lasting influence on crime & detective fiction.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct74s3
#Scottish #literature #CrimeFiction #detective #DetectiveFiction #SherlockHolmes #ConanDoyle
Bonne journée les mammouth•e•s 🍀
(chacun son film 🎬😄)
#Detectivefiction
#FauneLocale
https://www.cyclingeu.com/699508/the-barbarism-of-berlin-by-g-k-chesterton-%f0%9f%95%b5%ef%b8%8f%e2%99%82%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%8c%8d/ The Barbarism of Berlin by G. K. Chesterton 🕵️♂️🌍 ##audiobook #BerlinMystery #Bicycling #Biking #BikingSerbia #ClassicDetectiveStories #ClassicLiterature #CrimeAndPunishment #CrimeStory #Cycling #DetectiveFiction #DetectiveLiterature #DetectiveStories #GkChesterton #GkChestertonFan #justice #LiteraryClassics #MoralDilemmas #mysterynovel #PhilosophicalFiction #serbia #storytime #SuspenseThriller #unsolvedmystery #VintageMysteries #yt:cc=on
"Though this be madness, yet there's method in it." Jaclyn Lurker brilliantly explores how Shakespeare's words about Hamlet perfectly describe Sherlock Holmes centuries later. Fascinating parallels between detective work and apparent madness in classic literature.
#SherlockHolmes #Hamlet #ClassicLiterature #DetectiveFiction #LiteraryAnalysis #Shakespeare #BookLovers
https://jaclynalurker.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-year-of-sherlock-2025-july-method.html?m=1&fbclid=IwY2xjawL5CcFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtwUGkRlq7vJB2UOE2ceTnkTjH0U7y4_GyXGWqw3_KhgeJerWUVVaZuVfsaF_aem_lrja8Ttl5nufD5TzleECWg
This week on Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein we review MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU (2025) by Cynthia von Buhler.
https://deepcuts.blog/2025/07/26/minky-woodcock-the-girl-called-cthulhu-2025-by-cynthia-von-buhler/
#detectivefiction #graphicnovel #comic #Lovecraft #AleisterCrowley #weirdfiction
Because 18 Lew Archer novels isn’t enough, I just bought “the complete short stories…”
My buddy, writer MS Harker, and are reading all the Lew Archer books this summer.
ps. Watch for Harker’s *Don’t Shoot the Piano Tuner* (forthcoming, watch for it at http://dontshootthepianotuner.com )
#detectivefiction #readersofmastodon #booksofmadtodon #fiction #noir #lewarcher #rossmacdonald #summerreading
#BookReview The Piazza Murders by Michael Jecks (out 1st July)
The third instalment of The Art of Murder is out on 1st of July and takes you to Italy.
Nick Morris is an artist and amateur sleuth. This time he goes to Italy to teach a course to a group of people that decided to take the art retreat. Of course, there are murders, which Morris starts to investigate. At the same time there is a literary festival in the city with authors and publicists getting involved, meaning that you get themes about books, publishers, and publishing industry, which I never say no to 🙂 (you also get themes about pens, drawing, painting, as expected :-)).
Each of the people in the art group is different and has their own story, specific situation, reasons for being there, and I liked the way we get to know them throughout the first part.
I found the descriptions of the place and Italian atmosphere (monuments, buildings, cafes, streets) stunning. I was quite impressed how easy it was to imerse myself into the place, and in this sense it was perfect for an “escapism reading” which I love.
It was a quick read, I wanted to know what would happen next and there are several twists and turns, including one of my favorites: when a character views a certain situation in a certain angle and we, the readers, start to suspect it is exactly the opposite and makes us want to warn/tell that character. I always find this type of scene quite satisfying in a book, maybe because it’s a time when we know a little more than the characters? I didn’t guess the murderer, though, which is good. Although, now that I think of it, the author gives you a hint in the beginning, but skillfully turns you away from it 🙂
Albeit in a series, I think the book reads as a standalone. It also made me want to read the first two, it seeems the second in the series has a manor house in the English countryside, which is one of my favorite settings for murder.
Michael Jecks is a member of The Detection Club and you can check his website for info on his other books here, he also has a YouTube channel, where he talks about his books, but also about all forms of stationery, and which I really recommend following.
The Piazza Murders is published by Severn House and it will be out on 1st of July.
(I got an ARC from NetGalley).
#BookReview #BookReviews #BookLook #books #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #fiction #ItalianSetting #Italy #MichaelJecks #Mystery #NewBook #readings #TheArtOfMurder
Before Sherlock Holmes, there was C. Auguste Dupin. Poe's detective appeared in only three stories but established the template for all consulting detectives since.
Jaclyn Lurker examines Poe's "ratiocination" vs "rationalization" - one seeks truth through methodical reasoning, the other twists logic to justify crimes. A fascinating look at the foundations of mystery fiction.
#Literature #EdgarAllanPoe #Mystery #DetectiveFiction #LiteraryHistory
https://jaclynalurker.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-art-of-2025-may-poes-ratiocination.html
Happy #SherlockHolmesDay & birthday to #Edinburgh scribe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, still commemorated with a statue of the great detective close to his family home here our #UNESCO City of Literature, & a nearby pub named after him (the greatest honour a Scotsman can hold!)
Also, Jeremy Brett remains the finest screen incarnation of Holmes. I will brook no arguments on this point!
#Edimbourg #books #livres #SirArthurConanDoyle #JeremyBrett #SherlockHolmes #DetectiveFiction
“…rather than a locked-room mystery in which the murder is an impossible crime, the detective is in (and becomes) the locked room, using cerebral means to reason his way into a solution to a genuine historical conundrum”
“A Mystery Novel Like No Other Before” – @sarahweinman on the fiction of Josephine Tey
https://lithub.com/a-mystery-novel-like-no-other-before-on-josephine-teys-the-daughter-of-time/
#Scottish #literature #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #Crimewriting #Womenwriters #20thCentury
Husband Missing (Detective Josie Quinn #22), by Lisa Regan
#Book #Crime #Meh #Mystery #Review #LisaRegan #JosieQuinnSeries #HusbandMissing #CrimeNovel #DetectiveFiction #Thriller #BookLovers #BookClub #MysteryBooks #Suspense
https://turing.mailstation.de/husband-missing-detective-josie-quinn-22-by-lisa-regan/?fsp_sid=829