- mommies (who work as part time PI's)
- candlemakers
- card-makers
- scrapbookers
- soapmakers
- floral arrangers
- candy-makers
- several food-related mysteries
- coffee house regulars
- tea drinkers (so as not to be outdone)
- Louisa May Alcott fans who think she's as good as a detective
- fans of Jane Austen who think she's as good as a detective
- fly-fishers in Yellowstone
- National Park enthusiasts
- Martha's Vineyard vacationers
and
When did mystery-reading (or mystery-writing) become so egalitarian? When did it become necessary to have a mystery about every single kind of hobby and locale there is? (I admit, I stopped searching for fear of finding something truly worrisome like, I don't know, the competitive hula-hooping mysteries series.) Isn't it enough to live through the detectives' eyes and enjoy a book, rather than need to further identify by recognizing your own hobby? Or learning a new one? Who was the first writer to delve into this wave of specialized mysteries?
The only mystery writers I know are the classics - Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Carol Higgins Clark, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Allen Poe, Carolyn Keene (heheh). Contemporary ones that I know about would be Tony Hillerman, Sue Grafton, Ed McBain, and Ellis Peters... hunh.
I wonder is this is Ellis Peters's fault. That specialized information about being a monk and the time period and all... I think it might be a stretch to blame scrapbooking mysteries on him, though.
0 comments:
Post a Comment