“I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.” – Agatha Christie.
mirrors a centuries-old British culture torn by war, watching its traditions melt into modernity.
Agatha Christie is the most popular modern writer to ever live (outmatched in sales by only Shakespeare and the Bible).
Following the rules set in the Detection Club (including Dorothy Sayers, Ronald Knox, and the remarkable GK Chesterton).
Knox’s decalogue
The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
No racial stereotypes.
No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition that proves to be right.
The detective himself must not commit the crime.
The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
The “sidekick” of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
Hardboiled cop fiction
born from a new American culture defining itself without a unifying identity
Dashiell Hammett and his successor Raymond Chandler
the exact opposite where the detectives followed their own existential code, with similar rigor, regardless of the consequences.
Police procedural
tears down the mythologies of the genre, instead portraying the classic battle of chaos vs. order
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Roseanna (1965)
The villain is at a notable disadvantage. The cop is the pro—and he’s got the resources of the police department behind him.