55-666: David Stout (May 13, 1942 – February 11, 2020) was a journalist and author of mystery novels, two of which have been turned into TV movies, and of non-fiction about violent crime. For his first novel , Carolina Skeletons , he won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel . Stout obtained a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1964, and a master's in English literature from Buffalo State College in 1970. His early work as journalist
110-438: A supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, whose titles such as Dime Mystery , Thrilling Mystery , and Spicy Mystery offered what were then described as complicated to solve and weird stories: supernatural horror in the vein of Grand Guignol . That contrasted with parallel titles of
165-440: A crime scene with no indication as to how the intruder could have entered or left, i.e., a locked room. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax. Marilyn Stasio Marilyn Stasio is a New York City author, writer and literary critic. She has been
220-406: A division of Crosstown Publications. The detective fiction author Ellery Queen ( pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee ) is also credited with continuing interest in mystery fiction. Interest in mystery fiction continues to this day partly because of various television shows which have used mystery themes and the many juvenile and adult novels which continue to be published. There
275-406: A journalist becoming interested in a crime, the plot evolves this time around a kidnapping case, whose young victim is abandoned to die in the forests around the rural place of Long Creek. New York Times critic Stasio praised Stout's "clean and direct [writing] style," with which he conjured "the vivid scenes of suspense he's after." Stasio also highlighted that the story offered again more than "only"
330-565: A mystery plot: "Less showy, but just as sturdy, are [Stout's] sensitive observations on the absent fathers, lost children and forsaken values that go with the territory of bleak towns like Long Creek." The novel The Dog Hermit was turned into a 1995 TV movie under the title A Child Is Missing . Directed by the TV movie and series director John Power , the cast included Henry Winkler , Roma Downey , and Dale Midkiff . A few years later, Stout turned to writing non-fiction books and published Night of
385-519: A mystery to be solved, clues , red herrings , some plot twists along the way and a detective denouement , but differs on several points. Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories feature no suspects at all, while mystery fiction, in contrast, features a large number of them. As noted, detective stories feature professional and retired detectives, while mystery fiction almost exclusively features amateur detectives. Finally, detective stories focus on
440-595: A new angle on the investigation, so as to bring about a final outcome different from the one originally devised by the investigators. In the legal thriller, court proceedings play a very active, if not to say decisive part in a case reaching its ultimate solution. Erle Stanley Gardner popularized the courtroom novel in the 20th century with his Perry Mason series. Contemporary authors of legal thrillers include Michael Connelly , Linda Fairstein , John Grisham , John Lescroart , Paul Levine , Lisa Scottoline and Scott Turow . Many detective stories have police officers as
495-418: A night watchman at best. Naturally, the constable would be aware of every individual in the town, and crimes were either solved quickly or left unsolved entirely. As people began to crowd into cities, police forces became institutionalized, and the need for detectives was realized – thus the mystery novel arose. An early work of modern mystery fiction, Das Fräulein von Scuderi by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819),
550-841: A prisoner, as well as a fair and sympathetic portrait of the families of the victims, who still suffer the effects of that night at the [crime scene]." Stout's publication, The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's Unknown Child (2008), tells the story of the unsolved death of Joseph Augustus Zarelli , known until 2022 only as "the Boy in the Box" and "America's Unknown Child", a young, then-unidentified boy found in Philadelphia on 25 February 1957. Stout had already published an article in The New York Times about
605-544: A reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes ), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction . Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit . Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. Mystery fiction can involve
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#1732775936342660-450: A sociological bent, exploring the meaning of his characters' places in society and the impact society had on people. Full of commentary and clipped prose, his books were more intimate than those of his predecessors, dramatizing that crime can happen in one's own living room. The PI novel was a male-dominated field in which female authors seldom found publication until Marcia Muller , Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton were finally published in
715-455: A solution achieved by intellect or intuition rather than police procedure, with order restored in the end, honorable characters, and a setting in a closed community. The murders are often committed by less violent tools such as poison and the wounds inflicted are rarely if ever used as clues. The writers who innovated and popularized the genre include Agatha Christie , Dorothy L. Sayers and Elizabeth Daly . The legal thriller or courtroom novel
770-447: Is also related to detective fiction. The system of justice itself is always a major part of these works, at times almost functioning as one of the characters. In this way, the legal system provides the framework for the legal thriller as much as the system of modern police work does for the police procedural. The legal thriller usually starts its business with the court proceedings following the closure of an investigation, often resulting in
825-603: Is one of the first examples of the modern style of fictional private detective. This character is described as an "'Everyman' detective meant to challenge the detective-as-superman that Holmes represented." By the late 1920s, Al Capone and the Mob were inspiring not only fear, but piquing mainstream curiosity about the American crime underworld. Popular pulp fiction magazines like Black Mask capitalized on this, as authors such as Carrol John Daly published violent stories that focused on
880-422: Is some overlap with "thriller" or "suspense" novels and authors in those genres may consider themselves mystery novelists. Comic books and graphic novels have carried on the tradition, and film adaptations or the even-more-recent web-based detective series, have helped to re-popularize the genre in recent times. Though the origins of the genre date back to ancient literature and One Thousand and One Nights ,
935-411: Is sorrow and pity, not vengeance." The novel was turned into the 1991 made-for-TV movie which aired on NBC Carolina Skeletons (alternative title: The End of Silence ), directed by John Erman and starring Louis Gossett Jr. The movie made some changes to the book's plot, e.g., turning Gossett's character, who returns to his hometown to find out the truth about the crime, into the brother instead of
990-466: The Edgar Allan Poe Award for "Best First Novel". It was also nominated for the 1989 Anthony Award in the same category. The book is based on the true story of the 1944 murder of two girls in South Carolina , for which the 14-year-old African-American boy George Stinney was later charged and executed on the electric chair , becoming the youngest child ever killed through capital punishment in
1045-598: The English Renaissance and, as people began to read over time, they became more individualistic in their thinking. As people became more individualistic in their thinking, they developed a respect for human reason and the ability to solve problems. Perhaps a reason that mystery fiction was unheard of before the 19th century was due in part to the lack of true police forces. Before the Industrial Revolution , many towns would have constables and
1100-535: The "Crime Columnist" for The New York Times Book Review since about 1988, having written over 650 reviews as of January 2009. She says she reads "a few" crime books a year professionally (about 150) and many more for pleasure. She also writes for Variety , The New York Post , New York magazine and others. She has served as a dramaturg at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center . In 1990 she interviewed British writer Ruth Rendell . This article about
1155-409: The "deduction" of Sherlock Holmes, who was disparagingly included in some Lupin stories under obvious pseudonyms. The genre began to expand near the turn of the century with the development of dime novels and pulp magazines . Books were especially helpful to the genre, with many authors writing in the genre in the 1920s. An important contribution to mystery fiction in the 1920s was the development of
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#17327759363421210-723: The Devil: The Untold Story of Thomas Trantino and the Angel Lounge Killings (2003) about the murder of two policemen in New Jersey . (The phrase "Night of the Devil" had already been linked to the crime in 1981, when it was used as title for a documentary about the Trantino case.) Trantino was sentenced to death for the killings, but never executed due to the 1972 suspension of capital punishment in
1265-548: The Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic That Shook Depression-Era America . Stout died on 11 February 2020 from complications of esophageal cancer . Mystery fiction Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and
1320-632: The Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937), and the world's best-selling mystery And Then There Were None (1939). The massive popularity of pulp magazines in the 1930s and 1940s increased interest in mystery fiction. Pulp magazines decreased in popularity in the 1950s with the rise of television , so much that the numerous titles available then are reduced to two today: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine —both now published by Dell Magazines ,
1375-539: The South, but also about Southerners—including police officers—honestly trying to uncover the truth. The New York Times , one of whose editors Stout was at the time of the book's publication, described the "ending of Carolina Skeletons " as "somewhat pat," but praised the novel generally as "sensitive, well-written" and "full of compassion and understanding. It is a plea for people of different ethnic and social backgrounds to understand one another and come together. The theme
1430-462: The United States . Trantino became a "model prisoner," but his release on parole was delayed due to opposition from police, politicians, and people close to the victims. New York Times critic Charles Salzberg praised the book for not "taking sides or moralizing about the death penalty," but instead providing an "evenhanded, well-researched account of the legal machinations that kept Trantino
1485-425: The United States. Stout used the controversies surrounding Stinney's guilt and trial for a mystery story. A little less than the first half of the book is based on the facts although changing the name from George Stinney to Linius Bragg. The remainder of the book is fictional and tells the story how a nephew of the convicted unravels the truth some 40 years later. The book tells about still prevailing racial prejudice in
1540-436: The best-selling author Michael Connelly,"Chandler credited Hammett with taking the mystery out of the drawing-room and putting it out on the street where it belongs." In the late 1930s, Raymond Chandler updated the form with his private detective Philip Marlowe , who brought a more intimate voice to the detective than the more distanced "operative's report" style of Hammett's Continental Op stories. Despite struggling through
1595-411: The crime at the beginning of 2007, the year of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Zarelli's body. From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, Stout was a resident of Englewood, New Jersey , where he lived near the former home of Dwight Morrow , the father-in-law of Charles Lindbergh . The Lindbergh baby kidnapping was one of the subjects of his 2020 book, The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of
1650-502: The crime scene. The genre was established in the 19th century. Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) is considered the first locked-room mystery; since then, other authors have used the scheme. John Dickson Carr was recognized as a master of the genre and his The Hollow Man was recognized by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers as the best locked-room mystery of all time in 1981. The crime in question typically involves
1705-410: The crime. In the 1940s the police procedural evolved as a new style of detective fiction. Unlike the heroes of Christie, Chandler, and Spillane, the police detective was subject to error and was constrained by rules and regulations. As Gary Huasladen says in his book Places for Dead Bodies , "not all the clients were insatiable bombshells, and invariably there was life outside the job." The detective in
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1760-533: The detective and how the crime was solved, while mystery fiction concentrates on the identity of the culprit and how the crime was committed, a distinction that separated And Then There Were None from other works of Agatha Christie . A common subgenre of detective fiction is the Whodunit . Whodunits experienced an increase in popularity during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction of the 1920s-1940s, when it
1815-459: The detective's attempt to solve the mystery. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, and they are explained or resolved during the story. This format is the inversion of the more typical "whodunit", where all of the details of the perpetrator of the crime are not revealed until the story's climax. Martin Hewitt , created by British author Arthur Morrison in 1894,
1870-422: The early 20th century, many credit Ellis Peters 's The Cadfael Chronicles (1977–1994) for popularizing what would become known as the historical mystery. The locked-room mystery is a subgenre of detective fiction. The crime—almost always murder—is committed in circumstances under which it was seemingly impossible for the perpetrator to commit the crime and/or evade detection in the course of getting in and out of
1925-483: The form again with his detective Lew Archer . Archer, like Hammett's fictional heroes, was a camera eye, with hardly any known past. "Turn Archer sideways, and he disappears," one reviewer wrote. Two of Macdonald's strengths were his use of psychology and his beautiful prose, which was full of imagery. Like other 'hardboiled' writers, Macdonald aimed to give an impression of realism in his work through violence, sex and confrontation. The 1966 movie Harper starring Paul Newman
1980-423: The genre. True crime is a literary genre that recounts real crimes committed by real people, almost half focusing on serial killers . Criticized by many as being insensitive to those personally acquainted with the incidents, it is often categorized as trash culture . Having basis on reality, it shares more similarities with docufiction than the mystery genre. Unlike fiction of the kind, it does not focus much on
2035-578: The identity of the culprit and has no red herrings or clues, but often emphasizes how the culprit was caught and their motivations behind their actions. Cozy mysteries began in the late 20th century as a reinvention of the Golden Age whodunit; these novels generally shy away from violence and suspense and frequently feature female amateur detectives. Modern cozy mysteries are frequently, though not necessarily in either case, humorous and thematic. This genre features minimal violence, sex and social relevance,
2090-537: The juvenile mystery by Edward Stratemeyer . Stratemeyer originally developed and wrote the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries written under the Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene pseudonyms respectively (and were later written by his daughter, Harriet Adams , and other authors). The 1920s also gave rise to one of the most popular mystery authors of all time, Agatha Christie , whose works include Murder on
2145-438: The late 1970s and early 1980s. Each author's detective, also female, was brainy and physical and could hold her own. Their acceptance, and success, caused publishers to seek out other female authors. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime (usually murder). Though works combining these genres have existed since at least
2200-451: The late 1980s, Stout has published four books about fictional and non-fictional violent crime cases. In 2003, a short note in a New York Times article about one of Stout's books described Stout's perspective on "violent crime [to be] unsentimental" and suggested that his approach may be shaped by "his own motives and his own demons from the strangling murder of an aunt. For his first novel Carolina Skeletons , published in 1988, Stout received
2255-447: The main characters. These stories may take a variety of forms, but many authors try to realistically depict the routine activities of a group of police officers who are frequently working on more than one case simultaneously, providing a stark contrast to the detective-as-superhero archetype of Sherlock Holmes. Some of these stories are whodunits; in others, the criminal is known, and the police must gather enough evidence to charge them with
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2310-453: The mayhem and injustice surrounding the criminals, not the circumstances behind the crime. Very often, no actual mystery even existed: the books simply revolved around justice being served to those who deserved harsh treatment, which was described in explicit detail." The overall theme these writers portrayed reflected "the changing face of America itself." In the 1930s, the private eye genre was adopted wholeheartedly by American writers. One of
2365-516: The modern detective story as it is known today was invented by Edgar Allan Poe in the mid-19th century through his short story, " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ", which featured arguably the world's first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin . However, detective fiction was popularized only later, in the late 19th century, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's Sherlock Holmes stories, considered milestones in crime fiction . The detective story shares some similarities with mystery fiction in that it also has
2420-464: The nephew of the executed boy. The boy himself was portrayed by Kenn Michael , who was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Television Movie for the role in 1993. Stout's next novel was Night of the Ice Storm (1991), a fictional whodunit about a journalist solving a murder, which had remained unsolved for some 20 years. The New York Times critic Marilyn Stasio called
2475-412: The novel "coolly terrifying" and the plot "killingly suspenseful." She compared the novel to Carolina Skeletons in the way Stout "expertly works the genre format on more than one level," reaching "into the psychology of grown-up children tortured by unresolved love-hate relationships" and developing the story into a thriller which is "even more haunting as a fathers-and-sons drama." Moreover, finds Stasio,
2530-450: The paper's website, again including work as rewrite man. Throughout his career, Stout's responsibilities had also covered sports and domestic news. After 27.5 years with The New York Times , editor Stout took advantage of a buy-out offer in 2009 and left the newspaper. He stated he was "leaving with very warm feelings for the [New York Times]." By February 2010, the online archive of The New York Times listed 1425 articles by Stout. Since
2585-417: The police procedural does the things police officers do to catch a criminal. Writers of the genre include Ed McBain , P. D. James and Bartholomew Gill . An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a plot structure of murder mystery fiction in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describes
2640-499: The primary contributors to this style was Dashiell Hammett with his famous private investigator character, Sam Spade . His style of crime fiction came to be known as "hardboiled", which is described as a genre that "usually deals with criminal activity in a modern urban environment, a world of disconnected signs and anonymous strangers." "Told in stark and sometimes elegant language through the unemotional eyes of new hero-detectives, these stories were an American phenomenon." According to
2695-406: The same names which contained conventional hardboiled crime fiction. The first use of "mystery" in that sense was by Dime Mystery , which started out as an ordinary crime fiction magazine but switched to " weird menace " during the later part of 1933. The genre of mystery novels is a young form of literature that has developed since the early 19th century. The rise of literacy began in the years of
2750-421: The story can also be read as a "regional novel" about the fictional upstate New York town of Bessemer with its wealthy steel-and-coal past, which has now become "a symbol of stagnation for those who must decide whether to stay or leave." In 1993, The Dog Hermit followed: Set again against a (Thanksgiving) winter storm in a fictitious upstate New York community that had once seen better times, and starring again
2805-740: The task of plotting a story, his cadenced dialogue and cryptic narrations were musical, evoking the dark alleys and tough thugs, rich women and powerful men about whom he wrote. Several feature and television movies have been made about the Philip Marlowe character. James Hadley Chase wrote a few novels with private eyes as the main heroes, including Blonde's Requiem (1945), Lay Her Among the Lilies (1950), and Figure It Out for Yourself (1950). The heroes of these novels are typical private eyes, very similar to or plagiarizing Raymond Chandler's work. Ross Macdonald, pseudonym of Kenneth Millar , updated
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#17327759363422860-585: Was an influence on The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe (1841) as may have been Voltaire 's Zadig (1747). Wilkie Collins ' novel The Woman in White was published in 1860, while The Moonstone (1868) is often thought to be his masterpiece. In 1887 Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes , whose mysteries are said to have been singularly responsible for the huge popularity in this genre. In 1901 Maurice Leblanc created gentleman burglar, Arsène Lupin , whose creative imagination rivaled
2915-541: Was based on the first Lew Archer story The Moving Target (1949). Newman reprised the role in The Drowning Pool in 1976. Michael Collins, pseudonym of Dennis Lynds , is generally considered the author who led the form into the Modern Age. His private investigator, Dan Fortune, was consistently involved in the same sort of David-and-Goliath stories that Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald wrote, but Collins took
2970-460: Was for The Erie Daily Times , The Buffalo Evening News , and The Record of Hackensack in northern New Jersey . In 1982, Stout went to work for The New York Times , where he continued to work both as reporter and editor . In 1997 he moved to their Washington office and became a night rewrite man , i.e. working mainly in the office and turning information and texts received from others into articles. After 2000, Stout worked mainly for
3025-399: Was the primary style of detective fiction. This subgenre is classified as a detective story where the reader is given clues throughout as to who the culprit is, giving the reader the opportunity to solve the crime before it is revealed. During the Golden Age, whodunits were written primarily by women, however Wilkie Collins ' The Moonstone is often recognized as one of the first examples of
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