Masters of Detective Fiction
Murder for Pleasure. By Howard Haycraft. (Peter Davies. ros. 6d.)
MR. HAYC.RAFT insures that his study of the detective story b little value by limiting his field to the "pure" type, centring on detective and the solution of a logical puzzle. By doing so b
puts himself into the position of an investigator looking for tli genetic causes of tabbiness in cats who excluded from -consideratia
self-coloured or parti-coloured animals whenever they cropped ul in the ancestry or progeny of tabby animals. The detective d modern fiction owes quite as much to Raffles for his character a
to Holmes, and the detective story derives more of its charade from thrillers, -novelettes, and penny dreadfuls than it doe from pioneer efforts. The limitations Mr. Haycraft has place+ upon himself become obvious when he has to deal with the appe4 ance in the field of Mr. Dashiell Hammett: after remark en passant that this writer wrote for a publication called B Mask, he says that his novels virtually defy exegesis. So they unless Black Mask has been explained. Examination of that magi zinc and examination of Mr. Hammett's novelettes and the imb tions of his novelettes and works written under his influence ma plain what function Mr. Hammett performed in relation to lb detective story, introducing to that realm the tough sex eleme that had become an established part of the Black Mask story fol mula. The tastes of the pulp magazine public had through M Hammett imposed themselves on the comparatively literate an well-educated detective story public. Something interesting to place here, but that is not Mr. Haycraft's pigeon. In the so) way there is not very great interest in the publication dates the Sherlock Holmes stories (which is Mr. Haycraft's pigeori although very great interest attaches to the process which has mat1 him an international comic figure. Before the outbreak of tb war the Hcolmes uniform, pipe, magnifying glass, eiste and deerstalker was familiar in the comic strips of the Unite States and Latin America and as a clown's rig-out in Europe. Ho this happened, and why, would be interesting to know. It is be suspected that " popular " mockery of the pretensions of II book-learned is going on in this curious conversion. .
history gives dates of writers and publication dates, brief sketches of the, mannerisms of paper-policemen and detectives, and such information as the year in which Mr. Freeman Wills Crofts retired from his profession, or the place Mr. H. C. Bailey had in his col-
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