Customer Reviews

The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing

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Informative, fascinating, great fun. This book includes an enormous variety of topics, expected and not, such as occult mysteries, feminism, religion, politics, conservative and radical world-views, gays and lesbians, country house mysteries, fairy tales. It is more comprehensive, and has a more objective tone, than Bruce Murphy's "Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery." There are extensive cross-references. Too bad the editors didn't hire some proofreaders and fact checkers. The book is riddled with typographical errors, misspellings and factual mistakes. Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone is consistently misspelled "Milhone." In one instance, Margery Allingham's "The Crime at Black Dudley" is attributed to Ngaio Marsh. In another, Dorothy Gilman's 1975 book "A Nun in the Closet" is credited to Sister Carol Anne O'Marie. I hope these errors will be corrected in a later edition.

This book has been helpful in learning about crime and mystery fiction. It is great for current terms, history, and even authors. Everyone from novices to experts who love or are just learning to love the genre could use this book.

The book has its moments, but it could have more information abouth the authors. Buy the other books by this author7editor

As is true of any encyclopedic work, there will be quarrels with what is included and what is not. Nevertheless, this is a highly readable, well organized book. It is accessible to scholars and more casual fans as well. Every college library should have this book. Stylistically and typographically it could be improved, but that would have sent costs even higher. The essays are well-done and the authors of the essays are respected, knowledgeable people. This is just a fine piece of work.