International Mysteries

Interesting article today on internation mysteries, mysteries like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the like. Seems after Larsson's success, U.S. publishers are scouring the market looking for books that take place in cultures and societies outside of the U.S.

"Some have pegged Japan as the next crime-writing hotspot. Literary agent Amanda Urban of International Creative Management, who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, took on Japanese suspense and crime writer Shuichi Yoshida, a best-selling author in Japan, because she saw his novels as literary works with commercial potential."

This above quote and this one "Mystery novels translate well across cultures, because they usually prize plot over literary acrobatics," made me think about a book on mystery writing I read last year.

In it the author wrote that there is no reason to be bashful about being a mystery writer. Mystery writers should be seen as more deft and talented than "literary fiction" novelists if only because they have to weave a believable mystery into all of the same aspects of noveling that literary fiction novelist must follow.

Then there is this: "The global influence of American and British crime writing has also led to the widespread adoption of familiar tropes and plot conventions: the gloomy, loner detective, clipped dialogue, the standard plot structure that opens with a body and follows the investigation."

And we're back to thinking it's all trite boiler-plate and formula. Thank goodness this final line shows promise for the future of mystery novelling being taken seriously; "Much of the crime fiction being imported blurs the line between genre and literary fiction. In Europe, where crime novels take top literary prizes, suspense writing is regarded as a serious literary endeavor rather than a form of mass entertainment. In Japan, top mystery writers Shuichi Yoshida and Keigo Higashino have won multiple literary awards."

All in all, well worth the few minutes it took to read. (Unlike this blog post I fear)