The photo above shows the Agatha Christie monument in London, photo by goga18128.mail.ru

This month I’m taking a Zoom class called “Soft-Boiled but Laced with Cyanide” that’s taught by an Agatha Christy expert, Gillian Gill. She has us reading mystery classics written by the masters, beginning with Edgar Allen Poe’s 1841 short story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and ending with Anthony Horowitz’s 2011 The House of Silk.

Note: If you can, check out these two TV series that retell classic detective stories:

• Britbox streams a gorgeous remastering of Joan Hickson playing Miss Marple in “The Body in the Library.” It’s a hoot.
• PBS reimagined Sherlock Homes in a long-running series, “Sherlock.” Benedict Cumberbatch played the detective with sly nonchalance.

The class has had me asking myself why I, along with so many other readers, love detective stories. Experts on the web have some theories. Elizabeth Michaelson Monaghan met with researchers at the British Psychological Society to answer this question and came up with different reasons for different folks. Some read them “to use their cognitive abilities to interpret the clues,” while others seek to understand the characters, and still others enjoy satisfying their curiosity by finding out who committed the murder. See https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/allure-mysteries

Tana French, the Edgar Award-winning author of several psychological mysteries, including In the Woods, has a simpler take. She divides mysteries into two categories. One is the classic detective mystery written by Agatha Christy and Conan Doyle that is “all about restoring order.” The other she calls “wild” mysteries that deal with questions that can never be answered, like Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. For Tana French’s post, see https://time.com/collection/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309691/mystery-books-satisfaction/

The brilliant author, Anthony Horowitz gives his opinion in this brief PBS video: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/clips/magpie-murders-why-do-we-love-murder-mysteries/

Why do I love detective stories? It began in high school when I read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a psychological thriller that delves into the mind of a killer. The following 5-minute video tells more about the novel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtkv3-endYc

How about you? Do you read detective novels? What kind do you prefer?

And for my musician friends who read mysteries, I recommend The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb. Though it doesn’t have a murder, the novel centers on the theft of a musician’s priceless violin. I’m finding it hard to put down. See https://www.brendanslocumb.com/the-violin-conspiracy

And just for ear candy, here’s Brendan Slocumb’s musical playlist, https://www.brendanslocumb.com/my-playlist