The novelist SW Maugham (1874-1965) said the joy of reading genre novels most clearly and frankly: "When you are in bed with a cold and your head is dizzy, you don't want great literature at the moment; you I would rather put an ice pack on your forehead, soak your feet in hot water, and three or two detective novels to accompany you through your sick days." Yes, even writers like Maugham know that when we are exhausted and sick, we don’t want to explore the true meaning of life, but just find a friend who is interesting and interesting, and tell some exciting stories to listen to—— In China, this is the tradition of talking about popular literature; in the West, this is the social history of genre popular novels.

Chen Yinke, a great historian of the Republic of China, suffered from political persecution in his later years and was also debilitated and sick. He also claimed: "I don't read books, but I only hear novels to pass the day." life.” It can be seen that popular novels do not sing high-profile, but are our friends faithfully and strive to make us happy in the most difficult moments. This is the same thing both in China and abroad. However, among genre novels, the "detective novel" originated in English and French not only has a long history, but also has a large number of talents and masterpieces.If we take the works of Edgar Allan Poe (EA Poe, 1809-1849) as a starting point, the detective novel has a tradition of one hundred and fifty years.Among them are writers, such as A. Christie, DL Sayers, Ellery Queen, SS Van Dine, and even today's famous writer Ms. James (PD ames) ) and Dexter (Colin Dexter), etc., are of course household names; even the characters in the works, such as Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, Detective Poirot, Inspector Magrey, etc., are also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. , has long been a part of everyday vocabulary.

Why are people so addicted to reading detective novels?Why do people love this kind of story of "some corpses, a mysterious murderer and a detective who can solve puzzles"?Perhaps it will take us several disciplines to exhaust its mysteries.However, it is precisely because of the enthusiastic support of countless readers over the past century and the succession of writers that they have created a significant and rich literary entertainment legacy in Western genre novels. The "Murder Specialty Store" series is intended to select and translate one of the classics from the 150-year novel tradition of "Detective Reasoning and Criminal Mystery Solving" and inject them into the Chinese reading circle.My personal goal, on the one hand, yearns to collect famous masters and masterpieces, on the other hand, I want to have clear clues of their historical inheritance, and also want to cover a wide range of types.

There are several considerations in my approach: 1. The principle of mileage: Among the masterpieces of reasoning novels, select classics with milestone significance (such as the first secret room, the first female detective, the first hospital scene, etc.), or discuss their literary creations, or discuss Its entertainment effect is combined. 2. The principle of limited number: no more than two books should be selected by each author, no matter he is a prolific writer with over a hundred books (such as Wallace, Edgar Wallace), or a comet writer with rare works (such as White, EL White), with no more than two works selected.

3. The principle of broad sense: make a broad interpretation of the term "mystery novel", whether it is the "Detective Fiction Age" in the first golden age (1890-1930) in history, or the second golden age (1940-1960) "The Age of Crime Fiction," with its various variants, I explore loosely.At work, although I have followed the opinions of famous critics such as Quinn, Howard Haycraft, Ulian Symons, and HRF Keating, I also have some private and bold opinions—traditional and small. Small betrayal. 4. English Center: In the selection of books, the English-speaking world is almost the center.Of course, the works of French and Swedish writers are also selected, but the proportion is still very low, and they are all known through English translations.This is a masterpiece limited by the editor's ability and cannot be used in other languages. We can only wait for wise people to make up for the shortcomings.As for the currently popular Japanese mystery novels in China, in my humble opinion, Japanese works are not worthy of such praise compared to the richness of Western-language creations. In my mind, only the works of Takao Tsuchiya can be included in this book list.

The reason for choosing the book is, of course, to find a friend with an interesting conversation, hoping that "reading novels" can still maintain a pattern of classical entertainment in today's world. Due to the investment of first-class minds in the past century, "reasoning novel" has more than that; whether it is a mind game of "deciphering and solving crimes" or an observation of the floating world as "social accusation", "crime and reasoning" has a lot to offer. big achievement.I will write an introduction before each book, introducing its features and values.In addition, the publishing house will launch a "club" reading method, and we will have the opportunity to continue the frontier through communications and discussions.From the joy of reading genre novels to a "secret society", this place of joyful reading will have a richer and more colorful future.

I used to be the owner of the "Hall of Mysteries" where there are thousands of mystery novels silently, but now I have changed my career and become the manager of the "Murder Specialty Shop" that sells loudly. It is not surprising that he hides in the court, does not hide in the wild, and hides in popular learning.