Curt Evans, mystery scholar extraordinaire, has been on the
blogosphere for a while now, managing an interesting little blog entitled
The
Passing Tramp. As the name may indicate, the blog is devoted to wandering
around the mystery genre, encountering all sorts of interesting specimens, and
then reporting back to readers. It’s an excellent blog, and I tend to agree
with Curt on many points, especially his continued and unrepentant defense of a
group of authors collectively known as “The Humdrums”. You could say he’s
written the book on the subject. Literally—I am of course talking about
Masters of the “Humdrum” Mystery: Cecil John
Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective
Novel, 1920-61.
To put it quite simply, Curt’s book is a bravura
performance. He takes a look at three major mystery authors from the Golden
Age: John Rhode/Miles Burton, Freeman Wills Crofts, and J. J. Connginton. All
three men have been condemned to out-of-print hell, and when brought up by
academics at all, their opinions tend to be largely dismissive of these “mere
puzzles”. But Curt remains unconvinced, and through his analyses he tries to
prove that these books have far more merit to them than such a label might
imply.
