Book publishing statistics query

On Jan 4, 2:02 am, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l....RemoveThis@sff.net> wrote:
>
> Actually, murder mysteries were in relative decline in the McCarthy
> era; the big flowering of whodunnits had been in the 1920s, and the
> hardboiled school flourished in the '30s and '40s, while in the '50s
> the big noise was Mickey Spillane, who was largely imitating Hammett,
> Chandler, and Daly.  Stout and Christie were still going strong, of
> course -- likewise Queen, Gardner, et al.

That's not quite fair to Stout; while Christie was still "going
strong" in the sense of cranking out material, Stout was in his Golden
Period. The Nero Wolfe stories from the '50s are (at least in my
personal opinion) the cream of the series, with fully-matured
characters, better plots, the best dialog, etc.

Josephine Tey also did some of her best work in the '50s, including
_The Daughter of Time_.

The major contribution of the '50s to detective fiction was probably
the flowering of the "police procedural" subgenre -- e.g. Ed McBain's
87th Precinct novels, or "Dragnet" on radio/TV. Anthony Boucher
coined the term in 1956.

David Tate
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On Jan 4, 3:07 pm, Gene Ward Smith <g... DeleteThis @chewbacca.org> wrote:
> David Tate <dt... DeleteThis @ida.org> wrote in news:708e8a9c-c739-4fee-a36c-
> fc678247b... DeleteThis @e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
>
> > That's not quite fair to Stout; while Christie was still "going
> > strong" in the sense of cranking out material, Stout was in his Golden
> > Period.  The Nero Wolfe stories from the '50s are (at least in my
> > personal opinion) the cream of the series, with fully-matured
> > characters, better plots, the best dialog, etc.
>
> What I find with Stout is that he is quite consistent in terms of plot,
> characters and dialog over a long period of time.

Hmm. I think I have to disagree a bit with this one. I've been
listening to as many of these as I can find[1], and I see a pretty
clear pattern.

a) The pre-WW2 stories have decent plots, inconsistent
characterization, and generally less scintillating dialog.
b) The WW2 stories have lousy plots, inconsistent characterization,
but improved dialog.
c) The postwar stories through about 1960 have consistent and nuanced
characterization, scintillating dialog, and enjoyable plots. The
minor characters (Lily, Saul, Cramer, etc.) are more 3D than before.
d) After 1960, the characterizations stay solid, but the quality of
the plots and dialog slowly deteriorate.

That's my recollection, at any rate. I'll try to pay more attention
to possible counterexamples in the future.

David Tate

[1] I strongly recommend the "Books On Tape" recordings of Michael
Pritchard reading these. His voices for Archie and Wolfe are both
spot-on, and so different that after a while you forget it's the same
person reading both. Other characters are less consistent, but that's
not really a problem, except in books with multiple female characters
that need to be distinguished from each other.
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David Tate <dtate.DeleteThis@ida.org> wrote in news:708e8a9c-c739-4fee-a36c-
fc678247bd7f.DeleteThis@e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

> That's not quite fair to Stout; while Christie was still "going
> strong" in the sense of cranking out material, Stout was in his Golden
> Period. The Nero Wolfe stories from the '50s are (at least in my
> personal opinion) the cream of the series, with fully-matured
> characters, better plots, the best dialog, etc.
>

What I find with Stout is that he is quite consistent in terms of plot,
characters and dialog over a long period of time.
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