John Grisham Finds Justice Not in the System, but in the System’s Defeat

A while back I wrote about British female authors of mystery novels during 1920-1940, such as Agatha Christy, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Elspeth Huxley, the last two being colonial British. I noted at the time that even in the case of murder in the novels, those decades as portrayed in the novels were a highly civilized period in England. Readers have let me know that they, also, have found relief from our woeful times in the civilized recent past described in British mystery novels.

As an...