The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection

by David Lehman

In this lively, enjoyable look at the best American and British detective fiction, David Lehman investigates the mystery of the profound satisfactions we get from evil, disorder, mayhem, and deception--that we know will be put right by the last page.
As Lehman shows, the detective story draws deeply from ancient storytelling traditions. The mystery's conventions--the locked room, the clue "hidden" in plain sight, the diabolical double, the villainous least likely subject--work on us as childhood fairy tales do; they prey upon our darkest fears, taking us to the brink of the unbearable before restoring a comforting sense of order. The myth of Oedipus, for example, contains the essential elements of a whodunit, with the twist that the murderer the detective pursues is himself.
With their wisecracking gumshoe heroes, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler fashioned an existential romance out of the detective novel. More recent writers such as Ross MacDonald, P. D. James, and Ruth Rendell have raised the genre to a new level of psychological sophistication. Yet the form evolves still, and Lehman guides us to the epistemological riddles of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco, who challenge the notion of a knowable truth. Originally published in 1989, this new edition features an additional chapter on the mystery novels of the 1990s.
"A lively study of the development and varieties of the detective story since Poe, its relations with other forms high and low, and the latter-day appropriation of its techniques by such writers as Borges and Eco. . . . A thoroughly intelligent and readable book." --Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet
David Lehman is the series editor of both the The Best American Poetry , published by Scribner, and the Poets on Poetry series published by the University of Michigan Press. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, a vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and the author of several books of criticism and collections of poems.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.

Reviews

[Robert]

An interesting, though somewhat repetious, analysis of the genesis and development of the mystery genre from Poe through the 1980s. All the usual suspects are discussed, related, and evaluated. It helped me understand the conventions of the different types of mysteries. Of course, it is dated and has no mention of the subgenres and authors who have come along since 1990.

[Gail Kennon]

should be subtitled a study in detection written primarily by males.

[Mike]

Among the critiques I've read of the genre, I found this to be the best and most interesting analysis of the development and meaning of the detective novel. Well written and intellectually entertaining. Out of print, of course (published in 1989), but copies should be available from the usual suspects of used book dealers.