Mysteries, usually consigned to the suburbs of literature, delight, entertain and beg you to solve the problem posed within the book. It's a conservative form. This does not refer to the political shade but to the form and philosophy underlying the story. Every mystery begins with a disturbance of the accepted social, ethical order. Theft, murder, a lie -- just to name a few incidents that immediately engage the reader. The heroine or hero attempts to discover who did it. My favorite device is if the original misdeed is quite trivial, say someone steals a wedding cake but this in turn leads to far worse offenses. A mystery closes with the guilty individual(s) known. They may or may not be brought to justice but order is restored in that you, the reader, understand the chain of events.
Strange to say, the first mystery I read was Edgar Allen Poe's The Purloined Letter written in 1844. Poor fellow would be dead five years later. I learned to read at a very early age. I expect I came out of the womb looking for a library. At age eight I discovered Poe. His influence over Baudelaire meant nothing to me at eight but means a great deal to me now.
Having never read a mystery before, I determined to read more. Mother suggested Agatha Christie (Mary Clarissa) who also wrote straight fiction under the name Mary Westmacott. I devoured The Murder of Roger Ackroyd written in 1926. Off and running, I read all her mysteries - especially adoring Miss Marple who reminded me of my sharp-witted mother, Julia Buckingham Brown, or Juts as she was known to friend and foe.
To me, mysteries were delicious puzzles to be savored then solved. Not until I started on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did I find more than plot to engage me. The atmosphere, taste, touch and smell of late Victorian England seduced me. It's a period I still adore and am happier reading Tennyson than Thomas. The Hound of the Baskervilles written in 1902 is my all time favorite. I'm out there on those fog shrouded moors with Holmes and Watson. One of the reasons I love Sir Arthur is you know these people, they aren't stick figures jerked around to satisfy a plot. Mysteries could contain character development. Having grown up with foxhounds and two rescued hunting beagles, I love and continue to love hounds, hunting my own pack of foxhounds as well as bassets. When Doyle's hound bay at night, I could hear him and I still do. (I don't kill, only chase for those who misunderstand how hunting hounds in our country truly works.)
Now for a real life mystery, this will only appeal to history nuts and literary vamps: Who wrote The Marprelate Tracts in 1588-9? These seven anti-Episcopal tracts brim with invective and are damnably funny. It's a four-hundred year plus mystery, what a puzzle!
Editor's Note: Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of many books, including her beloved Mrs. Murphy mysteries. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia.
