Book Jolly Good detecting spyware

This book is an appreciation of selected authors who make extensive use of humor in English detective crime fiction Works using humor as an amelioration of the serious have their heyday in the Golden Age of crime writing but they belong also to a long tradition There is an identifiable lineage of humorous writing in crime fiction that ranges from mild wit to outright farce burlesque even slapstick A mix of entertainment with instruction is a tradition in English letters English crime fiction writers of the era circa 1913 to 1940 were raised in the mainstream literary tradition but turned their skills to detective fiction And they are the humorists of the genre This book is not an exhaustive study but an introduction into the best produced by the most capable and enjoyable authors What the humorists seek is to surprise the reader by overturning their expectations using a repertoire of stylistic conceits and motifs recurring incidents devices references Humor has a liberating effect but is concerned too with comic contrast through ugliness and caricature In crime fiction one effect is intellectual pleasure at solving or attempting to solve a puzzle Another is entertainment but with serious undertones Jolly Good Detecting Humor in English Crime Fiction of the Golden AgeOffers mostly descriptive rather than analytic insights E. Book jolly good detecting books I did learn a bit from bio sketches of some authors in whose work I am interested but about whom I have not read a true biography yet even if available like John Dickson Carr and Edmund Crispin but I did not anything profound on how humor works in the mystery genre generally or Golden Age of Detection work specifically Paperback