Some of the most brilliant speech in novels can be found in this genre. From Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler and even Martin Amis, here are some of the best practitioners
I think the most important ingredient of a crime novel is style, and I have tried to embody this philosophy in my new book, The Yellow Diamond, which concerns a unit of the Metropolitan Police that investigates the super-rich. The settings – Mayfair and the south of France (both in winter) – seemed to demand a certain formal elegance, and I read a lot of Scott Fitzgerald while writing the book.
Fitzgerald wrote finely nuanced dialogue, as any stylist must. He was not a crime writer, but many of the best dialogue writers have been. Dialogue lends an immediacy that suits the genre. Also, crime fiction is essentially demotic (even if it’s about the rich), and bad, unmusical dialogue, always makes me think the author is too self-obsessed to have paid attention to how other people speak.
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Fitzgerald wrote finely nuanced dialogue, as any stylist must. He was not a crime writer, but many of the best dialogue writers have been. Dialogue lends an immediacy that suits the genre. Also, crime fiction is essentially demotic (even if it’s about the rich), and bad, unmusical dialogue, always makes me think the author is too self-obsessed to have paid attention to how other people speak.
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