(Someone surely has written a fascinating paper, “Guilty But Not Very,” about which murderers detective novels decide to let off the hook in one way or another, and what this says about shifting attitudes toward justice.)
Oh man, that's fascinating. If you ever do turn up some meta on that, I'd love to read it. I bet it does change over time in some really interesting ways.
One thing I notice in a lot of Golden Age murder mysteries that doesn't really seem to be as much of a thing anymore is how often the killer is punished via suicide, especially in morally gray situations or cases where arresting them and putting them in jail wouldn't really work. That one's certainly gone out of style - at least anywhere other than the really dark murder mysteries. I can still see it happening in procedurals and noir, but definitely not in anything cozy-adjacent.
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Date: 2023-01-06 11:29 pm (UTC)Oh man, that's fascinating. If you ever do turn up some meta on that, I'd love to read it. I bet it does change over time in some really interesting ways.
One thing I notice in a lot of Golden Age murder mysteries that doesn't really seem to be as much of a thing anymore is how often the killer is punished via suicide, especially in morally gray situations or cases where arresting them and putting them in jail wouldn't really work. That one's certainly gone out of style - at least anywhere other than the really dark murder mysteries. I can still see it happening in procedurals and noir, but definitely not in anything cozy-adjacent.