The ABC of murder mysteries
THE combined intellectual might of Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe and Hercule Poirot might struggle if charged to discover the identity of the greatest mystery writer of all time. Even taking a handful of the greats at random — Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler — throws up the first problem, that they all wrote different kinds of mystery novels.
If we employ a little bit of Sherlock Holmes perversity, however, and ignore the problem in order to change the question, then the answer to who is the most enduringly popular mystery writer becomes crystal clear.
