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60 With its common interest in lawbreaking but its immense range of subject matter and widely varying methods of treatment, the crime novel could make a legitimate claim to be regarded as a separate branch of literature, or, at least, as a distinct, even though a slightly disreputable, shoot of the traditional novel. The detective story is probably the most respectable of the crime species. Its creation is often the relaxation of university dons, literary economists, scientists or even poets. Fatalities may occur more frequently and mysteriously than might be expected in polite society, but the world in which they happen, the village, seaside resort, college or studio, is familiar to us, if not from our own experience, at least in the newspaper or the lives of friends. The characters, though normally realized superficially, are as recognizably human and consistent as our less intimate associates. A story set in a more remote environment, African jungle, or Australian bush, ancient China or gaslit London, appeals to our interest in geography or history, and most detective story writers are conscientious in providing a reasonably authentic background. The elaborate, carefully-assembled plot, despised by the modem intellectual critics and creators of significant novels, has found refuge in the murder mystery, with its sprinkling of clues, its spicing with apparent impossibilities, all with appropriate solutions and explanations at the end. With the guilt of escapism from Real Life, nagging gently, we secretly revel in the unmasking of evil by a vaguely super-human sleuth , who sees through and dispels the cloud of suspicion which has hovered so unjustly over the innocent. | 
