Review: The Mysterious Romance of Murder by David Lehman

Synopsis: From Sherlock Holmes to Sam Spade; Nick and Nora Charles to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin; Harry Lime to Gilda, Madeleine Elster, and other femmes fatales—crime and crime solving in fiction and film captivate us. Why do we keep returning to Agatha Christie's ingenious puzzles and Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled murder mysteries? What do spy thrillers teach us, and what accounts for the renewed popularity of morally ambiguous noirs? 

In The Mysterious Romance of Murder, the poet and critic David Lehman explores a wide variety of outstanding books and movies—some famous (The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity), some known mainly to aficionados—with style, wit, and passion.Lehman revisits the smoke-filled jazz clubs from the classic noir films of the 1940s, the iconic set pieces that defined Hitchcock's America, the interwar intrigue of Eric Ambler's best fictions, and the intensity of attraction between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. He also considers the evocative elements of noir—cigarettes, cocktails, wisecracks, and jazz standards—and offers five original noir poems (including a pantoum inspired by the 1944 film Laura) and ironic astrological profiles of Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and Graham Greene. 

Written by a connoisseur with an uncanny feel for the language and mood of mystery, espionage, and noir, The Mysterious Romance of Murder will delight fans of the genre and newcomers alike.

This was possibly written as a follow up to the author's previous book, The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection.

The book is divided into five parts (the romance, the props, the authors & directors, the films, and some profiles). The author's key areas of interest - poetry, speech, writing - form the basis for this narrative.

Part One specifically deals with the language and dialogue of the genre. Part Two the props used (clothing, cigarettes, etc). Part Three looks at authors and directors such as Fleming, Hitchcock, Chandler, Greene, Wilder, McBain, et al. Part Four is a series of essays on films and actors (eg: Double Indemnity, Cape Fear, The Asphalt Jungle, Odd Man Out, etc) whilst also exploring the villains and locations (San Francisco, Chicago, London). Part Five consists of profiles of Stanwyk, Greene and Dietrich.

Despite being a huge fan of noir, espionage and crime, I was not a fan of this. The 40 plus page introduction was overly long and nearly finished it for me then and there.  I found my attention wavering and I was wishing the author would hurry up and get to the crux of it all.  Even when he did, I was not sufficiently engaged to absorb anything that was written down in front of me - the writing style and overall presentation did not inspire me.

Image by Wonman Kim

What I also found lacking was an exploration of international noir - both authors and film - which is something I would definitely have been interested in, especially as I have been reading a lot of Frederic Dard (the classic French noir author) and his contemporaries.

Definitely one for the dedicated movie fan of the genre as this book explores specialty subject matter that only those seriously immersed in the genre will appreciate.