The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)Movies

[1]3,008 words

“These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact!” — Sherlock Holmes, “The Empty House.”[1]

Having devoted considerable time and attention to the genres of weird fiction and science fiction,[2] it is perhaps long overdue that I should spend some time considering the remaining one of the Three Disreputable Genres,[3] detective fiction. 

The transition is made easier by the fact that the inventor of the detective tale, by most accounts, is that master of the weird tale, Edgar A. Poe, who in turn Lovecraft considered his own master.[4]

I suspect that, as with weird fiction and science fiction, the persistent popularity of this looked down upon genre — one might even say, obsession —...