(In the case of CS Lewis, I began with his popular theology but then found that he had also written literary criticism, adult science fiction and juvenile fantasy. Much later, I came across a collection of his poetry. Finding all these different kinds of writing equally entertaining, I first read the Chronicles of Narnia in my teens, whereas my daughter, more appropriately, had them read to her in childhood, then (re)read them with greater understanding in her teens.)
I read any novel through from beginning to end, enjoying the narrative along the way and interested to find out how it ends. But are detective novels meant to be read differently? Are we supposed to play detective, trying to spot all the clues and to deduce the identity of the culprit as the fictional detective does? If so, I cannot do it. I could not possibly have deduced how, in Poul Anderson's Murder Bound (New York, 1962), the man exposed as a Nazi collaborator had faked his death and later had a motive for attempted murder.
The private detective, Trygve Yamamura, does a good Poirot-like job of assembling the suspects on board ship, explaining all the anomalous events of the novel, including some that had been so trivial that we had not even realized that they were significant, and then identifying the murderer who, he believes, has fled but will be apprehended. There are two further twists: the murderer has not fled but has hidden himself on board; it seems that he will go overboard after all but then does not because Yamamura pulls him back.
So there is a satisfactory ending but I had to read the story all the way to its end in order to find out what would happen, as with any other kind of novel. Any regular readers of this blog might have noticed that, when discussing Murder Bound, I have focused not on clues or suspects but on what might be regarded as secondary features of the narrative. What I basically enjoy is Poul Anderson's fiction writing with its many allusions to both science and mythology.
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