Page "Detective fiction" Paragraph 67

According to " Twenty rules for writing detective stories ," by Van Dine in 1928: " The detective story is a kind of intellectual game.

It is more — it is a sporting event.

And for the writing of detective stories there are very definite laws — unwritten, perhaps, but nonetheless binding ; and every respectable and self-respecting concocter of literary mysteries lives up to them.

Herewith, then, is a sort of credo, based partly on the practice of all the great writers of detective stories, and partly on the promptings of the honest author's inner conscience.

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