For some reason I have been reading a lot of Golden Age Detective Fiction of late. The Golden Age of Detective Fiction is generally considered to be the kind of mysteries written in the 1920s and 1930s, primarily in Britain.

What that means is that I have been reading novels by and short story collections featuring writers like:

• Margery Allingham
• G. K. Chesterton
• Agatha Christie
• John Creasey
• Edmund Crispin
• Freeman Wills Crofts
• Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
• Georgette Heyer
• Dorothy L. Sayers
• Patricia Wentworth

These are the kind of mysteries that take place at Country Houses and in Locked Rooms. They are largely bloodless and non-violent. The very opposite of Hardboiled.

One of the features of Golden Age Detective Fiction that I suspect is resonating with me at this point in time is the fact that there is little or no moral ambiguity. There is a clear line between good and bad. Even when the evil-doer is a lord, lady, or merely rich, the guilty are caught and punished.

So unlike our current world where the rich and powerful seem immune to prosecution. So unlike our current world where even the most basic facts can no longer be agreed upon. Where science holds no special place, and good and evil are so completely reversed.