How has the detective story changed since the last war?
The detective story is far closer to the straight novel than were the rather cosy mysteries of the 1930s when setting, characterisation and, sometimes, psychological truth were all sacrificed to ingenuity of plot. The modern mystery (as the Americans call it) is often more violent, more sexually explicit, less confident in its affirmation of law and order and far more concerned with character and motive than with the ingenuity of the murder itself.
