ABSTRACT
Arecent programme on the overseas service of the BBC, entitled ‘Women and Mystery’, was concerned with the detective story. In the final part of the series a number of persons — P.D. James, Elizabeth Ferrars et al. as writers, Anthony Storr as a psychiatrist — were asked why they thought the genre continues to be as popular as ever. A number of themes emerged: vicarious excitement, the spice of fear, a desire to remove oneself from the mundane and humdrum, a fascination with death, a pleasure in identifying scapegoats, the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the horrific.
