单项选择题

TEXT D
In crime novels the mysteries seen in detective stories are retained, but the investigation focuses more on character than on physical clues or on fooling the reader. Police officers had been detectives in fiction ever since Dickens, but with the police-procedural novel, beginning with V as in Victim by Lawrence Treat, the focus became the grim realities of police work-- corruption, bribes, lying, and the necessity for informers.
An emphasis on police work and on criminal psychology (understanding the motivation for a crime) characterized much British detective fiction beginning in the 1920s. This can be seen in the works of P. D. James, who introduced Inspector Adam Dalgliesh in Cover Her Face (1962); Ruth Rendell, with Inspector Reginald Wexford in From Doon with Death (1964); and Colin Dexter with Inspector Morse in Last Bus to Woodstock (1975). Other successful writers in this school, including Catherine Aird, Reginald Hill, Patricia Moyes, and June Thomson, have at the center of their works an imperfect though sensitive detective whose life and attitudes are of almost equal importance to the mystery. This style became so popular that the formula has occasionally been reversed, most notably in the darkly comic novels of Robert Barnard and in the works of Joyce Porter, whose Inspector Wilfred Dover is as unsympathetic as he is slovenly.
Contemporary crime-fiction writers have been strongly influenced not only by Ross Macdonald, but by Mickey Spillane and John D. MacDonald. MacDonald’s stories about salvage expert Travis McGee shed light on the corruptions of modem life. In the 1970s many American writers of detective fiction began to focus, at least in part, on their detective’s personal life. Among the most notable creators of private investigators whose character extends beyond the case they are probing are Bill Pronzini, Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, and Loren D. Estleman.
At the same time, some writers have avoided graphic violence and explorations of the criminal mind, and have returned to the time-honored device of hooking the reader by slowly revealing a series of clues. Works of this kind, most of which have a lighthearted flavor, have been granted cozies. Charlotte MacLeod’s two series about Peter Shandy and Sarah Kelling made her one of the most popular of the cozy writers. Other writers in this school include Carolyn Hart, Nancy Pickard, and Jane Langton.
The crime novels of the 1980s saw increasing numbers of female investigators who, like their male counter- parts, were quick-witted and capable of dealing with dangerous situations. Marcia Muller was described by fellow writer Sue Grafton as the "founding mother" of the form for her creation of Sharon McCone in Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977). Grafton’ s wisecracking private detective Kinsey Millhone is featured in a series of alphabetically titled mysteries, starting with "A" Is for Alibi, which was published in 1982, the same year that the self-reliant private eye Victoria Iphigenia ("V. I.") Warshawski made her first appearance in Indemnity Only, written by Sara Paretsky. Patricia Cornwell brought autopsy analysis to the forefront of detective fiction with Postmortem (1990), centering on medical examiner Kay Scarpeta.
The combination of crime fiction with other popular types, long a popular practice, gained new favor in the late 20th century. The historical detective story has several pioneers, including Christie’ s Death Comes as the End (1944), set in ancient Egypt, but the true progenitors were Lillian de la Torre with Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector (1946) and John Dickson Carr with The Bride of Newgate (1950) and other novels. The Brother Cadfael stories of Ellis Peters (a pseudonym for Edith Pargeter), which take place in 12th-century Britain, are filled with warmth, humor, and young love, as well as sleuthing. The Name of the Rose (1983), also set in medieval Europe and written by Italian author Umberto Eco, emphasizes philosophical issues as much as it does mystery. Also of special interest are novels featuring the 7th-century Chinese sleuth Judge Dee, written by Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik, and the Victorian novels by Peter Lovesey and Anne Perry.
What was the characteristic of British detective fiction beginning in the 1920s