News that two American publishers are cancelling paperback original mystery lines has some Canadian crime writers wondering about the future of the genre.
While the British have over a century of crime fiction, and the Americans got moving in the 1920s and 30s, Canadians have only started to emerge in the last ten to fifteen years.
In other words, we don’t have much of a tradition.
Whether this publishing news is a blip or a trend, we do not know.
But up here in the frozen north, we are paying attention.
If nothing else, the news points to the need to develop younger readers, in all countries, if Canada is to develop a crime writing style and tradition of its own.