Published at the tail end of last year (December 29, 2020) by Sourcebooks Landmark, Mystery not only takes on this aforementioned challenge, but tacks on the deeper wrinkle of having its protagonist be one of the greatest authors to ever put their fingers on a typewriter-Agatha Christie. And if you nail the former but not the latter? Your work isn’t worth the weight of the two pennies you found in the back of your sock drawer.Įnter The Mystery of Mrs. Not only do you have to have razor-sharp plots and character development, but you also need to authentically capture the essence of your time period.

In that sense, historical fiction is probably the hardest genre to execute from a writing perspective. Growing up as the son of a New York Times best-selling historical fiction novelist, I can sniff out creatives who haven’t done their homework on the era they’ve set their pieces in from a mile off. On the flip side of being such an aficionado, however, comes a b***s*** meter that runs deeper than a submarine. Ask me about any period drama that’s been released in the past ten years in those mediums, and there’s not only a very high chance that I have seen or read it, but also that I have a very strong opinion about its merits.įor example, I’ll fight anyone who suggests Mad Men isn’t a perfectly crafted dissection of the fallacies and contradictions of the American dream, gender identity, and societal hierarchy, or that The Knick isn’t the most underrated series of the past century. Try saying that five times fast.Īs any of my lovely coworkers at Pipeline will tell you, I’m incredibly partial to any material-whether it be in film, TV, theater, or literature-that’s historical.

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