On April, 20, 1841, Edgar Allen Poe published what is considered to be the the first detective story when his “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, first appears in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine.  The story describes the extraordinary “analytical power” used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris. Following the publication of Poe’s story, detective stories began to grow into novels and English novelist Wilkie Collins published a detective novel, The Moonstone, in 1868. The greatest fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, first appeared in 1887, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet. The cozy English mystery novel became popularized with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series in the 1920s, when other detectives like Lord Peter Wimsey and Ellery Queen were also becoming popular. In the 1930s, sometimes called the golden age of detective stories, the noir detective novel became the mainstay of writers like Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane. Tough female detectives such as Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski became popular in the 1980s. Discover that the librarian did it with a heavy reference book at the library, on hoopla and OverDrive

Simon and Garfunkel hit #1 on the charts with “Mrs. Robinson” on April 20, 1968. Jolted Joe has left and gone to the library, hoopla and Freegal.