Richard Bradford

So she did fall into that gray area.

In many ways, in the States, it was acceptable because they had a long tradition of noir crime fiction.

But in Europe, crime fiction was treated in a more snobbish way.

And in a curious way, it worked in her favor because the European audience tried to ignore the fact that her novels were, in inverted commas, crime fiction.

They regarded them as an investigation of

psychology, if you wish.

So it depended on which side of the Atlantic you were when you judged work either as crime fiction or serious fiction.

Yeah.

She was translated into about 30 different languages, but I must confess that

I haven't looked very closely into the way in which, beyond Europe and the US, there was a general consensus on what sort of right issue was.

As I said earlier, there was a sort of distinction between Europe, and I don't just mean the UK.

I mean France, in France particularly.

She was treated as a serious literary writer rather than just being ranked as a popular crime writer.

To an extent she was in the UK as well, but in the US she was ranked alongside Raymond Chandler and so on and so on, which was straightforwardly crime.

So again, it depends which lens you're looking at her work through.

It changes the nature of it because it's what you expect to find

that you think you'll find to give you sort of men.