UNRESOLVED MYSTERIES.

UNRESOLVED MYSTERIES. Because of the expectations of readers, the deliberate refusal of an author to provide a solution for a mystery can be very powerful. I can think of two novels that do that. THE BIG SLEEP is not one of them. A COAT OF VARNISH (1979) by C.P. Snow goes unsolved (I had a theory, but it can’t be tested.) The book’s title illustrates what the book presents. Beneath the cultured surface of British society (Belgravia) are unknown horrors reflected in an unsolved murder. The other is BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL (1969) by Chester Himes, which presents another breakdown in urban society. Although the form is that of a detective story, it concludes with a blind man with a pistol shooting wildly on a subway train. The reader’s expectations that the book and the society it presents will have an underlying order make the endings of the books more troubling and shocking—or that was my experience.