Miss Shelf
New Member
Has technology helped or hurt the mystery/thriller/spy genre? Or all genres, for that matter? I'm thinking of cell phones-no longer do people have to find the nearest telephone booth (with a working phone) in order to convey urgent messages; agents tracking spies can now do so via satellite technology-no longer is it necessary to physically catch the spy red-handed, when all it takes is video evidence; laboratory technology can spit out results in a matter of seconds to nab suspects. What would Agatha Christie make of this? Would she have been as successful in modern days as she was in the low-tech 1930s? Would Sherlock Holmes use a BlackBerry? Or are the great mystery writers of the pre-technology age simply that-a phenomenon of their age, just as the creators of today's fictional detectives are adept at using technology to solve their cases?