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As a writer, I still maintain that truth is not stranger than fiction; as a doctor, I am not quite so sure.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
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Indeed, as the years have passed, and as the prospects of a lasting peace and restored global prosperity fade further into the background, the face of life has steadily lengthened. This forbidding dropcloth, the threatening background music to which our lines are somewhat painfully spoken, is reflected even in the detective novel.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
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Better still, the author could join the No Romantic Heroes or Heroines in a Detective Novel League, of which I should one day very much like to be the first President.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
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At least ninety-nine out of every hundred readers of mystery fiction seek nothing more than pleasant relaxation. The hundredth can safely be left to take care of himself. The masculine pronoun is, of course, used merely for convenience. Readers of detective novels have no gender.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
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Many years ago, I made no less than five attempts to start a mystery novel. Five times I re-read the first chapter, the only one I had written, making a few corrections, altering a word, re-phrasing a sentence. That was as far as I progressed for more than six months. Something always happened to hold me up—a measles epidemic, an urgent report, a lengthy conference, a food-poisoning outbreak. At last, when I was really beginning to despair, I was able to make an uninterrupted run. It may be pure coincidence that Torquemada stated later in the Observer that this first chapter was just about the best I had written.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
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Many mysteries in the realm of medicine still await solution. When they are solved, those of us who escape the hazards of the atomic age and the more immediate menace of the automobile, will presumably live to the ripe old age of the patriarchs. Meantime, medicine has its mysteries, more tragically real, more incomprehensible than any yet devised by the human mind.
Sutherland ScottBlood in Their Ink
