摘要：在焦虑蔓延的今天，为什么我们反而更爱看老人破案？《周四推理俱乐部》全球销量破千万，斯皮尔伯格携手影帝影后重磅改编！《经济学人》深度解析“舒适推理”热潮：没有血腥暴力，只有温暖智斗——原来我们渴望的，不过是一个谜题终会解开、正义从不缺席的世界。

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The Economist ｜It takes a village

“The Thursday Murder Club” and the resurgence of cosy crime

《周四推理俱乐部》与舒适推理的复兴

In turbulent times, people want even their crime stories to be comforting

在动荡的年代，人们甚至希望他们的犯罪故事也能带来慰藉

在大多数犯罪故事中，侦探们担心的是狡猾的罪犯、不可靠的证人和爱管闲事的“老好人”。在理查德·奥斯曼（Richard Osman）的畅销书《周四推理俱乐部》（TMC）系列中，调查人员必须对付一群更不屈不挠、更不留情面的人：想找个安静地方玩拼图游戏的老人。

TMC的四位成员是从他们舒适的养老院里工作的侦探。这需要他们接管通常用于更健康追求的房间，比如法语会话课，取而代之的是用可怕的犯罪现场照片以及关于毒药、尸体和刺杀的谈话。

从这个看似不太可能的前提出发，这位英国电视主持人奥斯曼先生点石成金。他的四部《周四推理俱乐部》小说在全球已售出超过1000万册；第五部将于9月25日出版。该系列在美国和英国的畅销书排行榜上总共停留了310周。第一部书的电影改编版由皮尔斯·布鲁斯南、海伦·米伦、本·金斯利和西莉亚·伊姆里（均为图中演员）主演，史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格制片，将于8月28日在Netflix上映。如此多的明星力量投入到一个关于英国古雅村庄里养老金领取者的故事，表明北欧黑色小说中那种饱受困扰的反英雄已是昨日黄花。黑暗、粗粝的故事过时了；以祖父母辈为主角的舒适推理故事正当时。

并非所有人都喜欢这个标签。（该类型的昵称“cozies”采用了美式拼写。）对一些人来说，它意味着低风险、陈腐的写作和老套的情节。舒适推理“并不是一个让我热衷的术语”，写过多个系列的英国作家马丁·爱德华兹（Martin Edwards）不满地说。“我更喜欢用的标签是‘传统推理’。”

然而，这两种称呼都指的是两次世界大战之间的大师们风格的故事，例如阿加莎·克里斯蒂（Agatha Christie）、奈欧·马什（Ngaio Marsh）、多萝西·塞耶斯（Dorothy Sayers）和乔治·西默农（Georges Simenon）。它们通常聚焦于业余侦探。舒适推理的核心是一个谜题，由调查者解决，读者也试图解决：读者应该能够在最后回溯并看到自己错过了什么。“机械降神”（Deus ex machina）和突然的启示是令人皱眉的。

它们往往以系列形式撰写，这让作者可以深入塑造人物。TMC四位成员之间的互动——一位能力超强的前间谍伊丽莎白（米伦女士）；易卜拉欣·阿里夫，一位挑剔但富有洞察力的心理学家（金斯利先生）；一位前工会鼓动者罗恩·里奇（布鲁斯南先生，选角严重失误）；以及乔伊斯（伊姆里女士），一位退休护士，她是读者的代言人——自然、有趣且令人愉快。同样地，读者喜欢看到克里斯蒂笔下的主角之一简·马普尔（Jane Marple）在整本书中随着个人历史的揭示而苦苦思索线索。

舒适推理通常发生在一个有限的区域：通常这意味着一个村庄或小镇，但也可能是一个密室——其本身就是一个舒适推理的子类型——或者一个大城市中界限分明的角落。桑德拉·杰克逊·奥普库（Sandra Jackson Opoku）的“Savvy Summers”系列发生在芝加哥南城，她的主人公在那里经营一家灵魂食物餐厅。其他与美食相关的主角还经营过面馆、甜甜圈店和披萨店。有时，一种爱好定义了故事背景：作者们写过以刺绣（《The Quick and the Thread》）、剪优惠券（《50% off Murder》）、养蜂（《Death Bee Comes Her》）、经营果园（《Deadly to the Core》）和务农（《Murder, She Goat》）为中心的系列。

无论背景设定在哪里，煽动性事件，即谋杀，通常发生在书外或很快带过，因为舒适推理回避血腥场面。它们也避免性和污言秽语。一位文学代理人认为，随着言情小说变得更为露骨，舒适推理开始悄然回归时尚。更喜欢书中没有大量性爱内容的读者转向了这些推理小说。

但是，正如其名称所示，舒适推理最重要的特点是它们能给人慰藉。英雄是否会胜出是毋庸置疑的，问题只在于如何胜出——所以这个过程必须充满娱乐性和曲折性。舒适推理以恶人被擒、正义得到伸张、秩序得以恢复而告终。被谋杀的角色往往是没人真正怀念的恶棍。

这是否使得这些故事公式化？或许是吧：不过正如任何音乐爱好者所知，结构可以容纳甚至鼓励深度。例如，《周四推理俱乐部》系列就探讨了衰老问题。它对好的一面——午餐时间可以随心所欲地喝酒，不那么在意别人的看法——和坏的一面都看得很清楚。伊丽莎白心爱的丈夫正慢慢陷入痴呆。她尽一切努力延缓并掩饰这种衰退，因为她想尽可能长久地把他留在身边。

为美国出版公司圣马丁出版社（St Martin's Press）编辑推理小说的汉娜·奥格雷迪（Hannah O'Grady）最初曾因该类型的可预测性而失去兴趣。然而她后来觉得许多舒适推理小说“实际上是具有颠覆性的”：“主角通常是一个不从事执法工作的年轻女性。她卷入此事一般不是因为她热衷于破案，而是因为警方工作不力。”舒适推理中的警察往好了说也只是必要的辅助。他们通常被描绘成守旧、狭隘和冷漠的形象，尤其是对年长或女性的主角。

尽管这一类型可能正因奥斯曼先生及其同行们而享受复兴，但它已经取悦了几代读者。该类型的女王克里斯蒂是有史以来最畅销的作家，其在全球的小说销量已超过20亿册。亚历山大·麦考尔·史密斯（Alexander McCall Smith）的《第一女子侦探社》（No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency）系列以博茨瓦纳为背景，主角是精明机智的玛·拉莫茨威（Mma Ramotswe），该系列已售出超过2000万册；该系列的第26本书将于9月4日出版。当文学评论家注意到这些书时，更多的是因为它们的受欢迎程度而非其艺术价值。爱德华兹先生说，“没人关注”他早期那些以城市为背景的传统推理小说“的情节”，“因为那类书当时不流行。现在它非常流行。”

舒适推理之所以正在复兴，有两个原因。首先，读者在书中看到了自己。每年在华盛顿特区附近举办的名为“国内恶意”（Malice Domestic）的粉丝大会的联合主席罗宾·阿格纽（Robin Agnew）解释说，舒适推理是关于有吸引力的普通人。“我喜欢黑色小说，但它几乎像歌剧一样。那不是你生活的样子。而这（舒适推理）才是你生活的样子。”

其次，看看它们最初蓬勃发展的时期，即动荡的两次世界大战之间的年代。当世界充满麻烦和不确定性时，人们需要能提供安慰和稳定感的艺术。纽约犯罪小说出版商兼书店老板奥托·彭兹勒（Otto Penzler）说，“当四处起火……人们想去一个有社群的地方。”在舒适推理的书页中，即使不是在现实生活中，当“可怕的事情发生时，它会被解决。坏人被从社会中清除，一切恢复原样。至少这个地方保持了平静、安全和美好。” ■

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IN MOST CRIME stories, detectives worry about wily criminals, unreliable witnesses and meddling do-gooders. In Richard Osman’s bestselling “Thursday Murder Club” (TMC) series, the investigators have to contend with a more relentless and unforgiving crowd: old folk who want a quiet place to do their jigsaw puzzles.

The four members of the TMC are sleuths who work from the comfort of their retirement home. That requires them to take over rooms usually dedicated to more wholesome pursuits, such as conversational French, with grisly crime-scene photographs and conversations about poisons, corpses and stabbing.

From this unlikely premise Mr Osman, a British TVpresenter, has spun gold. His four “Thursday Murder Club” novels have sold more than 10m copies globally; a fifth will be published on September 25th. The franchise has spent a total of 310weeks on bestseller lists in America and Britain. A film adaptation of the first book, starring Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie (all pictured), and produced by Steven Spielberg, arrives on Netflix on August 28th. The star power thrown at a yarn about pensioners in a quaint English village is a sign that the haunted antiheroes of Nordic noir are yesterday’s trend. Dark, gritty tales are out; cosy crime stories featuring grandparents are in.

Not everyone likes that label. (The genre’s nickname, “cozies”, takes the American spelling.) To some, it connotes low stakes, hackneyed writing and trite plots. Cosy crime is “not a term that I’m enthusiastic about”, bristles Martin Edwards, a British author who has written several series. “The label I’d prefer is ‘traditional mystery’.”

Both appellations, however, refer to stories in the style of the inter-war masters, such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers and Georges Simenon. They usually focus on amateur detectives. At cozies’ centre is a puzzle that the investigator solves and readers try to: the reader should be able to follow it back at the end and see what they missed. Deus ex machinaand sudden revelations are frowned upon.

They tend to be written in series, which lets authors develop the characters. The interaction between the four members of the TMC—a fearsomely competent ex-spy, Elizabeth (Ms Mirren); Ibrahim Arif, a fussy yet insightful psychologist (Mr Kingsley); an ex-union rabble-rouser, Ron Ritchie (Mr Brosnan, dreadfully miscast); and Joyce (Ms Imrie), a retired nurse, who is the reader’s proxy—is natural, funny and enjoyable.Similarly, readers like seeing Jane Marple, one of Christie’sprotagonists, puzzle through clues as her personal history is revealed throughout the books.

Cozies usually take place in a bounded area: often that means a village or small town, but it could be a locked room—a cosy subgenre in itself—or a strongly defined corner of a big city. Sandra Jackson Opoku’s “Savvy Summers” series takes place on Chicago’s South Side, where her protagonist runs a soul-food restaurant. Other culinarily inclined protagonists have run noodle shops, doughnut shops and pizzerias. Sometimes a hobby defines the setting: authors have written series centring on embroidery (“The Quick and the Thread”), coupon-clipping (“50% off Murder”), apiculture (“Death Bee Comes Her”), orchard-keeping (“Deadly to the Core”) and farming (“Murder, She Goat”).

Wherever the setting, the inciting incident, the murder, is usually committed off the page or quickly, for cozies eschew gore. They also avoid sex and profanity. One literary agent suggests that cozies began creeping back into fashion as romance novels became more explicit. Readers who prefer their books without lots of bonking turned to these mysteries.

But, as the moniker suggests, cozies’ most important feature is that they are comforting. There is never any doubt whether the hero will prevail, only how—so the how must be entertaining and twist-filled. Cozies end with villains caught, justice served and order restored. The murdered characters tend to be rotters whom nobody really misses.

Does this make the stories formulaic? Perhaps: though as any music-lover knows, structure can accommodate, and even encourage, profundity. The “Thursday Murder Club” series, for instance, grapples with ageing. It is clear-eyed about both the good—heedless lunchtime drinking, caring less about what other people think—and the bad. Elizabeth’s beloved husband is slowly slipping into dementia. She does everything she can to forestall and hide the decline because she wants to keep him with her as long as she can.

Hannah O’Grady, who edits mysteries for St Martin’s Press, an American publishing firm, was initially turned off by the genre’s predictability. Yet she has come to feel that many cozies are “actually subversive”: “The protagonist is usually a young woman not in law enforcement. She generally falls into this not because she’s passionate about solving crimes, but because the police aren’t doing an adequate job.” Police in cozies are at best a necessary adjunct. They are usually portrayed as hidebound, blinkered and indifferent, especially to older or female protagonists.

Though the genre may be enjoying a revival thanks to Mr Osman and his peers, it has delighted generations of readers. Christie, its grande dame, is the bestselling author ever, having sold over 2bn novels worldwide. Alexander McCall Smith’s “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series, set in Botswana and featuring the shrewd and resourceful Mma Ramotswe, has sold over 20m copies; the 26th book in the series comes out on September 4th. When literary critics noticed these books, it was for their popularity more than their artistic merit. Mr Edwards says that “nobody paid attention to the plots” of his early books—traditional mysteries set in cities—“because that type of book was unfashionable. Now it’s very fashionable.”

There are two reasons why cosy crime is enjoying a resurgence. First, readers see themselves in the books. Robin Agnew, the co-chair of a fan convention called Malice Domestic, held annually near Washington, DC, explains that cozies are about appealingly ordinary people. “I love noir fiction but it’s almost operatic. It’s not what your life is like. And this is what your life is like.”

Second, look to their first flourishing, during the turbulent inter-war years. When the world is troubled and uncertain, people want art that provides succour and stability. Otto Penzler, a crime-fiction publisher and bookshop owner in New York, says, “When fires are everywhere…people want to go to a place where there’s a community.” In the pages of cozies, if not in real life, when “something terrible happens, it’s solved. The bad guys are removed from society and everything goes back to how it used to be. At least this place has remained calm and safe and good.” ■

来源：左右图史