Forgetting Elena

From the New York Times Book Review: Was it Wilkie Collins who wrote the first detective novel? I'm inclined to think detective fiction may be older, the oldest vehicle for the novel, the necessary form. Who exactly is Tom Jones; what is Mr. Rochester's secret; what sort of fellow can this Osmond be? These are mysteries to be solved, and their solutions, chapter by chapter, generate novels. It is the reader who plays private investigator throughout--as in fact he does in the standard detective novel--sifting through the author's clues and relishing the evidence. As he grows more wily, his…