NO HOUSE is more haunted than the mind of a fictional detective who’s tangled in dark mysteries for which there seems to be no explanation, in which everyone is a suspect. Though imbued with impending disaster, detective stories also offer a potent escape, often delivering catharsis via mysteries solved. We chase this resolution when we follow Raymond Chandler’s deeply and romantically flawed Philip Marlowe in “The Long Goodbye.” We find it in the shocking and tragic twist—the most addictive part of detective stories—in Ed McBain’s “Sadie When She Died.” Here, three writers, all lurkers in the psyches of fictional investigators,…
