Can anyone explain why so many murder mysteries (for which I prefer the term 'whodunnits') are written in a slack and shapeless style? Ellis Peters is a prime example. It's almost as if the genre doesn't deserve anything more elegant or enterprising.

Secondly, can anyone explain the attraction of whodunnits in which there is nothing but the crime and its investigation: no external references, no literary allusions, no discussion of wider topics? I am thinking of Margaret Yorke, for example - but there are plenty of others.

Julius