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Written by Hyacinth Cortes   
mystery_manor_readingMystery Manor on Info Island featured a display on hard-boiled and noir fiction writers for its winter exhibit. The setting for the display suggests a “noirish” 1940s environment that might have been familiar to Raymond Chandler when he was writing detective stories in Los Angeles during the 1930s until his death in 1959. A California-style bungalow houses a display on selected writers, representing the hard-boiled detective novel from James M. Cain to Sara Paretsky. The scene is complete with (virtual) smoldering cigarettes in ash trays and unlimited whiskey to get in the mood for noir.
The exhibit opening was celebrated with an evening party complete with champagne, whiskey, and dancing. Guests came as their favorite detective or as femme fatales, or perhaps even criminals!
Events for February and March continued the noir theme. Classic noir was celebrated with a live reading at Mystery Manor on February 20 by the accomplished storytellers from Seanchai Library who read Pearls are a Nuisance, a short novel by Raymond Chandler. Bear Silvershade, Shandon Loring and Derry McMahon did a wonderful job portraying various parts including those of a hard-boiled detective with a taste for whiskey and good grammar, a pretty girl looking for some stolen pearls, and a rough-and-tumble fellow who may have stolen the pearls.
On Wednesday, February 23, Mystery Manor’s first book talk of 2011 focused on a recent noir novel – Stardust by Joseph Kanon, with Hyacinth Cortes. Stardust was a perfect fit for the noir theme. It takes place in 1946, and while a murder is at the heart of the story, the book transcends the genre with a story of people in a particular time and place - postwar Los Angeles movie studios just at the beginning of the communist witch hunts. Cyndi Uriza scheduled a reading from a Detroit noir writer in March. The next book discussion in the “Waiting for the Other Gumshoe to Drop” series will again be led by Maxito Ricardo, who will discuss the 2010 novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter byTom Franklin. Join us at Mystery Manor for this event on Wednesday, March 30, 6pm SLT.
Mystery Manor has been on Info Island since the beginning of the Alliance Virtual Library’s SL presence. The look and theme changes at least twice a year; there hasn’t been a “manor” house at Mystery Manor since the early days of the sim. Previous themes include Edgar Allen Poe, Tony Hillerman, garden mysteries, and now the Hard-boiled and Noir fiction display. Hyacinth Cortes and Cyndi Uriza have managed Mystery Manor for the past couple of years. If you would be interested in joining a mystery book club, or interested in participating in an event, or just interested in being part of a group to reinvent Mystery Manor, please contact Hyacinth Cortes in-world or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
The next Mystery Manor exhibit will be on Sherlock Holmes and this should be a real treat. Any exhibit on Sherlock Holmes is rich in period detail, and celebrating the Arthur Conon Doyle’s contributions to the history of the detective story is sure to be great fun.