If you have been an occasional or frequent reader of this space, you already know that it’s not your garden-variety review column, as the extraordinarily brilliant editors of The New York Sun have given me the freedom to write pretty much whatever we think is appropriate (and they even usually let me get away with being inappropriate on my occasional rants). More than reviews, I try to provide information about the world of mystery events, movies, awards, television, etc.

Four years ago this month it all began, and I thought it might be fitting to reiterate the philosophy that motivates these words of praise for the books I admire and the nasty stuff about those that deserve a darker fate. I admit I’m opinionated. You may already have noticed this. I get heat for it with those who disagree (you wouldn’t believe some of my e-mail!), and I respect those who take cogent and reasonable positions in opposition (though of course they’re wrong). Here’s the bottom line: I like genuine literature. I’m done with the Russian novelists and experimental poets and other classic works. I had enough of that at college and later, when I thought it was part of a well-rounded education to work through “Ulysses” and Ezra Pound and Tobias Smollett. It is, and I did. For the past three decades, I have sought my serious literature in the world of mystery fiction and have found it abundantly. We live in the Platinum Age of crime fiction. In those years, we have had such masters as James Crumley, Charles McCarry, Michael Connelly, Ross Thomas, Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, John le Carre, Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas H. Cook, James Ellroy, P.D. James, Robert Crais, and many others. I’ll match those against any lineup of “literary” writers you would care to name.

And think of the masterpieces in recent years: “The Last Good Kiss”(Crumley), “The Tears of Autumn” and “The Secret Lovers” (McCarry), “Red Dragon” (Thomas Harris), “Mystic River” (Lehane), “The Poet” (Connelly),”The Black Dahlia” (Ellroy), and “Breakheart Hill” and “Red Leaves” (Cook), just to scratch the surface. In terms of superb characterization, quotable dialogue, original plots and graceful prose, we can consider ourselves fortunate indeed to have them, and too many others to list (though I try to write about them as the opportunity arises) on our shelves. If you don’t have them on your shelves, then you don’t know how deprived you’ve been.

On the other hand, if a book presents household animals (or farmyard ones, for that matter) that are smarter than the human protagonists, you’ve lost me. If, in the middle of a murder investigation, the sleuth stops what she’s doing to go shopping and try on designer clothes, you’ve lost me. If a thrilling moment ends abruptly with someone waking from a dream, you’ve lost me. Give me six more column inches and I’ll tell you about other pet peeves, such as qualifying the word “unique” and having the hero look into a mirror and describe the person who looks back. Clichés don’t just make me roll my eyes; they make me irate enough to sputter.

Detective stories are just one kind of mystery, a genre I define broadly as any work of fiction in which a crime or the threat of a crime is central to the theme or plot. This includes espionage fiction, as a crime against the state is at least as worrisome as a crime against an individual. After a period of several years (just after the inevitable and welcome collapse of the Soviet Union), spy stories all but fell off the edge of the earth, but they have come back wonderfully in the works of Mr. McCarry, Nelson DeMille, Daniel Silva, Alan Furst, Robert Littell, and other younger, less prolific writers.

It is a joy to welcome “literary” writers into the world of storytelling, as there has been a recent trend of them turning to the mystery or crime novel, as in works by Michael Chabon, John Banville (under the pseudonym Benjamin Black), Salman Rushdie, Trevor Barnes, and, of course, Joyce Carol Oates, who has been writing about criminal behavior for most of her distinguished career.

It is at this bountiful buffet of mystery novels and short stories at which I have the opportunity to feast, to gorge on my favorite treats and judiciously sample new ones, some of which are indescribably delicious, others of which make me want to lose my cookies. I’ll try to pass on the goodies, and warn you about the oysters in an “r”-less month.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at otto penzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.