Which of these four novels has the least in common with the others?

1. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
4. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


Answer: One Hundred Years of Solitude has the least in common with the other books. It is part of a genre called Magical Realism, which depicts a world that strongly resembles real life but contains magical aspects that would normally be found in the Fantasy genre. The other three novels are all Detective fiction, and belong to the Hardboiled sub-genre. Hardboiled detective stories typically feature a deeply cynical (and often unlikable) protagonist, organized crime elements, and a prohibition-era setting.