While the list is definitely outdated (not only have many rules been successfully broken, but some have outdated, offensive language), he does note that the detective should never be privy to clues that are not available to the reader. Interestingly, Ronald Knox, a mystery writer active in the first half of the 20th century, wrote a series of rules about what murder mystery writers were permitted to do. Lack of evidence is, in its own right, a clue. While the amateur detective Philo Vance prefers psychology to explain the crime, he’s still using clues in a larger sense - what is or is not there, people’s personalities, etc.
Granted, The Benson Murder Case plays havoc with clues, showing how easily clues can point to the wrong person, but without them, there’s not much to hold on to. These are the breadcrumbs that help the reader figure out whodunit. They can be found objects - a revealing letter, a missing glove, a fingerprint - or something overheard in a conversation between characters, etc. and the ones that hate you behind your back.For a good murder mystery, there needs to be clues. Sound familiar? As Brian Kenny says in Queer as Folk : "There's only two kinds of straight people in this world: The ones that hate you to your face. He is the outsider peering in, his difference creating his ability to detect the hypocrisies found in the underbelly of a society that never quite accepts him. Poirot mixes with English society but, not part of it, he need not accept its values: he will always be "other," sneered at behind his back. He stands out by his manner, dress, and famous mustache. Hercule Poirot's detachment is greater: He is a foreigner evacuated during the Great War to Britain as a refugee. Her spinsterhood makes her an addition to any social gathering, not its center. However, her two most famous detectives are far from British detective fiction's epitype of the amateur gentleman.īy her age, Miss Marple is an oddity. Heteronormative hypocrisy is prodded as chaos comes from order.
Beneath the veneer, these archetypes have affairs, lead lives subject to blackmail, and so on.
Her characters are predominantly of her own class. More progressive, Gladys Mitchell's work includes themes of repressed desires and transgenderism. Even the devout Sayers explored extramarital partnerships and lesbianism. Golden Age detective fiction was not inherently traditionalist.
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