2024 Challenge: Revisiting the Golden Age

[Judy]

Ruth wrote: "Am I right in thinking that the trend for writing crime books in a numbered series where the story moves on for the main characters is a fairly recent development (1980s onward perhaps)?..."

Interesting question, Ruth, I'm not sure! I think Campion, Alleyn and Wimsey all have their stories developing but there was perhaps more awareness that people might end up reading the books in the wrong order, as I certainly did with many series over the years.

Thanks for all the comments in this discussion - I agree the language is often richer in the GA books and they tend to be my favourites, but the modern ones do have some advantages and, as Ruth says, they might encourage some readers to try a genuine golden age novel.

[Susan in NC]

Keith wrote: "which is why I love Dorothy Sayers . She is a classical scholar , an Oxford MA, one of the first women to be awarded an Oxford Degree in the 1920s (Cambridge women had to wait until 1948) and her w..."

It was written as a play first, I read somewhere, then she decided to turn it into a novel - I wonder if that contributed to the plot “hiccups”?

[Keith]

I haven't seen or read the original play so I don't know what it is like. Dorothy must have had to 'pad' the original to make a romance with detective interruptions, she says so herself. Some of the action is rather contrived, Peter's dream about being chained leading to his building of the murder weapon and knowing how it was assembled for example, telling Bunter what to look for and realising that there was a missing line or cord which Puffet had picked up and saved rather jarred with me. Also Bunter's super efficiency in anything and everything is rather OTT and the 9gallon keg of beer ordered should have arrived the next day as promised but was not mentioned at all when MacBride was removing all the furniture from around everyone following the funeral. There are several similar matters here and there and as Harriet Vane says, she doesn't write her books without making at least half a dozen 'Howlers' in them which most people miss anyway, so Dorothy is well aware of her own 'faults', if you like.

[Susan in NC]

Good points! You certainly know your Sayers.