Conventional Sleuth
EARLY all the more recent fictional detectives follow the same development. In the beginning burdened with such distinguishing marks as a quaint accent, eccentric clothes and strange physical habits, the Hercule Poirots and the Ellery Queens gradually shed these Holmesian characteristics from book to book until they becotne as like ordinary people as it is possible for two-dimen-sional characters to be. So with Lord Peter Wiimsey. Having followed his career roughly in chronological order,
and remembering him mainly as the more of less normal person of Gaudy Night, I was somewhat startled to meéet again the younger, more mannered Wimsey, betraying so clearly his "Raffles"-Oppen-heim ancestry, in the BBC serial Whose Body? from
1YC. However, once one accepts the rather outthoded convention that a hyper-sensitive palate, connoisseurship and sartorial elegance are integral parts
of the equipment of a sleuth, this is revealed as a dashing and interesting dramatisation. The casting is excellent, the music particularly good, and the dialogue, for all its touches of snobbery, crisp and amysing. And, as I’ve*long ago forgotten "whodunit," I can look forward with undiminished pleasure to further episodes.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19500217.2.20.3
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 556, 17 February 1950, Page 10
Word count
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188Conventional Sleuth New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 556, 17 February 1950, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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