who CARES who killed roger ackroyd?

chandler's "cosy" = it features believable women (unlike his) (lauren bacall = the traci lords of her day)

The thing is, at this distance, some of the things I like about DLS are as much symptoms as intentions. She DOESN'T write especially well (by contrast, Chesterton is one the great English writers): she's more interesting - because she was there and because she was sharp — about the observed sociology of minor english art in the 1920s than she is on Art as Art.

justify!

(also the showing-off deductions are a joy, to me at least)

so in what way is father brown the anti-holmes? are you suggesting that holmes = too much character??

Except they're rubbish, o.

justify!

No, ancient.

I wuv father brown, but I don't think they're meant to be read as detective stories in the same way as the other writers here... I mean, there's one about robots for chrissake.

My favourite is 'The Honour of Israel Gow'. Very dour and scots.

*i also read a non-maigret simenon abt a man going through mid life crisis: he pisses in a bottle and the piss is full of little white bits so he throws the bottle into the street... i was not in fact ready for this kind of behaviour in tec novels aged 13 (tho this was not a tec novel, but whatevah)

in sayers you usually know whodunnit by about page five, you just don't know HOWdunnit (or why)?

it's interesting that ther formalisation of reader involvement — the whodunnit as riddle — actually makes them lamer rather than richer (not so much in the Edward Wilson "sub-literary" sense, or at least, by scaring up that tired old hare he's missing a better point, about success and failure in writing)

Except for Sara Paretsky, who rocks.

and do "cosy" and "the 20 rules" exactly overlap?

I don't have anything against them, but I can't say that I've read anything like that in years.

everything else = notsocozy.

Myself I lead towards the notsocozy.

COmpare this to McBain's police proceedurals where the detectives in the precinct have grown older, married, died etc etc. While the crimes are often very interesting, I go back to see what has happened to the characters.

DLS was a known expert on James, and also Sheridan Lefanu => she had grisly gothic darkness deep in her soul. Climax of NT = a mruderous fenland flood and wimsey trapped in the belfry under SONIC ATTACK!! "Cosy": pshaw....

but even as a kid i remember being amazed at the starstudded casts of the christie films, what was it - a cousin of the 70s disaster films (the only comparable thing in terms of huge all star casts, execpt those mainly took the opportunity to abuse their stars) or an attempt to go back to Grand Hotel style filmmakig and also by revisiting the time period, let stars feel like Stars and look all glamorous and shit.

the casts are insane, just the mid 70s thru late 70s major Christie movies have in Death on the Nile
Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith (as just a few)

Murder on Orient Express (probably my fav)
Albert Finney Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Michael York

(btw, how come jane birkin was in 3 or so christie movies?)