Authors & their detectives

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Agatha Christie, Caroline Graham, Colin Dexter, Dashiell Hammett, Detectives, Dorothy L Sayers, Ellery Queen, G K Chesterton, Georges Simenon, Golden Age, Ian Rankin, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, PD James, Raymond Chandler, Ruth Rendell

A chance conversation in Waterstone’s the other day* showed me that my knowledge of Golden Age detectives wasn’t as good as I thought it was. Either that, or time’s wingèd chariot is taking its toll of my little grey cells …

So here’s a quiz so you can reassure yourself that your memory is fine. Just match the detectives with the authors, some from the Golden Age and a few beyond.

Detectives                                                                    Authors

Roderick Alleyn                                                             Margery Allingham

Tom Barnaby                                                                Raymond Chandler

Father Brown                                                                G K Chesterton

Albert Campion                                                             Agatha Christie

Adam Dalgliesh                                                             Colin Dexter

Alan Grant                                                                    Caroline Graham

Jules Maigret                                                                 Dashiell Hammett

Philip Marlowe                                                               P D James

Miss Marple                                                                   Ngaio Marsh

Inspector Morse                                                             Ellery Queen

Hercule Poirot                                                                Ian Rankin

Ellery Queen                                                                  Ruth Rendell

John Rebus                                                                    Dorothy L Sayers

Sam Spade                                                                    Georges Simenon

Tommy & Tuppence                                                        Josephine Tey

Chief Inspector Wexford

Lord Peter Wimsey

*             *

I’ll post the answers in a day or two.

*I couldn’t remember the name of Margery Allingham’s detective.  The kind man at the till very politely reminded me.  He’s in the list above (the detective, not the kind man in Waterstone’s).

What would you call your own detective?

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Richard III

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Carol Ann Duffy, cunning aunts, Josephine Tey, Leicester, Richard III, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vincent Price

My interest in Richard III – or specifically whether he was a bad or a good king – dates from an aunt cunningly suggesting to me as a young teenager that I read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, in which the murder of the Princes in the Tower is investigated in detective story fashion. And as a boy I could also enjoy his appearance as Richard of Gloucester in that great adventure story The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I was fortunate to see Ian Holm play RIII (complete with hunchback, deformed foot and all) in the great Royal Shakespeare Company series in the early 1960s. (It was when my father was driving us back home from Stratford that we heard on the radio the news of President Kennedy’s assassination.) In another league, let us not forget Vincent Price’s portrayal of RIII in the 1961 film ‘Tower of London’. As you would expect, VP does not play him as the good guy.

I used to believe in Richard’s innocence of the murder of the Princes, but am now agnostic on the subject. Even so, I much enjoyed last week’s interment in Leicester Cathedral, so well done. Great sermon from the Bishop of Leicester. And a great poem from Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Richard’. You can read it at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/26/richard-iii-by-carol-ann-duffy. “ … I once dreamed of this, your future breath in prayer for me …” A wish now granted. RIIIP.