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Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

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Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#31

Post by cafard »

dang wrote: post #11

(spoiler, sorry --) > The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow The Murder of Roger Ackroyd breaks that one decisively, no? I find it interesting that Agatha's first classic was already turning the genre on its head. Pretty sure she broke this one too: > The detective must not himself commit the crime. ... but I'l…

Somewhere, probably in the essay referred to, Knox acknowledges Christie's bending of the rules. But it has been an awfully long time since I read the essay.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#32

Post by pjc50 »

open-source-ux wrote: post #25

The 'police procedural' crime drama has become very popular on British TV in recent years. There's probably too of much it to be honest. The most popular is a BBC series called Line of Duty about corruption in the police force ("bent coppers"). There are seven series (seasons) so far and the plots are far-fetched but entertaining. Every episode features police interviews or interrogations which make up much of the dr…

Line Of Duty is absolutely excellent and a cut above regular police procedura, but it bends the rules slightly: there are times when the first the audience is made aware of a piece of evidence is when it appears in the interview scenes. Magnifies the impact of the drama but at the expense of it not being even theoretically possible for the viewer to be ahead of the detectives.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#33

Post by nottorp »

labster wrote: post #18
pyuser583 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s obviously never seen “Chan Is Missing,” one of the greatest noir movies ever: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Is_Missing .

If you read OP, it’s mentioned in detail that the decalogue never applied to hardboiled/noir American stories.

Also I think that movie came 50+ years after peak hardboiled detective... 1983.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#34

Post by noahbrier »

teddyh wrote: post #28

> Inspector Dupin His name is C. Auguste Dupin, and he is not an inspector, nor is he ever called that. Sloppy research of this type makes everything else in the article rather suspect.

Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#35

Post by kgwgk »

jihadjihad wrote: post #3

Surprised there is no mention of Dashiell Hammett, a contemporary of Christie's. He wrote The Maltese Falcon in 1930, introducing the world to Sam Spade, an interesting contrast to Hercule Poirot. The interwar period certainly was the golden age of detective and mystery novels, whether they were more in line with the Christie formula or followed a more hard-boiled, American style. I wonder to what degree the novels o…

> Orson Welles's The Third Man

I'm not sure if you were implying some kind of authorship but it was written by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#36

Post by teddyh »

noahbrier wrote: post #34
teddyh wrote: post #28

> Inspector Dupin His name is C. Auguste Dupin, and he is not an inspector, nor is he ever called that. Sloppy research of this type makes everything else in the article rather suspect.

Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/

I see. To be fair, the context did not make this clear.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#37

Post by kgwgk »

noahbrier wrote: post #34
teddyh wrote: post #28

> Inspector Dupin His name is C. Auguste Dupin, and he is not an inspector, nor is he ever called that. Sloppy research of this type makes everything else in the article rather suspect.

Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/

> that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin

How so? The link goes to https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/edgar-allan-poe-in...

> which is based on the book

What book? It's based on the work of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörg_Bong

By the way, he didn't even get Edgar Allan Poe's name right.

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#38

Post by KineticLensman »

I’m trying to decide whether Midsomer Murders [0] follows these rules. I think it does with the possible exception of Rule 6 (no accidents or unaccountable intuition): DCI Barnaby often develops an intuition about a complex chain of events (usually multiple murders). Additional rules that seem to apply to Midsummer Murders include:

* If one of the suspects is a previously convicted hardened criminal, he will turn out to be innocent

* Any person identified as obviously guilty by Barnaby’s sidekick will turn out to be innocent

* If, early in an episode, Mrs Barnaby is seen to have acquired a new hobby, it will definitely be related to the murder in some way

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsomer_Murders

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#39

Post by noahbrier »

kgwgk wrote: post #37
noahbrier wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/

> that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin How so? The link goes to https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/edgar-allan-poe-in... > which is based on the book What book? It's based on the work of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörg_Bong By the way, he didn't even get Edgar Allan Poe's name right.

You're right, those are both on me. I put the link in and will fix that and spelling.

(I run Why is this interesting? and edited the piece.)

Re: Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction

#40

Post by noahbrier »

teddyh wrote: post #36
noahbrier wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/

I see. To be fair, the context did not make this clear.

Agree, that's on me. Fixed.
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