detection preferences

[deird1]

When it comes to fictional detectives, you have:

Miss Marple ("it's just not what he'd do...")
to
Rick Castle ("this would be a bit more likely - and would make a much better story")
to
lots of detectives in the middle who are too non-quirky to discuss
to
Hercule Poirot ("logically, this alarm clock could only have been heard by someone inside the room - so she must have been lying")
to
Sherlock Holmes ("ahah! footprints! which proves that the crime was committed by a Bolivian man with red hair, money troubles, and a savage history")


Miss Marple is practically using intuition (as well thought-out as her deductions generally are) - and then the continuum goes on into more clue-based territory, putting more and more importance into finding the facts... until we're up to Holmes, who is almost using intuition again.

(Seriously - I read a Sherlock Holmes story once. He found some footprints, measured the distance between them, and spied a gold wedding ring that someone had dropped. From this he deduced forty pages of the villain's personal history. And he was right about every bit of it.)


I tend to prefer my detectives from the Marpleish end of the spectrum. (Although the occasional clue-heavy mystery can be fun.)



Of course, there are also Nancy Drew clones: where the detective runs around speculating wildly until the villain kidnaps them, tells them the whole plot, and then leaves them to get rescued.
They're... kind of strange.

Comments

[velvetwhip]

I have to confess to a passionate fondness for Poirot. But I do like Miss Marple as well.


Gabrielle

[mauvedragon.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of the Phryne Fisher books by Kerry Greenwood? I suspect she would fit your preference for eccentric detectives rather nicely.

[deird1]

No, not at all. *adds to list*

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I was trying to work out where V I Warshawski fits in your spectrum, then I saw your characterisation of Nancy Drew. Yeah, that's it. (Except that rather than being left to be rescued, VI generally drags herself bleeding from a gunshot wound across the floor, drops onto the roof of a passing train, then swims across Lake Michigan before being fished out by a helpful neighbour, and spends the next month recovering in hospital while she works out who the real villains are, then leaves her sickbed to go and confront them...)

[curiouswombat]

I am more of a fan of the Miss Marple end of the spectrum, too.

[cereta]

I comment mostly to use my icon.

And you have largely put your finger on why I've always preferred the Marple stories to the Poirot ones. As much of a mystery devotee as I was (and still am), the Fair Play aspects...kind of bore me. I would voluntarily spoil myself for the ending. The Marple stories are so much more human, IMHO, less intellectual puzzles and more emotional ones.

[deird1]

(Haven't seen any of the various screen-Marples, but the one in your icon has always struck me as looking the most like Miss Marple should look...)


The Marple stories are so much more human, IMHO, less intellectual puzzles and more emotional ones.

*nods* I enjoy the puzzle aspect of Poirot stories on occasion, but Miss Marple's are so much more interesting.