stevie boy

thank you

Rowdon

I don't have a copy of his essay ("Simple Art of Murder") around, but Raymond Chandler made some valid points about the weaknesses of Christie-style detective fiction: one was that you have to remember when the gardener planted the prize roses (which is the fun of them, really), another being that nobody except the victim and the killer is actually affected by the murder: "Good Lord - it was the family doctor, whom we have all known for some forty years. And had never done anything like this before. Tch... anyway, who's ready for cocktails?" Which is another reason I like them. But Chandler also had this to say about his own style: "The realistic style is easy to abuse. It is easy to fake; brutality is not strength, flipness is not wit, edge-of-the-chair writing can be as boring as flat writing."

Both make excellent reads, and in general excellent TV and films.

I'd like to have seen Rutherford and Bogart together in a Christmas special written by the two writers together ...