Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I love ESG because he plays FAIR. As much as we all love us some Sherlock, the truth is, you could never solve one of his, because you have no way of knowing that Sherlock sniffs rare apple tobacco from the outer regions of Timbuktu, which was smoked only by the indigenous...well, you know what I mean. ESG gives you all the clues. He hides nothing; he uses good old illusion and prestidigitation and misdirection. That's fair play, to me.
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My basic assumption for mysteries is that "playing fair" means all of the clues the detective uses to solve the case are revealed to the reader, and the reader should be able to also solve the case. The trick is revealing the clues in such a fashion that the reader doesn't realize they
have been. Agatha Christie was the absolute master at that sort of indirection.
But I suspect Doyle was writing Sherlock Holmes stories before that notion of fair play became established. We do have fun watching Watson trying to use Holmes' methods and failing miserably.
But some mysteries I read
aren't "Whodunits". An example is later work by the late Nicholas Freeling (who wrote the Inspector Van Der Valk and the Henri Castang series.) Who the killer was is clear early on. Freeling is more interested in exploring the motivations, and
why the killer committed murder. They are character portraits using mystery as a framing device.
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Dennis