Little Grey Cells

The best part of writing historical fiction is that the stories don’t get dated. (Because, of course, they’re SUPPOSED to be dated) But I’ll tell you what I’ve been enjoying lately: reading “dated” detective stories from the 1940’s (think Ngaio March and Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers) where a detective solves the crime without DNA and cell phones and sophisticated fingerprints. Those little grey cells really have to work. There are timelines to put together, motives to dig into, and phone conversations to eavesdrop on. (Real dial phones sitting right there in a room where the speaker will get conked on the head just before he can speak the murderer’s name to the person on the other end of the line!) There’s just something so satisfying watching Miss Marple get her man (or woman, as the case may be) as she puts all the pieces together and through observation and intelligent deduction comes up with the name of the culprit. Sometimes “progress” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At least not when it comes to murder mysteries.