While I do enjoy the pure puzzle aspect of a murder mystery, though I'm not very good at figuring out whodunnit, perhaps the greatest pleasure for me lies in the snapshot of social mores that crime novels provide. This is why I love reading Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers so much -- there is nothing like a murder novel, with its high stakes, to spotlight social anxieties and pressures of the time.
The 1980s don't seem so long ago to me but these three novels, published between 1981 and 1983, were very much of their time. Luke Thanet's wife wants to go back to work now that their youngest child is starting school -- the fact that Thanet would even regard this decision as worth arguing about speaks volumes about how the world has changed in the last forty years. One story featured a deserter from the Second World War -- they are all long gone by now. The descriptions of clothes and furnishings are often hilarious. Most strikingly, the things that characters regard as utterly shameful secrets -- mental illness, male sterility, infidelity -- are much more accepted now and openly acknowledged (even if not exactly enjoyed). Even the reason why Dorothy Simpson gave up writing novels (RSI) seems quite dated!
I must note in passing that Thanet's small daughter Bridget is described as having sci-fi show Blake's 7 as 'one of her favourites.' I devoured Blake's 7 as a teen in the 80s but I can't approve of it as being suitable for an eight year old!
It is rather nice to have a detective who is so resolutely ordinary, rather than, I dunno, a poetry-writing aristocrat or a Belgian egg. Thanet's humdrum personal life allows the crimes to shine. I'm looking forward to his further adventures.
Ordinariness in a fictional detective can be a good thing - I agree absolutely. And yes, the time-travelling to Britain of 40 years ago is so revealing; it mirrors Australia in the 1980s, too. Genre novels work well as research material for manners and attitudes, don't they?
ReplyDeleteThey really do!
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