Slacks for Ella Funt

When I was a kid, one of the first things I read obsessively were Agatha Christie mysteries. There are something like 70 or 80 of them total. I read them all. Some of her books have up to 3 or 4 alternate titles (British title, American title, etc.), so I was always picking one up thinking I hadn’t read it yet only to start it and realize that I had read it under a different title.
Agatha Christie mysteries are pretty straightforward—the crime is at the beginning, there’s a set cast of suspects, and at the end you find out whodunnit. For a long time, this was my standard for mysteries: they had to be British, and the crime had to be solved at the end. It took me a long time to appreciate procedural mysteries, where characters are more complex, the story is more complicated, and it doesn’t start with a crime and end with a solution.
When we stayed at my coworker’s place in the country a few weeks ago, he had a big collection of classic mysteries, many of them in the original 10¢ paperback editions. They were the perfect vacation read, famiilar and engaging. Now, my favorite for classic British mysteries is Dorothy Sayers, because in addition to the standard mystery plotline, there’s also the escapism of the the fabulous lifestyle and surroundings of her detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. I love reading about aristocratic London in the 1930s, with the butlers, private clubs, and country houses.
The best Dorothy Sayers, for me, is Gaudy Night, because it combines a few of my obsessions—classic mysteries, old Oxford traditions, London in the 30s—and even has a female protagonist in Harriet Vane, Wimsey’s love interest.
I always wish I could travel to different time periods, as well as places. I want to go to Egypt, but I want to go to Agatha Christie’s Egypt, when you could take houseboats down the Nile and stay at Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo, which burned down in the 1950s. I want to go to Paris in the 60s of the great French films. And I want to go to Lord Peter Wimsey’s London.