“You’re pretty sure it was murder, eh, Mr Rudge?’
‘Well, you don’t imagine it’s suicide, do you? And I’m afraid I can’t see how that knife could have got into his chest by accident. Accident, suicide, or murder, it’s got to be one of those three’”
The Floating Admiral
About the blog:
I’m an academic and reviewer of (golden age) detective fiction.
Having come across Sparkling Cyanide at a school library in my early teens, (havign already read the entirety of Sherlock Holmes, in one giant tomb with tissuepaper pages) I spent the next year working my way through all of Agatha Christie’s novels and short stories, totally engrossed in them, with their fun puzzles, nostalgic feeling and general escapism.
Returning to these, via audiobook for some Christmas time down time, I was struck by how often suicide came up in their narratives. This, as I found out, is not limited to Christie alone, and really opened up the question of how suicide, and wider mental health more generally, is used and treated in golden age detective fiction. My love for Christie peaked when I focused my MA Medical Humaninites dissertation topic on her – “Justice, despair or plot; reading suicide in the popular novels of Agatha Christie”.
“‘But, my dear child, what do you propose to do?’
‘Have adventures and see the world… Yes, I do, doctor. I’m not a sentimental schoolgirl – I’m a hard-headed mercenary shrew! You’d know it if you married me!’”
The Man in the Brown Suit
One of those three 