Reading the Detectives discussion

I'm enjoying the book by J.S. Fletcher I'm reading at the moment, The Safety Pin, and I was just wondering why he never had a regular series detective, unlike some of the other best-known Golden Age writers, and whether he would be better-known now if he had?!

Anyway, just wondered if anyone can recommend the best books by him they have read so far. I'll just check which ones I've read.

My favourite by Fletcher so far was The Paradise Mystery, a group read here last year, which, unusually, has an unsympathetic detective.

The one I'm reading now, The Safety Pin, also has several unpleasant characters who turn detective in their own interests and there is a lot of humour thrown in.

The others I've read by him to date are In the Mayor's Parlour and The Middle Temple Murder, which I enjoyed but didn't find especially memorable, and the rather disappointing The Orange-Yellow Diamond, which was rather slow and also had a lot of racial stereotypes.

I do like the fact that Fletcher sets his books in many different areas and has a wide range of characters from all kinds of backgrounds.

I'm intending to read more by Fletcher. I did enjoy The Paradise Mystery. :)

I read a few of his a couple of years ago- Orange-Yellow I agree was not very PC at all but in the Charing Cross mystery (I think), I realised that perhaps that wasn't his general attitude.

Ooh, I haven't read The Charing Cross Mystery yet - I'll add that one to my TBR!

Judy wrote: "Ooh, I haven't read The Charing Cross Mystery yet - I'll add that one to my TBR!"

I know there was a Jewish character but he was one of the heroes, if I remember right.

That's interesting - there were several Jewish characters in The Orange-Yellow Diamond. I think Fletcher intended to portray them positively and one Jewish character was one of the heroes there too, while another was a heroine, but there was still a fair bit of stereotyping. But the main PC problem in that book for me was the very negative portrayal of the Chinese characters.

Judy wrote: "That's interesting - there were several Jewish characters in The Orange-Yellow Diamond. I think Fletcher intended to portray them positively and one Jewish character was one of the heroes there too..."
Then I think I may have confused the tw- one I read did have a Jewish character portrayed in the stereotypical way which made me wonder but the other had one in a more positive light. Now I'm not sure which was which.

Just checked- Charing Cross was probably the one with the more stereotypical portrayal.

I do wonder though how one should go about assessing older books for PC-ness- one can't obviously judge them by today's standards- some books though not entirely PC don't "feel" outrightly so while with others one feels the opposite.