Author: Heidi Tiedemann Darroch
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Sophie Hannah’s Closed Casket: The Challenges of Re-Creating Christie for the 21st Century
As I was reading Closed Casket (mostly with pleasure) last night, it occurred to me that my dissatisfaction with Sophie Hannah’s take on Hercule Poirot stems from a possibly intractable problem. In short, Hannah is a much better writer than Christie. And a very good writer trying to mimic a worse one produces challenges. I’m…
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P.D. James and Louise Penny
“Perhaps Adam Dalgliesh is an idealized version of what I’d have liked to be if I’d been born a man.” P.D. James, quoted in an interview by Julian Symons, NY Times, 5 October 1986. “Almost always the idea for a book comes to me as a reaction to a particular place and setting. Sometimes it’s…
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Violent Colonial Histories and the Limits of Reconciliation: Katherine Govier’s Between Men
Katherine Govier’s Between Men Canadian literature has a fair number of internationally-acclaimed women writers, including in crime fiction. I’m puzzled that Katherine Govier’s work is not more famous, and I think she should be counted in the company of Atwood, Laurence, Gallant, and Munro, although she’s about a decade younger than Atwood. While her first…
