Pastiche is sweet

In his 2010 book (‘novel’ just seems too inadequate a term somehow) And Then There Was No One, ironist supreme Gilbert Adair includes himself as the main character in the third and last of his pastiches featuring his ex-spinster novelist-cum-detective Evadne Mount in what is clearly meant to be a truly kaleidoscopic post-modern adventure. In it his page-bound alter ego professes to find nothing more enjoyable than relaxing in front of a black and white British B movie on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Well, I have no idea if this is true or not for the ‘real’ Adair but it certainly one of my great TV viewing pleasure. While ‘Adair’ professes to prefer films from the 1930s, my tastes would probably run more to the post-war variety and most especially those made in the 1960s. I will be looking at some of these over at the Aficionado blog but here the emphasis is on detective stories – what John Dickson Carr called, “The grandest game in the world”.

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