1 00:00:15,430 --> 00:00:21,850 Many of your friends fans will be delighted to know that another book from you 2 00:00:21,850 --> 00:00:28,600 is on the publisher's shelves and it's called Talking About Detective Fiction. 3 00:00:29,590 --> 00:00:34,630 How did it all come about? Well, it began as long ago as 2006, 4 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:43,240 when I had a letter from the then librarian of the Bodleian at the request of the publishing department to write a book in aid of the library. 5 00:00:43,300 --> 00:00:54,160 The royalties on talking about detective fiction are going to Bodley, and I wonder why you must have some affection for the dear old place. 6 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:58,780 Is that right? Anyone who has any contact with Oxford knows about the Bodleian. 7 00:00:59,110 --> 00:01:01,719 It is one of the greatest libraries of the world. 8 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:07,570 And of course, it's not only for scholars, it's for everyone who is interested in books and wants information. 9 00:01:07,630 --> 00:01:11,110 Some people have heard of Cambridge, haven't they, as well as Oxford? 10 00:01:11,140 --> 00:01:19,180 Some people. And I just wonder. There are far more crime writers that we associate with Oxford, 11 00:01:19,330 --> 00:01:25,930 who you shouldn't be surprised about this because you have made Oxford the most murderous city in the whole of the United Kingdom. 12 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:31,780 How many body bags of you produced? Well, that final count for most with 91 corpses. 13 00:01:31,930 --> 00:01:41,110 I didn't count them myself, but somebody sent me 71 corpses and I kept a little card by the television set plus three or two. 14 00:01:41,110 --> 00:01:44,080 Adam Derbyshire can't possibly compete with that. 15 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:57,870 The central theme of this book, Phyllis, I think, is the development of what we always used to call and how you use detective stories. 16 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:04,000 And these days we drifted towards sort of a different nomenclature as a crime novel. 17 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:07,120 Can you explain a little more, more fully then? 18 00:02:07,540 --> 00:02:14,380 Well, if we go back to the so-called Golden Age, it had to be a puzzle and it had to be an ingenious puzzle, 19 00:02:14,590 --> 00:02:18,520 and people had to be killed in very clever, ingenious ways. 20 00:02:18,850 --> 00:02:24,640 They take people into an entirely different world, very often with a modern crime novel. 21 00:02:24,830 --> 00:02:30,610 You're taken into the same old, violent world that you read about in the newspaper and see on the television. 22 00:02:30,910 --> 00:02:35,500 Whereas if we go back into this comfortable village where Miss Marple lives, for example, 23 00:02:35,500 --> 00:02:40,420 the vicar might find a body on the study floor, but it doesn't much interfere with the Sunday sermon. 24 00:02:40,660 --> 00:02:45,610 And it's all solved by Poirot's Grey cells, or Miss Marple with her knitting. 25 00:02:46,540 --> 00:02:51,640 And then the little village is absolutely transformed, peaceful again, until the next murder happens. 26 00:02:52,810 --> 00:02:57,790 It's. And that is rather reassuring to read. Order is restored at the end. 27 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:02,870 Yes. Yes, I agree. The. 28 00:03:08,070 --> 00:03:13,410 We've been talking Finnish about mostly UK writers in every way. 29 00:03:13,410 --> 00:03:20,190 We mustn't forget that other countries have an enormous amount of literature, especially, 30 00:03:20,190 --> 00:03:24,360 I think recently we've seen it in some of the Scandinavian countries, haven't we? 31 00:03:24,900 --> 00:03:32,460 Well, I think it's interesting that there nearly always Protestant countries, people have made this point, which is interesting. 32 00:03:32,700 --> 00:03:39,690 And of course, I have a whole chapter on the detective writing in America the sort of so-called hard boiled school. 33 00:03:40,170 --> 00:03:49,800 Someone said that some Roman Catholic countries have a confession and the reading the crime of crime fiction is a way of getting rid of guilt. 34 00:03:50,460 --> 00:03:54,330 And they can give us confession and get rid of it if we have to read crime fiction. 35 00:03:54,660 --> 00:03:58,710 It's perhaps a little sort of far fetched, but it is curious. 36 00:03:59,430 --> 00:04:07,200 I have not mentioned the wonderful cartoons which feature I think in every chapter in this book. 37 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:12,540 I think particularly marvellous is the one about The Hound of the Baskervilles. 38 00:04:12,900 --> 00:04:23,250 I think that is the funniest every best wish to talking about the Detective Bells to you fellows and also, of course, to the Bodleian. 39 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:24,030 Thank you.