Jonathan Creek and Living Happily Ever After

Jonathan Creek has,with its latest series, attracted a lot of flak, but I thought the final episode, The Curse of the Bronze Lamp, was by far the best of the three episodes we've seen this year. It's no coincidence, I'm sure, that writer David Renwick borrowed the title of this one from Carter Dickson, aka John Dickson Carr, the master of the locked room mystery, whose work has been such an influence on Jonathan Creek - not only because of the intricate plots, but also because both Carr and Renwick share a love of humour.

This story scored because there was a strong central mystery - a minister's clever wife is kidnapped, and incarcerated in a confined space (although admittedly one with a highly convenient opening that was necessary for the plot to work.) There was plenty of mystifying elements, including a sudden death in a bath, a moving corpse, a mysterious pink butterfly and identical twins both played by June Whitfield. What more could anyone want? Well, a good plot, of course. I thought that Renwick delivered.

Some criticism of the first two episodes was overdone, in my opinion. The locked room mystery is inherently artificial and if John Dickson Carr's stories were adapted for TV nowadays, they would attract plenty of criticism because of their implausibility. But part of the genius of Carr (and Renwick) lies in the ingenious ways in which they distract attention from the sheer unlikelihood of their scenarios. Here, a funny sub-plot including the sex-starved wife Josie Lawrence was very effective.

Having said all that, I accept that Jonathan Creek has lost its novelty value. And part of the problem lies in the fact that Jonathan is now happily married. His wife is delightful, and here she was better integrated into the storyline than in previous episodes. But how many top detectives are happily married (remembering that even the uxurious Wexford was tempted elsewhere, and so was the grumpily faithful Jim Taggart)? Speaking of John Dickson Carr, Dr Gideon Fell was married - but his wife pretty much disappeared from sight after a book or two. Father Brown never married, of course, and we all know about Sherlock.

Yes, there are some happily married cops,but not that many. Why? The answer is surely simple. Readers and viewers prefer conflict to happiness. In the Golden Age, Inspector French and Superintendent Wilson were very good husbands, but not the most exciting chaps to read about, not by a long way. The unresolved sexual tension between Jonathan and Caroline Quentin in the early shows was part of their appeal. That's been lost now, and all we have is a bit of mild bickering, which is less gripping.

This is a dilemma that countless writers have to grapple with - including me. For what is to be the fate of Hannah Scarlett's relationship with Daniel Kind in the Lake District Mysteries? Can they find true love and yet remain interesting to readers? I'm mulling this over right now....

Researching Place

To what extent should writers research the settings for their books? Opinions vary – after all, Harry Keating famously never visited India until long after his series about Inspector Ghote had won widespread acclaim, not least in India. I gather that the recently deceased Lionel Davidson didn't visit Tibet before writing the Gold Dagger winning The Rose of Tibet. But I think most writers nowadays like to be pretty familiar with their settings, and that’s certainly true of me.

But how do you acquire that familiarity? Sometimes it’s easier said than done. Many years ago, at a crime convention, a member of the audience from Liverpool expressed the view that the fact I hadn’t been born in the city disqualified me from writing about it. Working there for 20 years wasn’t enough. I think the general reaction from the audience was that this was absurd, and in fairness the chap in question (whom I decided to talk to later) eventually seemed to realise this.

With the Lake District, the challenge is different. I’ve never lived or worked there, although I do visit the area as often as I can to try to soak up the atmosphere – and get the details right. But with the Lakes as well as with Liverpool, what I suppose I’m really aiming to do is to convey my personal take on the setting. There is bound to be a degree of subjectivity. I was, therefore, especially gratified last year when The Arsenic Labyrinth was short-listed for Lakeland Book of the Year - the reaction from local people at the Awards lunch to my portrayal of the Lakes was very positive. The same was true this year, when I did a short tour of the area as the guest of Cumbria Libraries.

And finally, though I’m writing about real places, I also make up some of the component parts of those places, partly because I don't want to libel anyone unintentionally (easily done in a murder story set in a real place) and partly because a writer needs a degree of freedom with his or her fiction. You won’t find Brackdale, where Daniel Kind lives, on any map, just as you won’t find Empire Dock in Liverpool, where Harry Devlin has his flat. Authenticity is very important, but with fiction, ultimately the facts have to suit the story.