There can be no supernatural elements, no secret passages, no imaginary poisons, no Chinamen, no twins, no mystical intuitive powers, and the detective himself can't have done it. To them I would add several further moratoria: no more alcoholic policemen with dead wives, no autistic idiot-savant crime-scene specialists, no oppressed female detectives derided by sexist colleagues, no overweight computer nerds in dimly lit rooms, no erudite killers arranging corpses in tableaux reminiscent of medieval paintings, no renegade detectives sharing a psychic bond with the killer, no cryptic messages hidden in museums by victims, no opera-loving loners who solve crimes because without them their lives would have no meaning, and absolutely no more reinventions of Sherlock Bloody Holmes
( Christopher Fowler )
[ Wild Chamber ]
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