I'm working on putting together a timeline of fictional British detectives and when they were active. This is what I have so far:
**********
Brother Cadfael - 1130's-1140's
Matthew Shardlake - 1530's-1540's
Eliza Scarlet - 1880's
Sherlock Holmes (original ACD stories) - 1880's-1920's
Amelia Peabody - 1880's-1920's (active in both Britain and Egypt)
Father Brown (book & 1970's show version) - 1910's-1930's
Phryne Fisher - 1920's (active in Australia, but with strong connections to Britain)
Hercule Poirot - most active 1920's-1940's, but continues into the 1970's
Lord Peter Wimsey - 1920's-1930's
Miss Marple - 1930's-1970's
Christopher Foyle - 1940's
Father Brown (modern TV version) - 1950's
Grantchester TV series, multiple "detectives" - 1950's-1960's
Sister Boniface - 1960's
Inspector Morse - 1960's-1970's; 1980's-2000
Tom Barnaby - 1990's-2000's
Jane Tennison - 1990's
DI Jack Frost - 1990's
Rosemary Boxer & Laura Thyme - 2000's
Robbie Lewis - 2000's-2010's
Sherlock Holmes (modern BBC series) - 2010's
John Barnaby - 2010's-present
*********
I'm sure there are zillions of others, from book series, TV shows and movies. These are just the ones I could think of and could remember roughly when they were active without needing to look it up, supplemented with ones recommended to me by other folks.
I'd love to get suggestions to add to the list. Reasonably well known detectives that I forgot about and better dates for the ones I remembered are all welcome. I'd especially like to fill in the large gaps before Sherlock Holmes.
I'm thinking of this as something that might be useful for folks writing fic in any of these universes, and especially for folks doing crossovers, but mostly I'm doing it because it's fun. š
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Qualityā Free Actions
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
He keeps an eye on Andrew those first weeks, once he's back, back to stay with the war in Europe over at least, and invalided out or as good as six months for his eyes to heal as well as they might to go back to flying. With any luck he'll be demobbed without seeing any more of the war.
The tension in him every morning when he comes down for breakfast, the jumping, nearly running contained to a flinch with an effort, the white eyes when the phone rings through the house - which doesn'tĀ happen that often, but often enough.
Oh Andrew...
He's supposed to be retiring, but murders and crimes still happen. But so do fishing days, he brings Andrew with him when he can
He glances up at the blue sky before stepping into the river "Good day for it." At his side, Andrew nods dulley, mechanically. He gets the sense the boy would have done that if he'd said they'd be thick with thunderstorms in half-an-hour.
When he looks back over his shoulder a few moments later, Andrew has crumpled down onto the bank, head in his hands and buried in his knees, shoulders shaking as he cries.
Foyle wades out, sets the rod down, crouches next to him, an arm over his back, drawing him into his body "Oh Andrew...sshhh, ssshh"
"I can'tĀ get away... from it." Andrew gulps out between his sobs "Every morning I wake up... and I'm listening for the engines...counting sortees. The phone..." His whole body shudders at that and he cries harder still.
Cry Andrew, let some of it out
"I know it's over," Andrew half-shouts, mostlyĀ at himself, seeming about to knock his head on hisknees "I heard the radio, I was out all that night. I Know...so why won't it stop?"
He looks up, so lost, broken, bewildered, a little boy again.
Because you spent the better part of four years in it Andrew, when it meant life and Death, can't turn survival off that easily
"It will, in time." He says softly "Bit by bit, but it will." God knows, I was waking up still on trench clock, waiting for the sound of rifles or shells, even before we got to "Morning Hate" time. Hastings was so quiet.
At least I had my job, changed a bit as it was, you haven't even got that.
Rewatching Foyleās War properly for the first time in years (and my husbandās first time).
I hadnāt realised what a little chaos demon Foyle is.
He constantly breaks laws; does whatever he feels right; and ignores all authority at all times. And as my husband says he always chooses the āno paperwork optionā whether thatās letting someone get away with murder or leaving them with a loaded gun.
But itās not just him - everyone he meets gets infected. Not the already chaos demons like Sam and Brooksy but the calm and staid ones like Valentine and Milner.
Just loving the chaos demon and his little feral pals.
Iām (slowly!) working on a fic set during season 2, episode 2 āamong the fewā and I have three questions Iām hoping someone can help with:
Does anyone know if Christopher Foyle still wears his wedding ring? Hand gif sets and starting to rewatch season 1 have so far failed to answer this question.
āMoral hygieneā (information about sexual health) features in the fic. I could find information, some, about the pamphlets etc provided to soldiers during WWI, but Iām having trouble finding the equivalent that would be given to RAF servicemen c 1940. Anyone have any research suggestions please? Iām specifically looking for the text of any and all pamphlets themselves, if they exist.
does the Foyleās war fandom do any fic events or exchanges? (I ask because I find the external pressure to very helpful in getting me to finish stuff; Iād be very interested in helping with / organizing something, too!)
Tagging @paulinedorchester and @kivrin as fellow fans of the showāno pressure to answer of course.
to you and everyone else, thank you for reading and for any help you might give!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Qualityā Free Actions
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
Walter, what seemed like a dozen lifetimes ago, at Courcelette if his last letter to Rilla was to be believed; Diana had often wondered whether he had already considered himself a dead man walking before the day of the last battle, the boy heād been destroyed beyond repair or rebirth.
Aunt Leslie, whom sheād found it easier to talk to than her own mother, perhaps because sheād also had a brother she adored. Perhaps because sheād left Glen St. Mary and never missed it.Ā
Perhaps because Leslie liked whiskey better than tea, newspapers better than poetry.Ā
Una, whoād been too pale since she barely survived nursing her father and stepmother through the Spanish flu, whoād been someone everyone underestimated or decided to treat as a martyr, who would not have judged Di the way her own sisters would.Ā
Rosalind Foyle, whom sheād had to ask about as discreetly as she could, counting on her general reception as a cheerful and polite Canadian, not much like a bossy Yank, to yield her the few details sheād squirreled away. An artist, a mother. A beauty. Better-bred than her husband, well-liked, sheād had elegant hands and never forgot to wear gloves.
Diana only wore gloves to operate and if an actual gale was blowing in a blizzard.
Who had thought all she wanted was to go to France, to make something of her life that would last her the rest of it. That might make the rest of it of a duration she could bear, an end her family could cope with or justify why sheād never return to PEI.
Dear Una,
Youāre the best one to write to, I think. The one whoād mind the least, like it the most. The least awkward for me to imagine reading this, the least likely to tell me something I donāt want to know. I leave for France in a few weeks and now I donāt want to go. Or rather, I do and then I donāt. Thereās something holding me in England now, something to do with Walter, a mystery. Men, whoāve died. A man whoās alive, very much so.
A man I want to know. His name is Foyle. Christopher. He knew Walter, said Walter knew him as Kit. Everyone calls him Foyle or sir or Superintendent.
Christopher.
Oh Una, I thought this was behind me. That it was something Iād never have to deal with, some sort of consolation of being a woman in a world missing a generation of men. I thought I wouldnāt know this and that was a relief, watching you and Rilla and Nan. Faith. Mary. I thought it was fair, that Iād never know heartbreak like this.
And now thereās Christopher. A half-dozen dead men. Walterās poem. And France, waiting for me. I have to go, I know that, but how do I go wanting to stay here, a place I canāt call home. Wanting to come back.
Christopher. I like writing his name because I oughtnāt say it often. Thatās what a young girl does, lovesick, dull, embarrassing herself, making everyone around her smile behind their hands unless itās Miss Cornelia, scolding you for making a fool of yourself and for what, a man? Whatās a man worth, I ask youācanāt you hear her say it, tart, ready to wash her hands of usā
I donāt care what a manās worth, Una.
Just Christopher.
And I canāt answer the question, not to satisfy Miss Cornelia or you or myself.
Youād write me back something comforting, if you could. If you hadnāt died before your time, twice over, after the telegram, after the epidemic. I should have insisted you leave before me or with me. I should have told your father you were worth more than all the rest of them put together or made Dad send you away to convalesce, somewhere warm, where you might have lolled about, turning brown in the sun.
Iāve said Iāll go to France and sew up the men who need sewing up. Cut off the parts that need cutting off. Iāve said thatās my life, my vocation, as important as Motherās poetry, as Walterās, as the babies Jem delivers and the columns Ken Ford writes, and it must be but now thereās murder and Christopher to contend with, a dozen mysteries at the heart of me.
For it seems Iāve a heart after all, Una. It beats and beats and leaps when it oughtnāt. It will break, I know it shall.
Christopher.
Iāll take a dream in lieu of a letter. A flower, out of place, in lieu of a word.
Answer me if you can, Una. You canāt and I know that, but Iāll still hope, silly Di Blythe.
She put the letter in an envelope but left it unsealed and unaddressed.
Left the envelope in an otherwise empty drawer of the desk in her flat. If she didnāt return from France, well, that didnāt bear thinking about too closely. If her papers were sent back to Canada, her father would likely burn the letter rather than let her mother see it unless if gave it to Nan, thinking her twin would derive some comfort and, happily married to Jerry, the bonny wife and mother Di had not made of herself, could weather any pang it gave her.
If somehow it ended up with Christopher, heād know how sheād once felt.
She could make that happen, writing his name across the white field of the envelope, but that was too much like a dare, and for all she was her fatherās daughter, she still had her motherās wise fear of the fey.
Sheād written his name enough. Sheād hope sheād come back to say it.
