A couple of people have mentioned how great a character Irene is. Considering all she has one split-second scene and a letter, I don't know how much of it is Irene, or the fact that Holmes (and Watson) just give her so much respect and admiration. Or is she in other stories?

But, given Ginger's question about the modern conventions of detective fiction/shows, I think we see this all the time -- the difference is that the modern detective seems to extrapolate more often how a particular suspect will *feel* rather than think.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Holmes seems to anticipate how someone would plan/think/reason. Modern detectives are all about (or mostly about) how a suspect feels. Is X humiliated by his wife cheating? Is Y scheming to get her grandfather's money due to ambition? It's still anticipating or extrapolating how they think, I suppose, but it's starting from a different point.

Or maybe I'm talking out of my ass.

No, no, it's an interesting distinction. Although I'd argue that the fire trick was calculated to make Irene act out of feeling and specifically not out of planning/thinking/reasoning.

That makes sense. It's a fine line, I guess, but Holmes seems pretty unconcerned with how anyone feels about anything, on the whole.

I think I'm partial to Irene because I read the Carole Nelson Douglas books featuring her (and Holmes, from time to time), and she was a lot of fun in them. In the actual story, I think it's both Holmes's and Watson's reverence for "the" woman that resonates.

Another difference that occurred to me was my surprise when there was no dead body in "The Red-Headed League". When I hear "mystery" I expect it, at least in a modern novel. And we all know TV is littered with corpses.

Who are the modern detectives to whom we're comparing Holmes? I think most of the other detective fiction I've read is involves Marlowe or the Continental Op (or, sadly, Mike Hammer, when I was a teenager). There's also tv detectives like Monk, McNulty, Pembleton, and, more systematically, Lenny Briscoe, and, a little further back, Columbo and Rockford.

CI, I think all those you mentioned are valid for comparison, considering the fact it unlikely the creators/writers of all those detectives weren't in some indirect way influenced by Doyle's work.

In a way, Holmes is predictable because of all the emulation. I knew where he was going in "Red-Headed League" once the scam was laid out for us because modern tv/movies has jaded me. Someone in Minearverse, while commenting on Tim Minear's then-running show (sob) The Inside, said something similar - that she's rarely surprised by twists and turns in plotting anymore. In the two stories we read so far, Holmes solves the cases in a pretty straightforward manner, with no unexpected twists or turns, and by my sensibilities it's almost too easy. I'm sure the 19th and early 20th century readers enjoyed it much more.

You're right, Wolfram -- modern viewers/readers *expect* not only the twists and turns, but operate under the "all people are evil" theory (or at least "lots of people are evil"). To the original Holmes reader, a peek into the criminal mind must have been a novelty, because while they certainly understood there was a bad element, one didn't associate with them or generally care to know what they did, or why they did it.

Imagine the difference between that audience, who most likely felt most sympathy for the guy who was fleeced by the League, and the modern audience, who actually likes (or enjoys watching) Hannibal Lechter, and doesn't feel one way or the other about many of his victims.

that she's rarely surprised by twists and turns in plotting anymore.

That was probably me, or at least, I was participating in the conversation.

Interesting factoid: Edgar Allen Poe is credited with inventing several conventions of the mystery genre, including the locked-door mystery, the mystery that depends on the solution of a coded message, the armchair detective, the most unlikely person being the criminal, and the theory that when all other possibilities have been discarded, the one remaining, however improbable, must be correct.

Holmes is often likely to let a criminal get away with the crime if he believes it was justifed. At least one murderer gets away because the victim is an abusive swine and the killing happened in a fit of rage. I like the later revenge plot stories, like "The Dancing Men" because everyone involved is being a slave to emotions and passions, and Holmes is bringing is dispassion to bear.

Imagine the difference between that audience, who most likely felt most sympathy for the guy who was fleeced by the League, and the modern audience, who actually likes (or enjoys watching) Hannibal Lechter, and doesn't feel one way or the other about many of his victims.

That's so true. I almost felt contempt for the red-headed guy for being such a gullible mark, and some level of admiration for John Clay for devising and executing such a cunning scheme.

I might be a little bit twisted.

...and the theory that when all other possibilities have been discarded, the one remaining, however improbable, must be correct.

I always thought this was Doyle/Holmes. But that is really interesting about Poe, he's not really thought of as a mystery writer. Just out of curiousity, where is that factoid from?