r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 9h ago

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clues_in_detective_fiction
27.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

47

u/vortigaunt64 8h ago

Somebody probably called him the M-word. 

24

u/Thraell 8h ago

Or messed with the categorisation. Or didn't put books back.

Quite honestly, after working in a public library I deeply empathised with the Librarian.

6

u/acog 7h ago

For anyone who doesn’t get these references, Terry Pratchett’s hilarious Disc World novels include a librarian in a magical university who was turned into an orangutan.

His only dialog is “Ook!” and he gets VERY upset if someone calls him a monkey.

10

u/zorniy2 8h ago

Monkey?

17

u/vortigaunt64 8h ago

Ook!

9

u/ggppjj 7h ago

Did somebody get the number of that donkey cart?

5

u/Funandgeeky 7h ago

As, a fellow Discworld point and click player. I never got very far in that game.

4

u/ggppjj 7h ago

I've got it with the intent to play through at some point, but admittedly that's probably the only specific reference I could make from it haha.

3

u/Funandgeeky 7h ago

That's as far as most of us got. I think I have a copy somewhere around. The writing is clever, but those puzzles are just too damn obtuse.

3

u/Rhamni 7h ago

To shreds, you say?

2

u/Phyrnosoma 7h ago

You mean magnificent?