An English country estate. A detective pacing the room, explaining how they have solved the crime, revealing the solution to a puzzle and the clues which were there all along.

It’s so easy to parody this scene because it’s so familiar.

It’s Reverend Green in the billiard room with the candlestick.

It’s a shocking murder in a cosy English village or the country estate of a well-off family…where everyone is as suspect.

It’s the locked room mystery, where the puzzle is always the centre of the story.

So, where do all these familiar ideas come from exactly?

What do we mean when we talk about Golden Age Detective Fiction?

And are our assumptions about the tropes and rules of this fiction really all the accurate?

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