BBC Radio 4 has a new series,
Foreign Bodies: An Investigation into European Detectives, that looks at mystery fiction in an international context. The first episode deals with Christie's Poirot and Simenon's Maigret (although I disagree with presenter Mark Lawson's opinion that Christie made Poirot a Belgian to differentiate him from Sherlock Holmes; I thought she did so because she was familiar with the plight of World War I refugees and a detective who was a foreigner reinforced the role of the detective as outsider). The
fifth episode focuses on Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck; the
sixth episode on P. D. James's Adam Dalgleish and Ruth Rendell's Reginald Wexford.
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