Nostalgia

The other night we watched The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie. As Hercule Poirot gathered clues and investigated suspects, my husband said, “This would be a lot simpler with DNA evidence.” It got me thinking about how contemporary novels have changed.

Remember when:

• Mystery novels were built around clocks and train schedules instead of cheek swabs and blood tests
• Spy stories involved confrontations with the Soviet Block
• It was impossible to reach a character by telephone
• Pirates marked the spot with an X not global coordinates
• The guilty worried about destroying incriminating negatives rather than deleting files
• Questions of paternity could support an entire plot