Arthur Conan Doyle was entranced by the notion of a brilliant detective who can deduce everything a stranger has been up to from the merest clue, and yet can't have a trusting relationship with his closest friend.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think I read too much Arthur Conan Doyle when I was young and got this idea that a gentleman should know a lot about one thing and plenty about most everything else.
Mysteries always have the potential for interesting connections between the elements. I'm also most interested in the relationship between the characters. As in 'Masterpiece,' I'm trying to create characters who not only are solving a mystery but are solving the riddle of their own personal relationships.
In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime.
I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside.
The detective genre is not easy because you've got to get to a conclusion that is unexpected.
One mysterious person looking at another mysterious person equals what? Another mystery.
I'm not a great student, so I don't know that I would have been a great detective. Part of my brain sort of works that way, like wanting to figure out puzzles and figure out what happened and why people do the things they do and who they are and how it happened.
There's a lot of Doyle in me. I don't know where I begin and Doyle ends or where Doyle begins and I end.
I play a detective, very close to myself actually.
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle conceived Sherlock Holmes, why didn't he give the famous consulting detective a few more quirks: a wooden leg, say, and an Oedipus complex? Well, Holmes didn't need many physical tics or personality disorders; the very concept of a consulting detective was still fresh and original in 1887.