>  ML> I'll look into Dorothy Sayers, and let you know how
 > I like her --
 >  ML> thanks!
 >
 >  FR> You might look into the Campion stories too--I've never
 > read any, but
 >  FR> I saw several on MYSTERY!.  Somebody here could tell
 > you who wrote
 >  FR> those.
 >
 > Again, I say thanks....
Hello, Michael --
 
I see you've wandered into the 'golden age' of detective fiction. 
 Let's see if we can come up with a comprehensive list so that you'll 
have all the information in one place. 
 
Like many other readers of this echo, I am a fan of Dorothy Sayers' novels 
featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.  When I first started reading Ngaio Marsh's 
books with Roderick Alleyn, I had great difficulty at first because Alleyn 
seemed like a bad Wimsey clone.  This feeling didn't last because Marsh very 
quickly developed Alleyn into his own person, quite different from Wimsey.  
But there's a clue in an early book which tipped me off -- I was not seeing 
the whole picture.  One character says to Alleyn, when he is being 
particularly silly, to be careful or "people will think you are a detective" 
-- an odd comment to make to a fellow from the Yard, even when made by a 
journalist. 
 ;-)
 
Clearly there was something going on, and I soon found out that there were a 
LOT of detective series where the hero had a whiff of Wimsey. 
 But the timing was not quite right for them to all be copies of Sayers, 
and so I suspected that there was some other common source which had 
influenced everybody, Sayers included.
 
A biography of Sayers eventually gave me the answer, as Sayers freely 
confessed that the early Wimsey owed a very great deal to E.C. Bentley's 
detective in _Trent's Last Case_.  (Like Marsh, Sayers went on to make Wimsey 
very much his own creature, not at all like Bentley's creation.)
 
So we have at least three detective series which have been influenced by E.C. 
Bentley
     Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey
     Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn
     Margarey Allingham's Campion
 
Are there any more?
 
NB: I've also watched the MYSTERY! adaptations of Georges Simeon's Maigret, 
but those are French, and a different kettle of fish entirely. 
 Haven't worked up the gumption to tackle the books yet, as there 
are a lot of them, and I don't know if I'll like them as much without Michael 
Gambon (the actor who plays Maigret).
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