Things are not what they seem ... the English Cluedo Championships at Arley Hall in Cheshire. Photograph: Don McPhee
A study by Ohio State University has found that our enjoyment of detective stories depends on our self-esteem. Specifically, the less confident we are, the better we like it when the murderer is revealed to have been exactly whom we suspected all along, and vice versa. The researchers suggest that guessing correctly is a "little self-esteem boost", which to some of us is very precious.
Wikipedia has a list of plot devices that Agatha Christie used to confuse her readers, including perhaps the most audacious twist of all: "the murderer is exactly who it appears to be". With Christie, you're always going to get it wrong. If detective stories are bound up with self-esteem, she, for her readers, is a kind of intellectual dominatrix: every time a case is solved, we can hear her hissing, "You're an idiot! An idiot! Poirot's moustache could catch more criminals than you!"
I've suggested before that one way to lure potential mates is to conspicuously read heavyweight authors such as Flaubert and Dostoevsky. But I know most women like a confident fellow, so maybe I'd be better off reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which says "Yes, my sturdy ego can withstand a brutal Christie pummelling". In fact, for this purpose, the ideal book would be one by Harry Stephen Keeler, the pre-war pulp novelist who, notoriously, once introduced the guilty party in the very last sentence of a whodunnit - and, just to make you feel even worse about your bafflement, had his publishers insert a page towards the end of all his books that said "STOP! At this point all the characters have been presented. It should now be possible for you to solve the mystery. CAN YOU DO IT?"
The opposite side of this coin - a coin that we must of course dust for fingerprints - is the notion of detective novels as therapy. Perhaps a series of utterly facile paperback whodunnits could be as popular among the nervous and insecure as The Little Book of Calm was among the stressed and weary. In fact, I've got an idea for the ultimate feel-good getaway: by day, it's an ayurvedic spa; by night, it's one of those live murder mystery weekends, except that one of the actors limps, squints, twitches, wears a black hat, has blood on his shirt cuffs, and mumbles constantly about how much he hated the victim. And carries an enormous knife. Guaranteed twist-free.
