How Old is Old? The Anthony Berkeley Version

The Top Story Murder by Anthony Berkeley published 1931 I was in two minds on whether to do a blogpost on this one, and the main reason to do so is to put a line in the sand. It is often very noticeable that GA authors, very much including women, are more than ready to dismiss women as ‘old’ or very old at quite remarkably early ages. Ngaio Marsh is particularly prone to this. In this book we hear ‘Old woman been done in’ and later she is described as ‘a most unpleasing old person’ And? ‘Age about forty-eight.’ So there’s the benchmark. Can anyone come up with a worse example? Please tell me any you find. There were other reasons why I did not love this book, which I found a dull and unconvincing procedural with the strange addition of Roger Sheringham, anchorman for an earlier post: Annoying Detectives - a list The murder happens in a small block of flats off the Euston Rd in London, and the victim is shown as having a squalid and rather bleak life. There is a whole theory that…