WIDE ANGLE: UNTIL BLANC IS BACK

Netflix has confirmed that the next instalment of its hit Knives Out film franchise will appear in 2025.
The series, which first hit the screens in 2019, introduced the world to the suave southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who specialises in solving murder mysteries that feature serpentine plot twists and red herrings galore, taking a few joyous swipes at the uber-wealthy along the way.
Wake Up Dead Man is the third in the series, which writer/director Rian Johnson promises will be Blanc’s “most dangerous case yet.”
As ever, Wake Up Dead Man features a star-studded cast, including Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Mila Kunis, Glenn Close and Jeremy Renner.
Knives Out has a huge following for a reason — who doesn’t want to see unpleasant wealthy people get their comeuppance in increasingly elaborate and improbable ways?
Johnson’s scripts work in part because they are rooted in his very public love of classic detective fiction, which stems from the “Golden Age” of crime — a period in the 1920s and 1930s, when the world was obsessed with murder mysteries and amateur detectives such as Hercule Poirot.
There are quite a few books — and films — out there if you want something to tide you over until the next Knives Out movie hits the screens. Here are five suggestions to keep you going.
Agatha Christie is the unimpeachable monarch of crime fiction. Christie’s Crooked House (1949) probably had the greatest influence on the first Knives Out film, but And Then There Were None has inspired writers and filmmakers in the crime and horror genres more than any other of Christie’s mysteries.
Ten strangers are summoned to an island for a weekend. The boat they arrived on departs and with it any chance of leaving — or even contacting the mainland. On the first evening, a disembodied voice accuses each of them, in turn, of being responsible for a death. One by one they are killed off. The rising sense of claustrophobic tensions and paranoia that pervades the story has ensured that, even 85 years after it was published, And Then There Were None is still the most masterful version of its premise.
John Dickson Carr is not hugely familiar today, but during the Golden Age, his was a household name. The American author was just 29 when he published his masterpiece, The Hollow Man, known in the US as The Three Coffins.
In this book, eccentric amateur detective Dr Gideon Fell investigates a seemingly impossible crime: how can two men be shot by the same gun in two different locations at the same time? The novel is most famous for the “locked room lecture”, which Fell delivers, breaking the fourth wall by acknowledging that he is inside a detective story, and explaining how all impossible crimes boil down to a few possibilities. Johnson actually name-checks Carr in the first Knives Out film.
Written by celebrity friends composer Stephen Sondheim and actor Anthony Perkins (of Norman Bates fame), The Last of Sheila now enjoys cult classic status. Johnson acknowledged it as a direct inspiration for Glass Onion, which is why Sondheim made his final appearance a cameo in the second Blanc film.
Set on a luxury yacht, The Last of Sheila is an irreverent, loving homage to murder mysteries. An eccentric host gathers together some of his connections and they play a murder game. Guess what happens next. Big-name 1970s stars, from James Mason and Raquel Welch to James Coburn, Ian McShane and Dyan Cannon, practise their snappy dialogue as the plot gets increasingly more elaborate.
Turton’s breakout novel was marketed as: “Gosford Park meets Groundhog Day by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.”
Summoned to a country house, protagonist Aiden Bishop finds himself living the same day over and over again — the day of Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder. As he tries to solve and prevent the crime, he also has to work out what is going on. There is a (sort of) rational explanation for everything. This is a rare book you can escape into, playing detective within the logic of a fictional world.
People have praised the Benoit Blanc series for its knowing portrayal of most people as horrible. Anyone who has read Christie and Carr will feel right at home with this — all the characters in And Then There Were None, for instance, are pretty awful.
Like Johnson, Stevenson wears his love of the Golden Age with pride, constantly breaking the fourth wall to remind us, as readers, that he is playing fair. He weaves the whole narrative around writer Ronald Knox’s famed 1928 Ten Commandments for Detective Fiction, which is considered the winning formula for any good detective story.
As the title suggests, this book centres around a family with its fair share of alternative moral codes. The result is an amazing feat of light cynicism — a difficult tone to master. If you love vintage crime fiction, you’ll enjoy the Easter eggs, and if you’re new to it, this is a great way in.
And it just might keep you occupied while you wait until Blanc is back.
The writer is a Visiting Senior Fellow in English and Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk in the UK
Republished from The Conversation
Published in Dawn, ICON, August 25th, 2024