"Time was a writer, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Freeman Wills Croft, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers or Emma Lathen would create a detective in a story, add a few friends and, possibly, relations as well as other details; then if it all worked, write another story with the character; then, maybe another, until there was a series and, quite often, a feeling of surfeit in the author.Notoriousl" . . . . . . .