info-dumping

— The info-dump is always a problem. Just at a basic practical level it is important that everyone addresses everyone else by name until at least the first death — in fact detective stories have as much trouble as alien planets, and there’s a very good example of (deliberate) bad info-dumping right at the start of The Real Inspector Hound where Mrs. Drudge answers the phone: ‘Hello? The drawing room of Lady Muldoon’s country residence one morning in early spring?’ […]