Foyle’d Again

Enthusiastic viewers (that would include me) of the British TV detective series Foyle’s War, set in Hastings, England, during World War II, will be interested in listening to a new radio interview with the series’ creator, Anthony Horowitz. Under questioning by Elizabeth Foxwell, the host of “It’s a Mystery,” a weekly production of WEBR in Fairfax, Virginia, Horowitz starts out talking about his Alex Ryder teenage spy series (Storm Breaker, Ark Angel), his early experience as a novelist (he wrote his first novel at age 17, but didn’t publish a book until the ripe old age of 22!), his efforts to make the Ryder books “believable,” and his use of Alfred Hitchcock film references. But he eventually turns to the subject of Foyle’s War, saying that he (like so many Brits) has always been fascinated by World War II, that he loves being able to use “the apparatus of war as red herrings,” and that something he finds particularly intriguing about creating these historical TV mysteries is “there were so many crimes committed during the Second World War which could only be committed then”--crimes such as desertion, hoarding, profiteering, etc. “Curiously,” Horowitz adds, “the only crime that was not very prevalent in the ’40s, although we don’t mention this to our viewers, was murder. Murder dropped during the course of the war.”

READ MORE: The Unofficial Foyle’s War Web Site.