When blending fact and fiction doesn’t work

I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted at length before on the disturbing trend of using real-life figures as mystery sleuths, but considering this article last week in the Chicago Tribune, it’s high time to get ranting again. However, the lovely Booksquare says it better than I ever could:

We cannot be any more plain: the fashion of taking historical figures and making them into gumshoes must end. It was cute and clever for about five minutes. Now it’s an eye roller. And not in a happy, good way. We cannot believe Aristotle dusting for fingerprints. We are skeptical that Elvis Presley possessed the requisite attention span. And, please, tell us Beatrix Potter is not out crime-solving with the help of Peter Rabbit. We beg you – promise us it isn’t so.

We are willing to grant, on occasion, that an author might be interested in spinning a story featuring a historical figure. Perhaps it would be fun, and this is just an idea, to build upon an already unresolved mystery from a particular era. It seems like a great way to weave a love of history with a love of mystery. So if it must be done, we say do it. Then stop. Go no further. We don’t need a series, especially one that, well, see previous about eye rolling.

The Trib article does close with some new ideas for sleuths, and considering some of their choices (Susan B. Anthony? Jimi Hendrix?) I’ll offer a couple of mine: Cynthia Plaster Caster, who would have hobnobbed (so to speak) with many a music celebrity and been well-equipped (lord, it really is too early for the innuendo) to investigate a murder; and Ted Bundy, because that would just be kind of sick.