Holistic Detective
Dirk bills himself as a "holistic detective" who makes use of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" to solve the whole crime, and find the whole person. This involves running up large expense accounts and then claiming that every item (such as needing to go to a tropical beach in the Bahamas for three weeks) was, as a consequence of this "fundamental interconnectedness", actually a vital part of the investigation. Challenged on this point in the first novel, he claims that he cannot be considered to have ripped anybody off, because none of his clients have ever paid him. His office is supposed to be located at 33a Peckender St. N1 London.
Gently is psychic, though he refuses to believe in such things, insisting that he merely has a "depressingly accurate knack for making wild assumptions". The depressing part is that he is seemingly unable to use this knack to win money on horses. As a student at Cambridge University (St. Cedd's College) he attempted to acquire money by selling exam papers for the upcoming tests. His fellow undergraduates were convinced that he was psychic and had produced the papers under hypnosis, while he claimed he had simply studied previous papers and determined potential patterns in questions. However, when his papers turned out to be exactly the same as the real ones, to the very comma, he was arrested and sent to prison.
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“What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.”
—P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy)