Her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this arrangement, which recalled scenes in French fiction, and architectural incentives to immorality such as the simple American had never dreamed of.
He's looking for a job in New York." Her surprise increased with her indifference: he almost fancied that she suspected him of being tainted with " foreignness." " A job in New York?
Parros foreignness was part of the bond Christy forged between the detective and her readers both he and they were outsiders in the cases he took on given the same information and solving the same puzzles.
And he apparently said in one of the later books that he plays up his foreignness and his dandiness to disarm suspects when he's interrogating them, to make them take him less seriously than they otherwise might.