Detective Stories

First Authors of Detective Stories

EDGAR ALLAN POE's stories The Murder in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) and The Purloined Letter (1845) mark the birth of the detective story. POE introduced the prototype of the “great detective” into literature: Auguste Dupin, an eccentric whose superior power of analysis and scientific methods, apart from the criminal, are the main points of interest.

• WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS was the first English novelist to write detective stories: The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868). Two famous 19th century writers of detective stories are:
• SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859–1930). His creations are the eccentric and amazingly intelligent amateur detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson.
• GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON (1874 –1936). CHESTERTON's hero, the kind-hearted Father Brown, regards wrongdoers not as criminal offenders who have to be put behind bars but as lost souls in need of salvation. His stories were published under the titles The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) and The Wisdom of Father Brown.

Elements of the Detective Story

The chief elements of a detective story are:

• a mystery (mysterious disappearance, crime, esp. murder) whose details are concealed from the protagonist, the detective, and the reader until the end;
• the story centres around the investigation of the crime;
• the solution reveals the identity of the criminal, and all the details and motives of the crime.

Standard ingredients of the investigation into the crime are further puzzling elements, misleading clues (called red herrings), and the seemingly watertight alibi; they serve to hamper the investigation and are thus means of increasing suspense.
The detective, often a keen observer, solves the mystery by deduction, by eliminating the impossible until all questions are answered. The reader observes the detective “at work”, following the analytical process that leads to the solution.

RAYMOND THORNTON CHANDLER (1888 –1959), another member of the hard-boiled school of fiction, is the creator of Philip Marlowe, the tough private eye, who features in The Big Sleep (1939), Playback (1958) and many short stories.
“The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint:'Philip Marlowe … Investigations.' It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization. The door is locked, but next to it is another door with the same legend which is not locked. Come on in - there's nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly. But not if you're from Manhattan, Kansas.”
(Opening of Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister; 1949)

EARL STANLEY GARDNER (1889 –1970) produced a long line of detective novels based around lawyer-detective Perry Mason: From The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933) up to The Case of the Postponed Murder (1973).

ELLERY QUEEN is the pseudonym of FREDERIC DANNAY and MANFRED B. LEE. The Roman Hat Mystery (1929), their first success, was followed by thirty-three novels and volumes of short stories about the team of Inspector Richard Queen of the New York Police Department and his son Ellery Queen.

HARRY KEMELMAN (1908 –1996) is the author of the Rabbi Small Mystery Series, centring on the Jewish Rabbi David Small as the amateur detective, e.g. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late and That Day the Rabbi Left Town (1996).

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (1921 –1995). Tom Ripley, a criminal, is the best-known character of her mysteries, as in The Talented Mr Ripley (1955). The last title of the Ripley-series is Ripley under Water (1991). HIGHSMITH's favourite subjects are abnormal behaviour and double personalities; the menace lurking beneath the surface of seemingly normal behaviour. She uses allusion and implication in order to express the menace that exudes from a person.
“Jenny dropped the two postcards on the coffee table in front of her sofa. Three or four days ago, she had felt a funny shock, like fear, when she looked at Robert's bird cards. They were all in a little book with a blue silk cover in her top drawer upstairs.”
(Patricia Highsmith, The Cry of the Owl. Chapter 18)

SARA PARETSKY (* 1947) writes mysteries of the hard-boiled school featuring female investigator Vi Warshawski who fights discrimination against the underprivileged and corruption, e.g. Indemnity Only (1982), Blacklist (2003).

ELIZABETH GEORGE (* 1949). Though an American author, all of her novels are set in England. Her investigators are Inspector Linley and Sergeant Barbara Havers, e.g. A Great Deliverance (1988), A Place of Hiding (2003).