Detective Lit Midterm Review

history of crime

• In 1941, miners found a 33,000-year-old
calvaria in a cave in Transylvania
 Evidence of death by blunt force trauma
• The Paleolithic man, scientists in 2019
concluded, was struck “by a blow from a likely
left-handed perpetrator facing the victim.” A
murder mystery? A crime?
• The media was quick to call it murder, noting
that this was the ultimate “cold case closed.”
• While the evidence clearly shows violence,
there are many situations where it would not
be murder.
 Self-defense, manslaughter, warring groups, etc.

• The history of violence is not the same thing
  as the history of crime.

• While acts of violence have occurred for tens
  of thousands of years, and presumably much
  longer, they cannot be seen as crimes unless
  situated within a collective code of behavior.

• Thus, the existence of crime requires the
  existence of law

• In some societies, laws were not written
  down or formally codified, and
  social/cultural or religious prohibitions
  restricted or regulated behavior.

mystery

is a genre of fiction where the nature of an event,
usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the
end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects,
each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a
reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. NOTE: we’ll
tweak this definition later.

genres of mysteries

• traditional/cozy

• hard-boiled

• police procedural

• legal or courtroom drama

• subgenres of forensic crime figthers and psychologist/profilers

traditional/cozy mystery

•violence occurs offstage; usually an amateur sleuth (“gentleman detective” or lady detective) solves the crime in a small, intimate community or environment. Ex., Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey

hard-boiled mystery

•features a tough, world-weary cop or P.I. Ex., Sam Spade, Philip Marlow, Lew Archer, Mike Hammer, Spenser, Easy Rawlins, V.I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone. (TV: Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., Mike Hammer; very popular in 70s & 80s)

police procedural mystery

•Focuses on the investigation process of a police officer or officers.  Ex., Michael Bennet, Harry Bosch, Kurt Wallander, Adam Dalgliesh (TV: Law and Order, The Wire, NCIS, True Detective)

legal or courtroom drama mystery

•A lot of the action takes place in the courtroom.  Ex., Perry Mason, any of the various lawyers from John Grisham, Mickey Haller.  Reached its heyday in the 80s and 90s: Presumed Innocent, A Time to Kill, Mississippi Burning, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, A Few Good Men

detective fiction

•Detective fiction is the genre of mystery that narrates the investigation and solution of a crime; the detective is more the focus than other mysteries.

•Mystery and detective fiction are both young forms of literature, emerging in the 19^th century. The antecedents of detective fiction begin in the 18^th century.

gothic literature

• Detective story emerges from the Gothic tradition of the 18^th century.

  • Genre characterized by fear and terror, a threat of the supernatural, and intrusion of the past upon the present

  • The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole; considered the first gothic novel

    • Developed the plot devices and tropes of the genre: haunted castles, trap doors, secret passageways—mysterious happenings—“fear and haunting”

  • The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe; one of the greatest novels of the genre and influential in developing its form; features themes of mystery, suspense, and the supernatural.

• Later Gothic literature —Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley, Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte—would influence many 19^th century works

  • Including the works of evil and terror by the American Edgar Allan Poe (More on that later.)

True crime

• The Newgate Calendar (1773)

  • Originally a monthly bulletin of executions, produced by the Keeper of Newgate Prison.

  • Title appropriated by other publishers, who put out highly fictionalized biographies of notorious criminals. (No detectives.)

  • Gave rise to “Newgate novels”; depicted crime and murder without holding back.  While critics often condemned such novels as immoral, the public enjoyed them. Oliver Twist (1837) is an example of the form, although liked by critics.

• Memoirs of Eugene Vidocq (1829)

  • Eugene Francois Vidocq: originally a thief, he created the first criminal detection force, the Sûreté Nationale, in Paris, which later evolved into the Police Nationale; later he became head of the first known private detective agency (1833) and considered by some as the father of modern criminology and the modern detective novel.

the first lit detective

• American Edgar Allan Poe creates the detective story “in order to grasp and objectify the nature of… evil and somehow to place the guilt” (Ross Macdonald)

• •“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” considered the first detective story—before word “detective” was coined/used.

  • From Latin detegere, meaning “to uncover.”

• •His detective—Charles Auguste Dupin; appears in 3 short stories (the medium for early detective fiction):

  • “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841)

  • “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (1842)

  • “The Purloined Letter” (1844)

Dupin

• Dupin—a brilliant yet arrogant, semi-reclusive, eccentric aristocrat whose “scientific” objectivism makes him appear emotionless. 

  • Some say Eugene Vidocq influenced Poe’s Dupin (even mentioned “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”).

  • Dupin is the model for Sherlock Holmes, who becomes the model for nearly all detectives afterward.

• In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Poe invents

  • the narrator-companion/sidekick trope, and

  • the locked-room (or impossible) mystery; becomes a common sub-genre

Sherlock Holmes

• Arthur Conan Doyle creates Sherlock Holmes.

  • A Study in Scarlet (1887)

  • The Sign of the Four (1890)

• Doyle had not quite mastered the form of the mystery novel; first novel very basic; second too convoluted.

• Switches to short stories; in the first batch of 23 stories (beginning with the publication of “A Scandal in Bohemia” in 1891, the basis for which was Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”) Doyle perfects his story telling.  Catapults the detective genre.

• More on Sherlock later.

“The Golden Age”

• The Golden Age of Detective Fiction is an era of traditional (usually murder) mysteries of similar pattern and style, predominately in the 1920s and 1930s.

• People desired escapism and order amidst the chaos and disillusionment of post-World War I; detective fiction provided a structured world.
  

• The Golden Age began to end around the start of the Second World War, with the emergence of the spy/espionage thriller; however, these mysteries are still being written today—a testament to their appeal.

• The detectives not only defend the status quo, but they believe in the status quo; once the perpetrator has been identified, all is well in the world.

• “What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.” –P.D. James

• whodunit was created during this time as well

whodunit

• A whodunit, or whodunnit, is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus.  (Usually always a “cozy” in the Golden Age.)

• Setting is usually a small, self-contained community or location (e.g., a manor house our country-side estate, small village, even a train).

• Intriguing crime, but violence occurs offstage: the body is usually found.

• The police are either unavailable or incompetent to lead the investigation.

• The investigation conducted by an eccentric amateur (or professional) detective; more cerebral—brain over brawn (compare to hard-boiled fiction: opposite); usu. a sidekick.

• The reader is provided clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the detective provides the revelation at the end.

additional tropes

• Locked-room mystery: grounded in fascination of scientific method (analytical thinking); also fun, imaginative

• Red herrings to throw readers off the scent; misdirection

• Interesting and varied suspects; potential culprits, all with means and motive

• Archetypal characters (vicar, butler, maid, etc.)

• The one you least suspect (but the butler never did it!)

• Main character likeable; murder victim often not very likeable (readers should not feel too much sympathy)

• No gore; death “offstage” and quick; no children harmed

• Mild romance allowed; no explicit sex

• Closure; culprit is caught, order restored. Happy ending (or as happy as can be)

• Some cozies feature animals, especially cats

Who are the 3 queens of crime?

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham (they arised during the golden age of detective fiction”

Agatha Christie

• From 1920-1976, Christie wrote 66 detective novels, many short stories, and several plays

• Hercule Poirot, Belgian sleuth who appears in 33 novels, 2 plays, and 50 short stories between 1920 and 1975; sidekick (occas. narrator) Capt. Arthur Hastings.

• In An Autobiography, Christie states, "I was…writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition—eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp.”

• She felt that Poirot was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep." Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public likes.

• Jane Marple, another fictional detective of Christie’s; amateur spinster sleuth (1927 short story); The Murder of the Vicarage (1930) first novel; last in 1976.

  • Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote) a literary cousin of Miss Marple.

American writers of The Golden Age

John Dickson Carr, S.S. Van Dine, Ellery Queen, Erle Derr Biggers, Erle Stanley Gardr, Rex Stout

Hardboiled detective

• Chandler, in The Simple Art of Murder, says that Hammett rejected the stylized mystery of the Golden Age; he says Hammett took murder “out of the Venetian vase and dropped it in the alley.”  (The city a crucial element to hardboiled fiction.)

• Hardboiled fiction was a response to evolving societal conditions in the US and a desire to portray a more realistic, unvarnished view of crime.  Needed was a detective as tough as the criminals. Traditional = brain; Hardboiled = brawn

  • “Down these mean streets a man must go,” Chandler writes. “A man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid… He is the hero; he is everything… The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth.”  Guided by a personal code.

• The detective navigated the sordid places where crime happens and criminals reside—the docks, the slums, the casinos, the taverns, the brothels.  The early stories (1920s and 30s) developed a tone of earthy realism; used sex, violence, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue to replicate “street talk.”

• Some aspects of the chaos and crime are resolved by the end of the story, but not necessarily everything will be tied up in a neat bow.  {Different from the Golden Age of mysteries. Hardboiled is not about the resolution of order.}

  • “Solution is not resolution.”  —Kory Wein
    

• The genteel detective and the hard-boiled detective recognize this potential of evil in humans, the former with a sense of shock and outraged innocence, the latter with a sense of resignation and loss.

• Some hard-boiled detectives see this tendency in themselves; often they are morally complex—sometimes romantic at heart, they are usually never innocent.

• Their world is full of corruption, moral ambiguity, and failed institutions; they are disillusioned with society and possess a certain cynicism and detached skepticism. Paradoxically, they often break the law to uphold it.

Writers of Note

• The impetus for the P.I. came from the conditions of American life in the 1920s. The lawlessness in a society took on a new urgency. At the same time, cheap pulp magazines were already exploiting a ready market for adventure stories, which made heroes of cowboys, soldiers, explorers, etc. (i.e., pulp fiction). Hey day 1930s-50s.

• Carroll John Daly (Race Williams)

• Dashiell Hammett (Continental Op, Sam Spade)

• Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe)

• •Chester Himes (Grave Digger Jones & Coffin Ed Johnson)

• Walter Mosley (Easy Rawlins)

• James Ellroy

• Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch & Renee Ballard)

• Dennis Lehane (Patrick Kenzie & Angela Gennaro)

• George Pelecanos (Nick Stefanos)

• And others…

The Harlem Renaissance

• Artists asserted pride in black life and identity, raising consciousness of inequality and discrimination—many experienced a freedom of expression through the arts for the first time.

• Langston Hughes—best known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance—credits Louis Armstrong for inspiring him (and in turn the Harlem Renaissance). 

• Many of Hughes’s poetic works were influenced by the rhythms and style of jazz (e.g., shifts in direction and syncopation—stressing the weak beats).

What is the name for mysteries that focus on identifying the culprit?

whodunit

a dangerous siren that became a popular trope in detective fiction

femme fatal

term for American style of detective fiction noted for its grity realism

hard boiled fiction

a genre of crime fiction characterized by cynicism, moral ambiguity, & fatalism; from the French for “black”, which denotes the works dark mood

noir

the memoir of this French criminal turned detective inspired many writers

Eugene Vidoq

short story by Edgar Allan Poe and considered the 1st detective story

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

a sub genre of myster invented by Poe that focused on an impossible crime

the locked room mystery

the name of Poe’s detective

Charles Auguste Dupin

The King who is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and whose death Homer & Aeschylus write about

Agamemnom

the genre that influenced detective fiction and is characterized by fear & terror, a threat of the supernatural, & the intruision of the past upon the present

gothic literature

who is the creator of sherlock holmes?

Arthur Conan Doyle

the magazine that published all the Sherlock stories beginning in 1891 and which made him a household name

The Strand Magazine

the person to whom Holmes referred as “the woman”

Irene Adler

the first Sherlock Holmes novel, which appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887

“A Study in Scarlet”

name of the real-life person Doyle based Sherlock on

Dr. Joseph Bell

Hammet and esp. Chandler wrote during this time, considered the longest, most widespread financial despair of the 20th century

The Great Depression

Raymond Chandler’s famous sleuth, the protagonist of his classic The Big Sleep

Phillip Marlowe

the detective agency Hammett worked at as a young man

Pinkerton National Detective Agency

the thug who Spade calls a “gunsel”

Wilmer Cook

Raymond Chandler’s famous essay from which the line “Down these mean streets a man must go” appears

“The Simple Art of Murder”

the name of the novel’s detective

Sam Spade

the faithful secretary of the novel who is a moral compass for her employer

Effie Perine

the man Miss Wonderly wants followed, who ends up dead

Thursby

the well-dressed “Levantine” who Spade disarms

Joe Cairo

the story within the story that is a parable of modern life, and which has confused scholars for years

flitcraft parable

name for the traditional mysteries that are less serious, and sometimes feature cats

cozy mysteries

considered the Queen of Crime

Agatha Christie

The pulp magazine that popularized hardboiled fiction

the black mask magazine

the famous mustached Belgium sleuth who likes to talk about his “little grey cells”

Hercule Poirot

the interwar period (1920s &30s) considered the height of traditional mysteries

the Golden Age of detective fiction

where Macdonald was raised despite being born in California and returning there

Canada

the incident after his daughter’s hit & run accident, in which a 13-year old boy was killed, that led Macdonald to a psycotherapy and profoundly influenced his work

when she ran off with two men

the real name of the person who wrote under the pseudonym Ross Macdonald

Kenneth Millar

romantic author and poem about the sea that Macdonald wrtoe his disseration on & influenced The Chill

The rhyme of the ancient mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner who Macdonald liked and whose poem “Among School Children” inspired aspects of The Chill

William Butler Yeats

the groom who hires Archer and the bride who’s gone missing

Alex and Dolly Kincaid

The Greek philosphopher whose paradox of the tortoise and Achilles is featured heavily in the novel, The Chill

Zeno

Roy Bradshaw’s mother’s real name

Letitia Macready

The Freudian concept that focuses on a male child’s sexual desire for his mother and rivalry with his father

Oedipus complex

Thomas McGee’s alias

Chuck Begley

the notorious Chicago gangster of prohibition

Al Capone

The period of British history nearly all Sherlock stories are set in

the Victorian Era

term for the period in the early 20th century that saw dramatic sociocultural change and economic prosperity in the US

the roaring twenties

an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature in the 1920s and 30s

the Harlem Renaissance

The Act that upheld the 18th amendment to ban alcohol

The Volstead Act

the working title of The Chill

A Mess of Shadows