The Aardvark Blog

D is for Doyle, Davis, Dexter, Deaver, Carter Dickson, Dunant, Durbridge, Dodge and Dickens
6/02/2016

When I began my A-Z of crime fiction, I quickly realized that the letter C was going to prove almost as large a task as the rest of the alphabet combined. For this reason - and due to an innate cowardice - I am going to skip C for the moment and come back to it when I have completed the herculean task of compiling a full list. So I am today taking on D, which is in itself no lightweight.

I shall begin - as how could I not - with Arthur Conan Doyle. But even here the pull of the letter 'C' cannot be underestimated, for many people wrongly believe his surname to be Conan Doyle, rather than Doyle. On this mystery however the evidence is incontrovertible as his birth certificate lists Arthur Ignatius Conan as his Christian names, and plain Doyle as his surname.

His great detective first appears in 'A Study in Scarlet' in 1887 and was said to be modelled on Doyle's former teacher Joseph Bell. Holmes then appears in a further three long novels ( including the iconic 'Hound of the Baskervilles' ), and 56 short stories spread over five collections, the last appearing in 1927. Almost all of the individual stories first saw publication in magazines - for most of his career in 'The Strand Magazine' - and these are highly prized by collectors. Many of the early titles sell for large sums.

Whilst by no means the first detective writer, Conan Doyle was responsible for many of the familiar tropes of the genre. These include the charismatic detective, the author sidekick ( Ariadne Oliver in Agatha Christie is an obvious example), the flawed hero, the in-depth use of place to set the tone for the story ( whether it be the moors of 'The Hound of the Baskerville' or the smoggy London of 'The Man with the Twisted Lip'. Then there is his use of deductive reasoning: could there ever have been a Hercule Poirot with his 'little grey cells', if there had never been a Sherlock Holmes? Perhaps the best thing that can be said for Conan Doyle is that he created in the Sherlock Holmes stories such a complete and recognisable world that were one to wake up in it tomorrow, one would know exactly where one was. Few writers, even the great ones, achieve this.

Lindsey Davis has long been a favourite of mine and her detective fiction set in the world of Ancient Rome is always well researched, well plotted and entertaining. Her series of 20 novels featuring Marcus Didius Falco began in 1989 with 'The Silver Pigs' and ended in 2010 with 'Nemesis'. The best of these are probably the first two or three and the middle group between her 6th and 10th books, including her undoubted masterpiece 'Time to Depart'. But all of her books have something to recommend them, and she took her hero all over the Roman world to Spain, Greece, the Middle East and Egypt. Since 2010 she has begun a new series of novels featuring Falco's adopted daughter Flavia Alba. It has taken some time for these books to get near the standard of her earlier works, but there are signs that they are moving in the right direction.

Sadly Colin Dexter is no longer with us and his 13 novels and numerous short stories featuring Inspector Endeavour Morse are now known more for their television adaptations. This is not entirely unfair as the books themselves are far from remarkable. The best of them are probably 'The Wench is Dead' in which Morse wrestles with an historical murder, and 'The Jewel that was Ours' which is set in the Randolph Hotel.

Jeffrey Deaver is a very successful American crime writer who has written books featuring several protagonists, but who is nonetheless best known for his stories featuring Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective who solves mysteries from his bed. The books are in some ways the best candidates for comparison with Conan Doyle, since Rhyme like Holmes is a damaged man who uses his intellect to solve puzzles, and in so doing to divert himself from his own concerns. The books are all enjoyable and I have read many of them, but I think that none surpass Rhyme's first outing in 'The Bone Collector'.

Carter Dickson is a name that appeared on many popular detective stories between the 1930's and 1950's. Unfortunately no such writer existed, CD being one of pseudomyms of John Dickson Carr, and therefore his many novels - of which 'The Judas Window' is a particular favourite of mine - will be dealt with in the 'C' section of this Magnum Opus.

Sarah Dunant is a British feminist author who writes across many different subject areas and genres. Her classic detective stories feature Hanah Wolfe, but she has also written other books some of which have mysteries at their heart. She is an engaging writer, and likes to challenge her readers by maintaining more than one plot at a time.

Francis Durbridge is better known as a writer for radio and television, but over a period of 50 years beginning in 1938 he published numerous novels, many of which feature his well-known detective Paul Temple and his journalist wife 'Steve'. The books are similar in nature to Leslie Charteris' Saint books, although in truth a little tamer and less fun. The plots are always complicated, and the solutions seem to be arrived at more by luck than brilliant reasoning ( there seems always to be a deus ex machina that brings things to an unexpected conclusion). Nonetheless for all my reservations, they are very entertaining and definitely have a period charm.

David Dodge was a prolific Californian writer who wrote a series of mysteries and thrillers from the early 1940s to the 1970s. The books always have a powerful male protagonist - usually a rebel or drifter - and there are no shortage of colourful baddies or beautiful girls. As I write this I realise that I could be describing any one of a hundred pulp fiction writers, but Dodge was always better than the average, and his finest novels have plots and millieus that are deeply satisfying. Perhaps his best known book is 'To Catch a Thief' which is set on the Riviera, and was very faithfully transferred to the silver screen by Alfred Hitchcock, in a film which starred Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. I have read a number of Dodge's other books over the years and have always enjoyed them. Among those I would recommend are 'The Lights of Scarro' and the wonderfully titled 'Bullets for the Bridegroom'. He was also one of the few detective story writers to be a successful qualified accountant.

It seems ridiculous to end this list with Charles Dickens, but his contribution to mystery writing was in truth slight and wrests upon only one unfinished work, 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood'. I have always wondered whether he wrote this in a fit of pique, having witnessed the extraordinary public success of his friend Wilkie Collin's novels, particularly the Moonstone.  Drood is a strange book, and somewhat unlike Dickens' other novels. Set in a fictionalised Rochester, the plot is extremely colourful featuring opium dens, unexplained disappearances, and a beautiful heiress. At his death in 1870 Dickens had not noted down the direction that the plot was to follow, and therefore Drood's disappearance will remain forever a mystery.