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INTRODUCTION
Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction in which the detective either
professional or amateur, investigate a crime, usually a murder. Detective fiction
flourished in the early 20th century, although it is more often considered to have
begun in 1841 with the publication of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by
Edgar Allan Poe who is known as the Father of Detective Fiction. Poe was
also a literary critic and he created a rationale for the detective story. The unity
of effect of impression is a point of the greatest importance.
The Detective Novel has always been related to public interest in the problems
of modern, urban life, particularly in crime. But crime as a feature of Western
social life was not generally recognized until the rise of large cities in the early
1800s, a period that corresponds to the creation of a mass reading public. Citydwellers, fascinated by and afraid of crime, vilified and romanticized criminals,
as well as those who fought them.
1.- DETECTIVE FICTION: BEGINNINGS
The idea of detection and the figure of the detective that would eventually stand
at the centre of the genre were introduced in the early 19tn century by a
Frenchman, Franois-Eugene Vidocq. Having served as a soldier, privateer,
smuggler, inmate and secret police spy, Vidocq at age 24 credited himself with a
duel for every year of his life. He established his own department, The Surete,
which became the French equivalent of the American F.B.I. When Vidocqs
Memoirs were published in France in 1828, they were immediately popular and
translated into English.
Interest in England in crime stories blended with a strong, existing genre
called the Gothic Novel. Most scholars attribute this genre to Horace Walpole,
whose Castle of Otranto, published in 1765, established the horror story, to
which Mary Shelley added scientific aspects with Frankenstein.
In the United States, Edgar Allan Poe read Dickens, and he read and reread
Vidocq. In five stories between 1840 and 1845, Poe laid out the basics of the
detective story, which underlie much hard-boiled fiction. Later detectives,
notably Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes, became even more eccentric
and Poes nameless narrator had his counterpart in the amiable Dr. Watson. In
Rue Morgue, Poe introduced three common motifs of detective fiction: the
wrongly suspected man, the crime in the locked room, and the solution by
unexpected means.
2.- CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GENRE
2.1 Hero-Heroin
The first protagonists were usually detectives. As the genre evolved, he or she
became a policeman, an insurance salesman, a politician, a reporter, a crook,
etc.
The protagonist embarks on a journey of discovery in order to attain a goal or to
recover something lost. These figures faced dangers, challenges, and
temptations that were physical, moral, material and sexual. Success depended
on the acquisition of special knowledge. Detectives answer to a higher authority,
whether God or Reason; they have special powers.
2.2 Detective Code
When the protagonist is a detective, she or he is presumed to have a set of
ethics or moral values. These are called the detective code, or simply the
code. The detective should be anonymous, avoid publicity, be close-mouthed,
and secretive. He or she protects good people from bad people, who do not live
by the rules; thus, one may break the rules in dealing with them. The detective
ignores rules and conventions of behaviour, because the client pays for this.
Loyalty to the client is very important, but may be superseded by a personal
sense of justice or the rule of law.
and the novels of Agatha Christie. He was also unconventional in plotting, in his
play with order, and in the addition of more than one plotline.
5.- BRITISH AUTHORS
5.1 Phyllis Dorothy James
P. D. James (1920) who started writing in the 1960s, is generally regarded as
one of the most interesting of contemporary British crime writers, and is often
located in the line of their Golden Age predecessors: the New Wave Queens
of Crime.
The eldest daughter of an Inland Revenue Official, P.D. James moved with her
family to Cambridge, where she attended the Cambridge High School for Girls.
She worked for the National Health Service (1949-68) and the Civil Service until
1979 when she began to work as a full-time writer. She was a Governor for the
BBC, and Chairman of the Literature Advisory Panel at both the Arts Council of
England.
James works date back to Agatha Christies ingenious plotting and evocative
settings. A James plot is a well-oiled machine, efficient and balanced in a style
many modern detective-fiction writers hardly aspire to attain. Her settings reflect
an impressive variety of interests, often esoteric and sometimes obscure. She
speaks for a certain social class and way of life. She wrote Cover her face,
that was followed during this period by A mind to Murder and Unnatural
Causes. She co-authored with Thomas A. Critchley The Maul and the Pear
Tree, a recounting of a real life murder from the annals of 19 th century London.
The settings of four of her mysteries are in medicine-related facilities: a
psychiatric clinic in A Mind to Murder, a nurses training school in Shroud for a
Nightingale, a private home for the disabled in The Black Tower, and a
forensic science laboratory in Death of an Expert Witness.
P. D. James has been awarded major prizes for her crime writing in Great
Britain, America, Italy, and Scandinavia. In 1999 she received the Mystery
Writers of America Grandmaster Award for long term achievement. She is
published widely overseas including the U.S.A, Canada, France, Germany,
Portugal, Finland, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, Spain, etc.