"The Great Detectives, From Vidocq to Sam Spade," enhances your mystery reading pleasure by showing how the great writers of detective stories invented and polished their craft. These four essays trace the birth and evolution of the detective story, from its origins in the early nineteenth century to the great American masters, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The first essay begins with with Eugène-François Vidocq, a picaresque French criminal who became, by degrees, a police spy and then, the originator and Chief of the first modern police intelligence bureau, the Brigade de Sûreté. This former convict, condemned to the galleys, was larger than life, so much so that his life and writings became the stuff of great literature – from Victor Hugo to Dostoyevsky. Trace him here, as modern criminology is born – and with it, the modern detective story. We even see Vidocq, in a Youtube link to French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has played him in a film.We continue with the tormented writer, Edgar Allan Poe, who created the first detective story, "Murders In The Rue Morgue," alluding to the writings of Vidocq as he did so. Not content with that achievement, Poe had his celebrated C. Auguste Dupin, in "The Mystery of Marie Roget," solve an actual crime that had baffled the New York police.The second essay treats three eminent Victorian writers. Charles Dickens, in "Bleak House," introduces Mr. Bucket, a police detective who is probably the fictional edition of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Field, whose famous portrayal by Dickens is also linked to the text. Wilkie Collins, in "The Moonstone," may deserve honors for the first detective novel. Both Dorothy Sayers and T. S. Eliot considered it the finest detective novel ever written. It's interesting to note that the novel's format came from Poe! Learn from Charles Dickens' daughter how "The Moonstone" was inspired by a spooky midnight apparition.With Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal Sherlock Holmes, we have a fictional creation (if, indeed, he is fictional) who has clearly upstaged his creator. Author William Shepard is a Sherlockian, and here he reveals, amongst many fascinating details about Holmes, just where the name “Sherlock” in all likelihood first appeared to Conan Doyle. And Shepard also tackles the vexing question: why didn’t Holmes solve the Jack the Ripper Whitechapel murders of 1888?The third essay concerns a trio of great mystery writers, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Georges Simenon, the creator of the great French detective, Inspector Maigret. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are viewed in detail, as is Dorothy Sayers’ fine creation, “half Bertie Wooster and half Fred Astaire,” Lord Peter Wimsey. Their sleuths are fascinating creations, with distinctive backdrops - picture the cozy tea shops of St. Mary Mead, the baronial surroundings of Lord Peter, or the Gallic back alleyways of Maigret's Paris.Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe complete the list, representing the American hard-boiled school. We are all in their debt, and the life stories of the two authors add to the pleasure we have in reading their novels. Will you agree with Shepard that Raymond Chandler is the most quotable detective story author of all those surveyed? A bibliography, containing links to The Maltese Falcon film errors and favorite writings of Raymond Chandler, completes your reading pleasure.It's the best Kindle reading investment you've ever made!
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