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Chicago Sun-Times book critic Henry Kisor outlines some of the formulas that help writers fashion a successful series of detective mysteries. Sticking with a popular main character works for most authors, but many mystery writers, Kisor notes, have experimented with variations on this theme.
By Henry Kisor
Chances are you have a famous detective or two lurking on your bookshelf. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote dozens of intricately plotted detective stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie did the same with Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Dashiell Hammett produced gritty mysteries featuring Sam Spade, and Raymond Chandler created hard-boiled Philip Marlowe whodunits. Robert B. Parker is synonymous with his recurring hero Spenser, as is Sara Paretsky with her female detective V. I. Warshawski. These are just a few examples of what are called “series characters.”
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Why do so many mystery authors use the same heroes or heroines in book after book, and why do they sometimes bury them? In most cases, it’s hardly a mystery…
Readers who grow fond of a series character will likely want to read more books about the same person. Mystery authors make their living telling stories, and a beloved character can ensure a steady income from book to book. Such a character can also help an author recover from an unsuccessful book. Now and then even a master writer will slip and turn out a substandard novel, but readers will more easily forgive the lapse and come back for the next book if it features the same loved and trusted main character.
Much of the labor of fashioning a mystery novel lies in devising an original point of view through an attractive and sympathetic sleuth. Once such a character has been created, the author can devote more imagination to crafting new criminal characters, plotting mysteries, and creating settings.
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Although using the same hero in multiple books saves a great deal of work, the author must make sure that the character’s physical and mental characteristics remain consistent from book to book. Readers care about and notice the smallest details and would be distressed to discover that the hero is blind in the left eye in one book and in the right eye in another.
Few mystery writers allow their principal characters to change over time. Generally, from book to book they remain the same age and retain the same outlook. Author P. D. James is one notable exception—she has allowed the character of detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard to grow ever more melancholy from book to book as he ages and rises in the police hierarchy. James is more of a serious literary novelist than most mystery writers, for she constantly grapples with the deep psychology of her heroes and criminals.
At least one mystery author has created a hero whose name and occupation may differ from novel to novel but whose character remains essentially the same. Dick Francis began writing his popular horseracing mysteries in the early 1960s with a steeplechase jockey as his hero—a decent, resourceful, and stoic person. The writer’s later books have featured the same character in the guise of a horse-van company owner, a wine merchant, and in Shattered (2000), a glassblowing artist. This method has allowed Francis to explore topics other than horseracing for his mysteries, yet retain the ongoing loyalty of his readers to what has been called “the Dick Francis hero.”
Another popular technique in mystery writing is to employ a secondary hero to serve as a foil or sounding board for a primary character’s ideas. The literary roots of this type of relationship can be traced back almost 400 years, to the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the masterpiece novel Don Quixote by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.
Perhaps the most commonly recognized of these secondary heroes is Conan Doyle’s bumbling Dr. Watson, the trusty assistant to Sherlock Holmes and the narrator of those stories. In the 1920s Christie created such an assistant for Hercule Poirot in Captain Hastings. Today, Parker’s Spenser character has a boxer named Hawk for a sidekick. Contemporary author Tony Hillerman employs a variation of the technique: Navajo tribal policemen Jim Chee, an eager young sergeant, and Joe Leaphorn, an older and wiser lieutenant, often switch roles as primary and secondary heroes in Hillerman’s books.
Many mystery novelists, fearful of growing stale in writing about the same hero over and over, will create another recurring lead character just to remain fresh. Agatha Christie alternated between the steadfast Miss Marple and suave Hercule Poirot.
The veteran mystery writer Ed McBain actually created an entire detective squad room of heroes for his series of 87th Precinct “police procedural” novels. Carella is most often the principal character, but from book to book his other detective-heroes—Kling, Brown, and Meyer—sometimes take on more prominent roles. But after more than 20 years of writing about the detectives of the 87th Precinct, McBain developed the character of a Florida private eye, Matthew Hope.
After dozens of light, witty Spenser novels, Parker created a new series character in Jesse Stone, a dour, alcoholic former Los Angeles cop who becomes a small-town Massachusetts police chief. The Stone character gives Parker an opportunity to write about the gloomier side of law enforcement.
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