Research Project

This project represents your opportunity to act as an investigator, not of a murder, but of mystery fiction. Robin Winks, a historian and critic of detective literature, points out that the modus operandi of each field are similar:

My vocation, as a professional historian, often leads me to deal with questions of evidence. The historian must collect, interpret, and then explain his evidence by methods which are not greatly different from those techniques employed by the detective, or at least the detective of fiction. . . . Obviously the author of such fiction does not construct his work as the historian does. For to one the outcome is known and to the other that outcome is at best guessed. But the reasoning processes of the colorful world of fictional intrigue and the good, grey world of professional scholarship, are similar enough to be intriguing. (Robin Winks, "The Historian as Detective in Detective Fiction," Detective Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1980, 1988, 242)

This is your chance to identify sources of evidence, interview important witnesses, assess physical evidence at various scenes, and read texts with an eye to analysis as well as pleasure.

All teachers know that students learn something best when they actively work out a problem for themselves. That is what I am asking you to do here: to research, organize, and create a presentation of evidence that convinces me of the truth of something.

I want you to budget a lot of time for exploring ("surfing") these research topics. They are broad, deep, and highly implicated in other interesting subtopics. Part of your learning takes place while browsing these resources, making preliminary telephone calls, and visiting libraries. Leave yourself time to enjoy these excursions and make choices that will reward your investigations.

I've compiled a list of bibliographical resources to help you get started on your research. You'll undoubtedly discover more as you do your sleuthing.

Topics for Research Project

  1. City Dossier, with Photos

    "This is the City . . . "

    Take a novel or novels that are memorably set in a limited time period and a limited geographic area, like a city, and create a dossier of physical evidence, of significant locations -- a kind of photo essay, if you will, but you are not limited to photographs.

    An example of what I mean is Doug Herron's "Dashiell Hammett Walking Tour" in San Francisco. Hammett, as you may know, wrote and worked in 1920s San Francisco, and The Maltese Falcon is set there, replete with actual locations. Herron published a book (The Dashiell Hammett Tour, 1979, based on his tour, which he still leads today in snap brim hat and raincoat), in which he lists all the significant locations of Hammett's stay in San Francisco and all the spots highlighted in the novel (e.g., John's Grill, which is still standing, and the brass plaque at the head of Burrit Alley that reads, "On approximately this spot Brigid O'Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer."). Herron's book has current and historical photographs, a description of the significance of each place, its exact location, and citations from the appropriate texts. Herron's book represents a tremendous amount of research about San Francisco and Hammett in the 1920s.

    There's no reason why you can't do the same for another city and another author.

    Your dossier must include the following:
    • A photo or graphic or audio representation (a sketch, advertisement, map, public transportation map or schedule, recipe, menu, ticket, recording, etc.). What I want is a piece of physical evidence -- an exhibit in the legal sense, if you will -- of at least ten locations (buildings, vehicles, parks, whatever). Ideally, these exhibits ought to be able to be transmitted online, but not necessarily.

    • The exhibit, if at all possible, ought to be an accurate, historical representation of the locations in the appropriate time period (including historical photographs of actual buildings in question, recollections from people who remember the place, interviews with former owners, reproductions of posters, advertisements, reviews of performances, etc.).

    • A detailed description of the place as it was and as it is (address, function, appearance). Emphasis should be on what it was, in the context of the novel and author you've chosen. Public records indicating changes in ownership, zoning, and so on, might be helpful. A copy of an important public record might serve as one of your exhibits.

    • A detailed description of the place's significance in the life and/or the fiction of the author in question, including citations from relevant texts.

    Here are some resources

    • Local newspaper archives, called morgues. The public library, a large university library, and the newspaper office itself will have newspapers from the relevant period.

    • The local public library will often have historical photographs, as will the state or city historical society.

    • Transportation and other public agencies also have historical archives.
    • Public real estate records are accessible by the general public, usually at City Hall.
    • Tenants or owners in buildings at the location in question.
    • If the author is still alive, you might contact him or her with specific questions.

    Here are some possible topics:

    • Dianne Day's San Francisco or Carmel (1900s)
    • Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles (1940s)
    • Walter Moseley's Los Angeles (1940s)
    • Earl Derr Bigger's Honolulu (1920s)
    • A. Conan Doyle's London (1880s-90s)
    • Susan Dunlap's Berkeley (1980s)
    • Sara Paretsky's Chicago (1980s)
    • Elmore Leonard's Florida (1980s-90s)
  2. A History of the First Police Detectives in Your Hometown

    Most police departments in the United States began in the mid-nineteenth century, with detective squads coming at least ten years afterwards. Then, in relatively short order, many new detective departments were disbanded due to corruption and incompetence, to be reinstated at some later date.

    What is the story of your hometown's detective force? How long after the establishment of a regular police force did the detectives come along? How much success did they have? From what walks of life were the first detectives recruited?

    Read over the Lecture Topics for Unit 6 to get a general sense of the history of the organized police in the English-speaking world. It's a fascinating history, and in the United States, police departments were developed in a highly decentralized fashion, independently, with city, county, state, and federal jurisdictions all developing their own police. (In fact, you do not have to choose the police department of your hometown; you might choose the police department at your university or college, transportation police, and the like, as long as they have a group who are detectives, and as long as there are research resources available for you to use.)

    Your history ought to focus on a particular time period and even a particular set of personalities since you only have ten pages or so to cover everything. Gather background, and then find a focus. My guess is that the best focus will be the struggle your department had to form a viable detective unit.

    Make use of historical photographs where appropriate.

    Here are some possible resources:
    • Many police departments have a department historian; at the very least, each department has a public relations officer. Start with an interview with that officer to discover what kinds of archival and other resources exist.

    • Local newspapers have archives, called morgues. The public library or a large university library will also have newspapers from the relevant period.

    • The local public library will have a historical collection; find out if has any books on the police department, memoirs by police officers, etc.

    • The local historical society may also have good resources.

  1. A Turning Point in the Life Of . . .

    Take the life of one of the interesting figures from the history of mystery fiction or actual detection, and focus on a particular chapter in his or her life. Is there a mystery associated with the time period, like Agatha Christie's celebrated disappearance? Does it mark a significant turning point personally or professionally? Explore the different accounts of that period. Evaluate the evidence, the eyewitness accounts, and the hypotheses proposed by other historians and biographers. What really happened? Why did the man or woman in question act as he or she ultimately did? Why was this episode significant?

Here are a few biographical subjects and resources to consider. (These resources represent only those that came immediately to my mind; they are not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination and are meant only to be starting points for you at this preliminary stage.)

  • Hal Lipset, a twentieth-century private detective in San Francisco, featured in Bug in the Martini Olive and Other True Cases from the Files of Hal Lipset, Private Eye by Patricia Holt, 1991

  • Alan Pinkerton, a political "refugee" from Scotland who came to the United States and founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency ("We Never Sleep"); famous for saving president-elect Lincoln from an assassination attempt, running the first Federal Secret Service, and recovering money stolen from trains, and infamous for breaking up strikes and intimidating unionists

  • Henry Fielding, especially in reference to his work attempting to establish a London police force, The Bow Street Runners; alternately, the life and career of Sir John Fielding, Henry's blind younger half-brother who succeeded him at Bow Street

  • Arthur Conan Doyle, not only the justly famous creator of Sherlock Holmes, but also an Army doctor who tried to reform the military and an amateur detective who saved the life of at least one innocent man

  • Captain Joseph T. Shaw, the outstanding editor (from 1926 until 1936) of Black Mask, the premier pulp magazine; also a soldier, adventurer, world-class fencer, and mediocre author

  • Mary Roberts Rinehart, author of The Circular Staircase (1908), one of the first female war correspondents in World War I, columnist for The Saturday Evening Post, who began her writing career when her husband's business was failing

  • Agatha Christie
  1. For Editorial Sleuths: An Introduction to a Relatively Undiscovered Author

Here's your chance to act as an editorial sleuth. Let's pretend that you've been asked by a publisher to make a selection from the oeuvre of a once-popular nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century mystery fiction author. Let's assume that the publisher will publish your selections in a slick new edition and include a short introduction, written by you, to the author and his or her work.

You will have to conduct bibliographical research for most of these authors. (That means physically searching libraries, private collections, and used bookstores for copies of these difficult-to-find books so that you will be able to read them.) This will be a two-part research project: find the books, then find out about them.

Your anthology must include the following:

  • A complete list of the titles of short stories, novellas, or novels you would include for publication, and if at all possible, copies of the complete text. Ideally, I shall want copies so that I can read what you've selected and evaluate your introduction with some degree of firsthand knowledge. It is not my intention to make this expensive or open you up to copyright violation, so let's discuss the easiest way for you to duplicate this work for my review.

  • A rationale for each text you choose. Why do you think this is worth publishing and reading? (If there are a few different versions of one particular story, you'll have to decide which one or ones to use and tell me why.)

  • A complete bibliographic record of how and where you found what you found, including libraries, publishers, bibliographies in other books, etc.

  • A short, five- to ten-page introduction to the author and his or her work, explaining the author's significance in the field of mystery fiction (genre, uniqueness, influence) and the interest and value of his or her work.

Here are a few authors to consider:

  • Emile Gaboriau
  • Carroll John Daly, or another, perhaps more talented, pulp writer
  • Baroness Orczy
  • Anna Katherine Green, creator of Violet Strange
  • William Russell ("Waters")
  1. Your own topic, subject to my approval
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Unit 1 Resources Submitting Assignments Course Outline Introduction Welcome