In recent years, murder mystery writers have reinvigorated the private sleuth genre by reimagining private eye novels in clever ways and, more dramatically, by inventing a whole slew of improbable amateur sleuths to carry on murder investigations that would otherwise be handled – or bungled –by police officers. Perhaps the most striking example is Richard Osman’s delightful The Thursday Murder Club, which features four senior citizens living in a retirement home in Kent, England – Ron, a retired union organizer; Ibrahim, a retired psychiatrist; Joyce, a retired nurse and avid baker of cakes; and, most importantly, Elizabeth, a retired MI6 officer. Although the four senior citizens sort of work in tandem with the local police, it often seems that the police are working for them rather than vice versa. When Elizabeth is in full battle mode, there’s no doubt who’s in charge.
Why are amateur sleuth novels proliferating? Simply put, because they appeal to both readers and writers. First, if anyone can be a detective, that means you can too. Amateur sleuths are more like the rest of us than professional detectives are. We can identify with them. We can imagine being one of them. That’s a big plus for readers. Second, amateurs are unbridled, unfettered, free to make choices that others cannot make. Police detectives work in hierarchical organizations, and private eyes work for clients. They are constrained. Although amateurs don’t have ready access to national crime databases, they do have the opportunity to define their mission and choose their tactics with greater freedom. That gives authors a wider array of choices. Third, on-the-job-training is fun to watch because anything might happen and often does. A familiar pattern is a slow start, a strong finish. Lots of rookie mistakes up front, plenty of lucky breaks later on. What amateur sleuths lack in experience, they sometimes make up for in exuberance, creativity, and naivete. Yes, naivete. A fresh pair of eyes is sometimes just the right remedy for a difficult case.
Some of my favorite amateur sleuths work in professions that are adjacent to police officers. Park rangers, game wardens, or emergency management technicians , for example. Unlike homicide detectives, their job is not to investigate murders. But their work sometimes puts them in contact with lawbreakers or murder victims. Let’s call them murder-adjacent professionals. Nevada Barr was an early writer to embrace this particular type of character when she introduced National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon in her debut mystery Track of the Cat. Anna is feisty, spunky, and brave. To catch a criminal in a national park in Texas, she visits a dangerous mountain ledge, where a trap has been laid for her. In the later novel Blind Descent, she explores a deep, dark cave in New Mexico to locate a killer. Anna epitomizes courage and quick thinking. If your campground or cabin is under attack, she’s the one you’d want to have on your side.
When C.J. Box wrote his first novel featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett in 2001, he probably never imagined that he would be writing one of the most popular murder mystery series in the U.S. today. Since Open Season, he has written approximately one book a year, for a total of 27 books. Joe Pickett is the sort of hero who years ago might have been played by Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck in the movies – upright, honest, earnest, and unyielding. In lesser hands, that premise might get a bit boring. But Box created a Mr. Hyde to pair with Dr. Jekyll. When Joe gets into trouble, he calls upon his good friend, Nate Romanowski. A falconer, Nate is ex-Special Forces, and he is devoted to Joe and his family. Without Nate, Joe probably would have been a goner long ago. I have some qualms about a moral, law-abiding man who routinely asks a violence-prone friend to bail him out. But it’s a formula that definitely works. “The Box” books have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
In Circle of Influence, Annette Dashofy broke new ground by introducing Zoe Chambers, a plucky EMT technician in a fictional county in southwestern Pennsylvania. In her first adventure, Zoe braves a blizzard and other perils to track down a killer. In multiple books, she uses her medical knowledge to sift through evidence, putting her training to good use. She is curious, smart, and determined. Anna Pigeon and Zoe Chambers exemplify some of the distinctive virtues of amateur sleuths. Zoe, for example, is more headstrong and less law-abiding than her boyfriend, Pete, the Chief of Police in Vance County. She propels the narrative more than Pete ever could. Similarly, Anna is bolder than FBI Officer Frederick Stanton, with whom she sometimes works on a case.
Most amateur sleuths in modern mysteries do not have Anna’s tracking skills and law enforcement training or Zoe’s medical knowledge and rescue skills. Yet sometimes true amateurs rise to the occasion. Consider Mindy Quigley’s cozy mystery, At Death’s Dough, featuring Delilah O’Leary. Delilah, who runs a pizza joint in Geneva Bay, Wisconsin, has an abundance of friends, which means an outstanding network for juicy gossip– a big asset when you are trying to figure out who drowned and murdered a Chicago man who just visited your restaurant asking some very strange questions. Delilah also has a boyfriend on the local police force, Calvin Capone. Yes, a direct descendant of you-know-who. Delilah demonstrates grit and ingenuity when trying to track down the murderer, but the narrative really takes off when her well-fed cat, Butterball, is abducted.
Another cozy mystery featuring an amateur sleuth in the food business is Mia Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo. Lila Macapagal, who returns to her hometown, Shady Palms, Illinois, has a wonderful social network at her beck and call. In her first book, Lila helps Tita Rosie, her aunt, save the family business, a Filipino restaurant, when an ex-boyfriend and current food critic is poisoned after having eaten some of Lila’s ginataang bilo-bilo. Somehow Lila manages to beat the murder rap. In the process, she gets to know an honest detective and his hunky brother, a dentist. More on that in later books. The great thing about Lila’s sleuthing is that when clues are scarce, at least the food is abundant. On a full stomach, Lila is a much better detective. If you read these charming books, including the recipes at the back of each book, your stomach will growl but your heart will be full.
You don’t have to work in a restaurant to be a successful amateur sleuth. Consider Glory Broussard, who lives in Lafayette, Louisiana. Glory B, who appears in Danielle Arceneaux’s debut mystery, Glory Be, is an avid churchgoer who never misses Sunday Mass. She is also the leading bookie in the community. When Glory B repairs to C.C.’s Coffee Shop, after church, she has many visitors at her table. When Glory’s good friend, a nun named Amity, is murdered, Glory decides it’s up to her to find the killer. There’s nothing subtle about Glory’s sleuthing techniques. If she thinks someone is up to no good, she’s likely to say so. Outside of gambling, Glory isn’t brimming with technical expertise. But she does know a lot about human nature. When push comes to shove, she has better radar than anybody else in Lafayette.
If you’ve read the private eye novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, you know that we’ve come a long way from L.A. noir. Hammett’s earliest main character, the Continental Op, was cynical and worldly-wise. In Martin Edwards’s words, he lived in a world characterized by “violence, corruption, and sexual promiscuity,” as the author put it. Hammett’s next main character, the iconic Sam Spade, was, by the author’s own description, “a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation.” No hint of naivete here. Neither man resembles the more innocent heroines or heroes found in amateur detective fiction today. Meanwhile, Chandler’s lurid books featured pornography and debauchery. Like Chandler himself, there was plenty of heavy drinking. A far cry from most amateur sleuth mysteries today, especially the cozies.
Yet what Chandler enjoyed about the murder mystery as a literary form was its fluidity, its capacity to evolve over time, “putting out shoots in all directions,” as Edwards writes. For this reason, I believe that Chandler himself would applaud the way that private sleuth mysteries have evolved from hardboiled private eyes like Spade and Marlowe to wide-eyed amateurs like Zoe Chambers and Glory Broussard. It’s proof that the genre is capable of moving in new directions.
If amateur sleuth mysteries are such a good idea, then why haven’t I written one? As the author of a police procedural series, featuring Pittsburgh homicide detectives Radic and Mulroy, all I can say is that each genre has its advantages.
Police procedurals, at their best, offer the following:
- Gritty, detailed glimpses of how policing really works. More of an emphasis on the chain of evidence and how the sausage is made. More illumination of the emotional trauma that police officers experience on the job. At a recent mystery writers conference held in Nashville, I chaired a panel that featured four seasoned police officers who have become mystery writers. All four officers said that they suffer or have suffered from P.T.S.D. No one in the audience dared to challenge that assertion. I certainly wouldn’t.
- A chance to reflect on how policing and perceptions of police are changing. DNA testing and closed-circuit TV systems have increased opportunities to catch criminals, while body-worn-cameras have made it easier to hold police accountable for the excessive use of force. Yet relations between police and citizens remain tense in many urban communities. What substantive steps or symbolic outreach efforts can police take to restore the trust of their communities? If you create the right characters and the right situations, your readers may begin to find out.
- By convention, police procedurals allow you to get inside the heads of criminals, including murder suspects. Elmore Leonard laid the groundwork for this approach, with his amazing gift for juxtaposing your average criminal’s belief that he is committing the perfect crime with an above-average likelihood that he will in fact be caught. That’s less evident in amateur sleuth novels, and I would miss that for sure.
Nevertheless, there is much to admire and enjoy in amateur sleuth mysteries. If they are not as dark as the L.A. noir classics, perhaps that is just as well. We live in dark times, and a light and frothy tone in a good piece of fiction can relieve some of the pain.
Reading an amateur sleuth mystery is one of life’s little pleasures. Here’s why:
- We live in an age of DIY and organic farming. Amateur sleuths fit that spirit of homegrown, home-cooked, homemade creations. Amateur sleuths seldom work out of an office in a brick high-rise. They work out of a coffee shop (Glory B), a barn (Zoe Chambers), or a kitchen (Delilah O’Leary). Time spent with them feels like time spent with a relative or a good friend.
- There are lots of different ways to be funny, and amateur sleuth authors have figured out most of them. Richard Osman’s books are witty and droll. Mindy Quigley’s books are hilarious. Mia Manansala’s books are sassy. For other amateur sleuth authors, humor is not a constant but it appears every now and then, like a well-placed punctuation mark. If your funny bone likes to be tickled, a good amateur sleuth mystery is a good bet.
- Amateur sleuths are mavericks. They seldom follow standard operating procedures. They have their own moral codes, their own rhythms, their own mantras, their own signature moves. They are, if you’ll pardon the word, a bit eccentric. Sometimes their behavior is cringeworthy. Sometimes their behavior is illegal. But they are undeniably fun to watch.
The heroes or heroines of amateur sleuth mysteries are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. We get to see them make mistakes as they start out but we also get to see them develop a skill set that enables them to solve a serious crime, all reasons why we find ourselves in a renaissance of amateur sleuth mysteries.
