Ellery Queen: Forgotten Master Detective

Abstract

Traditional detective stories, those written in the "Golden Age" of the 1920's mad 1930's, follow a basic formula set forth by W.H. Auden: "a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested of dies" (Symons 3). Three writers were instrumental in the evolution of this formula: Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and S.S. Van Dine. Poe created the genre by writing the first detective stories; Doyle made the genre popular by creating Sherlock Holmes; and Van Dine redefined the genre by writing guidelines for authors. Each of these men made such significant contributions that without them modern detective stories probably would not exist. This thesis examines the Detective Story Genre. The decade between World War I and II was the "Golden Age" of the detective novel. In that decade of change, people longed for order in their lives and to escape from the misery of the Great Depression. The detective novel offered the perfect escape: it took place in an ordered world where everyone understood the guidelines, murder was committed without any actual violence, good always triumphed in the end and the criminal was brought to justice. It was a combination escape novel and morality play. Three basic types of detectives, each representing a mystery sub-genre, were established in the Golden Age and remain prominent today: the professional detective, the amateur detective, and the private eye. The professional detective was someone whose job was criminal investigation, such as a police officer or a Pinkerton detective. The amateur detective was an investigator with no official reason to solve crimes. Amateurs sometimes served as police consultants if they had special skills, such as a background in military intelligence. The private investigator, or private eye, was an investigator, usually a form er police officer, who worked for a professional detective agency.