Detective Fiction and the Ghost Story: The Haunted Text

232 Pages·2014·2.583 MB·English

by  Michael Cook (auth.)

Crime Files Series
General Editor: Clive Bloom
Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has never
been more popular. In novels, short stories, films, radio, television and now
in computer games, private detectives and psychopaths, prim poisoners and
overworked cops, tommy gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very
stuff of modern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular
consciousness. Crime Files is a ground-breaking series offering scholars,
students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of
crime and detective fiction. Every aspect of crime writing, detective fiction,
gangster movie, true-crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial inves-
tigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehen-
sive coverage and theoretical sophistication.
Published titles include :
Maurizio Ascari
A COUNTER-HISTORY OF CRIME FICTION
Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational
Pamela Bedore
DIME NOVELS AND THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN DETECTIVE FICTION
Hans Bertens and Theo D’haen
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CRIME FICTION
Anita Biressi
CRIME, FEAR AND THE LAW IN TRUE CRIME STORIES
Ed Christian ( editor )
THE POST-COLONIAL DETECTIVE
Paul Cobley
THE AMERICAN THRILLER
Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s
Michael Cook
NARRATIVES OF ENCLOSURE IN DETECTIVE FICTION
The Locked Room Mystery
Michael Cook
DETECTIVE FICTION AND THE GHOST STORY
The Haunted Text
Barry Forshaw
DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE
A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Barry Forshaw
BRITISH CRIME FILM
Subverting the Social Order
Emelyne Godfrey
MASCULINITY, CRIME AND SELF-DEFENCE IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE
Duelling with Danger
Emelyne Godfrey
FEMININITY, CRIME AND SELF-DEFENCE IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE
AND SOCIETY
From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes
Christiana Gregoriou
DEVIANCE IN CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION
Lee Horsley
THE NOIR THRILLER
Merja Makinen
AGATHA CHRISTIE
Investigating Femininity
Fran Mason
AMERICAN GANGSTER CINEMA
From Little Caesar to P ulp Fiction
Fran Mason
HOLLYWOOD’S DETECTIVES
Crime Series in the 1930s and 1940s from the Whodunnit to Hard-boiled
Noir
Linden Peach
MASQUERADE, CRIME AND FICTION
Criminal Deceptions
Steven Powell (e ditor )
100 AMERICAN CRIME WRITERS
Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker
FRENCH AND AMERICAN NOIR
Dark Crossings
Crime Files
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–71471–3 (hardback)
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Detective Fiction and the
Ghost Story
The Haunted Text
Michael Cook
© Michael Cook 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-29488-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries
ISBN 978-1-349-45165-4 ISBN 978-1-137-29489-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137294890
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
To Lottie, Chloe and Monty and the future they represent
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Contents
Preface viii
Introduction 1
1 Detecting the Ghost 13
2 Decoding the Past: Narrative and Inquiry in ‘The Musgrave
Ritual’ and ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ 3 5
3 Out of the Past: Retribution and Conan Doyle’s Double
Narratives 52
4 ‘That Forbidding Moor’: The Hound of the Baskervilles ,
a Ghost Story? 7 0
5 Agatha Christie’s Harlequinade: The ‘Bi-Part’ Soul of the
Detective 89
6 Golden Age Gothic: John Dickson Carr’s Locked Room 1 08
7 Rebus’s Edinburgh Palimpsest: The Spirits of the Place 127
8 Susan Hill’s Lost Hearts: The Woman in Black and the
Serrailler Novels 146
9 Tony Hillerman’s Cultural Metaphysics 165
Conclusion 1 79
Notes 1 89
Select Bibliography and Suggested Reading 204
Index 2 19
vii
Preface
This book has had a long gestation; to be honest, it has probably lain
dormant in my unconscious for a good part of my adult life, from the
moment I first read T he Hound of the Baskervilles . So, to see this idea
become a reality is something of a milestone for me. I have been in love
with detective fiction and the ghost story all my life, and although I
always considered them utterly discrete, having written these pages
they now seem to me to be natural partners. Writing is necessarily a
solitary profession, especially for a lone researcher like me, so I some-
times envy those who have daily access to academe and the opportu-
nity to exchange mutual criticism. There are, however, consolations;
my home is surrounded by what Kipling called ‘immutable’ hills, and
while they are not quite the ‘forbidding moor’ haunted by Holmes,
they offer considerable solace and inspiration to the creative mind.
I would like to record a word of appreciation to my favourite critics
who have done so much for detective fiction: to Clive Bloom, whose
work I so admire and for his faith in my first book which set me on my
literary path; to Stephen Knight, whose books never fail to provoke
and stimulate; to Michael Dirda for the wit, truth and elegance of
his writing and to the much missed Julia Briggs and Michael Cox for
their knowledge and insight into the ghost story. I would also like
to express my gratitude to all at Palgrave Macmillan who continue to
show interest in my work. I am aware that there is a selfish streak to
all writers and am very conscious that this manifested itself in our
household to an extreme degree over the last year while the book
took shape. So, my eternal thanks must go to the long-suffering
Jenny, who has unselfishly interrupted her own professional and
academic work to help, read and criticize my labours way above and
beyond what one could reasonably expect. My daughters, Hannah
and Naomi, have also been invaluable, using their respective exper-
tise to help with the production. Finally, because the germ of this
project grew out of a childhood obsession, I would like to dedicate it
to my grandchildren, Lottie, Chloe and Monty and Giga Bun as yet
unborn – this book is for them.
viii
Introduction
In his 1944 novel, T he Case of the Gilded Fly , Edmund Crispin inter-
rupts what is a conventional detective story set in St. Christopher’s, a
fictitious Oxford college, to embark on a Jamesian ghost story. In true
Monty James style and the oral tradition, as the assembled company
of detectives and academics sit around, one of the dons suddenly
launches into a spooky tale concerning the history of the college.
The narrative, which has elements of James’s ecclesiastical stories,
‘The Stalls of Barchester’ (1911) and ‘An Episode in Cathedral History’
(1919), concerns the martyrdom of a student from the sixteenth
century for his support of the Reformation. While the college chapel
is being altered, a stone with the inscription, cave ne exeat , ‘don’t let it
get out’ – a singularly Jamesian sentiment – is found; this disturbance
releases the ghost of the martyr who seeks out the current organist
and murders him. The original organist had been the leader of those
who persecuted the martyr. 1 This remarkable passage appears to have
no bearing upon the plot of the detective story at all; aside from
the collegiate and ecclesiastical setting and the obvious reference to
James, the whole exercise seems gratuitous. When I read this, it was
the casual audacity of such an intervention that was so striking; there
was, it seems, no barrier to interrupting a detective story in this way.
My surprise was heightened by the fact that this coup d’éclat occurred
in the midst of the most formulaic and, by common consent, exclu-
sive of narratives that is the conventional detective story. This easy
conjunction raised an intriguing question about the nature of detec-
tive fiction, suggesting an underlying affinity with the ghost story.
1