Abstract
We can also see the kind of xenophobic stereotypes that Christie used when we compare her works to detective fiction taken from an entirely different cultural tradition: When we think about the detective novel, we are most likely to see in our mind?s eye Sherlock Holmes?s deerstalker cap or hear the Belgian accents of Hercule Poirot. The genre of detective fiction ? with its traditional elements of the seemingly perfect crime, the wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points (in many cases, the bungling of the dim-witted police (in opposition to the cleverness of the private operator), the astonishing powers of observation and superior mind of the detective, and a startling and unexpected denouement (quite likely taking place in a parlor) in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained ? seems a quintessentially Western concept.

Tags:Christie, Conrad, detective, stereotype, ethnocentric, detective novel

Abstract
Victorian Detective Genre is formed around a criminal offensive, which includes a protector of justice (usually a detective), a motive produced by the criminal, clues which are left for the detective to examine, and a criminal. This paper discusses how a common example of this type of writing is that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a doctor at the time of the Victorian era who started writing small newspaper stories which were crafted to his audience with excellence. His main character was a master at solving crimes, a very well educated gentleman with a unique charm which pleased all of his clients. This man was the famous detective named Sherlock Holmes, created and based on Doyle's own medical knowledge. The paper compares some of the stories from the Sherlock Holmes collection to show how Doyle uses Victorian detective genre throughout while using historical references and various quotes from Sherlock Holmes books.

From the Paper
"'The Speckled Band', 'Silver Blaze' and 'The Cardboard Box' were all stories where a murder had taken place. Both the stories 'The Speckled Band' and 'Silver Blaze' were based on murders which were both committed by animals, a snake and a horse. Both stories were in enclosed village areas, and both stories had many red-herrings which were tailored to each case along with the police who often believed these theories. Doyle used red-herrings to direct his audience along another route, while allowing Sherlock to investigate strange and often short explanations, for example 'Holmes walked slowly round and examined each and all of them with the keenest interest'. Doyle showed the audience the same clues as Sherlock saw, so they felt Holmes was more cleaver than them to a certain extent, as they had followed the red-herrings throughout the story. This effect was sewn into the clues so the audience could not tell truth from theory. "

Tags:Speckled, Band, Silver, Blaze'

Abstract
This paper focuses on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget", which are among the first modern detective mystery stories. The paper shows how Poe introduced the idea of a fictional detective investigating a real-life unsolved murder and compares the beginnings of both stories. The paper highlights Poe's literary devices in both works, which include the depiction of police as incompetent and self-serving, his use of newspapers to narrate the story, and his use of the gothic genre. The suggestion is made that some of these similarities between the two works may be the result of being written so close together, since "The Purloined Letter", which was written several years afterwards, is a very different detective story.

From the Paper
"Mystery or detective stories form an increasingly popular genre: from novels about pathologists, private eyes and police detectives, to eccentrics like Nero Wolfe; and from the hard-boiled, and unwilling detective Easy Rawlins to the old-fashioned English settings of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, there is a story and a genre to satisfy anyway. For over a hundred and fifty years, the detective fiction has kept generations of readers entertained, and the person credited with introducing the detective to modern fiction is Edgar Allen Poe."

Tags:murders, police, crime, gothic, genre

Abstract
This paper explains that the father of the detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, provided the detective story model for nineteenth-century British novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of one of the world's most famous detective Sherlock Holmes. The author reviews Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter" to illustrate the ways in which amateur sleuth Auguste Dupin was the pattern upon which Doyle created Holmes. The paper uses textual analysis and historical evidence to reveal that Doyle borrowed from Poe the logical method, the details of personal habits and personality and the narrator who purports to present the exploits of his brainy, withdrawn friend to the public.

From the Paper
"Holmes is also influenced by Dupin and his peculiar attachment to a loyal companion who serves to document the successes of his brilliant mentor. Like Dupin's associate, Watson plays the part of the straight man in Doyle's tale. He essentially an observer whose sole purpose is to offer fumbling assistance to the detective, typically by way of inaccurate observations, suppositions, and conclusions that Holmes then corrects. It becomes very obvious that Doyle patterned the ineffectual and lovable Watson, directly after Dupin's friend."

Tags:genre model eccentric method, fumbling police

Abstract
This paper will argue that the key point of similarity between the two forms of detective fiction is the adherence of the authors to a formula. It will be seen that while the adult novels are undeniably more complex than the children's works, both generally present their audiences with the comforting familiarity of formulaic plot and repeating characters.

Abstract
Since the 1920s, the form of detective fictions has taken a new turn by introducing ordinary characters as protagonists. This new form in American detective fictions has reinforced the definition of manhood of American culture. Violent actions depicted in these fictions to deal with complex moral decisions lead readers to equate violence with manhood.

Abstract
This paper explains that Dr. Douglas Ubelaker states in "Bones: A Forensic Detective's Casebook" that human bones often can tell the trained scientist more about the individual, even an individual's geographic origin, lifestyle or occupation, than the friends or relatives ever could. The author points out that Dr Ubelaker credits the 33,000 individual skeletons housed in the Smithsonian with helping him in every forensic case described in the book. The paper relates that identifying remains is an arduous task and is often made more difficult when someone attempts to cover up the crime or the identity of the victim through such methods as fire.

From the Paper
"One case early in the book is of a black woman who was discovered in rural Ohio. As is the case in this book, all that remained were bones. Race, approximate age and sex were first determined. Without available dental records or x-rays, a photograph of the possible victim was sent with the bones. At Smithsonian, Ubelaker compared the bones of the victim with bones in the museum. He was able to say with a great amount of certainty that the photograph was of that of the individual to whom the bones belonged."

Tags:smithsonisn, fire, children, identification, trauma

Abstract
This paper aims at analyzing the 'metaphysical detective story', a genre that twists the conventions of the conventional Holmesian detective stories and slyly leaves philosophical questionings of 'reality', 'truth', 'self' and 'identity' in the texture of the text. The writer observes curious results when postmodernism with its characteristic indeterminacy and chaos is applied on to a genre that hinges on certainty and order. This genre is dissected in the context of three texts - Paul Auster's "City of Glass", Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" and Jorge Louis Borge's "Death and the Compass" where the detectives Daniel Quinn, Christopher Boone and Erik Lonnrot are caught in a perilous world and the case as well as the story is left unfinished. The mystery is never solved and the detective becomes a failure. The paper concludes that these queer consequences raise deeper philosophical questions and raises the detective genre, as a whole, from its 'popular' image to an 'avant garde' form of art.

Outline:

Chapter 1 - "A Cross-Section of the Metaphysical Detective Story". Chapter 2 - "Shattering Expectations: Paul Auster's City of Glass". Chapter 3 - "The Curious Case of a Doomed Detective:An analysis of Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time". Chapter 4 - Pursuing the Pursuer: Jorge Louis Borges' "Death and the Compass"
Conclusion

From the Paper
"This new form of detective fiction is extremely self-reflexive where the author constantly reminds the reader of the construction and physicality of the text itself. It is metalinguistic in the sense that the text often critiques the linguistic medium that it employs and undermines its worth showing it incapable of fully constructing and conveying reality. This postmodern genre involves not only the detective figuring out what his purpose is in the text, but what his relationship to the author of the text is. Fictional boundaries are often transgressed and there is constant intermixing of the real with the fictional. The real world merges into the fictional world to the extent of being almost undistinguishable from one another, where, at times, the author himself (and other real life characters) enters into the fabric of the text and assumes the role of a character. At times he himself becomes one of the suspects. He creates a world where identities are not fixed. The detective fails to identify individuals, misinterprets texts and gets confounded and defeated at every step. In this kind of story, one character may have multiple identities and names."

Tags:Sherlock Holmes, sub-genre detection parody intertextuality self-reflexivity hermeneutics interpretation ontological

Abstract
This paper explains that poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe gave birth to the genre of mystery and detective story-telling, popularized through his character Auguste Dupin, who is considered the first detective character to demonstrate the disciplines of deduction and logical thinking in solving the mysteries and crimes that plague society; Conan Doyle's fictional detective character, the well-known Sherlock Holmes, exhibited similar characteristics. The author compares Poe and Doyle's literary works based on their use of stereotyping and pattern-formation (logos), ethos and establishment of pathos as rhetorical techniques in which they solve mystery cases. This paper relates that Dupin's character was portrayed in the most eccentric light as possible by Poe, perhaps giving him a single commonality with the readers through his poverty; in proving Holmes credible to solve the mysteries of English society, Doyle also utilized the character of eccentricity as the most salient points of Holmes' character.

From the Paper
"Dupin's solution to the murders at the Rue Morgue was based on a stereotype and pattern found in the facts available about the case. Pattern formation was apparent in his analysis of the witnesses' accounts of the events before, during, and after the murder. His discovery that each witness's testimony reflected the fact that "[e]ach likens it (the voice heard)-not to the voice of an individual of any nation...but the converse," a point that led him to conclude that the murderer was of an 'alien' nature, someone who does not speak the language of any of the nationalities of the witnesses."

Tags:ethos, logos, pathos, eccentricity, sherlock-holmes

Abstract
The paper examines research and statistics that reveal that increases in the number of detectives on the job will not have an appreciable impact on the clearance rates of police departments. The paper provides evidence to show that clearance rates are not positively associated with crime rates and so changes in detective work will also not affect the rates of crime.

From the Paper
"The FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 2001 indicated that the clearance rate for homicides was 65% (Richardson and Kosa 1). The clearance rates for other types of crimes--such as assault, theft, or rape--were all much lower than this. For the uninitiated, clearance rate refers to the rate at which police departments are able to gather sufficient evidence to charge and arrest an individual. Clearance rates are not the same as conviction rates, nor do they necessarily imply a one-to-one correlation with crime rates. Nonetheless, increasing clearance rates is generally perceived to be a good thing, primarily because it means that police are solving a greater number of crimes."

Tags:FBI, police, witnesses, homicide