“You’ve been reading too many detective yarns.”

It is a criticism that Inspector Gibaud levels at Detective Inspector Meredith in John Bude’s 1952 crime novel Death on the Riviera.

“…it’s a well worn double-cross, isn’t it?  Whenever a corpse turns up in a crime story with its face beyond recognition you can bet your bottom dollar that it isn’t the corpse you think it is.  Don’t mind confessing it.  I’ve been diddled that way myself.  But we happen to be dealing with fact not fiction.”

A similarly-worded observation turns up time and time again in crime fiction, particularly in Golden Age detective fiction.  It is an example of referencing the genre that the book belongs to as a deliberate tool to distance itself from the same genre.  It is the author’s attempt to say:

“All that other stuff you’ve read – the Christies, the Allinghams, the Loracs – is pure bunkum, but my story is real.”

To quote another couple of examples: here is Sir John Appleby in Michael Innes’ Death at the Chase:

“That’s why detective stories are of no interest to policemen. Their villains are far too consistently cerebral.”

And an exchange between Chief Constable Richardson and Inspector Dallas in Basil Thomson’s A Murder is Arranged:

“If you were writing detective fiction, Mr Dallas, no fingerprint would ever be blurred; they would always be made with the care necessary to assist police investigations.”

“Indeed, sir? I never read detective fiction.”

“Wise man. Real detective work doesn’t leave much room for fiction.”

Does this kind of self-referencing work?  Does it make me believe the veracity of the author’s words any the more; allow me to suspend belief that I am reading a work of fiction?

Not really.  I think, more often than not, it has the opposite effect.  All too easily, it is possible to see the conceit coming and it only puts me more in mind of the author’s thought processes when writing, rather than allowing myself to simply get swept along by the storytelling.

This same form of intertextuality happens in other genres of fiction – romance, for example – but it seems that it is in the field of detective fiction where it is most rife.

Still, recognisable tropes are often comforting.  Change too many of them and you change the whole foundation of the genre itself.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow still continues to be genre-defying.