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 Pulp 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 (editor ) 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) 978–0–333–93064–9 (paperback) ( outside North America only ) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England 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, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. 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. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. To Lottie, Chloe and Monty and the future they represent This page intentionally left blank 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’ 35 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? 70 5 Agatha Christie’s Harlequinade: The ‘Bi-Part’ Soul of the Detective 89 6 Golden Age Gothic: John Dickson Carr’s Locked Room 108 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 179 Notes 189 Select Bibliography and Suggested Reading 204 Index 219 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 The 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, The 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 2 Detective Fiction and the Ghost Story Further investigation to ascertain whether this was a consistent prac- tice throughout the genre proved to be revelation. The reading of detective fiction from the perspective of the supernatural became the genesis of this book. Approaching the detective story from an unfamiliar quarter helped to overcome what threatened to be an insurmountable barrier – the apparent antithesis between the two genres.