Looking back: "Trent" and the Imperfect Detective

The subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, "The Poisoned Chocolates Case," features a half dozen amateur detectives, most coming up with incorrect solutions to the mystery. This was one of the "Golden Age" responses to the super-intellect of the standard-issue detective hero. Think "Sherlock Holmes," for instance, and you will understand the type of rarely-if-ever-wrong sleuth we mean.

It's a tradition which really dates back to 1913 and E. C. Bentley's marvelous "Trent's Last Case." I reviewed this book some time ago, and you can listen to the podcast here. Bentley felt that the detective story had become far too sterile and predictable. So his amateur detective,Trent, is a more human character than Holmes or other early detectives, with complex emotions and the ability to make mistakes - sometimes enormous ones.

In his introduction to the Dover edition of "Trent's Last Case," Douglas G. Greene notes that Bentley really invented the mystery format that features "the false solution, or solutions, followed by the true." That's precisely the format followed later in "The Poisoned Chocolates Case" and so many other mysteries, and it's quite familiar to readers of such masters as Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr.

Agatha Christie called "Trent's Last Case" "one of the best detective stories ever written." Nearly a century after its first appearance, there are still a lot of readers who would agree with her. It's still in print; it's also available in an ebook version for the Kindle - you will find details at the Amazon link above.

Comments

[Private Investigator]

This is very inspiring blog. very well said, interesting stories.

[Ron Smyth]

Trent's Last Case is also available in Kindle format at www.archive.org for free.

[Les Blatt]

That's good to know, Ron. Thanks for the pointer!