Writing a Detective’s Biography
If you were commissioned to write a biography of your favorite detective, who would be the people you would most like to interview?
If your detective has a Watson-like narrator, consider interviewing someone else. Wouldn’t Mycroft Holmes be able to tell you things that John Watson never knew about Sherlock? Assuming Archie Goodwin has told us everything he knows about Nero Wolfe, would an interview with Saul Panzer or Inspector Cramer be more informative?
Some fictional detectives may be a real challenge. Could you find some of the men in Spenser’s division in Vietnam? Does anyone know anything about Spenser’s boyhood, other than what he may have told Susan about it? Could you learn about Kinsey Milhone’s childhood from her estranged cousins? What about that policeman who worked with her father?
I’d like to do a biography of Lord Peter Wimsey. I’d interview Lady Mary about Peter’s boyhood and Bunter about his war experiences; then I’d try to find some of his Balliol classmates to learn about his university years. I think I’d also like to find Barbara, the woman who jilted him.
