It may be, ultimately, a matter of preference, but, much like professional wrestling, I enjoy my crime fiction a lot more when there are gimmicks involved. This is especially true in the case of a long-running series, where I need that extra incentive to stay invested. What I usually look for in a series are the following: a sense of continuity however slight, and, more importantly, consistency (the cast staying true to its established characters/features, barring exceptional/strongly reasoned-out circumstances; an authorial style and voice that fits the ambience of the work and its purpose, without drastic changes or too much flitting around or unexplained/needless experimentation; no execution of a convenient, contrived plot device or deus ex machina seemingly out of nowhere as a surprising plot twist but which undoes all the groundwork laid before that point). Which is why I find it easier to think of a work's merits and the author's crafts in terms of the gimmicks introduced and the way they are treated.
In my opinion, gimmicks are, broadly speaking, identifiable, distinguishable elements that constitute an author's trademark, prima facie, at the time they were published. The disclaimer about the time of publication is an important one as gimmicks are also the fundamental, building blocks of crime fiction tropes. Which is to say, any unique aspect (say, for instance, the introduction of the locked room mystery in Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery) is particularly prone to capturing the imagination of future authors, and if it proves to be popular enough, the more the likelihood of said aspect to be borrowed and replicated (albeit, in different ways). This accounts for the dual and peculiarly paradoxical nature of gimmicks: from a microscopic viewpoint, the elements have to be unique enough for them to be recognised as an author's trademark; from a macroscopic perspective, however, they can be a part of an already established, pre-existing, overarching trope or sub-genre.
As far as my reading of the genre is concerned, I have noticed authors to establish gimmicks predominantly in two ways:
- Characterisation
- Plotting and narrative structuring
Characterisation
One of the simpler ways in which authors establish gimmicks is by bestowing their protagonists (usually the sleuths) with a strong visual identity. Sherlock Holmes, arguably the world's most popular private detective till date, is introduced in A Study in Scarlet as a man "over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller." Furthermore, he had "sharp and piercing" eyes and a "thin, hawk-like nose" that "gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision." A study in contrast would be Agatha Christie's creation, Hercule Poirot, described in The Mysterious Affair at Styles as "hardly more than five feet four inches", with a head "exactly the shape of an egg" and a "very stiff and military moustache." Another remarkable aspect of his appearance was the "neatness of his appearance"—in the words of Captain Hastings, "a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound." Nero Wolfe, a perfectly hilarious embodiment of the 'armchair detective' set in a world of pulp fiction, is essentially defined by his inability to physically move around—according to his long-serving assistant Archie Goodwin, Wolfe weighs "a seventh of a ton" who "limits his physical movements to what he regards as the irreducible essentials."
Given the astonishing richness of the visual markers in these descriptions, it's little surprise then that multiple adaptations of these popular works have often stayed as true to the original work as possible, as far as the portrayal of the lead detective is concerned. Consequentially, the actors essaying these roles have also become household names among crime fiction aficionados and beyond (in some cases)—for instance, Basil Rathbone's and Jeremy Brett's Holmes, David Suchet's and Peter Ustinov's Poirot, Maury Chaykin's Wolfe, among many, many others.
If a character struck gold, such as is the case with Holmes, it could also end up serving as an inspiration for new and upcoming authors. The Max Carrados stories by Ernest Bramahm, which, 1914 onwards, shared space in the Strand Magazine alongside Doyle's Holmes, are a case in point. The distinguishing feature of Carrados is his blindness that has somehow heightened his other senses exceptionally—the unique premise of a 20th-century Daredevil, if you will. He is able to 'read' print and detect coin forgeries through the sense of touch with equal expertise, while his elevated perception enables him to make masterly deductions and hunt down nefarious criminals. Like Holmes, he also happens to be an authority in a somewhat esoteric, specialised field—numismatics.
But, strong visual descriptors are not the only way in which authors set up gimmicks. Mannerisms, character itches and eccentricities can be equally useful as guides. Baroness Orczy's Old Man in the Corner, another detective of the Holmesian school and perhaps one of the earliest armchair detectives, has a habit of tying pieces of string into extremely complicated knots at the height of his excitement, leading his captive audience to offer a ball of yarn as an incentive to start his explanations. For sources to base his deductions on, he relies on sensationalist newspaper accounts and has a penchant for attending the most crowded court gatherings ever. Seishi Yokomizo's sleuth, Kosuke Kindaichi, who is otherwise recognisable by his serge hakama outfit and a felt hat, often stammers and violently scratches his wild and unruly hair when confronted with an inexplicable puzzle. As another favourite ploy by authors to lend their creations a definite identity, catchphrases too fall in this very same category. Memorable as they may be in their initial form, personally speaking, I am thoroughly entertained when popular catchphrases and utterances/explanations are cleverly and funnily parodied/pastiched—such a treatment seems to me to be a subtle acknowledgement of a character's legacy while being cheeky about it in a good-natured way.
Other ways in which characters gain unique identities include their professions—for instance, magician (in the cases of Clayton Rawson's Merlini, David Renwick's Jonathan Creek and Bengali author Bimal Kar's Kinkar Kishore Ray), professor (in the case of R. Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke), astrologer (in the case of Soji Shimada's Kiyoshi Mitarai), among others. In the same vein but on a slightly different note, John Dickson Carr's Chestertonian sleuth Dr Gideon Fell is the author of some unconventional treatises—The Drinking Customs of England From The Earliest Days, Romances of the Seventeenth Century and another on the supernatural in English fiction.
Yet another technique involves providing revealing insights into the lives and daily struggles of the investigators, portraying them as human figures and not solely rational, analytical, deduction supermachines. Such a treatment has been a staple particularly in the world of Scandinavian crime fiction, from Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series to Henning Mankell's Wallander stories and more besides, where the extremely sobering depressing realities of the lives of the policemen and detectives serve to add to the bleakness quotient of the works. An obligatory reference must also be made to Russian author Boris Akunin's supremely entertaining Erast Fandorin novels, in which the protagonist goes through what I like to term as an 'emotional blue screen of death' in almost every one of the works. In comparison, Bengali author Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi enjoys a refreshingly normal and relatively happy family life—one marked, mostly, by progressive arguments and discussions with his friend and his wife.
Plotting and narrative structuring
In the Richard-Levinson-and-William-Link-produced Ellery Queen TV series, one of my favourite detective shows of all time, there are two challenges issued to the viewers—one at the very beginning and the other by the fourth-wall-breaking Ellery Queen, essayed by Jim Hutton, at a point he believes he has gathered all the evidence and connected all the threads of the matter. This simple addition was a wonderful twist and an intellectually stimulating exercise that did away with the tried-and-tested trope of the sleuth having to 'spoonfeed' everything at the end, without giving the audience an opportunity to exercise their "little grey cells". It is this format that has stayed with me the most; this, despite the extremely commendable nature of the puzzles themselves.
The same duo of Levinson and Link were behind the excellent series Columbo that turned the traditional whodunnit on its head and instead presented engaging howdunnits and inverted mysteries. Viewers were shown the criminal acts within the first half of each episode with the identity of the culprit being no secret; instead, the audience had to correctly identify the loopholes in the modus operandi and the way in which Lieutenant Columbo was most likely to indict the criminal. The success of this series, in turn, led renowned playwright Kōki Mitani to create an equally absorbing Japanese version of Columbo called Furuhata Ninzaburō.
The point of mentioning these three diverse shows is to highlight the fact that in crime fiction the way a story unfolds and the manner in which the narrative is laid out may well be the difference between a good piece of fiction and a great one. In its heyday, the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction was hailed for the intellectual quotient it brought to the table. However, the stories were also zealously faithful to rules set up by a close circle of authors comprising the Detection Club. And, thus it is that one encounters some familiar sequences and setups in a Golden Age work—a fair distribution of clues, red herrings galore, and the obligatory denouement scene where the sleuth gathers all parties concerned, shows off their deductions and then goes on to expose and denounce the culprit. And yet, one wonders how a work such as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that subverted one of the most important cardinal rules of the time outshone and had greater longevity than the numerous others that stayed faithful to the literary conventions of the era, only to largely forgotten in the subsequent eras (till a favourable time of rediscovery unearths them again). Experimenting with rules and conventions, though risky, can be rewarding. For instance, Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner and Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley stories occupy morally grey areas where often, the rule of law isn't followed to the t, and the protagonist often praises the perpetrator's ability to hoodwink the police and the law, even going to the point of shielding them from their comeuppance—a potential novelty for readers too familiar with the 'goody-two-shoes' nature of fictional investigators.
Gimmicks or tropes established via plotting and narrative structuring, therefore, exhibit a cyclical and paradoxical nature. They arise in response to—often in opposition to—the conventions of a particular era or style, then gain legitimacy, later establishing themselves in the mainstream firmly enough to contribute their own to the world of tropes. The hardboiled genre, focusing more on the gritty, soul-crushing work of ordinary gumshoes in extremely harsh, unforgiving and hostile environment than anything, evolved as a counterpoint to the excessive liberties taken by authors of traditional whodunnits and the figure of the 'great, grand detective', both of which 'threatened' to take the genre away from more realistic moorings to far-fetched flights of unchecked imagination and fancy. The police procedural, on the other hand, is a more introspective genre reflecting widely on the nature of crime itself, its origins, its implications and the effects it has on society across different strata. The immensely popular psychological thriller veers into a different territory, often endeavouring to provide an understanding and a vivid picture of the inner workings and motivations of a criminal mind. In this, and especially the way in which it has developed in the 21st century, it can even be said that psychological thrillers share more similarities with true crime than fiction itself.
Intersections
The discussion above shouldn't be taken to mean that the two aspects are worlds apart without any possibility of crossing paths with each other. There exist gimmicks that advance the cause of both—Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, the two works I have talked about the most on this blog till date, are illustrative examples. One of the central points of the Detective Conan series is that of a detective being shrunk, literally, into the size of a kindergarten student. Taking up this fantastical premise, the manga's plot advances with the readers still awaiting its resolution of whether Conan is able to revert to his original body, while exacting justice on the organisation responsible for his plight—a perfect example of a very particular character detail propelling the plot of a work for above 1,000 episodes/chapters. The latest iteration of the Kindaichi series does this slightly differently. Long-time fans will undoubtedly be aware of Hajime Kindaichi's trademark catchphrase, "In the name of my grandfather", which, as a teenager, he uttered every single time before resolving to solve a case. However, in a recent series featuring the adventures of Kindaichi as a 37 year old, it turns out that the detective, now moonlighting as a corporate-sector worker, no longer wishes to be involved in any mysteries. The circumstances surrounding this radical shift in his character have not been revealed yet, forming one of the forces that is driving the plot forward for now.
A reverse example of a plot detail influencing characterisation further down the line can be found in the Erast Fandorin series. In the first novel, The Winter Queen, certain events at the very end drastically alter Fandorin's constitution, physically as well as mentally. The reader comes to witness the character's change prominently several times in the series, but it all ties back to the first novel whose events also influence Fandorin's decisions and actions in the fourth novel, The Death of Achilles.
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Gimmicks, therefore, serve multiple purposes: as a unique identifier, a useful analytical tool, a foundational element of a trope, and much more. Personally, though, the reason I find gimmicks to be most relatable is because I find them to be one of the more entertaining and 'realistic' elements of detective and crime fiction. In our daily lives, we are all victims of our own habits, each of us unconsciously or subconsciously inhabiting a gimmick (or gimmicks) that are noticeable only when the more extreme traits surface. It is, perhaps, only natural that crime fiction, with its roots in an imagined reconstruction or an approximate simulation of all-too-human observations, ratiocinisation and deduction, would aspire to do the same with gimmicks.
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