Also Starring...

Also Starring

by Elizabeth Foxwell

Today's guest, Agatha winner Elizabeth Foxwell, is managing editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection (the only US scholarly journal on mystery and detective fiction) and editor of the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series. Her collection No Man’s Land and Other Stories is available on a variety of ebook formats. She blogs at elizabethfoxwell.blogspot.com.

We follow mystery series because of intriguing plots and appealing protagonists, but supporting players also can earn our loyalty. They add verisimilitude to the fictional universe created by the author, supply vital clues and support to the hero or heroine, provide comic relief, serve as potential suspects, and build reader sympathy by their ability to irritate the major characters.

The following are a few of my favorite supporting players in mysterydom. What are yours?

Grandmama, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series (Anne Perry). Charlotte’s cranky paternal grandmother is usually occupied with detailing the many faults of her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, but her officiousness sometimes extends beyond the family. Perry’s Victorian series eventually revealed some details about Grandmama’s past that helped explain her personality, but this knowledge does little to mitigate her sheer awfulness. The epitome of Grandmama’s chutzpah occurred in Highgate Rise, when she decided to call on the Worlinghams after their niece’s mysterious death so she could obtain the inside scoop—despite the fact that she had not seen the family for 30 years.

Miss Drusilla Clack, The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins). Poor relation Miss Clack provides one of the testimonies regarding the disappearance of the priceless gem of the title. Mystery fans may admire Miss Clack’s statement, “My sacred regard for truth is (thank God) far above my respect for persons,” and her ability to hide behind curtains to eavesdrop on crucial conversations, but may have lesser regard for her imposition of tracts on unsuspecting bystanders such as “Satan among the Sofa Cushions.”

Wilson Budd Hotchkiss, The Man in Lower Ten (Mary Roberts Rinehart). Pity the diminutive Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Despite his adherence to the “inductive method” of Poe, diligent reading of Gaboriau, and ardent note-taking, few seem to appreciate his enthusiasm for amateur detection. When he wants to trace bloodstains around the murder victim on a train and asks bemused hero Lawrence Blakeley to jab his finger with a pin, the conductor snarls, “if you don’t keep out of this . . . I will do some jabbing myself.” Richey McKnight, the sardonic lawyer colleague of Blakeley, finally dubs Hotchkiss “the great original protoplasm.”

Cordelia Thorn, Jane Lawless series (Ellen Hart). Part of the fun of a mystery with the newly minted PI is discovering the unique undertakings of the theatrical Cordelia Thorn, Jane’s devoted best friend and wingman. In the latest, Taken by the Wind, Cordelia adopts hazmat gear as the latest fashion trend.

Ramses Emerson, Amelia Peabody Emerson series, Elizabeth Peters. The precocious son of forthright Egyptologist Amelia Peabody Emerson took on a more prominent and serious role as the Victorian/Edwardian/WWI series progressed, but I am particularly fond of his early appearances, as in The Curse of the Pharoahs, when he informs his mother that he has found a “femuw of a winocowus.” In this same book, Ramses’ usually formidable father calls him “Papa’s widdle Wawa,” to his mother’s disgust.

 

 

 

Comments

[Kristopher]

Those are some great characters Elizabeth. I particularly love Grandmama as well.

My day job is at the Johns Hopkins University Press in their journals division and yet I had no idea that the Clues journal existed. Off to investigate. ;)

Thanks for stopping by.

[Elizabeth Foxwell]

Yes, Kristopher, Grandmama is supremely awful. :-) My supervisor at my day job (at CUA Press) is former JHUP person Trevor Lipscombe.

[Kristopher]

I know Trevor. We were sad to lose him here at the Press (though he, of course, worked more on the book side), but I know that he is doing a great job over there at CUA. It's a small world. ;)

[catriona]

One of my favourite side-kicks is Mrs Berns, the outrageous octogenarian friend of Mira James, in Jess Lourey's Murder-by-Month series. And - I'm not proud of this, but it's true - I've got a soft spot for Win in Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar books.

[Elaine Viets]

Since "Monk" is a mystery series as well as a TV show, I love his ever-patient assistant, Natalie.
Wouldn't want to be her,though.

[Elizabeth Foxwell]

Win scares the heck out of me. I wouldn't want to be Natalie either, Elaine.

[Marcia Talley]

Great post, Beth! Can I put in a vote for Spenser's Hawk? Especially as played on the TV show by Avery Brooks (an Oberlin College grad, like me, BTW.) He was lean and mean, and the repartee between him and the bad guys cracked me up.

[Elizabeth Foxwell]

Yup, can't go wrong with Hawk. I especially like his appearance in _A Catskill Eagle_, where there are four bad guys, and he says, "I be getting my new rifle." It doesn't take long to figure out from whom he intends to get the rifle...

[Dean James]

Harlan once signed a book for me "To Dean, the Win of librarians."