The First Hard-Boiled Detective - An Alternative View

In an essay posted elsewhere on this website, I contend that Dashiel Hammett wrote the first hard-boiled detective stories.  However, I want to share another opinion, sent to me by the enigmatic Automatic Cat.

In an e-mail, Auto (I’ll be familiar since I don’t know if I was contacted by a Mr. Or Ms. Cat) stated in part: "I always find it funny to see that most people who write about Hard-boiled on the internet consider Sherlock Holmes as the antithesis of the genre, only showing that they have never read any of the novels/stories..."

Auto went on to say that "On the Thrilling Detective site they even describe what makes a hard boiled detective different from the traditional detective, and in every single item on the list there is evidence that this supposed writer has never read a Sherlock Holmes story. The only thing that puts him on the "trad" list is that example that there is a Watson. In every other way he fits the hardboiled side very easily."

Well, I checked out the Thrilling Detective site and found their definition almost identical to my own.  And since it’s been several years since I read through Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, I decided to check Auto’s theory out, point by point.

First, let’s look at the detective himself.  The term hard-boiled hadn’t been coined yet, but Sherlock was certainly his own man. In many of the stories he is portrayed as being quite rough and tough, and not easily moved by feelings.  He may not have been callous, but when dealing with both royalty and criminals he proved to be both hardheaded and shrewd on many occasions.  I have to admit, in many ways Holmes fits the profile.

Again, quoting Auto about the Elizabethan sleuth: "With jack knives propping up his letters against a wall and another wall covered in bullet holes during his late night pistol practicing, his cocaine habit and chemical experiments, his connection to the underworld, his being hunted down by the first ever fictional crime boss, Professor Moriarty and his right hand man Colonel Sebastian Moran and his Elephant guns, his constant making fools of the police and his siding with petty crooks and people on the wrong side of the law who he sympathizes with, I think he is much more interesting than the cliche of the detectives who are poor imitations of Chandler's Marlow and Hammett's Op."

Holmes certainly was dedicated, often fixated on the job at hand.  And he was far more concerned with right and wrong than the letter of the law.  We often observe him on a quest for the truth, or justice, or simply against the evil of the world.  He had a clearly defined moral code, even if the police sometimes disagreed.  He may have worked well with Travis McGee after all.

Beyond the hero himself, hard-boiled fiction takes place in a certain setting. One has to admit that the London in which Holmes lives is as dark and gritty as the mean California streets Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe wander.  Organized crime is a powerful force there, violence is common, political corruption is everywhere, and people are frequently hostile for no apparent reason.  Holmes certainly does seem to live in a hard-boiled environment.

Doyle also seemed to create the right social milieu.  His stories frequently dealt with the difficulties that arise when the lower levels of society met the upper crust, which in his case meant actual royalty.  London of the time seems to have set the pattern for the same kind of conflict we saw in the 1950’s in San Francisco.

And Holmes was certainly a man of action.  His were never drawing room adventures, but conflicts with the kind of criminals who had to be dealt with using guns, knives, and fists.  The action was not as brutal as most hard-boiled stories have it, and this difference in style weakens Auto’s case.  I don’t recall Holmes ever taking a real beating, as most of my detective favorites have.  However, his fights were never cartoon action either.  It was realistic battle, within the limits of literature at the time.

I do think there are a couple of points that separate the Sherlock Holmes stories from his hard-boiled followers.  First, his stories were not as character driven.  Sherlock was not a simple mug, like Sam Spade or Mike Hammer, but a keen scientist who used forensic evidence more often than his knowledge of human nature to divine the truth.  While the motivations and personalities of the characters involved did figure into the plot, they more often took a back seat to physical evidence that only Holmes can see. 

The other difference, which is open to disagreement, is style.  The dialogue of Holmes and his fellow characters is still the British-speak of its time, without the crackle or sting of wise guy talk that could only develop in the post-WWI era USA.  Holmes WAS a wiseacre at times, but he had no choice but to be an Elizabethan wiseacre.  The question is, does style alone eliminate a detective from this genre?

Which of course, brings us to Autocat’s entry for first hard-boiled detective story.  Again, in Auto’s own words:

"I am and have always been a big fan of Dashiel Hammett, but I never realized that nearly every convention he has ever used has been already done in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear. This is also the first time the Pinkertons are mentioned in a fictional story. This being the last full length novel is actually genre bending for a Holmes story in itself in that the first half echoes more of his contemporaries in that it is less of an adventure and more of a pure mystery. Then at the second half it kicks into a full forced tension building adventure that leads to a plot twist at the very end. It is the original Red Harvest."

One thing Autocat and I agree on is that The Valley of Fear is one ripping good yarn.  I highly recommend that every mystery fan give it a read.  You may also see it as the first hard-boiled detective story.