All of us who study the crime novel
from the standpoint of form – if
I can use the term - think it is important to pass on information
about the few technical works that appear, considering what a significant
period the genre is currently going through.
Though it cannot be seen as a theoretical
exposition, Los héroes
de la novela policíaca is an excellent work of data collection and documentation. Sergi
Echaburu Soler has managed to bring together in this volume all
those characters who, right from the dawn of the genre, i.e. Edgar
Allan Poe and his Charles Auguste Dupin, began the genre and followed
a historical course right up to the most contemporary ones such
as Kosta Jaritos and Kurt Wallender, characters who have made their
mark on the crime scene in their own right.
In this book – which comprises over 100 pages – Echaburu
gives us a selection, arranged alphabetically, of all the most
celebrated characters of the genre. In each description we are
told what kind of character we are dealing with, who s/he works
for, where and at what time.
In addition the author also details the various qualities as well
as the main faults of these fictional heroes, together with the different
eccentricities that have typified each of them. This is complemented
by the true culprits of it all, the various writers who one day decided
to create their colourful protagonists for different reasons and
ideological purposes.
Another of the most significant aspects – and the one I find a great
exhaustive effort – is the author's ability and patience in detailing
for each of the authors the various novels published – many of them
now seen as series within the genre – as well as the different film
and tv adaptations, which are far more complex to root out.
In the selection of heroes, anti-heroes,
thieves, police, investigators and detectives, readers will find
the choice has been made – as the
author himself admits – according to popularity criteria, which are
important in the genre either because of the number of novels in
which they appear or because of the different influences they may
have had on subsequent stories, as well as each one's constantly
discussed literary qualities.
My congratulations go to the author for everything,
but most of all his rigorous exhaustive work of collecting data that
were desperately needing to be published and have become the first
encyclopedia of private detectives.
