Not into the solitary genius going alone down the mean streets

[oursin]

Recently spotted but failed to saved some survey of Who Is Your Favourite Fictional Detective, and thought they were all a bit obvious and banal -

- okay, I yield to no-one in my admiration for Miss Marple and her knowledge of The Evil That Lurks In the Heart of Man (and Woman), and I would not be at all surprised if former SIS female operatives had been a lot more like her and a lot less like Modesty Blaise -

- However.

Mulling this over, and thinking, who would be my top 'tecs and hawkshaws, I came the conclusion that, you know, I am not about the solitary brilliant mind, with, perhaps, the sidekick Hastings or Watson to whom he expounds his genius insights, but the person who has a team or posse to back them up -

Like VI Warshawski getting patched up (if scolded) by Lottie when the mean streets get a bit too mean, and having an uneasy ambivalent relationship with the local cops based on her father's reputation rather than shagging one (though she does shag one or two across the series), and the various people she can call on for help in particular emergencies and contingencies - the reporter, the rich capitalist who likes her style, the people she calls on for guard duty, etc.

When I was re-reading Sayers recently did I not comment that one of the pleasures of the early novels was Team Wimsey?

I noted some considerable while ago during a re-read of the Modesty Blaise corpus that while she and Willie are the centrally awesome duo there is a solid cast of backup characters who bring their own strengths to the mix.

Perhaps not quite the same thing, but in Gini Hartzmark's Kate Millholland mysteries, Kate, a highpowered lawyer, instead of being assisted by Some Random Member of the Local Police with whom she got entangled in Book 1, hires a competent PI to assist her in her investigations.

Benjamin January besides his immediate team of supporters has a whole range of connections (including e.g. his sister Marie) that enable him to work out the mysteries he gets embroiled in.

Spenser, now I think of it, has quite a posse.

This is perhaps somewhat different from a) the 'odd couple' (e.g. Lynley and Havers) brought together to fight crime or b) the 87th Precinct scenario, which as I recall had different members pursuing different crimes.

Comments

[snippy]

It takes a while to develop, but in Dorothy Dunnett's Johnson Johnson mysteries there is eventually a good team that works with him.

[oursin]

I might have picked up onthis more had my last re-read not been very much being aghast at the sexism - the damselly nature of the protags and the internalised misogyny was particularly acute coming straight from the rather wider range of choices DD had given to women in the Niccolo novels. (It's all been downhill since C15th???)

[twistedchick]

The Johnson Johnson stories each have different narrators; yes, some are cringy, but there are some I liked a lot. The Bird of Paradise was anything but a damsel, and she's in two of them.

[oursin]

I was particularly irked by the one with the v competent woman doctor whose career was set up as driven by her daddy issues and what she needed was flirtatious male attentions.

[azara1]

I hated what Dunnett did to her in that book! (Also the ecological destruction of the Caribbean island).

At least the competent astronomer with the annoying boyfriend was still practicing as a competent astronomer at the end of the book.

[snippy]

All three of the lead women characters in her other books (Philippa in Lymond, Gelis in Niccolo, and Groa in King Hereafter) are at minimum the equals of the lead men in each. I wonder whether she took advice about making the mysteries more marketable, more like other mysteries - bad enough they all have a woman as the viewpoint character even though JJ is nominally the protagonist.

[oursin]

It might have to do with slanting more towards 'romantic thriller' than 'mystery', genre-wise, with the international intrigue plots and so on, but I'm not sure that's a genre I've ever misspent enough of my life reading (unlike mystery more generally) to have enough of a sense of the conventions to be able to pronounce. ? tending to have a woman viewpoint narrator, hurtled from crisis to crisis?

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Gotta say I'm still a Holmes fan.

[mrissa]

This is one of the ten million reasons I recommend starting the Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries late in the series and going back as one is moved: because I like the team effort much better than the "odd couple" of the first couple of books.

[swingandswirl]

I will admit a partiality to original flavour Holmes, less for his genius and more for his kindness.

Slightly tangentially, and brought to mind by the mention of SIS, but have you seen this articleabout female MI6 agents? Absolutely fascinating.

[oursin]

I linked to that the other day! - and on the Miss Marple possibilities, saw something recently about women in resistance movements knitting coded reports.

[threeringedmoon]

You didn't mention the quondam Clorinda Cathcart and her brain trust.

[oursin]

Which now seems pre-determined, no?