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Web Site Showcases
American Detective Fiction

Posting all Detective Fiction
Prior to Conan Doyle

Fully Searchable

The mission of the Westminster Detective Library to catalog and make available online all the short fiction dealing with detectives and detection published in the United States before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891).

This site grew out of research for the anthology Early American Detective Stories (McFarland 2008) that I edited with my mentor and colleague LeRoy Lad Panek (1943-2021), winner of two Edgar awards for his contributions to the scholarly field of detective criticism. We uncovered a treasure-trove of forgotten and previously unavailable detective stories, many more than could be included in a single anthology. And so this on-going project was born.

The site includes a working bibliography; full-text copy of entries are added as they are prepared. A few stories that were published in Britain but which appear to have been previously published in America have also been included and are indicated by an asterisk in the bibliography. I welcome comments and solicit both additional bibliographical entries and texts.

Mary M. Bendel-Simso, editor

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Hung By Three Hairs

On a wild, tempestuous night in the month of November, 1881, a brutal murder was committed in the village of Las Bosques, Mexico, the victim an aged banker, named Juan Castillo. He was wealthy, and being of a charitable deposition, made many bequests to the poor in the locality. The announcement of his murder created the wildest excitement in the community, and as circumstance seemed to point to his son as the guilty party, numerous threats were made to lynch the young man.

Shortly after the discovery of the crime, the chief of police, accompanied by a rising young detective, arrived on the spot. The news had spread like wildfire, and the crowd in front of the murdered man's house was dense and excited. When the officers entered the room the dead man lay upon the floor in the same condition as he had been found by his son.

Upon investigation it was learned that Signor Castillo, contrary to his usual custom, had retired early on the night of the murder. Early in the morning, Pedrillo, his son, entered his father's room and found him a corpse on the floor. There was abundant evidence of a severe struggle having taken place, but no definite clue had as yet been obtained of the murderer. Pedrillo was strongly suspected of having caused the death of his father; but the detective listened to his statement of the facts.aud was satisfied that the young man was entirely innocent of the charge.

Left alone, with the murdered man, the detective leaned over the corpse and found that the man’s face had been beaten out of shape by some kind of iron instrument, which had also aided the murderer in opening his victim's safe. Blood was everywhere— on the doors, windows, walls, bedstead; nothing, save one thing, escaped the crimson mark.

The murderer had entered by a window, and aroused the banker, whom, to escape recognition, lie murdered. One of the dead man's… Read More

Miscellany

The Detective of the Present -- Finn and Jourdan

Time was when a detective was a man who detected things. A detective is still that in some European countries; and he still detects things—in novels. There's Buckett in “Bleak House” who detects Lady Dedlook, and there's that detective in Collin’s story of the “Moon Stone,” quite a detector. New York used to have Old Hayes, who could detect a thing or two; Paris has had Vidocq, and Bow street has had Forster.* But the race has died out entirely in America, and is dying out in England.

Commissioner Jourdan, of Brooklyn, has been making an effort to raise up a detective or two and has actually produced Corr and Bill. Corr and Bill were raised to the Vidocquian task of tracing a mystic murder. Finnan is a hatter; and Finnan has been in States Prison. That ought to be enough for any detective such as Corr to concluded that Finnan did the deed. Edgar A. Poe could not reason out a conclusion clearer than that. So Corr went to where Finnan was making hats.

Is Finnan here? Yes—want to see him?