On Suspects

They will present themselves to you first as victims, as allies, as eyewitnesses. Nothing should be more suspicious to the detective than the cry for help, the helping hand, or the helpless onlooker. Only if someone has behaved suspiciously should you allow for the possibility of his innocence.

Charles Unwin, hero of The Manual of Detection, is not a detective, but a clerk. He works for a famous detective agency and has the honor of being the clerk entrusted with documenting the cases of Travis Sivart, the greatest detective in the world. Charles is fussy and punctilious, leading an utterly conventional and predictable life in an unnamed city where it’s always raining, and the historical period is ambivalent.

But recently he has changed his routine. Instead of going straight to the office in the morning, he makes a detour to the Central Station, where a young woman in a plaid coat stands every morning waiting for someone who never arrives. Charles fears the day when that person does show up, and he’ll be unable to see her anymore.

One day when he goes to work, he gets a shock. He has been promoted. Detective Sivart has disappeared, and Charles has been named his replacement. This is absurd. Charles is the least qualified person in the world to be a detective. Still, he wants Sivart to come back, so things can go back to normal. So the first case he tackles is Sivart’s disappearance.

Also, the woman in the plaid coat turns out to be his replacement as clerk. He can’t talk to her though, because detectives and clerks are not allowed to socialize.

In his feckless way, Charles will gradually uncover bizarre facts about the bizarre world in which he lives. About old crimes supposed to be closed, and the derelict carnival down by the river, and hypnotism and a criminal mastermind, about the lost final chapter of The Manual of Detection, and about the third, secret division of the detective agency.

I’m told The Manual of Detection is reminiscent of Jose Luis Borges, an author I’ve always been meaning to get around to. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, crossed with A Winter’s Tale. In any case it was inventive and amusing, and I read it with great enjoyment. Beautifully written.

Recommended.