By The Landlord
“Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.” –John Buchan, The Power-House
Sherlock Holmes: “Nothing is as deceptive as an obvious fact.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Bascombe Valley Mystery
“So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books. Or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors.” – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.” – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.” – Agatha Christie, Endless Night
“'Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend', observed Poirot philosophically. 'You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.’” – Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
“Don’t kid yourself. You’re a dirty low-down detective. Kiss me.” – Raymond Chandler, Playback
Low-lit, sleazy, shady, hazy – the bar's become a smoky fog of noir. Is that some London Victorian smog, a Hollywood LA Confidential corruption air, New York cigar-whiskey ways, or a bleak and beautiful Scandinavian haze? Who knows? I take a seat, and wonder who the hell these people really are. Who’s watching the watchers?
Oddball individuals, lone wolves, melancholy boozers, tough cookies, unconventional underdog rookies, retired old-timers doing one last case. Some who don’t play by the rules, patient sidekicks, sexy femme fatales and words to the wise guys …
Beware those approachable, jolly, but freakishly observant English village vicar sleuths, or old ladies knitting woolly hats with darting eyes. Are they real or fictional, writers or characters, facts or actors? Deeply imperfect, but experts in flaws, some are hard sober, some are loosely pissed. But they are all sharp observers, and street psychologists.
Is that Inspector Morse over there sitting on his own, but buying two drinks? Could he be talking to his imaginary train-driver friend Chuffy? Or that just an excuse? Is it intuition, or anticipation? Or is that his author Colin Dexter saying: “I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination.”
Follow the money … Agatha Christie
And is that Hercule Poirot flamboyantly twiddling his moustache, and having a meal, his stomach bulging out in something of a premature ‘big reveal’, or Agatha Christie or Miss Marple with a pile of notes in a great big knitted handbag stash? is that a shady fight-ready Sam Spade or Humphrey Bogart talking, or Dashiell Hammett scribbling The Maltese Falcon? Is that Sherlock Holmes concocting some precisely cooked cocaine-based oil, or Arthur Conan Doyle with another perfect plot gently on the boil? Is that Philip Marlowe underneath that keenly cocked hat, or Raymond Chandler having that smooth, ironic chat?
It’s a swirl of a smoky world of lipstick stains on cigarettes, fingerprints on whisky glasses, of ice-cold stares and places, warm blood on the stairs and cases. Of getting knocked out by an unseen hand and waking up bagged and bound. Of many an upfloating corpse and much hidden remorse, of sleaze and greed, of alibis and clues and sometimes musical cues, of fact and fiction, of guns and knuckle fights, cars, and addiction. There’s so many a DI and PI, real or otherwise, in layers of official records and imagination, but all can come with a jukebox in the corner, on which you can summon songs and music with your clever, clicked anticipation.
A famous Private Dick …
So trust your musical nose, follow the money, follow the stash. Is that Louise Penny over there, or Inspector Gamache? Who has the motive, and who got the dosh? Is that Michael Connelly sitting with Harry Bosch? Or James Paterson with Alex Cross? Is that G. K. Chesterton having tea Father Brown, the unassuming but prowling private eye preacher? Is that Lee Child on a Jack Daniels or writing a Jack Reacher? Follow the clues, follow the crime. What’s the sound or death toll chime of Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme? Or perhaps setting the original crime scene, are you a whirring fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s groundbreaking Auguste Dupin?
Perhaps your twilight world of this topic is akin to The Singing Detective, Dennis Potter’s brilliantly written and acted TV series of layered realities, where mystery writer Philip E. Marlow suffers writer's block and is hospitalised because of horrendous sores from his psoriatic arthropathy, but enters an imaginary, fevered world of glamour and intrigue, song, romance and dance, where doctors and nurses, visitors and characters interweave, not unlike some crime ridden version of Dorothy’s dreams in The Wizard of Oz.
But if it’s less subtle clues, a laugh and parody you’re after, you could go for the slapstick wit of Naked Gun with Leslie Neilson. Rest in pace, co-creator and also Airplane! maker Jim Abrahams, who passed this year.
But perhaps among the the greatest shades of noir parody comes in the form of Steve Martin in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, where you’ll enjoy all kinds of scenes, lines, sliding and even some tongue shaving:
Inspiration for all of this comes particularly from the genius of Raymond Chandler, brought to silver screen life by Humphrey Bogart, and others of the classic noir period. Perhaps your songs suggestions might include actual classic dialogue or narrative lines from many of these books, from classics such as The Big Sleep to High Window or The Long Goodbye:
“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
“It seemed like a nice neighbourhood to have bad habits in.”
“I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”
“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.”
“She had eyes like strange sins.”
“Until you guys own your own souls you don’t own mine.”
“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”
“I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.”
Do we enjoy the TV cliches or seek the strange and different? Do we want our detectives sad and old-school, or Saga Norén’s crossing The Bridge to be neuro-divergent or different? Most falling for femme fatales such as Jack Nicholson’s Jake in Chinatown, or do we like brotherly love buddies of Starsky and Hutch, or sisters Cagney and Lacey, Ironside or Kojak? Who loves you, baby?
Neuro-divergently different: Saga Norén in The Bridge
But then again, from fiction to fact, perhaps also it’s worth considering songs that reference real-life detectives and PIs. Perhaps there’s a song about Allan Pinkerton, born in Glasgow in 1819, but emigrated to Chicago and with his agency, solved a series of train robberies during the 1850s.
Or how about the so-called American Sherlock Holmes, the unglamorous but brilliantly effective Ellis H Parker, who served as Burlington County’s chief detective from 1891 to 1936, and known for finding a solution case of the pickled corpse and 98% of other murders in his time?
Or perhaps also Prohibition-era’s Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, who shut down numerous speakeasies by going undercover in disguise, and made 4,392 arrests of which 95% gained convictions.
And as for famous real-life female detectives, Alice Clement is surely worth a shout, who in 1913 became Chicago’s first in the force, and became known for her colourful charisma and extraordinary sleuthing skills to solve cases, not to mention bravery in the face of violence.
Alice Clement as reported in the Chicago Examiner, 1915
There’s piles of evidence and people then, and I could go on all day, but let’s leave the last word, with our final bar visitor and “just one more thing”. It’s that alluring character Columbo, played by Peter Falk, who has this canny knack of pretending to be clumsy, stumbling and stupid, when really he’s disarmingly clever, tricking his smart alec, snobby suspects who stupidly look down on his eccentric ways:
So then, it’s time to gather all your musical clues, suspects and detectives, and put your suggestions in the case files below. Topics police and spying have previously been covered but there’s plenty more to gather here, and we welcome the return of forensically detailed skills of Chief Inspector Marco den Ouden to help solve this one! Deadline is 11pm on Monday UK time for all evidence to be brought before he big playlist reveal next week!
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