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Portrait image of Émile Gaboriau

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Gaboriau, Émile

While Edgar Allan Poe, the American author of short stories, is generally considered to be the father of modern crime fiction, Émile Gaboriau has been cited as the father of the crime novel. He was the first to use at least four defining elements of the genre: 1) He wrote briefly and succinctly compared to his contemporaries and his novels are driven by the crime plot. 2) His protagonists are ...

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Literary figures

John Mallett

Gender: Male

It is not clear whether he really is called John: but author Cyril Hare (pseudonym for Gordon Clark) has privately indicated that such is the case. Mallett is a detective inspector at Scotland Yard. He is a widower, tall and well-built, with a mild-red face. He sees lunch as the most important event of the day, but nevertheless manages to solve a number of troublesome murder cases, more often...

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