John
Wilson Murray, Memoirs of a Great Detective. 1904. Collins/Totem,
1979.
A friend
loaned me this paperback because she is a fan of Murdoch's Mysteries
and she knows that I like to read police procedure crime novels.
John
Wilson Murray, 1840 - 1906, made a reputation for himself during the
American Civil War. After working for police services in the States,
he was enticed to accept a position as detective for the Department
of Justice for the Ontario government where his jurisdiction covered
the length and breadth of that province. The 30+ cases documented in
this excerpted memoir cover the gamut of the origins of crime in
patriotism, poverty, jealousy, greed, gang loyalty, lust, rejection,
sadism, and mental illness.
As a
detective in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century,
inter-provincial and international borders seemed to matter less to
Murray. Warrants too seem often to be afterthoughts. Armed with
intelligence and empathy, the tools he used include a built-in shit detector,
patience for surveillance and pursuit, and common sense. Not to mention close attention to details - footprint
and wheel marks, blood spatter, weaponry. The crimes he detected
include fraud, skimming, intimidation and extortion, forgery and
counterfeiting, and killings, deranged or otherwise, manslaughter or
premeditated murder. Murray is also careful to acknowledge the work
of other sections of the criminal justice system - the lawyers, crown
counsel, judges, and juries to whom he passes his arrested felons. He
does comment also upon the quality of witnesses, and how their
credibility is influenced by gender and class. Only once does he question a jury's decision as "a miscarriage of justice and a disgrace to the country."
In their
own way, these stories are strangely reassuring, suggesting as they
do that today's news, with the emphasis on terrorism, gangs, missing
and murdered women and children, is really not that different from
four or five generations ago. Indeed Murray concludes: "Where
men and women are there will be found good and bad. But the bad are a
hopeless minority."
