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JOHN DEVIL is perhaps the first example of detective fiction in which the detective is part of a police force; John Devil is a mastermind of a criminal in post-Napoleonic Europe. Gregory Temple is Chief Superintendent at Scotland Yard when JOHN DEVIL opens. He is engaged in pursuing the killer of a woman he knows as Constance Bartolozzi, who appears to have died by unnatural means, although it is not quite clear exactly what or who killed her. The chief suspect is Temple’s assistant, a man he knows as James Davy. Temple has trained Davy in his method of detection, a scientific and reasoned pursuit that depends a great deal on facts and concrete evidence. Davy uses those methods to circumvent the investigation. JOHN DEVIL was written in 1862, in serial form. Each chapter ends in a manner designed to induce suspense and tension in the reader. There are several plot lines, seemingly unconnected at first, and enough twists and turns for the most demanding soul. There are characters with multiple names, multiple connections to Temple and to each other, and other staples of serialized novels. The list of "dramatis personae" runs to over three pages; the chronology of plot is four full pages long. Both are quite helpful when struggling through JOHN DEVIL. Adaptor Brian Stableford does a wonderful job, both in the introduction and his afterword, of explaining the significance of this book in the mystery genre. Temple is "the archetype of the police detective"; he weighs the evidence, considers motive and opportunity, tracks the alibis of various suspects, and so on. Unfortunately for the reader, Temple is not the focal character in JOHN DEVIL; this makes it difficult sometimes to appreciate the seminal nature of the character. I found JOHN DEVIL to be a slog of a read. Part of that is the nature of the beast – it is not written in the style so familiar to readers today. It drags, it backtracks a lot, characters come and go with gay abandon. The plot twists almost require a pencil and paper; the multiple aliases of Comte Henri de Belcamp most assuredly do. Stableford has, by footnoting the entire book, given the reader a much-appreciated resource in following both the plot and the historical references which permeate JOHN DEVIL. While I would not recommend JOHN DEVIL to the casual reader of the genre, I am sure that serious scholars will find plenty to interest them. Stableford has done a wonderful job of making this accessible to the modern reader.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, August 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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