S01E02: And then, there were Watsons.
Why do brilliant detectives need an Idiot Friend around as they solve crimes?
Who is Sherlock Holmes without the long-suffering Dr. Watson? Who is Feluda without his beloved Topshe? Classic detectives (much like superheroes), often have a sidekick and in this, the second episode1 of About Murder, She Wrote, I take a closer look at the many roles played by this staple character.
The Narrator
One of my recommendations in last week’s episode was the first detective story ever written - ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841) by Edgar Allen Poe. I find it fascinating that in this, the origin point of the genre, the sidekick was born along with the detective.
The story opens with an unnamed person telling us how he met the young and brilliant detective Auguste Dupin in an obscure library in Paris and was instantly enamoured by him.
We saw each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city;
He goes on to tell us the full story—how the peculiar “calculating power” of Dupin’s mind worked, how they came across news of a double-murder, how Dupin decided to get involved, and eventually, how he solved the crime and confronted the person responsible. Thus, the primary role played by the first-ever sidekick in detective fiction is that of the narrator.
Forty years later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cemented this role when he introduced Dr. John Watson in ‘A Study in Scarlet’.
The story opens with Watson describing his return to London after being wounded in the second Afghan War and looking for cheap lodgings. A friend mentions that an “eccentric” fellow with “queer ideas” who worked in the hospital laboratory was on the lookout for someone to split the rent with. Although he paints a rather appalling picture of the man—he describes how Holmes beats the bodies in the dissecting room “to verify how far bruises may be produced after death” #yikes— Watson is interested. Or possibly desperate, as those of us who have house-hunted in post-Covid Bengaluru will understand.
In a rather endearing scene, the two go on to confess all their worst character traits to see if they can tolerate each other as roommates.
Appearing in all except four of the 60 Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, Dr. Watson would go on to become the world’s most well-known detective sidekick. Over the years, his surname would be so genericized as to become a stand-in for all detective sidekicks. Case in point: the title of this essay.
The role of the narrator is important because it is through them that we, as readers, are brought into the world of the detective story. They introduce us to the detective—what he looks like, sounds like, likes, dislikes… They both glorify and humanise the detective by showing us different sides to their character. We see what they see. We look where they point. We know only what they tell us. If they make a mistake or deliberately conceal information, we are left in the dark as well.
The mistaken narrator is a role played to perfection by Captain Arthur Hastings, sidekick to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, ‘the greatest detective in the world’. Cheerful, courageous, good-natured, and ever the Englishman, Hastings has many likeable qualities but he is definitely not the brightest bulb in the box. Poirot is sometimes amused and sometimes irked by his friend’s obtuseness. A seasoned reader who knows Hastings’ weaknesses and penchant for jumping to the wrong conclusion, can in fact use his interpretations as a clue—for what cannot possibly be the correct solution.
The Chronicler
Dr. Watson plays another important role in the Holmes stories. At the end of ‘A Study in Scarlet’, he is so impressed by his friend’s skills of deduction that he decides to turn his journal notes about the case into a public narrative.
“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly recognized. You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for you.”
He goes on to do just that and becomes not only a regular chronicler of Holmes’ adventures but also his official biographer. Though Holmes is not enthusiastic about Watson’s writing prowess (“You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.” he says in ‘The Sign of the Four’), he acknowledges that Watson’s published notes have brought him fame and recognition among the general public.
Several sidekicks who appear in later works of detective fiction follow in Watson’s footsteps and take on the job of documenting and writing up accounts of the cases. In 1909, R. Austin Freeman wrote ‘John Thorndyke’s Cases’, a book featuring the cases of a brilliant medical jurispractitioner who investigates crimes the way a forensic scientist would do today. Freeman went so far as to call himself the editor of the book and attribute the narration of the cases to the fictional sidekick Dr. Christopher Jervis.
American mystery writer Rex Stout’s 1934 creation Nero Wolfe is an almost-literal armchair detective (he never leaves his luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street, New York City) whose secretary and legwork assistant Archie Goodwin also writes down his exploits. I haven’t read enough Nero Wolfe novels to say this with certainty, but reviews tell me that Goodwin is smarter than the typical Watson and often, deliberately conceals vital information from the reader.
Given that we are reading accounts of these cases, it is reasonable to assume that the case notes of Goodwin, Hastings, et al were published in one form or the other. But chronicling isn’t always for the benefit of the public. Very often, the sidekick’s list of clues, diagrams of country houses, or names of suspects are a device by which the author can nudge readers to use our noodle. In several Hercule Poirot novels, the great detective urges Hastings to write down what they know so far, points out cryptic clues, and urges him to use '“order and method” to help his “little grey cells” find the answers. If that isn’t Agatha Christie shaking a finger at us readers, what is!
But the most Watsonian of them all has to be Anthony Horowitz who, in a delightfully meta fashion, has inserted himself as the primary sidekick into his DI Daniel Hawthorne novels. Anthony Horowitz the author and screenwriter (which he is in real life) is also a character in the books, reluctantly working with the secretive DI Hawthorne on a series of books about the DI’s toughest cases. Horowitz blends details about his real life—such as his wife’s name, actual projects he’s worked on, real-world celebrities, studios, etc.—with completely made-up stuff. After a point, you can no longer tell what’s real and what isn’t—very exciting!
My one gripe with the series is that with every book (four so far and apparently many more more to go), the fictional Horowitz seems to be getting stupider and whinier. However, the plots are solid and well-clued, so do check out the series.
My rating: 🩸🩸🩸🩸💧 (3.5 rounded up)
The Proxy
Another key role played by the sidekick is that of a proxy for the reader, someone to whom the great detective can espouse his theories and explain how everything happened. Someone who will, like the reader in bed at midnight, yelp in surprise at the right moments and ask “But how?” in amazement. In some books, this comes in the post-climax chapter after the culprits have been apprehended by the police and everyone settles down with coffee or gin to listen to the detective tie up all the loose ends.
This is one role the sidekick often shares with other characters. For instance, in Dorothy Simpson’s 1980s police procedural series featuring CID Inspector Luke Thanet, his sidekick, Sergeant Mike Lineham, does a lot of the questioning and legwork, but shares the role of reader-proxy with Thanet’s wife Joan. Between them, they ask all the questions that readers have in mind and Thanet explains everything.
Do female detectives have sidekicks?
In the world of detective TV (often adapted from book series), there are numerous examples of women teaming up to solve crimes—Cagney & Lacey (1982-88), Rosemary & Thyme (2003-07), Rizzoli & Isles (2010-16)—or partnering with men to do so (too many books/shows to list). Very often, women are the sidekicks. But how often does a female lead get a sidekick of her own?
I went pretty deep down this rabbit hole and have concluded that, for the most part, they don’t.
The most famous female detectives are lone wolves—for instance, Miss Jane Marple (Agatha Christie) and Miss Maud Silver (Patricia Wentworth)—and have no recurring sidekicks. The 1984-96 series Murder, She Wrote features mystery writer Jessica Fletcher solving crimes—while very social and surrounded by friends, she doesn’t have a sidekick either and is a one-woman mystery unveiler. The 2018 South Korean TV series Ms. Ma, Nemesis, loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, also features a loner in the lead.
In the handful of cases where a female detective does have a sidekick, this character is treated almost as a partner. They are intelligent, enterprising, and in many ways, help the detective solve the case.
For instance, in Gladys Mitchell’s novels (written between 1929 and1975) featuring doctor/psychoanalyst/detective Mrs.Bradley, her secretary Laura Menzies often takes an active part in the investigation. In the 1989 Australian series featuring bohemian aristocrat Phryne Fisher as the lead detective, her sidekick Dorothy ‘Dot’ Williams starts out as a secretary and companion but quickly gets more involved in the investigations, gathering clues, following suspects, and joining in surveillance outings. This series is also a super-fun TV series that I highly recommend.
In even fewer cases do female leads get a male sidekick. The iconic 1991 TV series Prime Suspect brings gender to the fore by featuring a tough, no-nonsense police detective Jane Tennison as the first female DCI in the Greater London Metropolitan Police Service. She has to solve serial murders while also dealing with overt and passive-aggressive sexism within the department. She doesn’t really get a recurring sidekick and her male colleagues show varying degrees of enthusiasm about working with her.
As time passes, the depiction of gender dynamics seem to have softened. The fantastic British TV show Vera (2011-2025), which is based on Ann Cleeves’ novels written from 2005 onwards, features the rough but compassionate DCI Vera Stanhope, whose painstaking attention to detail and plodding line of police work solves tricky crimes. Vera has deep and strong relationships with her male sergeants, which is refreshing to watch. But her sergeants also fall into partner territory rather than sidekick.
Women detectives are mostly loners. They can be partners, have partners, or treat their sidekicks like partners. But unlike male detectives, they can’t treat a sidekick like a sidekick.
Most male detectives seem to make an impact through their eccentricities, superior intelligence (Holmes, Poirot, Dr. Thorndyke), or social standing (Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L. Sayers’ 1920s novels). Sherlock Holmes can be brusque and rude with Dr. Watson. Poirot can (and has) said some pretty mean things about Hastings’ intelligence. But in my reading, there’s not yet been a female detective who treats her sidekick as someone inferior or of lower intelligence.
Even the sharpest female detective has to take a more emotionally intelligent or cooperative approach to build relationships with her colleagues. Is it because the creators of these characters fear that a female lead who is too dominant, dismissive, or condescending might be less appealing to audiences? I wonder.
Show of the Week
The best way to introduce Psych is to tell you some of the episode titles.
‘Woman Seeking Dead Husband: Smokers Okay, No Pets.’
‘Poker? I Barely Know Her.’
‘Shawn Rescues Darth Vader’
‘The Polarizing Express’
‘Viagra Falls’
‘Dead Bear Walking’
‘Lock, Stock, Some Smoking Barrels and Burton Guster’s Goblet of Fire.’
If that sounds insane, it’s because the show is a little insane—in the best possible way. Shawn Spencer is hyper-observant and has an eidetic memory; from his early childhood, his policeman father trained him to use both skills to the fullest extent possible. But Shawn is also crazy, lazy and very likely has ADHD. So, instead of becoming the policeman his father wanted him to be, he ends up pretending to be psychic and gets hired (reluctantly) by the Santa Barbara police department to assist them in solving cases.
His Watson is childhood BFF Burton Guster, a medical representative who is not beyond hustling to meet his weekly sales targets even in the middle of a murder investigation. The star of the show is the witty repartee between Shawn and Gus, with one-liners flying by the minute. I also love that every clue Shawn spots is also shown to the audience in real time—that makes it fair-play and you have just as good a shot as Shawn in figuring out whodunit.
Each 40-minute episode has the duo solving a standalone mystery (90% of the time, a murder). The show has 8 seasons and 3 movies—so if you get hooked, there’s enough material to last you six month’s worth of TV dinners.
Rating: 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Trivia of The Week
It is unimaginable to think of Dr. Watson or Captain Hastings solving crimes on their own without the great detectives showing the way. But some sidekicks have got so much love from the audience that they got their own show!
This week’s trivia is about two sidekicks who got upgraded to leads.
Sister Boniface: A Catholic nun who is nuts about Agatha Christie and knows her way around a chemical laboratory? Fantastic. Sister B. appeared as a supporting character in S01E06 of BBC’s cozy TV series Father Brown but was such a hit with viewers that she got her own spin-off TV show where she played the lead. Alas, this one was dropped after only 2 seasons. I’ve watched it and know why—poorly written plots. Still, worth a light watch if you like cozies.
Rating: 🩸🩸🩸💧💧
Lewis: Inspector Morse was a popular British TV series that ran from 1987 to 1983 and it featured sidekick Sergeant Robbie Lewis, a working-class family man who is often snubbed by his Oxford-educated superior. In many episodes, he follows his own hunches that Morse doesn’t endorse but is shown to be correct. When the show ended with the death of its lead actor, Lewis got his own show, with the same actor (Kevin Whately) reprising the role. This was a big hit and ran for 9 seasons! Rating: 🩸🩸🩸🩸💧
I hope you enjoyed this read. In case you missed last week’s, you can read it here. In it, I ponder over the reasons why anyone in their right mind would read/watch something as morbid as murder.
See you next week with another essay, recommendations and trivia. 👋🏼
I should probably call this an issue but I like the idea of naming my newsletters the way TV shows are named—with series and episode numbers. So, episode it is.
Next to Golf, I like Murder.. if it involves murder with a Golf Club, that's even better!
Phryne Fischer is indeed such a fun series. I discovered that it's based on books too. Will ping you the name. But I think in this one instance, the TV series is >>>>