The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories

ANTHONY BOUCHER (1911-1968)

It may be said that in detective fiction, Anthony Boucher is an exception to the old rule 'Them that can, do; them that can't, teach.' As the most influential critic of popular literature of his time, Boucher taught readers of the «New York Times Book Review, the New York Herald Tribune Book Review,» and the «San Francisco Chronicle» what it takes to make a good detective novel. He also wrote seven of them himself.

The son of two physicians, Boucher was born in California as William Anthony Parker White. He graduated «Phi Beta Kappa» from the University of Southern California, where he spent much of his free time acting, directing, and writing drama. After earning a Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, he began an unsuccessful career as a playwright. After he failed to sell two plays, he began writing detective novels, using the Anthony Boucher pen name because he still regarded himself as a playwright. As Boucher, he created the red-haired private eye Fergus O'Breen and Lieutenant A. Jackson of the Los Angeles Police Department's homicide division as series characters. He used another pen name, H. H. Holmes, for his two novels featuring Sister Ursula, a devout nun and clever sleuth who aids in the cases of LAPD homicide lieutenant Terence Marshall. He also penned radio scripts and wrote and edited science fiction.

In terms of plotting, character development, and social comment, Boucher's mystery writing was not exceptional for the time. Plots tend to centre on puzzles, and solutions depend on deductions drawn from plenty of well-placed clues. Boucher's fiction is most notable for the wit and literary allusions that enrich his books and short stories.

While Boucher's fiction was well received, critics agree that his major contribution was his literary criticism. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Boucher's serious reviewing in the «New York Times» of a genre previously disdained as mere entertainment or trashy fiction. His excellent taste and judgment as a critic were reinforced by his editing of texts and anthologies in the field. He won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar award three times for his critical work. That organisation's annual convention was eventually named for him: the '"Bouchercon' now attracts more than a thousand mystery fans, writers, editors, collectors, and hangers-on each year. Its international importance is underlined by the fact that the twenty-sixth Bouchercon, in 1995, was the second to be held in England.

«Crime Must Have a Stop» features Nick Noble, one of Boucher's best-developed characters. Noble is an alcoholic former cop who solves crimes while drinking cheap wine and making allusions to Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe in a Mexican-style bar in Los Angeles.