SOURCE: Muller, Marcia, and Bill Pronzini. Introduction to Detective Duos, edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, pp. 3-14. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In the following introduction to an anthology of crime-mystery-detective stories that focuses on pairs of detective-heroes working together, Muller and Pronzini provide an overview of detective duos created by various authors.

Fictional characters who work together in one capacity or another to solve a mystery have been a staple of the crime-fiction genre since Edgar Allan Poe wrote the first detective story in the early 1840s. Such characters may be amateur or professional or a combination of the two; of either gender; of any sort of ethnic, religious, or social background; and of any period in history. They need not function as equal partners in order to qualify, for the umbrella designation of “detective duos” is a broad one. Indeed, there are almost as...