By Peter Bartram
I had a big surprise the other day when I turned to the letters page of The Independent and saw a letter from a real live Colin Crampton, the hero in my new crime mystery Headline Murder, which is set in Brighton. When I chose the name for the principal character, I ran a quick check and couldn’t find any in the Brighton area. The letter writer comes from Scotland.
But the experience made me wonder how many real people find they share a name with a fictional detective. So after intensive research (20 minutes on LinkedIn!) I can reveal some shock findings. If you were born with the family name Holmes, you’d think your parents would avoid the obvious wouldn’t you? Not all do. Two sets of parents have condemned their sons to a lifetime of quips: “solve that one Sherlock”. One runs a US company, the other is an electrical engineer.
A quick run-down on other fictional detectives with the number of real people in brackets is: Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (5), Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade (5); Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple (4); Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey (3, although none of them a lord); Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret (1, a warehouseman in France) and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot (3). But one Hercule lists his skills on LinkedIn as “private investigation, train journeys, men’s grooming and Cluedo”. So, perhaps, not all of the names are as real as they seem.
Peter Bartram’s Facebook page is at @peterbartramauthor and there is a Colin Crampton website at www.colincrampton.com.
As for the fictional Colin Crampton, you'll find him August 1962, as the Brighton Evening Chronicle's crime reporter, desperate for a front-page story. But it's the silly season for news – and the only tip-off Crampton has is about the disappearance of the seafront's crazy-golf proprietor, Arnold Trumper. Crampton thinks the story is about as useful as a set of concrete water-wings. But when he learns that Trumper's vanishing act is linked to an unsolved murder, he scents a front-page scoop.
Buy the paperback online
Categories:
0 comments on this article
Leave a comment
