Joyce Porter

• Born: March 28, 1924
• Birthplace: Marple, Cheshire, England
• Died: December 9, 1990
• Place of death: On a flight home to England from China

Types of Plot: Police procedural; espionage; thriller; private investigator

Principal Series: Inspector Wilfred Dover, 1964-1980; Eddie Brown, 1966-1971; Constance Morrison-Burke, 1970-1979

Contribution

Joyce Porter’s ten Inspector Dover novels, four Eddie Brown novels, and five Morrison-Burke novels lampoon the genres of police procedural, international thriller, and private investigator. Although the books generally follow the rules of each genre, the main character in each series is a spoof of the usual hero. Porter delighted in ridiculing pompous human behavior, and she excelled at poking fun at various elements in society as well as at august public institutions. Porter’s novels utilize straightforward crime/spy stories as their backdrop, but her humorous jabs at officiousness provide the reader with an alternative to the standard offerings of the genres.

Biography

Joyce Porter was born on March 28, 1924, in Marple, Cheshire, England, the daughter of Joshua Porter and Bessie Evelyn (née Earlam) Porter. She was educated at the High School for Girls in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and at King’s College in London, where she received a bachelor of arts degree with honors in 1945. She served in the Women’s Royal Air Force between 1949 and 1963, attaining the rank of flight officer. While in the air force, Porter learned Russian, as she had a special interest in Russian history, especially the czarist period. She toured the Soviet Union by car in 1964.

In 1963, Porter became a full-time writer. She once said that she “began writing in order to be able to retire from [the] Air Force,” and that she continued to write “because it is easier than work.” She later commented that she tried “to write books that will while away a couple of hours for the reader—and make as much money as possible for me.” In her writing, she used outrageously humorous “heroes” who are the very antithesis of the protagonists of such crime and mystery novelists as Frederick Forsyth, Ian Fleming, or P. D. James. Porter’s series characters are all unimaginative, bumbling, and unattractive people who, if they solve their cases, do so despite themselves, not because of their insight and abilities. In addition to her novels, Porter wrote many short stories for magazines such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. She died on a flight home from China in 1990.

Analysis

The novels of Joyce Porter are humorous jabs at three of the most popular genres of modern fiction: the police procedural, the international thriller, and the private-investigator novel. In her work, the common thread is human behavior reduced to absurdity. Her heroes are ludicrous antitheses of what the reader has come to expect in these genres.

Porter’s most infamous character is Wilfred Dover, detective chief inspector of Scotland Yard. Dover is described in the following fashion:

His six-foot-two frame was draped, none too elegantly, in seventeen and a quarter stone [241 pounds] of flabby flesh. . . . Round his thick, policeman’s neck . . . a thin, cheap tie was knotted under the lowest of his double chins. . . . Dover’s face . . . was large and flabby like the rest of him. Only the details—nose, mouth and eyes—seemed out of scale. They were so tiny as to be almost lost in the wide expanse of flesh. . . . His hair was thin and black and he had a small black moustache of the type that the late Adolf Hitler did so much to depopularize.

Dover Three

In Dover Three (1965), when it is suggested that Dover be given a case, the assistant commissioner of New Scotland Yard says, “I thought I told you to get rid of that fat, stupid swine months ago!” “I’ve tried, sir,” replies his subordinate unhappily, “but nobody’ll have him.” With a primary character such as this, the reader knows immediately that Scotland Yard’s reputation is in dire straits.

Dover’s career, as chronicled by Porter, is always set in wretched locales far from metropolitan London. New Scotland Yard wants Dover as far away as he can be sent. He is assigned missions no one else would want. Once on the scene of the crime, Dover invariably finds miserable weather and terrain. When unattractive characters and bizarre crimes are added to the plot, the reader is quite aware that little good can possibly come from such a situation. Throughout the series, Dover’s assistant, Sergeant MacGregor, provides the obligatory straight character, but MacGregor’s solid procedures are always sacrificed to Dover’s animalistic behavior. Inevitably, Dover’s bowels or personal pique interrupt reasoned efforts to solve crimes. While on a case, Dover meets characters who are driven by the same passions that drive him—greed, petty revenge, or hatred. He does usually solve his cases, though in unorthodox and malevolent fashion.

Porter frequently twists her endings to absurd degrees. Dover may solve a case but ignore justice, for example, because of his prejudices. In Dover Three, while far from home, Dover dawdles in solving a case until after his hated sister-in-law has finished her visit to his home, for he knows that an early resolution to the crime would result in another confrontation at home. He selects as his culprit an aggressive upper-class woman to whom he has taken an immediate and intense dislike. During his train trip home, the real culprit confesses to Dover and then commits suicide. Dover chooses to ignore the confession. In Dover Goes to Pott (1968), Dover decides that an individual whom he despises must be the guilty party. As events transpire, the suspect is indeed found to be guilty, but Dover’s handling of the case virtually ensures his going free.

Dover One

Most of the characters in Porter’s novels are easy-to-dislike caricatures. In Dover One (1964), it is not only the detective who is obnoxious but also the victim, whom the reader meets only through the descriptions by other characters in the novel. A less likable victim cannot be imagined: fat, ugly, promiscuous, stupid, and an extortionist. Yet Dover solves the case, in his usual unorthodox fashion. In a typical Porter twist, the victim is discovered dismembered in the murderer’s freezer. In this first novel, Dover, through a mighty leap of the imagination, chooses a suspect who is actually guilty. Other Dover novels have the detective confronted with bizarre murder and mutilation cases; a simple, uncomplicated murder is not for Dover. Porter indulges herself in long digressions on Dover’s unhygienic habits and internal disorders, evidently preferring such comic essays to tightly reasoned unravelings of crimes.

Neither a Candle Nor a Pitchfork

Porter’s other characters, while not as well known, are just as ludicrous. Secret Agent Eddie Brown is sent by the British intelligence service on assignments to dangerous foreign locales, but he is a foil and a dupe rather than a superspy. One comic scene in Neither a Candle Nor a Pitchfork (1969) has Eddie in female disguise warding off amorous advances by a lesbian Russian official. Later, Eddie’s attempt to attack a prison—a scene that might have constituted the climax of a conventional spy novel—degenerates into a pathetic joke. Indeed, the Eddie Brown novels leave the reader believing that Soviet officialdom is roughly equivalent to English officialdom. Porter hopes that the reader will ask, if that be true, how many other parallels might be drawn.

Heroines are also given an opportunity to perform in Porter’s novels. Her third series character is the Honourable Constance Ethel Morrison-Burke (the Hon-Con), a gentlewoman of independent means. She becomes a detective because she is bored, her boundless energy unsatisfied by “usual” feminine activities such as calisthenics. The Hon-Con is tactless, shortsighted, and quite naïve. Although she is frequently foolish, she is shown to be not quite the fool that most people believe her to be. Her shortcomings, however, do leave her frustrated and unsatisfied.

Porter’s statement that her work is designed to “while away a couple of hours for the reader” certainly defines her style. She did not intend for her work to be incisive or insightful. Rather, she made use of the simplest form of satire: caricature. She was not interested in character development, and her characters are little more than line drawings (fat and bumbling though they may be). Her plots are also simple, and the humor usually focuses on the overtly crude and grotesque rather than on subtleties. Thus, her work is ideal for those who wish to escape for a few hours. In this regard, Porter accomplished her stated purpose.

Principal Series Characters:

• Wilfred Dover , detective chief inspector of Scotland Yard, is a grotesque caricature of the yard stereotype. This inept detective is obese, stupid, and petty.
• Sergeant MacGregor , dapper and competent, serves as Dover’s foil.
• Edmund “Eddie” Brown , a secret agent, is as much a threat to the British intelligence service as he is to Soviet intelligence. Ineffectual and unattractive, his efforts to penetrate Soviet security are laughable at best.
• The Honourable Constance Ethel Morrison-Burke , or the
• Hon-Con , a private investigator, became a detective because nothing else satisfied her desire to be active. As a gentlewoman of independent means, the Hon-Con has the time and money to pursue her hobby. Her tactlessness and incompetence, however, short-circuit her achievements.
• Miss Jones is the Hon-Con’s patient and long-suffering confidant.

Bibliography

Barzun, Jacques, and Wendell Hertig Taylor. A Catalogue of Crime. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. List, with commentary, of the authors’ choices for the best or most influential examples of crime fiction. Porter’s work is included and evaluated.

Huang, Jim, ed. They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated, and Forgotten Mystery Novels. Carmel, Ind.: Crum Creek Press, 2002. Porter is among the authors discussed in this book about mystery novels that never found the audience they deserved.

Kemp, Simon. Defective Inspectors: Crime Fiction Pastiche in Late-Twentieth-Century French Literature. London: LEGENDA, 2006. Although devoted to French examples of parodic mystery stories, this study is instructive as to the general methods and strategies employed in Porter’s rather specialized subgenre.

Klein, Kathleen Gregory, ed. Great Women Mystery Writers: Classic to Contemporary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Contains an essay on the life and works of Porter.

Melling, John Kennedy. Murder Done to Death: Parody and Pastiche in Detective Fiction. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996. Study of British and American detective-fiction parodies, concentrating especially on the intertextual pastiche. Sheds light on Porter’s works.

Norris, Luther. “Crime with a Smile.” The Mystery Readers/Lovers Newsletter 3 (December, 1969): 19-22. Brief overview of Porter’s spoof mysteries discussing their ability to function simultaneously as detective fiction and as parody.

Winn, Dilys. Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader’s Companion. Rev. ed. New York: Workman, 1984. Study of all things relating to the murder mystery, from a reading of specific famous works to a nonfictional history of Scotland Yard to general comments on the conventions of the mystery genre. Contains some discussion of Porter’s work and an essay on professional jealousy by Porter.