Morality Tale without Hope

The morality tale isn’t dead. But it has changed a bit. The old vices are all there—Gluttony, Lust, Pride—but the good characters are missing. In their place are various new characters— paranoid delusions, advanced dementia, and other mental confusions. When they struggle with the old villains, there are no winners. Instead, new hybrids of insanity with evil are created and flourish.

The Death of the Detective by Mark Smith is prototypical of this kind of winnerless, heroless story of ruin and degradation. Although the story line eddies off into little deep pools, eachone of which could fill up several years of an X-rated soap opera, it is basically straightforward. Frazer Farquarson, a wealthy industrialist, lies dying in an estate on Chicago’s North Shore and rambles about his sins, then dies. Helenowski, an escapee from a mental hospital, who thinks he is Death, stalks the dying man and may or may not have succeeded in killing him. Arnold Magnuson, a former policeman, now retired head of a huge detective agency, the Magnuson Men, arises from a deep melancholia to try to catch the presumed killer.

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About the Author

Benjamin J. Stein

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The morality tale isn’t dead. But it has changed a bit. The old vices are all there—Gluttony, Lust, Pride—but the good characters are missing. In their place are various new characters— paranoid delusions, advanced dementia, and other mental confusions. When they struggle with the old villains, there are no winners. Instead, new hybrids of insanity with evil are created and flourish.

The Death of the Detective by Mark Smith is prototypical of this kind of winnerless, heroless story of ruin and degradation. Although the story line eddies off into little deep pools, eachone of which could fill up several years of an X-rated soap opera, it is basically straightforward. Frazer Farquarson, a wealthy industrialist, lies dying in an estate on Chicago’s North Shore and rambles about his sins, then dies. Helenowski, an escapee from a mental hospital, who thinks he is Death, stalks the dying man and may or may not have succeeded in killing him. Arnold Magnuson, a former policeman, now retired head of a huge detective agency, the Magnuson Men, arises from a deep melancholia to try to catch the presumed killer.