There are three different types of detectives around and there’s a place and time for each of them. So let’s have a look at their advantages and disadvantages and where to best put them. Note, however, that this is no strict rule. You can use them for other kinds of mystery stories as well, the ones I list here are merely those they’re the best fit for.
Let’s begin with the professional detective. Professional detectives are found within the police and they are working for the authorities. They work best in police procedurals and thrillers. The professional detective can, of course, also be a thief taker, the queen’s inquisitor, the captain of the guards, the ship’s security officer, or the head of security of a big conglomerate of companies in a future where companies have taken over the world.
The professional detective knows perfectly well how to handle a case. They are well-versed in the procedures necessary to solve a crime and put the culprit in court. In addition, they have the authorities at their back, making it much harder for a suspect and the culprit to refuse cooperation. With that in mind, it is easy to see why they are best-suited for procedurals, where police procedure plays an important role, or thrillers, where the high stakes require help from the authorities.
Yet, the same things which can work as advantages, can also put the professional detective at a disadvantage. Having to keep to procedures means that they can’t follow every lead as they wish to, but have to keep to rules which might allow for the savvy criminal to remove evidence before they can collect it. Having the authorities at their back can also mean being pulled off a case or warned off a suspect who has influence with those higher up the ladder.
Next, we have the semi-professional detective. This is the group of people whose job is connected to crime and investigation to a degree. Private investigators, lawyers, and journalists fall into that category, similar professions in other times can also work here. The noir genre is highly reliant on this type of semi-professional and they do well with any kind of story where knowledge of investigation is necessary, yet it’s not a case in which procedure plays a large role. For closed-circle mysteries, where a group is locked away without a way in or out, semi-professionals who just ‘happen’ to be there make a good detective.
Semi-professional detectives are usually experienced with investigation. They often have a wide net of acquaintances and informants and can dip into less legal sources than the professional. Quite some PIs are former police officers with knowledge about procedures, lawyers in such a story usually are specialized on criminal law, and journalists in those cases often are court reporters. With the ability to dip into illegal sources, the semi-professional is ideal for noir stories, where it is less about the legal punishment of the culprit and more about clearing the innocent and finding the culprit in the first place. In the closed-circle mysteries, there’s rarely a chance for a professional detective to be at hand (as nobody would start such a murder spree with a professional present), so anyone with a sound training in investigation might make for a good detective in this case.
Again, what is an advantage in one situation, can also be a disadvantage for the semi-professional detective in another. Not being police, the semi-professional can’t put as much pressure on suspects as a professional can. Information unearthed through illegal channels can’t be used in court and thus can’t help with convicting the culprit. The authorities can also intervene with the their work a lot. Often, it’s a police officer who wants them out of the way or hates them for past encounters.
Finally, the amateur detective. Here, we have an amateur without prior training in investigation who comes in to solve a crime. These detectives are usually found in cosy mysteries and can also be found in closed-circle mysteries.
Unlike the professional detective, the amateur is not bound by any procedures and doesn’t have to adhere to any specific behaviour. They usually are well-settled in the surrounding in which the murder happens, so they have a plethora of friends to work with. Often, they also prove themselves to be very good judges of character, which allows for them to decide that suspect A has no reason to do the crime whereas suspect B is clearly guilty and bring the investigation to the right target. Cosy mysteries rely heavily on this type of investigator because they usually do not investigate high-stake cases which would not be cosy any longer. As mentioned with the closed-circle mysteries above, such cases rarely occur when there’s a professional on the premises and often there is no semi-professional around either and a gifted amateur has to take over until the authorities can come in.
The disadvantages of the amateur detective are pretty easy to see. Neither do they have the endorsement of the authorities (in most cases, professional detectives will sooner or later warn them off the case), nor do they have the necessary training to put together a chain of evidence that will hold up in court. On the other hand, they can freely mingle with people and often draw out information simply because they’re not the police (or the guard or security).
When it comes to writing a stand-alone story with a detective, all three types can be equally viable, depending on what kind of story you plan for. If you wish to show the advantages and disadvantages of ‘keeping to the book’ or want high stakes with a lot of victims in your story, the professional is the right type for you. If you want someone who can be trusted to solve a case they’re not personally involved in, but get hired to clear up or want to make public, the semi-professional will be ideal. If you want to give the reader that nice feeling that an everyday person like them can also solve a crime and help a friend or relative (or themselves), then the amateur will play their role perfectly.
When it comes to writing a series, however, I would suggest keeping it to semi-professionals or professionals, if you can. The main problem with having an amateur sleuth, such as Jessica Fletcher, solve case after case is to find a reason why they’re always around when the murder happens and why the professionals always do such a bad job. There’s a reason why the theory came up that Jessica killed all the victims herself to gain enough inspiration for all the books she needs to write to help support her enormous family as she has so many nephews and nieces. A semi-professional will be pulled into new crimes every now and then - a PI might mostly look for cheating spouses and stealing employees, but a murder can happen every now and then; a lawyer might take cases which are hopeless unless they find the real culprit; and a journalist might have a tendency to investigate crimes instead of just writing about them. It goes without saying that a professional detective with the homicide division will have new murders to work on regularly.
There you have it, a look at all the different types of detectives you can use for your murder mystery stories. All of them are interesting to write in the right surroundings and right type of story, so you might even want to eventually try them all out.
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