Reflections by Caly McCarthy

As Josephine Tey demonstrates in her detective novel, Daughter of Time, there are striking similarities between detection and historical method. The most significant of these similarities is that both processes seek a more complete understanding of something that occurred and is not fully understood/appreciated. To achieve a fuller understanding, historians and detectives examine evidence. Evidence, however, does not mean indisputable, objective truth. To the contrary, one document could be interpreted by scholars differently. In Daughter of Time, for example, Alan, his surgeon, the matron, and the nurses each offer a different reaction to the portrait of Richard III (before they know whom the picture is portraying). Often evidence comes in seemingly disparate pieces. Only upon stepping back and re-arranging the jigsaw puzzle can the investigator understand links of causation and relatedness. Frequently, one piece of evidence can send the inquirer to find another. Within the scholastic arena, this is accomplished by following the trails of footnotes. In the arena of detective work, pondering the meaning of one clue might lead to the discovery of another. For example, when Alan begins to suspect that Richard III was not the demon most texts make him out to be, he sends Brent to the British Museum in search of primary source evidence of “The Princes in the Towers.” When Brent returns with only secondary accounts, Alan decides to study the origins of the rumor and learns that Tyrell was charged with murder twenty years after the supposed deed. This does not add up. Historians and detectives are keen to notice patterns and disruptions.

Although it is helpful to notice the similarities that exist between detection and historical method, differences exist, and they too deserve examination (historians must acknowledge counter-arguments). At the surface, detection usually deals with an event that occurred within the very recent past, whereas historical work finds its domain reaching further back. Additionally, detective work tends to be more definitive in its final conclusions (Richard III is innocent; Henry VII is the real demon), whereas historical conclusions are more tentative (X contributed to Y, which is important because of Z). The pivotal distinction between detection and historical methods, though, is detection’s emphasis on the individual. Certainly, historians also examine singularly important people, but history as a field allows for examinations of social movements, class structures, environmental changes, etc. Detection focuses on a limited event (or perhaps a string of crime), but history looks at longer trends and subtle shifts. It acknowledges that humans are not the only movers-and-shakers (consider the power of institutions, cultural developments, and ideas), and therefore its domain of study is broader.