Lost Identities

Abstract

Extending the implications of this turn from fleshed-out character, chapter four highlights the genre’s later focus on identities lost altogether (if only apparently). Among more recent authors, some have collapsed the mysteries earlier involving dead victims with those now entangling the unknown investigator himself. After all, the detective’s presence has always verged on a condition of invisibility, which has gradually become an informing premise within the genre. Central figures more than occasionally seem unaware of their tormented pasts, or even of their own present insights and skills. Alternatively, those who are so aware now strive to protect their identities by staying off the grid, avoiding scrutiny altogether, including the reader’s inquiring eye. Remaining invisible becomes either a chronic, unbidden condition or an increasingly hard act to sustain, with concealment having become the genre’s signature narrative line.