Writing about Blind Detectives - Part 1

I had the pleasure of meeting Christina Koning (above) some years ago at a Christmas crime writing event at Heffers in Cambridge. Since then, I've been pleased to see her growing reputation as a crime novelist, author of a series of novels published by Allison & Busby which feature one of the genre's enduring tropes, the blind detective. She's kindly contributed a guest post on this subject, split into two because of length. Here is part one:
'WhenI started writing the first novel in the Blind Detective series in 2014, I hadno idea it would be a detective story nor that there would be a series. I justwanted to write about my grandfather, a veteran of the First World war, blindedat Ypres, on the anniversary of the start of that conflict. It was only as thebook progressed that it struck me that it would make a good murder mystery, andthat the central character’s blindness, far from being a disadvantage as far ashis sleuthing abilities were concerned, would give him some distinctadvantages. I also liked the idea that, as readers, we are all ‘blinddetectives’, navigating our way through the narrative with the aid of clueswhich might or might not prove misleading.
         
Inorder to give some authenticity to my portrayal, I first turned toautobiographical works such as Sir Ian Fraser’s My Story of St Dunstan’s.From this, and other accounts by blinded veterans of both the First and SecondWorld Wars, I found that it would indeed be possible for my detective to beblind, and still function effectively in a sighted world. In some respects, mycharacter’s disability makes him more effective, since he has beenobliged because of it to train his memory and wits in ways a sighted personwould never need to.

 

Iextended my reading to other works of crime fiction which had blind charactersas their protagonists. It turned out that there were quite a few of these — indeedit might be said that ‘blind detectives’ are a sub-genre of the form. Perhapsthe best known of these is Max Carrados, in the series published from 1914 byErnest Bramah. Carrados is a gentleman-sleuth in the Lord Peter Wimsey mode,and the stories are very engaging. However, their treatment of the centralcharacter’s disability is far from realistic. In addition to a kind of sixthsense which enables him to describe a stranger’s appearance in minute detailthe minute he walks into the room, Carrados can ‘read’ newspaper headlines,using only his fingertips — this, long before Braille newspapers wereavailable.'
Thanks, Christina. Part two comes tomorrow...