Emissaries of Justice

Hugo G. Walter

Emissaries of Justice

Courageous Searchers for Missing Persons

PETER LANG
New York - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - Lausanne - Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Walter, Hugo, author.

Title: Emissaries of justice : courageous searchers for missing persons /Hugo G. Walter.

Description: New York : Peter Lang, 2025. | Includes Bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024059140 (print) | LCCN 2024059141 (ebook) | ISBN 9783034353335 (hardback) | ISBN 9783034353342 (ebook) | ISBN 9783034353359 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Detective and mystery stories, English–History and criticism. | Police in literature. | Private investigators in literature. | Detectives in literature. | Christie, Agatha,1890–1976–Characters. | Bowers, Dorothy, 1902–1948–Characters. | Lorac, E. C. R., 1894–1958–Characters. | Poirot, Hercule (Fictitious character) | Pardoe, Chief Inspector Dan (Fictitious character) and Macdonald, Chief Inspector Robert | LCGFT: Literary criticism. | Essays.

Classification: LCC PR830.D4 W263 2025 (print) | LCC PR830.D4 (ebook) | DDC 823/.087209–dc23/eng/20241209

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024059140

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024059141

DOI 10.3726/b22275

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISBN 9783034353335 (hardback)

ISBN 9783034353342 (ebook)

ISBN 9783034353359 (epub)

DOI 10.3726/b22275

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA

info@peterlang.com—www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilization outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Hugo G. Walter has a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.A. from Old Dominion University, a Ph.D. in literature from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in humanities from Drew University. Dr. Walter teaches literature courses in the Division of Continuing Studies at Rutgers University. Two of his most recent publications are Magnificent Houses in Twentieth Century European Literature (Peter Lang, 2012) and Devoted to the Truth: Four Brilliant Investigators (Peter Lang, 2022).

About the book

This book is a collection of insightful essays about investigations involving missing persons and manipulated identities which are discussed in literary masterpieces by Agatha Christie, Dorothy Bowers, and E. C. R. Lorac. Each of the investigators in these cases shows the same vital and exemplary moral courage as Miss Marple in Nemesis who, when threatened by an adversary, presents herself effectively as “an emissary of justice.” These exceptionally intelligent, honest, perceptive, and ethical investigators solve various crimes because they examine the evidence carefully and thoroughly, because they conduct interviews and gather information fairly and without prejudice, and because they search heroically and intensively for the truth about the abduction, disappearance, or murder of any individual in the spirit of Hercule Poirot’s assertion in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that he will pursue the case to the end and seek meticulously for the whole truth.

“Hugo Walter’s Emissaries of Justice presents an innovative and compelling analysis of the novels of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Bowers, and E. C. R. Lorac. This fascinating comparative study focuses on the genre of the missing person mystery, chronicling the search for truth in ways that equally pertain to the world outside of these classical fictions.”

—Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, University of Texas at Austin

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my dear and wonderful mother Elli R. Walter who worked in the Princeton University Library system for many years and who very sadly passed away in November 2020.

This book is also dedicated to people who devotedly search for missing persons in everyday life and society.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my literature and humanities professors at Princeton University, Yale University, Old Dominion University, and Drew University for their guidance and inspiration over the years. I would especially like to express my gratitude to the following professors (some living and some very sadly deceased): Theodore Ziolkowski, Michael Curschmann, Carl Schorske, William G. Moulton, Robert Ready, John Warner, Sara Henry, James Pain, Victor Lange, Douglas Greene, John Kuehl, Linda McGreevy, Karl Knight, James McNally, Sandra Bermann, John R. Martin, David Coffin, Peter Demetz, Jeffrey Sammons, Harold Bloom, and Geoffrey Hartman.

I am very grateful to Professor Horst Daemmrich, who was a distinguished faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania for many years, for his inspiration and supportiveness of my Peter Lang publications over the course of several decades. I would also like to thank Anthony Mason of Peter Lang Publishing and Professor Edward Larkin for their support of my most recent Peter Lang publications.

I very much appreciate the excellent work and helpfulness of the Production Department of Peter Lang in the production of the manuscript.

And I would like to thank the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Division of Continuing Studies at Rutgers University for their encouragement and supportiveness during the past several years.

I would like to acknowledge the following institution for permission to reprint from the following works:

Saving Endangered Heirs and Estates, by Hugo G. Walter. Copyright © 2020, Peter Lang Publishing, reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Devoted to the Truth: Four Brilliant Investigators, by Hugo G. Walter. Copyright © 2022, Peter Lang Publishing, reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Investigating Evil: Heroic Sleuths and Their Exceptional Cases, by Hugo G. Walter. Copyright © 2023, Peter Lang Publishing, reprinted with the permission of the publisher.