56
Popular Culture Review
what was made to look like spontaneous combustion; the locked-room mystery
occurred in this novel with the death of a famous music producer. His apartment
was sealed up tightly and the security cameras did not show evidence of any
suspects entering or exiting the crime scene. This mystery was not solved by the
detective, however; the villain divulged how he incinerated his victim with
microwaves through drywall. The villain and his assistant had rented the
apartment next door and acted as if they were renovating the apartment,
removed their side of the wall and nails, leaving only a thin layer of drywall
separating the two apartments and then when the villain had an airtight alibi, his
assistant microwaved the victim and repaired that side of the wall to leave no
trace of the crime (628-629). Even though Pendergast did not figure out this
mystery, the murder was one of the ones causing subsequent murders and events
in the plot of the story.
Similar to the locked-room mystery, Preston and Child took Poe’s invention
of a deferent sidekick and updated it for their purposes. According to Poe’s
“Philosophy of Composition,” he was mostly interested in the unity of effect
over the development of character, as well as brevity in a work; Poe believed
that a written work taking longer than one sitting is ruined by the effect of
experience (530-532). Because of these self-imposed limitations, Poe did not
bother with character development in his detective stories. Dupin, like
Pendergast, is a static character. Their behaviors are repetitive and predictable.
Preston and Child have taken the still deferent sidekick and adapted its role to
their design of telling a more complex detective horror narrative, and since
Pendergast, in the mold of Dupin, cannot develop, it is up to the sidekick to
satisfy the dynamic characterization required in long works of fiction. The
sidekick in each of the Pendergast mysteries, while the subordinate of
Pendergast’s reason and expertise, provides the humanity of the story and gives
the reader someone with whom to identify, as is necessary in lengthy works of
fiction. One further comment on the sidekick in relation to its implementation by
Preston and Child: they include recurring sidekicks which keeps the reader
involved even more closely with the stories.
Cabinet o f Curiosities" s main sidekick is Dr. Nora Kelley, an anthropologist
Pendergast initially enlists to assist in the evaluation of the charnels containing
the decayed remains of the 36 bodies. At the beginning of the story, we see Nora
struggle with her job and the budget cuts to her department at the museum where
she works, and when Pendergast first asks for her help, she grudgingly assists.
Nora evolves over the course of the story, becoming a stronger character as she
is forced to invest herself in the outcome of the case since the initial crimes were
committed against children. As the case progresses and her bosses at the
museum become implicated, she becomes drawn irrevocably into the case and is
an integral part in assisting Pendergast in arriving at his solution. Unlike
Dupin’s unquestioning sidekick who basically acts as a vessel through which
Dupin conveys his genius and the solution to the mystery. Dr. Kelley argues
with Pendergast and acts with a mind and will of her own.