Charles Parker (detective) Charles Parker (detective) Sergeant/Inspector/Chief Inspector Charles "Parker Bird" Parker is a fictional police detective who appears in several Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, and later becomes Lord Peter's brother-in-law. He is first introduced in "Whose Body?" as a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard. In the next book, "Clouds of Witness", he is summoned to assist the local police in the North Riding of Yorkshire who are investigating the death of Captain Dennis Cathcart, the fiancé of Peter's sister, Lady Mary Wimsey, apparently at the hands of Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver. Parker first sees Lady Mary
Gentleman detective English country house. This archetype of British detective contrasts with the more "hardboiled" counterpart in American crime fiction. Gentlemen detectives appeared early in modern detective fiction, which began in the late 19th century. C. Auguste Dupin, created by Edgar Allan Poe, is widely considered to be the first fictional detective in English literature. He appeared in three short stories written in the 1840s: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842) and "The Purloined Letter" (1844). Poe created Dupin before the word "detective" had been coined, but began many common elements of detective fiction: Dupin