In the wake of Arthur Conan Doyle's success, many writers created superhuman sleuths in the manner of Sherlock Holmes. At the same time, sometimes in conscious reaction, others created detectives who were just ordinary men two of whom are Arthur Morrison's Martin Hewit and M. McDonnell Bodkin's Paul Beck. (According to Bodkin's son, Father Mathew Bodkin, S. J., Beck "was deliberately conceived as the opposite of Sherlock Holmes, unromantic.") When his detective debuted in 1897 (in Pearson's Magazine) Bodkin called him Alfred Juggins, but he soon dropped that name and in 1898 he published his first collection of Paul Beck stories. Paul Beck, the Rule of Thumb Detective, which was favorably received. These and subsequent Beck adventures--as well as Bodkin's stories featuring Dora Myrl whom Beck eventually marries, and their son, Paul Beck, Jr.--are still good reading.

Matthias McDonnell Bodkin was born in Ireland on 8 October 1850 to Dr. Thomas...