THE ACES OF CRIME - Part One

From Moriarty to QAnon: Why Criminal Masterminds Still Matter

The Aces of Crime is a series exploring the enduring appeal of criminal masterminds in fiction and culture.

Why do we find the idea of the criminal mastermind so compelling?

From the fin de siècle villains like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty to the online conspiracy theorists of the twenty-first century, the notion that somewhere there lurks a hidden intelligence orchestrating events from the shadows has proven remarkably resilient in Western culture. Over the decades these nefarious characters have evolved from the notion of the well-heeled gentleman criminal, operating in the fogbound backstreets of Victorian London, into the global conspirators whose influence seems to reach every corner of modern life. Yet the image of these criminal masterminds did not simply spring fully formed from the imaginations of crime fiction authors or online chatgroups. They were born out of the real-world anxieties of their own times – and, it could be argued, helped shape our understanding of hidden power and how it operates in the modern world.

PICCADILLY NOIR

The idea first occurred to me while researching my Piccadilly Noir novels.

I chose London during the 1920s and 1930s as the setting for the series. A fictional history, of course, but one which was influenced by a good deal of research. But, then again, isn’t all history fictional to a certain extent? Even when retelling episodes from our own lives we tend to pack the events neatly into narrative form. One of the fascinating aspects of using a historical setting as a novelist is that you can utilise past events and conditions which have resonance with today’s world. The same can be said for historical figures.

Since the late nineteenth century one figure has recurred in Western popular fiction with remarkable persistence: the criminal mastermind. Not the common thief or violent robber, but a hidden intelligence which organises, directs and controls.

THE FOUR ACES OF CRIME

Take these four early examples, which for me stand out as particularly influential:

1. Professor Moriarty

2. Fantômas

3. Dr Mabuse

4. Fu Manchu

These are my four "Aces of Crime".

Aspects of all four of these criminal masterminds found their way into the principal villain of my Piccadilly Noir series, the nemesis of my Cockney detective George Harley, and the serial killer whom the newspapers christen the “Nursery Butcher” (no spoilers here – to discover his true identity you’ll have to read the first book in the series, Midnight Streets). My arch-villain shares Moriarty's ability to orchestrate events from the shadows; like Fantômas he is a master of disguise; he has a similar mesmeric influence over his followers as the menacing Dr Mabuse; and like the inscrutable Fu Manchu he makes use of arcane scientific knowledge to hold power over his victims.

Yet as compelling as these fictional villains undoubtedly are, they were never merely products of pure imagination. Each was rooted in genuine social and political anxieties of the time of their creation.

The Evolution of Anxiety

Looking closely at these four characters reveals something rather more interesting than simply the evolution of a literary archetype. Taken together, they chart a remarkable progression in the way Western culture has imagined hidden power over the past 130 years. Each embodies a different fear which can be used to map out certain cultural reactions to the rapid modernisation of Western society.

Professor Moriarty represents the fear of organised clandestine crime operating beyond the reach of ordinary law.

Fantômas reflects the unsettling possibility that identity itself is unreliable and cannot be trusted.

Dr Mabuse embodies the fear that our very perception of things can be manipulated by those in power.

Fu Manchu represents the fear of the Other – of global foreign powers working in secret to bring about the downfall of Western civilisation.

Individually they are memorable fictional villains. Together they form a fascinating roadmap of changing cultural anxieties.

Historical Parallels

As life began to become increasingly complex at the end of the nineteenth century, with an individual’s wellbeing becoming more reliant on technology, global politics, and the arcane fluctuations of the stock markets, crime itself was became more complex, more intellectual, and increasingly detached from the older forms of direct physical threat which had been far easier to recognise. And so the notion of the criminal mastermind evolved alongside it.

What began in Victorian London with Moriarty as a solitary hidden organiser of crime, gradually became something much larger. The master of disguise Fantômas – who we shall discover in future episodes, has his origins in French anarchist terrorism of the 1890s – helped begin to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. Then, like the totalitarian dictators of the early twentieth century, the menacing German villain Dr Mabuse turned mass manipulation into a weapon. And with the advent of the inscrutable Fu Manchu, the criminal threat adopted a global scale, with the imagined conspiracies now operating across continents and cultures.

It is easy to recognise the resonance such a progression of anxieties has with our modern world.

Sherlock Holmes famously likened Professor Moriarty to a spider who sits motionless at the centre of its web. Today the internet has become the ultimate clandestine web: a space of hidden connections, unreliable identities, viral ideas and global reach – which are, as we shall see in the coming articles, the exact special attributes of our four Aces of Crime.

None of this means that Arthur Conan Doyle somehow predicted QAnon, nor that Sax Rohmer anticipated the internet. Rather, these fictional masterminds gave shape to a set of contemporary (and, I would suggest, enduring) human anxieties. They provided memorable images through which increasingly complex societies could imagine hidden systems of power, influence and control. As the world changed, those images evolved with it.

In the articles that follow, we'll examine each of these four "Aces of Crime" in turn, exploring not only what made them famous but also the historical fears that brought them into being – and why, more than a century later, they still seem uncannily relevant.

Coming next: Professor Moriarty: The Birth of the Criminal Mastermind

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The Aces of Crime is an ongoing series exploring the enduring appeal of criminal masterminds in fiction and culture. If you'd like to learn more about my research and writing, visit the About page. You can also discover my Piccadilly Noir novels, Midnight Streets and The Devil's Banquet, which bring the darker streets of interwar London to life. Watch for the next instalment of The Aces of Crime, where we'll continue exploring the villains, ideas and myths that have shaped crime fiction for more than a century.