Joyce Porter

Joyce Porter (March 28 1924–December 9 1990) [cite web |url=http://www.hycyber.com/MYST/porter_joyce.html |title=Joyce Porter |publisher=Cyberspace Spinner |accessdate=2008-08-09 ] is an English crime-fiction author.

Porter created the characters of "Eddie Brown", "Constance Ethel Morrison Burke", and "Wilfred Dover".cite web |url=http://www.xs4all.nl/~embden11/Engels/porter.htm |title=Joyce Porter |first=Nico |last=van Embden |accessdate=2008-08-09 ]

In DI Wilfred Dover & his side-kick Sergeant MacGregor she created a template later used successfully, especially by Reginald Hill, in straight 'who-dunnits', but Porter's novels, while intricately plotted, were always played for laughs.

Dover was obese, lazy , unhygienic (the only man in the metropolitan force with underarm dandruff) & bordering on corrupt. MacGregor was keen, clean & ferociously ambitious. However, on the rare occasions he was able to put aside plate, pint-glass & cigarettes long enough to concentrate, Dover usually saw the answer first.

The Honourable Constance Ethel Morrison Burke is an upper-class spinster who, armed only with pluck, a deep-routed hatred of men & her family's enormous financial resources, sallies forth to fight crime with the aid of her devoted 'friend'.

The 'Hon Con' books are even less like straight 'who-dunnits' than the 'Dovers' because while Dover is an experienced copper who has, it becomes clear, a good brain, the 'Hon Con' is an amatuer bungler of below-average intelligence. Therefore, her solving each case must be achieved entirely by a happy coincidence.

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