The Power of Neurodiverse Characters in Mysteries

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The weather had turned dark and cold; no snow, but a pelting of quick-freezing rain that made roads impassable. Schools everywhere cancelled and I—at fifteen—was tasked with keeping the woodfire burning as our only means of heating the underground house we called home. Living in the middle of abandoned coal lands, closer to the cemetery than to town, we had no cable and no internet. I, however, rejoiced. I’d just purchased the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. I didn’t realize I’d also purchased entrée to the world I now primarily inhabit—one of forensic and scientific research, historical puzzles, and thick plots. I’m not the only mystery writer to make first acquaintance with the genre through Sherlock Holmes, but I wasn’t just finding my genre—I had just found my tribe. 

I am autistic. I’m also hyperlexic, have a memory with photographic acuity… and the social graces of an orangutan. (Note: they are socially intelligent animals, but are the only primates to live almost entirely solitary lives, so you know, it can be hard to remember the secret handshakes). I absolutely love a puzzle, but it was the behavior of Sherlock himself—in the stories and later adaptations—that kept me coming back. Whip-smart, but seemingly bad at close relationships; possessed of every special interest but oblivious to things others take for granted; has an infuriating way of inferring and finishing other people’s sentences, and is prone to the wildest impulses (I would not shoot the letter V in my wall with a revolver, but I could see whipping up a corpse or two in the pursuit of knowledge). For all of these reasons, my first—and still favorite—books are those varied collections of short stories and novellas, Study in Scarlet and Hound of the Baskervilles in particular. But as it happens, cozy-style mysteries of all sorts have been a safe haven for neurodiverse characters (and readers), from the fastidious and habitual perfectionist Hercule Poirot created by Agatha Christie—to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe with his special interests, avoidance of social situations, and low emotional affect. And if the original creators did not intend a neurodivergent diagnosis, screenwriters for their adaptations certainly have, and representation matters. Imagine the joy upon discovering that the autistic, ADHD, or other ND character wasn’t the victim nor the villain—but the hero. 

It’s only right to follow up on my Sherlock Holmes obsession with my equally ambitious preoccupation with Hercule Poirot. Written as an outsider (because he is from Belgium), his position at the margins, victim of social exclusion, is something neurodivergent people share. There’s also his commitment to routine and his peccadillos about food; he is well known for having “only toast” for breakfast “which is cut into neat little squares.”  In the television adaptation of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, that routine is interrupted by a broken radiator; he’s forced to spend Christmas with disagreeable people in an unfamiliar setting when he’d rather be at home, listening to his radio and eating chocolate. (I feel you, Hercule, le même choix.) We can also identify with his feelings about environmental stimulation, in excess and absence, in Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express.  Poirot and Sherlock are “head cannon” autistics, meaning they aren’t diagnosed in the confines of novel or film adaptation. Instead, readers follow clues to the detective’s motivation and behavior, even as they do for the murder at hand. Perhaps there is something in the obsessive attention to detail, or the way detectives must always look at their fellow humans at one remove, as if from the outside, that lends the genre so easily to ND representation. Either way, with today’s growing acceptance of neurodivergent people, we no longer have to play gumshoe to find autistic representation.

Television adaptations have been leading the charge, of late. Hart Hansen, creator of Fox’s Bones, based lead character Dr. Temperance Brennan on a friend with ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, though she is undiagnosed in the show. More recently, Astrid (Amazon Prime), Death at the End of the World, and The Bridge (FX/Hulu) present crime-solving characters who are openly neuro-divergent. Possibly the most well-known mystery book to feature autism, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time follows a fifteen-year-old protagonist self-described as “a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties,” while Sarah J Harris’s The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder fully announces Jasper Wishart’s ASD. (The13 year old autistic, parakeet enthusiast is both murder witness and amateur sleuth). In terms of books written by neurodivergent authors, we have the dark and engrossing Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason. She has a neurodivergent condition called aphantasia, the inability to see images in your head. More thriller than cozy, it follows a guilt-stricken main character who has committed murder, but who then finds two bodies on his property (neither of which is the right victim). And finally, there is the much lighter but oh-so-worthwhile romp, Poisoned Primrose by Dahlia Donovan, an openly autistic author. The very cozy, very British mystery gives us an “autistic, asexual, and almost forty” protagonist in Pineapple ‘Motts’ (complete with quirky characters and a cat).  

There aren’t yet many mysteries that are both about autistic characters and authored by neurodivergent writers, but this is changing—and I’m excited to be part of a the ground swell.  I’ve gone from being that quirky, unusual (underground-living) autistic reader to a still pretty quirky and unusual autistic writer. That’s the full circle of representation. I longed for a place to see myself; now I write to provide the same sort of refuge. Allowing my protagonist Jo Jones to be unapologetically herself and to be accepted as autistic, hyperlexic, and unmasked, means somewhere, someone will see reason to live their own life out loud. Jo’s got a murder to solve before the killer strikes again, but she’s valuable for who she is and not merely for what she does. Just like Sherlock. I suppose it’s no surprise that we’ve always been at home among the Baker Street Irregulars. 

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