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Crumpled paper napkins, the rubble left by rowdy crowds or looting armies. Although nobody saw them or could say for certain who they were, the Goths and the Vandals have been through.

MARCARET ATWOOD The Robber Bride, 1993

Yahoo The Yahoos are an imaginary race of brutish creatures, resembling human beings, in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). They embody all the baser vices and instincts of the human race. The word 'yahoo' has become

a part of the language, referring to a coarse, loutish, or rowdy person, or one who engages in wanton vandalism. • See special entry • GULLIVER'S TRAVELS on p. 171.

In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough; but the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be used.

THOMAS HARDY The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886

Hens were in attendance, quietly and unquestioningly supportive, among all the dust and rubbish. As for the two pigs, they were yahoos even by the standards of the yard.

MARTIN AMIS London Fields, 1989

Detectives

Famous fictional detectives are often mentioned in the context of investi-

gation or deduction. The most commonly cited of these, as the illustrative

quotations suggest, is SHERLOCK HOLMES. • See also Intelligence.

Dick Barton Dick Barton, Special Agent, was the hero of a radio series broadcast between 1946 and 1951, in which he courageously pursued and defeated arch-criminals.

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is the name of an American teenage detective created in the 1930s by Edward Stratemeyer and the heroine of a series of novels for children written by a variety of writers under the name Carolyn Greene.

He shook his head. 'What happened?' 'I fell into a yucca plant' 'Ouch!' He flinched in sympathy. 'Just jumped up and bit you, huh?' 'What I get for playing Nancy Drew,' I said, and told him about chasing the burglar who'd broken into Andy Bynum's house.

MARGARET MARON Shooting at Loons, 1994

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is an extremely perceptive private detective in a series of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes's exceptional powers of observation and deductive reasoning enable him to solve the seemingly impenetrable mysteries that are brought to him by troubled clients. Probably the most famous fictional detective of all, Holmes plays the violin, smokes a pipe, has an opium habit, and wears a deerstalker. He is a master of disguise.

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Holmes is assisted by his stalwart associate, Dr Watson, with whom he shares rooms at 22 iB Baker Street, London. His arch-enemy is the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty. One story ends with Holmes and Moriarty grappling together above the Reichenbach Falls and the former apparently plunging to his death there. In fact Conan Doyle subsequently resurrected his hero for further adventures.

They were curious. Something was fishy. They tried some amateur Sherlocking by asking the same questions twice, expecting us to make a slip.

JACK KEROUAC On the Road, 1957

At once I took up my pipe, violin and deerstalker like a veritable Sherlock. I have always been an X-marks-the-spot man. let us go and revisit it; I said briskly. LAWRENCE DURRELL C/Cfl, 1960

You were all right as a jockey. You should give up this pretence of being Sherlock Holmes.

DICK FRANCIS Come to Grief, 1995

Philip Marlowe Philip Marlowe is the hard-boiled private detective in such novels as The Big Sleep (1939) and Farewell, My Lovely (1940) by the US writer Raymond Chandler. Tough, cynical, yet honourable, the Marlowe character is well-known from the films of Chandler's novels, notably as embodied by Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum.

Miss Marple Jane Marple is the elderly detective created by the crime writer Agatha Christie. She lives in the village of St Mary Mead, indulging in her hobbies of knitting and gardening. Her disarming appearance as a mildly gossipy old spinster hides a shrewdness and acuteness of observation that she uses to solve murders.

I tried Ralph again. This time he answered on the fourth ring.

'What's up, Miss Marple?' he asked. 'I thought you were out after Professor Moriarty until tomorrow.'

SARA PARETSKY Indemnity Only, 1982

Would you kindly stop shining that light in my eyes? Your Miss Marple act is less polished if I may say so, than your . . . letters.

CAROL SHIELDS Mary Swan, 1990

Perry Mason Perry Mason is the fictional defence lawyer in a series of novels by Erie Stanley Gardner and in a US television series of the 1960s. The stories frequently end with a dramatic courtroom scene in which Mason proves his client innocent of the crime.

How like Denn to choose a place like this for a rendezvous. He knew perfectly well

he should turn himself in to Sheriff Bo Poole and try to hire himself a Perry Mason.

MARCARET MARON Bootlegger's Daughter, 1992

'Given that Scotty, for whatever reason, decided to murder his wife,' she began, trying a new tack, 'doesn't it seem odd that with access to a boat and hundreds of square miles of deep water, he would choose to dispose of the body by eating it?' 'Not if he was the reincarnation of Charlie Mott,' Damien said triumphantly. He and Tinker

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would have a hope in hell of locating Claire. MICHELLE SPRING Running for Shelter, 1994

Devil

This theme is dominated by the Judaeo-Christian figure of the DEVIL, known as SATAN and by a wide variety of other names. Other evil spirits or fallen angels, some of whom can also be identified with Satan, are included. Usually the allusive force of such references is the personification of evil.

Abaddon Abaddon, whose name is Hebrew for 'destruction' or 'abyss', is described in Rev. 9 as 'the angel of the bottomless pit' who presides over a swarm of tormenting locusts that 'have tails like scorpions, and stings'. He is sometimes identified with the Devil and also with Hell. His Greek name is Apollyon.

And my father preached a whole set of sermons on the occasion; one set in the morning, all about David and Goliath, to spirit up the people to fighting with spades or bricks, if need were; and the other set in the afternoons, proving that Napoleon (that was another name for Bony, as we used to call him) was all the same as an Apollyon and Abaddon.

ELIZABETH CASKELL Cranford, 1 8 5 1 - 3

Ahriman According to the dualistic cosmology of Zoroastrianism, Ahriman is the supreme evil spirit who is perpetually in conflict with the supreme good spirit, Ahura Mazda (or Ormazd). This is Bunyan's description of him: 'He was clothed with scales like a fish (and they are his pride), he had wings like a dragon, and out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion.'

Apollyon Apollyon (meaning 'the destroyer') is the 'angel of the bottomless pit' described in Rev. 9: 11 (see ABADDON above). In Christian thought he is often identified with the Devil. In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Apollyon is the foul fiend, the personification of evil, who bars Christian's way but is ultimately defeated by the latter's virtue.

He may be stern; he may be exacting: he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Creatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE Jane Eyre, 1847

Feeling stronger than ever to meet and subdue her Apollyon, she pinned the note inside her frock, as a shield and a reminder.

LOUISA M. ALCOTT Little Women, 1868

He anxiously descended the ladder, and started homewards at a run, trying not to