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The Paris Enigma FOR the generations grown up, admiring James Hadley Chase’s debonair detectives or watching gizmo-savvy James Bond on screen, Pablo De Santis’ sleuth Sigmundo Salvatrio comes as quite an antithesis. The name for one! No one would like the sound of "My Name is Salvatrio, Sigmundo Salvatrio". But most of all, for the fact that this Argentine boy, son of a shoemaker, in major part of the story seems like a lost soul, fighting a self-inflicted battle between the right and wrong. So unlike the Bond variety who just knows what to do!
In fact, that’s not all Salvatrio has in common with Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective. They both come from a modest background and they share the same time frame too. While Sherlock Holmes made his appearance in 1887, Salvitro’s life is being chronicled from 1888. One has to make a few mental adjustments to get into the skin of the characters, which are too many in Santis’s case, but the innocence of the era is too refreshing to frown upon such minor hurdles. So, we come across thoughts, which say criminology is majorly dependent on physiology or hopes of a scientific theory, which could separate the innocent from the reprobate just by examining one’s skeletal structure! However, that was not to be. At least, not during the time of Salvatrio and thus, the role of the Twelve Detectives became invaluable in crime busting. While the general perception is that murderers are artists and detectives their critics, Santis breaks this clich`E9 by making a few of his detectives both. Another antithesis to the prevailing norm in detective stories as a detective may have been accused of many things earlier, but never of murdering people to look good in others’ eye. First, it was Renato torturing magician Kalidan to death in order to solve his last mystery and later Viktor Arzaky following suit by killing his lover simply because she was two-timing him. Craig proved to be lucky for he was never exposed, but Arzaky has to pay for the crime he committed with his life, courtesy his acolyte’s keen sense of observation. Though a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, Salvatrio’s operation style is more like Agatha Christie’s man Hercule Poirot, who first made his entry into the world of crime through A Mysterious Affair and Style in 1920. Like Piorot, Salvatrio gives emphasis on the judicious blend of "the little grey cells" and "order and method", meaning Salvatrio is not just a clue-based detective but one who gives equal importance to human psychology. Methodology notwithstanding, it is the results that matters, like in Salvatrio’s case, a series of deceits lies, backbiting and twisted actions give rise to a positive force— Sigmundo Salvatior, the detective. One just hopes that his creator Santis, who is Editor-in-Chief of Argentina’s leading comic magazines, Fierro, and author of several books for young, will sustain him for long enough to attain the popularity of Holmes and Piorot. After all, even in this age of "click and find", human brain is the most fascinating jigsaw puzzle and the "crime of passion" reads any day better than crimes inspired by hatred or power.
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However, his unsure
steps, his dilemma only makes him human. As his journey progresses
from the modest beginning at Buenos Aires to becoming an acolyte (read
assistant) to a famous detective Renato Craig and finally a
representative to Paris’ symposium for 12 renowned detectives, is an
interesting one. The plot takes the reader to the 1880s and full of
situations that warrant keen observation power and wisdom, vaguely
reminding the reader of Sherlock Holme’s famous dialogue,
"Elementary, my dear Watson".