Detective associates in Turkish and British crime fiction

The aim of this study is to compare the roles of detectives' assistants' in both British and Turkish crime fiction. Ahmet Mithat Efendi's Esrâr-ı Cinâyât (1844) and Sir Conan Doyle's 'A Study in Scarlet' (1887) have been selected for this purpose, as the first examples of crime fiction novels in Turkish and British literature respectively. The study will research the various roles of associate detectives in Turkish crime literature published till 2013 and analyze their role as well as the developing nature of the relationships between the detectives and their assistants. Also the evolution of the genre through the history of Turkish crime literature will be reviewed and supporting characters' contribution in terms of crime solving and how they interact with the main detective character will be analyzed. Finally some conclusions will be drawn on the differences between British and Turkish crime fiction with respect to the detective assistants' personalities and titles. In view of the theory that a crime story is a reflection of the society it was written in, the involvement of the sleuth and the associate will hopefully explain the evaluation of the purpose, importance and the value of those characters and the role they played in making a crime story compelling in the past and present. Key Words: Detective Fiction, Associate Detectives, Sidekicks in Crime Fiction, British Crime Fiction, Turkish Crime Fiction, Evaluation in Crime Fiction.