Among other things, crime fiction teaches people how to stay safe. After all, when you read about all of the things that characters do that get them in trouble, it’s a lot easier to avoid the same predicament. In that spirit, and always civic-minded, I’ve decided to call attention to a very dangerous thing that some crime-fictional characters do: answer advertisements. Whether it’s a job offer, a personal advertisement, or something else, it’s always wisest to be extremely wary if you’re considering answering an ad. Don’t believe me? Just look at what happens to these characters…

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Red-Headed League, Sherlock Holmes gets a visit from Jabez Wilson, who owns a local pawn shop. It seems that Wilson was looking for a way to earn some extra money when he saw an interesting job advertisement. It stated that a group called the Red-Headed League was looking for a new member to take a job. Wilson’s got red hair, so he went to the address specified in the notice. He was hired quickly and given the task of copying the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. It was an easy job, and he was glad enough for the money. Then, strangely, he went to his job one day only to find that the Red-Headed League had disbanded. Now he’s confused about what has happened, and he wants Holmes to look into the matter. Holmes agrees and soon finds that, by answering that advertisement, Wilson got himself into the clutches of a gang of thieves who wanted to use his pawn shop to dig a tunnel to a local bank so they could rob it. And it all started when Wilson responded to that notice…

A whole series of events is set in motion when an advertisement appears in a local paper in Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced. Several residents of the village of Chipping Cleghorn are startled to see this notice appear in the local paper:

“A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, 29 October, at Little Paddocks, at 6.30 pm. Friends accept this, the only intimation.”

 A group of the locals can’t resist responding to the advertisement and going to Little Paddocks, which is the property of Letitia Blaklock. At the appointed time, the lights go out, the door bursts open, and a masked man waving a gun threatens everyone and shoots into the room. When the lights come back on, the man is dead. It’s a strange case that links to the past, and Miss Marple has to uncover some secrets to get to the truth. Oh, you’re absolutely right, fans of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford! Their Young Adventurers advertisement gets them in plenty of trouble.

In Dorothy Gilman’s The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, we are introduced to Emily Pollifax, a widow who lives in a New Jersey suburb. She doesn’t find much fulfilment in tending her garden and joining local social groups. She loves her children, but they’re grown and gone and have their own lives. More or less at loose ends, she notices an advertisement in her local paper. The CIA is recruiting, and Mrs. Pollifax is interested. She travels to Washington, DC, to apply, and at first, isn’t taken seriously. She doesn’t give up easily, though, and is eventually hired to do a small courier job which will take her to Mexico but won’t involve any real danger. Mrs. Pollifax agrees and gets ready for her trip. Little does she know at the time that she’s about to be drawn into a web of espionage and a great deal of danger.

Robert Colby’s novella No Experience Necessary is the story of Glenn Hadlock. He’s recently been released from prison and is finding it difficult to get a new legitimate job. He wants to ‘go straight,’ though, so he keeps looking. One day, he responds to an advertisement for a bodyguard/escort for Eileen Scofield. Her extremely wealthy husband Victor has permanent disabilities and cannot leave his room. But he doesn’t want Eileen’s life to be limited in that way. So, he’s looking for someone to escort her when she goes anywhere. To his surprise, Hadlock gets the job. He’s given his salary and an apartment to live in – in short, a very attractive package. All starts well enough, and Hadlock gets along with his charge. But things are not as they seem, and it’s not long before Hadlock sees that he’s in much deeper than he thought.

And then there’s A.M. Stuart’s Singapore Sapphire, which takes place in 1910. Harriet Gordon lost her husband and son to illness. Needing to make a new start, she moved to Singapore where she lives with her brother, Reverend Julian Edwards. There’s not a lot of money, and the boys school they run is well-respected, but not lucrative. So, Harriet decides to advertise her services as a typist/stenographer. Sir Oswald Newbold hires Harriet to write his memoirs, and she agrees. She has one session with her new client, but when she returns later that day to retrieve her typewriter, she finds that Sir Oswald has been murdered. Now she’s enmeshed in a murder investigation. Then, there’s a disappearance. It all ties into some underhanded things going on in Singapore, and Harriet ends up being in much more danger than she imagined.

See what I mean? These characters get into real trouble simply because they answered or placed an advertisement. And I’m not even mentioning the myriad dating apps and the trouble that can go along with them! It’s probably safest not to bother. You’re welcome.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Lee Hooker’s Want Ad Blues.