Evil Medics: Criminal Doctors in Classic Crime Novels

Horror saw their first doctors-gone-wrong with Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Henry Jekyll. Crime fiction's first deadly doctor came shortly after, and was the very doctor that provoked Holmes' observation above.

The Massive, powerful, and hot tempered MD from Stoke Moran is the brooding presence at the centre of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” one of the consulting detective’s greatest cases. Prone to violence, Dr. Roylott is also a coldly calculating villain whose determination to hang onto his inheritance leads him to plan and execute one of Victorian England’s most devious murders.

The highly unreliable narrator of Agatha Christie’s brilliantly subversive novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a truly slippery customer. He’s almost—but not quite—cunning enough to outwit even the great Hercule Poirot.

The sly Dr. Sheppard plots the killing of wealthy widower Roger Ackroyd after first blackmailing his fiancée, but does the decent thing when unmasked by Poirot. The novel serves as his suicide note.

The Queen of Crime produced another notable doctor with blood on his hands in the form of the drunkard Dr. Edward George Armstrong, present in one of her most celebrated novels And Then There Were None.

In total, there are seven killer doctors in Christie’s work, but we’ll leave you to find the other five for yourselves.

The plot of Dorothy L. Sayer’s great Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club involves a battle over inheritance, which almost inevitably leads to deaths in Golden Age detective books.

Lurking near the center of things is the seedy and penniless Dr. Penberthy, a medical practitioner who seems happy to provide poison—in this case, deadly digitalis—to whoever is prepared to pay him. Like Sheppard, he avoids a trial by taking his own life.

The novel also mentions a real life murderous doctor, William Palmer, aka “The Rugeley Poisoner,” whose MO was similar to that of Sayers’ creation.

P.D. James, author of the classic Adam Dalgliesh series, worked as a National Health Service administrator for much of her life, and a number of her whodunnits are set in hospitals.

This, her second featuring the urbane poetry-loving Dalgliesh, takes place in a trendy (well, for 1963) psychiatric clinic where patients are treated with LSD. Not everyone is a fan of the head of the clinic, and that includes Dr. Nagle, a cold-blooded and creepy sociopath with an intellect that is almost a match for that of the cerebral Scotland Yard detective.

Almost, but not quite…

Nobody should read William Goldman’s classic 1974 thriller before going to the dentist, not even if your appointment is six months away.

The search for the vicious Nazi war criminal Szell (memorably played in the movie by Sir Laurence Olivier) is at the heart of the plot of this memorable drama. But what sticks in most people’s minds is a gruesome scene in which Szell tries to extract information from the hero—information he does not have.

Nobody who's read the novel or seen the film can hear the phrase “Is it safe?” without wincing and rubbing their jaw.

The chief suspect in Peter Lovesey’s 1982 Golden Dagger-winning novel The False Inspector Dew is another savage dentist. This one schemes with his mistress to murder his wife while sailing across the Atlantic on a luxury liner.

The plot of this novel is a based around the true crime case of Dr. Hawley Crippen, a murderous chiropractor. Inspector Dew was the Scotland Yard detective who broke that case.

Filled with clever in-jokes, with a knock-out punch of an ending, it’s a true classic.

Florida society plastic surgeon Dr. Graveline seems to be leading a gilded life providing nips and tucks to the wealthy citizens of the Sunshine State. However, anyone familiar with the works of comic crime master Carl Hiaasen will judge there’s going to be a “but” (as well as butts) in his story.

Sure enough, the arrival of a PI investigating tales of malpractice and upcoming exposure on a TV talk show quickly threaten the doctor’s lucrative livelihood. Bloody, inventive, and darkly hilarious mayhem ensues.

Surely the most famous nasty doctor of all—even if you include Dr. Fu Manchu, Dr. No, and Dr. Evil—first entered our lives in Thomas Harris’s masterful creation Red Dragon back in 1981.

A brilliant psychiatrist with a taste for human organs and a logical mind to rival that of Sherlock Holmes himself, Lecter is more or less what might have happened if Conan Doyle’s creation had chosen evil over good.

Subsequent appearances in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising allow him to show off his learning and his sociopathy to grisly, yet fun, effect.