Jo Gar, the Island Detective—a Filipino Hardboiled Detective—was the subject of a number of short stories written by pulp author Raoul Whitfield (sometimes under the pseudonym Ramon Decolta), beginning in February 1930, as part of his work for the pulp magazine Black Mask.
Jo Gar is described as a languid, brown Filipino man, with a trace of Spanish blood—his name is implied to be shorthand for "José Garcia"—who solves cases from his office near Escolta Streetnote , in the heart of the busy, Eastern-Western port-city mélange that is Manila, then (as with the whole Philippines) part of the U.S. colonial empire. The series is notable in this regard: namely, that it's one of the very short, and very obscure, list of fictional or dramatic works produced by Americans about the colonial empire that many of them denied having—a huge contrast to all the Englishmen who wrote about The Raj, as well as the rest of The British Empire, at its height.
Despite the setting, the series is almost completely unknown in the Philippines itself. It's not much better known within the U.S. proper either, overshadowed as Whitfield was by the likes of his contemporaries, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, among others.
The Stories
The franchise contains the following stories, in order as they are compiled in the collection West of Guam: The Complete Cases of Jo Gar
, which can be downloaded for free here:
, which can be downloaded for free here:- "West of Guam"
- "Death in the Pasig"
- "Red Hemp"
- "Signals of Storm"
- "Enough Rope"
- "Nagasaki Bound"
- "Nagasaki Knives"
- "The Caleso Murders"
- "Silence House"
- The "Rainbow Diamonds" or "Von Loffler Diamonds" arc:
- "Diamonds of Dread"
- "The Man in White"
- "The Blind Chinese"
- "Red Dawn"
- "Blue Glass"
- "Diamonds of Death"
- "Shooting Gallery"
- "The Javanese Mask"
- "China Man"
- "The Siamese Cat"
- "The Black Sampan"
- "Climbing Death"
- "The Magician Murder"
- "The Man from Shanghai"
- "The Amber Fan"
- "The Mystery of the Fan-Backed Chair"
- "The Great Black"
Tropes common to the Jo Gar stories:
- Aerith and Bob: Set in the Philippines, in particular in the international port city of Manila, so of course—Spanish names, local-language Filipino names, Anglo-American names, non-Spanish continental European names (German, Dutch, French among others), Chinese names, the occasional Japanese or Malay name, you name it.
- Ambiguously Brown: It's clear that he's Filipino, but it's always strongly implied that Jo Gar had Spanish blood in the mix. Finally confirmed by him in "Diamonds of Death"—the ambiguity would be in just how mixed his blood is.
- Artistic License – Geography: A minor one: in several stories, Cavite is described as an island. Whitfield might've been referring to Sangley Point, a peninsula connected to the rest of Cavite province (itself situated on the main island of Luzon) by a narrow road, giving it almost the appearance of an island.
- Asshole Victim: Capt. Lintwell in "West of Guam" may be one, as he was known to romance other officers' wives.
- Cunning Linguist: As deemed necessary by the diversity of characters he deals with, Jo Gar knows several languages at least at a conversational level: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese (though which dialect is unspecified, and he's said to be not very good at it), Japanese, and even Malay. It's entirely possible he might know more than one Chinese dialect or Filipino language as well, but it's not specified.
- Da Chief: Arnold Carlysle, Chief of the Manila Police Department, and Lt Juan Arragon's superior.
- Chandler American Time: Same era, roughly speaking, but shifted a few timezones ahead, and across the Pacific, to America's only major colonial possession.
- It's not entirely clear what exact years the stories take place in. Whitfield was last in Manila around the time of The Great War (1914–18), and there are subtle references in some of the stories that could date them more specifically: e.g., the mention of a "Spanish bridge" over the Pasig, which could be referring to the Puente de España (Bridge of Spain), which washed out in a storm in that half-decade and was replaced by 1922 with the American, neoclassical-style, Jones Bridge, a block west. At first glance the stories could be set anytime between the early 1910s and late 1930s—nearly the whole span of formal American colonial rule—absent more specific information.
- Chinese Laborer: If there are Chinese store-owners, there are certainly these. Escolta (and within it, Jo Gar's office) are part of the Binondo district, the world's oldest-surviving Chinatown (outside China, of course).
- Closed Circle: "West of Guam" takes place on a troop transport in the middle of the Pacific—"west of Guam", naturally—so obviously the killer of Capt. Lintwell had to be onboard, since no one seems to have jumped.
- Dead Partner: It's not a backstory event, and they're not quite exactly partners in the sense of being coworkers, as one's a Private Detective and the other's a cop, but Lt. Juan Arragon, Jo Gar's Friend on the Force, goes down during the Von Loffler diamond heist (which had also already claimed several lives before his) in "Diamonds of Dread".
- Dies Wide Open: This being serial crime fiction, it's no surprise encountering corpses that hadn't had the time to close their eyes. Many such murder victims in the stories are explicitly described with blank, open-eyed death stares.
- Filipinos with Firearms: Jo Gar carries a Colt automatic wherever he goes—expected in his line of work, and Manila is a dangerous place (yes, even back in the Roaring Twenties!).
- Also, obviously, the Filipinos on the Manila Police, like Juan Arragon or Sadi Ratan.
- Dirty Cop: Señor Ferraro, the titular "Man in White" from the story of the same name, once of the Philippine Constabulary, is involved in the Von Loffler / Rainbow diamond theft, and the ensuing murders. He functioned as a sort of inside man with the Constabulary whilst his accomplices pulled off the crime. He's not the mastermind though, and it appears he used to do good work with the police prior to the Von Loffler diamond case.
- Evil Wears Black: Rosa Jetmars, one of the Von Loffler diamond heist accomplices.
- The Exotic Detective: A mixed-race detective (Filipino, so mostly Asian, but with Spanish blood), operating in an alternately hot or stormy, seedy but busy multicultural metropolis, on the other side of the world from the West, in the Asian tropics of a colonial empire whose existence most Americans would either ignore or deny outright, around the time of the Roaring Twenties.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: A lot of white characters make no secret of their racism—in particular towards the Chinese, many of whom they distrust and address as "Chinks". Some are positively fuming about Chinese houseboys especially when the latter get implicated in murders or thefts that affect the white men themselves.
- Follow That Car: A common technique in Jo Gar's playbook, though when he's in Manila, a lot of times he also follows carromatas or calesas (small, local, Spanish-era horse-drawn carriages), often riding in them himself.
- Film Noir: Well, noir fiction.
- Fair Cop: Lt Sadi Ratan, the late Juan Arragon's replacement. He's always described as tall, very handsome, and filling out his white duck/drill uniforms well.
- Fingerprinting Air: Averted in "Signals of Storm". Jo Gar narrowly misses a knife attack, and upon closer inspection he notices the knife handle had been wrapped in grass blades—which would make fingerprinting virtually impossible.
- Friend on the Force: Lt. Juan Arragon.
- Friendly Local Chinatown: Not particularly friendly (given the genre), but Jo Gar's office just off the Escolta is located within walking distance of Binondo, the world's oldest Chinatown. Lots of villainous or shady Chinese characters abound, but there are innocent and helpful ones as well, mostly servants or tradesmen.
- Grim Up North: Jo Gar once has to solve an officer's murder in Baguio, the cool northern-Philippine hill station for U.S. colonial officers. Climate-wise, compared to the near-deadly Manila tropical heat, Baguio's coolness is actually a good thing (which is why U.S. officers go up there in the first place), but one of them being murdered up there is grim enough.
- Hardboiled Detective
- Holiday in Cambodia: The urban, partly-Westernised/Latinised variant in colonial Manila.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: In "Signals of Storm", the Englishman Harnville exposes himself this way when he inadvertently admits to knowing that the knife aimed at Jo Gar was thrown from an area with palm trees.
- Inscrutable Oriental: A lot of times Jo's face can be patently unreadable, especially to Westerners. It usually means he's thinking deeply on something. He's often also described as speaking in a toneless manner.
- Inspector Lestrade: Lt Sadi Ratan often comes closest. Lt Juan Arragon is a more helpful example. Jo Gar often outsmarts them both.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Jo Gar sometimes comes into conflict over cases with Sadi Ratan, the late Juan Arragon's replacement, who Jo Gar can sense rather dislikes him in a way Arragon didn't. They push and pull over a case in "The Siamese Cat", for example.
- Latin Land: This being set in the middle of American colonial rule in the Philippines proper, a lot of cultural holdovers from the Spanish colonial era stuck around. A lot of locals obviously have Hispanic names, and are presumably Catholic despite little mention of local religious practices or traditions overall in the series (there are barely any funeral scenes for one, Catholic or otherwise, despite all the deaths). The local climate's tropical, and alternates on a whim between steaming summers and blustery typhoons, except in the cooler mountainous regions like Baguio, hill station for American colonial troops. Gratuitous Spanish occasionally crops up in phrases and signages, and a lot of Spanish-era architecture and buildings have stuck around as well. Even Jo Gar himself is confirmed to have at least some Spanish blood in his otherwise-Filipino genes.
- MacGuffin: Various, including the ten Von Loffler diamonds in the six-story arc from "Diamonds of Dread" to "Diamonds of Death".
- Meaningful Name: With
Unfortunate Implications in the mix—the direct killer of Carmen Carejo in "Red Hemp" is her father's houseboy Malo—Spanish for "bad". - Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: American Parker and Filipina Carmen Carejo, the latter the (strangled) victim of "Red Hemp", although Carmen is described as " mestiza", though it's never specified if that means Spanish or Chinese or some other blood in the mix.
- Not So Safe Harbour: Most of Manila in general, but particularly the Port Area and the mouth of the Pasig River, a beehive both of commerce and of crime. Having a detective office near the Pasig is quite clearly good for business as far as Jo Gar is concerned.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Jo Gar sometimes engages in this to get information out of others. One American captain lampshades this tendency of his in "West of Guam":Capt. Hungerford: "Jo Gar has the genius of playing a fool, Colonel [Dunbar]."
- In the same story, Pvt. Burker, who pretends to be fairly dumb about his way on a ship (referring to the forward as "up front", for instance), but who's been a seaman for nearly a decade. He does this as an accomplice to Major Jones in the latter's murder of Capt. Lintwell.
- Shown Their Work: Whitfield was actually in the Philippines for a time; his father worked as an accountant for the colonial government in Manila. This personal connection to the islands made him far more knowledgeable about Manila's customs, locations, and characters than many other Americans (who, unlike their counterparts in most other colonial empires, were not generally inclined to visit as much, at least partly because trips there risked the stigma of invoking "American Empire" criticisms).
- Signature Headgear: Jo's pith helmet (see page image for one possible rendering of this). Other times he wears a Panama hat (think Charlie Chan).
- Smoking Is Cool: Jo Gar is never seen without at least Once an Episode chain-smoking locally made, brown-paper cigarettes. Of course, nearly everyone else in this era would probably be smoking too, long before the dangers of cigarettes were discovered, but naturally Jo Gar is the most frequently depicted smoker.
- The Stoic: Jo Gar never shows much of any emotion, never seems to raise his voice much, and always replies to people calmly, politely, or tonelessly. He sometimes grins, but that's about it.
- Threatening Shark: Major Jones' Karmic Death in "West of Guam" for killing Capt. Lintwell. He jumps overboard, whether as suicide or as desertion isn't exactly clear, but the waters around the troopship Thomas are teeming with them.
- Tropical Island Adventure: Some of the stories go beyond the city of Manila and into more directly island settings, plus there's a story set in Honolulu. (Hawai'i, by the way, was also a direct U.S. colony in this era, not yet a statenote .)
- Widow's Weeds: Clara Landon in "Enough Rope"; for her husband, Gary, who was found hanging over the Pasig from a bridge. This also qualifies her for …
- Little Black Dress: Clara Landon (as just stated above), and there's also Rosa Jetmars, one of the accomplices in the Von Loffler diamond heist, whom Jo Gar closely watches while on the Cheyo Maru ship bound for Honolulu and then San Francisco.
