What this country needs . . .

[B.R.Stateham]

Okay, so I've been writing for forty years. That's necessarily saying I've been published for forty years. Three times so far. Two heroic sci/fantasy novels (1981, 2008) and one police-procedural (2008). And I have to say I have had rotten luck (and I think 'rotten' is just the adjective needed to describe my luck) with trying to find a lit agent who actually likes my writing.

But I keep trying. I keep plugging away. Because I have a theory. I think what this country needs . . . is someone who takes up the mantel Raymond Chandler had to discard on his deathbed. I think this country needs to return to some good, old-fashioned cliches in that dee ocean basin we call American Detective Fiction.

We need some tough-guys back in detective literature. No-holds-barred, wise cracking, tough as boiler plate, steely eyed cops and detectives who are caustic in their honesty and suspicious of anyone in power.

For me in that's what defined a good detective. Or cop. And Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe stands out as a the ultimate example.

Frankly I'm saddened, and irritated, that our genre has somehow stumbled away from this style of writing. Hell, read Chandler's Fairwell, My Lovely, and it sounds and reads so . . . . good! Even today, some sixty odd years after it first came out. And in my opinion, no one today comes close in mimicking that talent. No one.

But that's just my opinion. What do you think?

[Dana King]

I am second to no one in my admiration of Chandler's work, and I am sick to death with the percieved need for "flawed" heroes. On the other hand, Chandler and some other greats who followed him did so much with the tough guy, lone wolf PI that a tightrope has to be walked between archetype and stereotype, with no net. Updating the character will necessarily bring some 21st Century sensibilities to him; leaving him too unchanged will leave the reader with the impression he's seen this all before.

I wish you luck. I love that kind of stuff when done well.