On Tuesday, August 13, 2002, at 08:00 AM, RARA-AVIS Digest
wrote:
> >Ian Rankin on police procedure: "I've never made
it all up.
I've always felt that it is silly and distracting to try to
'make it up'. When you need to get the basic facts correct in
something you're writing, so that the narrative isn't
crippled by inaccuracies, or holes, you do some research,
maybe talk to a policeman. Then you use what you need. But
the procedural element is only what is necessary to plot (and
character development perhaps); it is not the subject of the
book. We may be nitpicking here: as you say,
> Rankin writes cop stories that are
> deliberately designed to give the impression
of
> verisimilitude (and I'm willing to take him at
his
> word that they actually are accurate).
But I don't find that at the heart of the book, as I do in
for example a McBain. And although I agree with you
that
> the
> APPEARANCE of technical accuracy is
apparently
> important to him
I simply don't accept that it has the kind of blanket primacy
in these books that ?you originally claimed makes a book a
pp.
As for the question of why "us guys" do so much analysing and
hair-splitting - it must be fun, or something.
Marianne
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