RE: RARA-AVIS: The Continental Detective Agency

From: William Denton ( buff@pobox.com)
Date: 21 Oct 2002


On 21 October 2002, Anders Engwall (EAB) wrote:

: Robert Martin's Jim Bennett, Cleveland manager for
: an agency with its headquarters in New York. Sounds
: like a large agency to me.

And he's married, too. Interesting. Maybe in the '30s the writers who wanted to use a big nation-wide organization wrote tough-guy G-man stories. The FBI had gadgets, fingerprint records, gangsters to bust, and lots of real-life press. Then you get into the war, then the influence of film noir, then fifties paranoia, and the pattern was set and loners ruled. The few detectives that do work for agencies are middle-class and settled. The Continental Op River pretty much dried up.

Bill

-- 
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.

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