Re: RARA-AVIS: Replacements
Mari Hall (found.dead.in.texas@airmail.net)
Mon, 30 Mar 1998 09:19:12 -0600
Bill Hagen wrote:
>
> In discussing K.C. Constantine, Mario Taboada notes
something that might
> make an interesting thread:
>
> "Incidentally, the other day I saw an annoucement of a
new Constantine
> novel - Mario Balzic is now retired, and Carlucci is
the protagonist.
> This following of the hero until retirement and then
replacement by a
> subaltern as protagonist may well be a first in crime
fiction. But then,
> nothing about Constantine's fiction is ordinary - he's
a great American
> original."
>
> Do any other instances of "protagonist replacement"
come to mind? And
> let's make it hard by saying the protagonist has to
have had at least a
> two-novel run before he or she was replaced. How was he
or she replaced?
> (Speculate why.) Was the new protagonist
successful?
>
> To kick things off, I can think of one instance, though
a police
> procedural. Nicholas Freeling, to the dismay of many,
killed off his very
> personable Dutch policeman, Van der Valk, after a
ten-year run. He
> replaced him with his widow, Arlette, who was featured
in (I think) one
> more novel, "The Widow." Then Freeling went on to
create a more
> conventional French policeman, Henri Castang, in a new
series.
>
> As for the "why," George Dove ("The Police Procedural")
argues that the Van
> der Valk series was, in the first place, an attempt to
write a more
> literate kind of detective fiction. When Freeling felt
his protagonist had
> become predictable or even self-parody, the author
ended him. Since
> Arlette lasted only one novel, she can't be termed a
successful
> replacement, I guess.
>
> What other examples can folks think of?
>
> Bill Hagen
> <billha@ionet.net>
>
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Oh, there's a cozy writer (and since I don't read many of
those whose
name escapes me) who wrote about Clara and Henry (?) Gammage
and then
her niece picked up the stories and wrote about Clara when
Henry died.
(Was the Cable Car Murder one of her's??)
--
whose DOROTHYL nom is Kate Warne the ex-Pinkerton in
The Woman With the Rose Tattoo by Mari Hall
See y'all at Bouchercon 29 in Philly Oct.1-4
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