Re: RARA-AVIS: Professionals and Amateurs

From: WordRunner@aol.com
Date: 06 Feb 2000


Jim,
    If you cast the net widely enough, everybody can be a professional. If you define it narrowly enough only the governmentally employed will qualify. You and I are probably debating at cross purposes. My notion and speculation was and is that the world of hard-boiled "needs" a largely independent protagonist whose principle strengths are courage, a strong code that he/she lives by, wits and resourcefulness, and that the more "scientific" professional crime fighting becomes, the further it moves away from the hard boiled world. I believe that much of the best hard boiled stuff we'll see over the coming years will feature characters like Easy Rawlins, Sorotes Fortlow, the raw dudes of George Pelacanos, and the bad boys of Elmore Leonard's books, none of whom can really be thought of as "professionals," even by the independent standard established by the Op.

                                Jim Blue

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