>I could argue the case but I don't have the time but
one thing I
>will say: as far as "procedurals" go, there don't
seem to be a hell of a
>lot of procedure going on.
Somebody not a million miles from here jumped on me last year
when I said I wasn't interested in police procedurals; this
current discussion has helped me to clarify my reasons.
As I see it, I have two problems with what you could call the
"classical" police procedural (wait a minute) by which I mean
the straightforward
'comic-book' action story : for one thing, this inevitably
collides with modern forensic advances. If I know damn well
that a spot of DNA testing is going to solve the crime, my
interest in a plain-vanilla account of police investigations
is modified, however accurately
'procedural' it may be, and however the author strives to get
the necessary work delayed. And I do NOT read novels to be
instructed in fingerprint counterfeiting, though I accept it
as a minor plot element.
Not a hell of a lot of procedure? Well, if
I just want to know about police procedures, I'd rather phone
the press people at Scotland Yard or ask a policeman. Asking
a policeman is all kinds of fun. You catch a couple of them
walking down the street, standing behind you at a supermarket
cash desk (these are usually CID, and can be spotted by the
fact that they wear suits when normal men don't), or having
an interesting confab inside a couple of parked cars, you
walk over to them and say things like, "Excuse me, but could
you just show me that thing at your belt, which I assume is a
collapsible baton? How long is it when it's extended?" or "If
I report a murder in WC1, precisely where does the rapid
response car come from and is it one oif your usual
white-with-a-stripe ones?" It is possible that I'm getting a
reputation, locally. When they start to run as soon as they
see me, then I use the internet.
But beyond all that, what really interests me in crime
fiction is the moral (in the broadest sense) implications of
the crime: the way that it affects either victims, criminals
or detectives. I'm not alone here, as you will realise how
many writers subscribe to the cliches (drunken cop, marital
problems); I use 'cliches' because in clumsy hands that's
exactly what they are, and aren't you just aware of the fact
as you read. And by the way, I bow to absolutely nobody in my
admiration of characters liike Harry Bosch, John Rebus, et
al., and indeed am considering adopting several of these
cliches myself in a soon-to-be-written book. ;-}
In other words, I find the crime/anti-crime dfistinction
collapses if I look at it hard.
I read Parker's Pale King's and Princes last night in about
90 minutes. Quick, fun, wish I had a Hawk.
MM
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 May 2002 EDT