Kevin,
Re your comments below:
"Well, that [my comments about 'police procedurals,' by their
nature, being the most likely to find a social portrait of
aparticular place at a particular time] might depend on how
generously or strictly you define police procedural. If it's
to include everything from Charlie Chan, Dell Shannon and
Helen McCloy to anything where a cop (or cops) is the central
character (Ellroy?), it may be a very hard slog
indeed."
The term "police procedural," quite obviously and clearly,
excludes any story, even if a cop is the central character,
in which police procedure is not presented with accuracy, or
at least with the appearance of accuracy. The whole point of
the sub-genre is technical accuracy, not only about police
work, but about anything else that impinges on the story,
from the religious beliefs of a given Indian tribe, to the
political structure of a given city.
Hence, Charlie Chan, Inspector Alleyn, etc., (and probably
Helen McCloy, though I've never read her and can't really
say) are clearly NOT police procedurals, because there's no
effort at technical accuracy, nor even any effort (as with
Elizabeth Linnington and her various 'nyms) to APPEAR as
though there's been an effort at technical accuracy.
That's obvious on its face, and let's not have any of
malarkey about how "the term has advanced and changed since
Anthony Boucher first coined it in 1956."
That said, the term, while narrow in that respect, is
nevertheless broad enough to include the concrete canyons of
New York (McBain, Uhnak, and a host of others), the wide open
Southwestern spaces of the Navajo Reservation (Hillerman, the
Thurlos), the drab grayness of Stockholm (the Wahloos), the
despair of Soviet-era Moscow (Neznansky), the racial divide
of Apartheid-era South Africa (McClure), the working class
ethos of West Yorkshire (Wainwright), etc. And precisely
because accuracy is the whole point, you're more likely to
see the kind of social observation that marks the work of a
writer like K.C. Constantine.
Now, whether you think Block's depiction of NYC is more
sharply observed than McBain's, whether Connelly's or Crais's
LA is less fevered than Ellroy's, or whether Hillerman or the
Thurlos give a more authentic depiction of life on the Big
Rez, is ultimately a matter of taste and opinion. You
say
"potato." Another might say "po-tah-to."
But, just as there's no arguing that a potato, however you
pronounce it, is a rooty vegetable dug out of the ground,
there's really no arguing that the police procedural is, by
its nature, the most naturalistic of mystery genres, and, in
consequence, the sub-genre where the kind of social
observation alluded to in the comment about Constantine is
most likely to be found.
Whether such observation is well-done or not is a matter of
opinion and must, of course, be judged on a case-by-case
basis.
JIM DOHERTY
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