The weird thing about the Op (I just finished Red Harvest) is not only does he get into the middle of the action, he *incites* the damned action, which puts him at an even weirder and more oblique relation to the Law than most hardboiled detectives have. It's one thing to lack respect for institutional law enforcement and to neglect legal codes in pursuit of a case, quite another to incite violence on a Large Scale in order to accomplish your mission. ====================== =================================== Michael D. Sharp "I'm a white male, age 18-49. msharp@umich.edu EVERYONE listens to me, no mat- Department of English ter how dumb my suggestions are." University of Michigan --Homer J. Simpson - # RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" # to majordomo@icomm.ca