True, and I think it reflects the times. The romantic image
of the private
eye as a murder solving loner seems nostolgic. Modern day
professional PI
characters don't seem as realistic in the crime solving role,
to me, at
least. Even as escapist literature, I sometimes don't buy it.
Cops work,
and tales about criminals/not-so-good people work, and even
the "amateur
who stumbles into it and tries to figure it out" stories all
seem more
plausible to me than PIs. This might be on account of my
generation (I'm
mid-twenties) or where I grew up (Deep South), so others
might have a
different experience. I discovered Hardy Boys mysteries at 7,
and
thereafter the detective/crime genre has always been the
fiction I love
best. Only lately have I looked at modern PI novels and
thought that maybe
they seemed a little unreal to me. So I like the fact that
Scudder just
does "favors for friends," as does Easy Rawlins (to clear his
name, as
well). I like Robicheaux as the loner cop. That makes
sense.
A. Smith
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