Point being that the dialogue isn't authentic, but it catches
the way the reading public imagines the characters would
talk. As for the reality of PI fiction, perhaps the most
successful authors capture the way their readers would like
to think they would behave if they themselves were tough-guy
detectives? And perhaps depictions of those mean streets,
where most nights almost anyone could walk without
encountering anything more dangerous than an obnoxious drunk,
describe a world of random violence and death that could only
be conjured in snug, middle-class, suburbs?
i think you're right. it's just a continuation of a weird
american smugness, because we haven't had a war fought on our
property since the civil war, excluding of course those
racially inspired campaigns against indians, people of
japanese descent, and black people. it's a mythology, rather
than realism, for sure.
i prefer a contemporary setting and stark realism.
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