George Pelecanos:
>
> Mark Blumenthal asks about cops and the carry-rule
in D.C. Yes, it's
still
> a requirement that cops carry their service weapons
while off-duty. In
THE
> SWEET FOREVER, Murphy does leave his gun in the
glove box when he enters
> that bar. This was a deliberate tip-off to the
reader that Murphy was
> cracking up. At that point in the novel, he is
dealing with his
corruption
> by rejecting his role as a police officer; that is,
he no longer thinks of
> himself as a "real" cop, so he doesn't feel the need
to obey the rules.
George, It was clear to me because I happened to know this ,
by circumstance, but even Charlie Schaeffer, who worked in
the field wrote,
" here's the gun rule as I know it. First, departments cannot
make their cops carry guns off duty".
I wrote earlier you are not an easy author to read because
you assume the reader will know what you do and don't feel
the need to explain. Any reader who does not have that
knowledge, is missing something you intended to impart. I am
currently reading two books by Benjamin Schutz immediately
after reading two of yours. Near the beginning of Mexico is
Forever, detective, Leo Hagerty, is watching an NCAA
basketball game. He briefly describes the game calling one
team, Klang. In comparison find myself missing the texture of
your books. I guess your approach could be called Joycean.
Maybe some day you, or someone you commission, could put out
reader's guides to your books so everybody could appreciate
the significance of every detail.. Mark
-- # 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 : 11 Dec 2001 EST