I do not think the "traditional" PI has totally disappeared,
even though technology has changed. Perhaps the most
notorious at the moment is Anthony Pellicano who until
recently has been making one hell of a living working for and
spying upon (wire taps) celebrities. PIs also are employed
frequently by defense attorneys. and, as others have pointed
out, your old time PI rarely was involved in murder
cases.
But there is a problem with new PI fiction. Certain
established writers are doing just fine with the sub-genre:
Crais, Pelecanos, Grafton come to mind. I once pointed this
out to a top NYC agent. His response was that while some PI
novels hit the best seller lists it was almost impossible to
sell a PI novel to a major publishing house. Go figure!
I have a PI series published by a small press, Quiet Storm.
Jim Winter also shares this publisher. One novel, NO TIME TO
MOURN, was published in 2004 while the second in the series
RUNNING OUT OF TIME is due out in a month or so. It has been
tough sledding. I have had some successful book talks
(including 3 just this last week or so). However, it is
extremely difficult to get books into mystery bookstores and
independents, not to mention the chains. Not impossible, but
close to it. And reviews in major outlets, critical to sales,
forgetaboutit.
Interestingly, I recently wrote a series featuring a
beautiful 26 year old TV crime news reporter who has never
seen a corpse she didn't like. I've got an agent and some big
houses are presently reading the manuscript.
My sense is that, with the exception of Grafton, and the new
Laura Lippman series, the female PIs are also not in much
demand. You hear little these days about Paretsky and Muller
though they both continue to write. I believe sub-genres tend
to ebb and flow. To get a flow started one needs originality
not replication of old formulae. I'm not sure it matters that
much if your new protagonist is a cop. a lawyer, a news
person, a forensic scientist, or a PI. The writing must be
fresh, the angle taken different. Yet the existential vision,
the loner-outsider stance, remains greatly attractive. Bosch
may be a cop but he is clearly rooted in the Hammett-Chandler
tradition. And Jack Reacher, now there's a loner if there
ever was one! (talk about mythic characters!)
So, despite labels, Americans and much of the rest of the
world continue to love tough guys and gals fighting evil
against immense odds driven by a powerful personal sense of
mission.
Cheers, Tim
Tim Wohlforth
tim@timwohlforth.com www.timwohlforth.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Feb 2006 EST