Let's re-tool again!
I've decided to re-tool this blog.
From this point forward this blog will actually be entries of my work in progress. My work in progress is a mystery/detective novel. To be technical, the work in progress is a police procedural of the Jules Maigret and Martin Beck type except with a Southern California flavor. There are people who think that novels of the Maigret/Beck type are not possible in a Southern California setting, but those people are the same people who think that all women in SoCal look like Barbie, all the men look like Brad Pitt and that a lot of sunshine negates depression. Those people have never read Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer books nor have read closely Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe novels, nor read Nathaniel West.
A reading of many of the recent detective novels taking place in SoCal have been of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang type. In other words, if the cop or PI wasn't half drunk he was either screwing a nineteen year old, his partner's wife, his ex-wife, the perp's old lady or his land lady, he was blowing a guy away with a shotgun, .44 magnum or bazooka. I find all that nonsense tiring. It's like James Bond on meth without the introspection.
My idea is to take a SoCal detective team and show them as people who, while often jerks, are just people doing their jobs and people who, for whatever reasons, have a thirst for justice and a paycheck. Some are introspective. Some aren't. Some want to re-make the world in their own image. Some want to enforce the law. Some are looking forward to their retirement benefits.
This work in progress will have a Christian point of view. I don't mean something like the protagonist is faced with the Glock of the bad guy, prays and all of a sudden the Glock jams, or that the hero, once he hits a wall in the investigation, prays and all of a sudden a stone tablet appears on his desk naming the perp. What I mean is that the hero/es realize that the world is a sinful place, the degeneracy of mankind knows no bounds, and that Satan (whether literally or metaphorically) ranges the world like a roaring lion devouring those who put themselves in his path. Let's call it Christian pessimism. i.e, the world stinks but there is a better world to come. And despite the fact that the world stinks and that there is a better world to come that doesn't mean that one should not try to make the stinking world a little less stinky.
The posts for the novel start tomorrow and will be updated on an irregular basis. There will be no chapters. Just the story.
And if you have any comments or criticisms please do not hesitate to post your opinions. I'm an uneducated bum and need all the help I can get.
From this point forward this blog will actually be entries of my work in progress. My work in progress is a mystery/detective novel. To be technical, the work in progress is a police procedural of the Jules Maigret and Martin Beck type except with a Southern California flavor. There are people who think that novels of the Maigret/Beck type are not possible in a Southern California setting, but those people are the same people who think that all women in SoCal look like Barbie, all the men look like Brad Pitt and that a lot of sunshine negates depression. Those people have never read Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer books nor have read closely Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe novels, nor read Nathaniel West.
A reading of many of the recent detective novels taking place in SoCal have been of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang type. In other words, if the cop or PI wasn't half drunk he was either screwing a nineteen year old, his partner's wife, his ex-wife, the perp's old lady or his land lady, he was blowing a guy away with a shotgun, .44 magnum or bazooka. I find all that nonsense tiring. It's like James Bond on meth without the introspection.
My idea is to take a SoCal detective team and show them as people who, while often jerks, are just people doing their jobs and people who, for whatever reasons, have a thirst for justice and a paycheck. Some are introspective. Some aren't. Some want to re-make the world in their own image. Some want to enforce the law. Some are looking forward to their retirement benefits.
This work in progress will have a Christian point of view. I don't mean something like the protagonist is faced with the Glock of the bad guy, prays and all of a sudden the Glock jams, or that the hero, once he hits a wall in the investigation, prays and all of a sudden a stone tablet appears on his desk naming the perp. What I mean is that the hero/es realize that the world is a sinful place, the degeneracy of mankind knows no bounds, and that Satan (whether literally or metaphorically) ranges the world like a roaring lion devouring those who put themselves in his path. Let's call it Christian pessimism. i.e, the world stinks but there is a better world to come. And despite the fact that the world stinks and that there is a better world to come that doesn't mean that one should not try to make the stinking world a little less stinky.
The posts for the novel start tomorrow and will be updated on an irregular basis. There will be no chapters. Just the story.
And if you have any comments or criticisms please do not hesitate to post your opinions. I'm an uneducated bum and need all the help I can get.
posted by Hitz at 3:33 PM
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