Why a Private Eye?

Today’s guest blogger, Dana King, works at an undisclosed location. It’s not classified; he’s just not going to tell you. Dana’s writing has appeared in New Mystery Reader, Powder Burn Flash, A Twist of Noir, Mysterical-E, and the original Thuglit web site. He also has several novels out including his latest, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of: A Nick Forte Mystery. Dana stopped in to tell us why he writes what he writes…

First, thank you to Austin for allowing me to share his blog space today. He suggested I write about how I chose crime fiction, specifically private eye fiction, as my preferred genre.
I’ve read PI stories ever since I started with The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. When I got serious about writing myself, crime was the obvious choice for a simple reason: it was easy to tell when the story should end. I’d read literary and mainstream fiction and, too often, otherwise excellent books seemed to peter out toward the end until they reminded me of a former music teacher’s description of Impressionism: music that gets sicker and sicker until it dies. (John Irving is a notable exception. The endings of A Widow For One Year and A Prayer For Owen Meany are damn near perfect.)
But crime stories, well, they ended when the case was solved. Sure, there would be some housekeeping to tidy up, but the thread of the story was the crime, its investigation and resolution. Other things could go on, but those touchstones were always there.
It was the private eye aspect that allowed me to go deeper. First person has been the default mode of telling PI stories pretty much since their inception, and describing how the detective saw and interpreted things allowed me to do a lot with character. The more I wrote in the genre, the more, and better, PI fiction I read. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, John D. Macdonald, Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, and others taught me there were things the PI could get into cops never bothered with. Cops have to close cases, and they have more than they can handle. PIs—at least fictional ones—can worry about closure. (I’ve written about this in more detail on my blog, One Bite at a Time.)
I chose wisely. Declan Hughes gave an impassioned speech at Bouchercon in 2008, arguing that the PI story, when done well, is the highest form of crime fiction. Listening to him, I felt proud to write PIs. Last year I joined the Private Eye Writers of America, and attended the banquet at Bouchercon in Long Beach. The camaraderie there was obvious, a group that felt strongly about the genre and were delighted to share their enthusiasm with like minds. To have my novel, A Small Sacrifice, nominated for the Best Indie award, was truly an honor. Never mind that I didn’t win.
I write procedurals now, too, but I’m always on the alert for an idea that can work as a PI story. Some say the genre is dying; I don’t buy it. Why not? As his core, even the modern, flawed PI meets the standard set by Raymond Chandler in his essay, “The Simple Art of Murder,” distilled to its essence:
If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.

Seems to me to be a worthy spot for a writer to stake out.