Hardboiled vs. Cozy

From Max Allan Collins:

I seem to be one of the few mystery writers who likes Christie as much as Hammett, who likes Stout as much as Spillane. Someone recently was putting down cozies, assuming I’d agree, when I had to say, “Uh – I write a cozy series with my wife.” I find things to like in every variation on the fictional sleuth – for example, Barb and I spend much of our leisure time watching British mysteries. We are currently preparing ourselves for withdrawal pangs over the upcoming departure of John Nettles (Inspector Barnaby) from Midsomer Murders (Nettles is leaving after a record number of episodes, though it’s continuing without him). We recently blew through the wonderful boxed set of Ellery Queen starring Jim Hutton, father of Archie Goodwin, I mean, Tim Hutton.

I don’t understand the hostility between fans of the variations on the detective story – it makes as much sense as the old Marvel Comics/DC Comics rivalry. What I notice most is that people who dislike a writer like Christie or Spillane generally haven’t read them much if at all. Some tried them as kids and had a knee-jerk reaction and never went back and tried again as adults.

The take on Christie is that her characters are cardboard – not true; in fact, the solutions to her mysteries almost always hinge upon psychology. She is also a great dialogue writer – she was, after all, a hugely successful playwright.

Spillane is supposed to be a woman hater, yet his women are remarkably strong with Hammer’s P.I. partner, Velda, a prime, pistol-packing example. The key to enjoying Spillane is understanding that he is not Chandler just as Chandler was not Hammett. Mickey gets dissed over his politics, but there’s nothing really political about that lunatic urban knight Mike Hammer – true, Mickey was a conservative of sorts (as a Jehovah’s Witness, he did not vote), and I am a liberal; but that has had zero impact on the Hammers I’ve co-written.

By the way, if you are unemployed, and you voted for the Republicans – you know, the party that wants to end your unemployment benefits? You are about to get exactly what you deserve.

I read very, very little contemporary crime fiction. I kid on the square that I don’t like to encourage the competition, but the real reasons are (a) my reading time is taken up by research, and (b) the mystery I am “reading” is the one I am writing.

So, instead, Barb and I watch British mysteries on TV, and other mystery series old and new (from Johnny Staccato to Leverage) (Tim Hutton again). And we listen to audio books when we travel. We are heading into our fourth trip through Rex Stout, having listened to Agatha Chritie’s entire body of work twice. If I am doing a Spillane collaboration, I listen to a Spillane audio book.

I can still learn from the classics. I am well aware that some very good people are writing right now. And I do read a handful (chiefly pals like Ed Gorman, John Lutz, Bob Randisi, and a few others). But I doubt anybody’s writing right now who could teach me things I couldn’t learn from Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Spillane, Thompson, Westlake, Stout, Gardner and Christie.

One of these days I am going to discuss the definition of “noir” here. It seems to be a fairly controversial subject. Recently, though, my friend Otto Penzler declared all private eye fiction outside the boundaries of noir. Otto is, of course, one of the most knowledgeable guys in the field. He is also wrong.