Hardboiled vs Classic Detective Fiction

Tags

Top Highlights

• Hardboiled Detective is less of a controlled investigator.

• emotionally involved

• harder for them to remain cool and in control throughout the course of the story because the stakes are higher for them

• deeply flawed characters,

• often studies of the detective’s character, his morality, and his flaws just as much as it is about the mystery itself.

• even after the crime is solved, you can’t escape the corrupt world in which the crime was allowed to take place in the first place.

• almost always set in the city. The harsh realities of city life aren’t just a backdrop for hardboiled detective fiction. These realities bleed into the case, often becoming a major part of the story.

• formula is a little less predictable,

• climax is rarely just about the detective explaining the crime.

• climax with a big action sequence that is often violent

• isn’t about order and pulling clues together,

• messier endings.

• some

• resolved

• not necessarily everything will be tied up in a neat bow.

• gritty look at the dark realities of crime in the city?