Hangin’ out in Melbourne

The Age’s literary editor, Jason Steger, reports on the goings-on at the Melbourne Writer’s festival, where many authors, including crime types like Harlan Coben, Michael Connelly, Mark Billingham, Karin Slaughter and Carlos Ruiz Zafon, were in attendance over the weekend. Some of the snippets:

Michael Connelly laments the treatment his book Bloodwork received at the hands of Hollywood and Clint Eastwood. It isn’t so much the change of ending, nor the new bad guy. No, it’s really when he sees the brilliant film Eastwood made of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, which had been made back-to-back with Blood Work and by the same team: “I got Clint Eastwood’s B effort,” Connelly says.

If it’s 8pm I’m off to Police Procedurals (damn, I’m going to miss The Bill) with Connelly, Coben, Michael Robotham and Gabrielle Lord. Coben reckons the private eye is going through a lean time now, something Lord puts down to the scientification of crime; after all, private operators don’t have access to the expertise. I duck out to drop in to the raucous poetry slam in the Tower Room. No eastern suburbs mamas here.

Coben’s comments interest me especially, because I do think it’s slimmer pickings on the PI front now (unless, of course, you’re writing about Cleveland.) However, I don’t think the new obsession with including forensic details in crime novels is entirely to blame; there are a whole host of other factors: believability, cliches of plot and character, and maybe, just maybe, that young writers starting out in the genre aren’t necessarily going back to the Hammett/Chandler approach that influenced those starting out 20, even 10 years ago. Of course, the “Is PI Dead” question is almost as tired as some elements of the genre…but that’s another story.