No Michael, You’ll Never Be A Hard-Boiled Detective

I’ve become close to obsessed with the world of the noir detective of late. Ironically this coincided with watching the quite wonderful HBO series (you have to say HBO when you write as it makes you look intellectual and means people can’t question your taste- wee tip for you there) ‘Bored To Death’ which either starts or has started on Sky Atlantic around the time of writing. I don’t know. This isn’t a TV column as if it was, I’d have to publish it somewhere else. The joys of being a bloody writer, eh?

Anyway, the show centres around Jonathan Ames, a writer (ably portrayed by Jason Schwartzman) who has just broken up with his girlfriend and gets lost in a Raymond Chandler novel. It’s at this point in writing this that I’ve suddenly become extremely self aware and have now, in televisual terms, jumped the shark. I’m copying that show, pretty much down to the ground by thinking about this but the distinct difference is that I don’t know Ted Danson so I think we’re probably okay. For now.

 

I Doubt It’s Like This At All… (Artwork by Pia Guerra)

Anyway, the problem with reading detective novels that are set in the 30s, 40s, 50s etc. is that everyone appears to be a wise-cracking, tough-talking smart-arse with more quips up their sleeves than a episode of Just A Minute. I suppose my dissonance between the fiction and the reality must be a bit of a burden in a way. It is something that’s always intrigued me. I wanted to be in the police when I was younger but I never went, I wanted to do criminology (if I didn’t do journalism, which I didn’t do either) at university but I never did. It’s one of those things that’s always eluded me. Still though, the differences between modern Private Investigation and the heady days of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are bound to be many and varied. Surely it can’t all be about questioning people? In fact, I very much doubt that any of it is about questioning people these days.

 

I think what I need is more information. I actually tracked down (read: Googled) the name of a Private Investigation firm in central Glasgow and I’ve been considering popping by to see if I could get to speak to someone about what it takes to get into a world like that and even get an insight into what they do. I’d imagine in a world so full of con artists and, for want of a better term, dickheads they wouldn’t be too happy about sharing an insight into their world with some scruffy kid walking in off the street. Then, I imagine they’d be even less pleased if I walked in wearing a trench coat, a fedora and a really large, angular suit. I’d imagine modern day Private Investigators must hate people like me. People who have read a book, seen a film or two and watched some TV and suddenly believe that they could do it. I know what I’d say and it would contain so many expletives that the person would probably be blown out of the building by the sheer force of ill-will.

What’s to do then? The internet is, ironically, quite a fruitless avenue of investigation with most of the websites either looking like a ‘buy your own degree’ racket or like the last time they were updated and maintained, the Gameboy Colour had just come out. I don’t imagine that careers services are likely to see private investigation as a useful thing to keep literature on so I suppose I need to get an ‘in’. Get the opportunity to ask someone.

Perhaps I should just drop the whole idea. That’s probably the most sensible thing to do. Still… I’ve had that door made up now.