In an essay provocatively called "The Slow and Agonizing Death of the Private Detective", crime novel fan and critic William Ahearn argues that private-eye detective fiction is dead:
The private detective is as dead as a two-dollar steak and would somebody please get a shovel and bury the stiff.
That’s an incendiary way of putting it, and I’m sure that devotees of contemporary private eye fiction will be scandalized by both the content of the claim and Ahearn’s dogmatic expression of it.
However, in the main I agree with his statement and endorse its tone.
Private eye fiction today is, well, pathetic compared to what it was during its 1920s-1940s heyday. The conditions that made for its rise are long gone, and the genre is not sufficiently elastic to accommodate the contemporary world.
There is nothing wrong with that, and the world would be a better place, I think, if authors would give up on what doesn’t really work and instead move ahead creatively and find the next thing that does, some style that fits contemporary realities—or return to the frankly romantic and fantastic roots of the style and stop pretending that their chosen form of romance is more realistic than others. It is not, and the pretense is both annoying to sensible people and quite obviously crippling to those who write the stuff.
In fact, the attempt to evolve the private eye tale in order to create superficial relevance to contemporary concerns is precisely what ruined the form. Ahearn correctly traces this to Ross MacDonald, creator of the hugely popular Lew Archer mysteries, although he was merely exemplary of the rot that set in after World War II, not the essential cause of it:
Anthony Boucher started spreading the news about Ross Macdonald’s Target in the New York Times Book Review. Boucher said the book was "the most human and disturbing novel of the hard-boiled school in many years." And there the troubles began. Lew Archer—Ross Macdonald’s private detective—had feelings and with that observation, Boucher would influence a generation of upcoming writers with a private detective as the hero.
Ahearn’s astute observation is that with MacDonald the private eye becomes the focus of the genre, as opposed to the suspects, victims, criminals, locations, and society itself. Before MacDonald, private eye fiction writers strived to make their detective characters interesting, to be sure, but the private eye’s motives were a given—we understood why he (nearly always a he) was out there hunting down the criminal or criminals.
The detective’s motives might not be entlrely pure, and certainly they were seldom wholly selfless, but they were presented as basically rational given the situation. They were not the matter to be analyzed. Nor were the detective’s feelings. There was a great, big world outside the detective that was much more important than the momentary emotions of a single individual, and the way to find the meaning in that world was to figure out was who did the murders and why. Thus Ahearn writes:
The hardboiled detective stories—the real ones—were always about where they took the reader. It wasn’t about the detective.
Hence, although Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler created a couple of fairly complex and definitely memorable detective characters—Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, respectively—the real interest of the stories was not the psychology of the two men but the mean streets through which they had to walk. They were our window into a world where the conventional moral code is not honored, and hence a world that shows us the value of that moral code:
Sam Spade, Doghouse Reilly and all the unnamed ops and dicks were witnesses. Our witnesses. We saw the degradation, greed and foibles of humanity through their eyes. They were never supposed to be our friends or dinner companions. They were paid to sink into the depths of the human sewer and get whatever their client wanted whether it was a black bird, a woman named Velma or the disturbed daughter of a dying general. We didn’t know much about them because they weren’t the kind of people that you knew, only the kind of people that you paid. They were vehicles to another side and critics and intellectuals could create all kinds of mythological precedents and psychological manifestations of the collective unconscious about them but I don’t.
Personality, and especially psychology, have taken over the detection genre and ruined it. What used to be fascinating and delightful about mystery fiction was where it took you—Dashiell Hammett’s Poisonville, Doyle’s London and Baskerville Hall, Christie’s small English towns, Gardner’s San Francisco, Fredric Brown’s Chicago—and the people you met there—Caspar Guttman, Col. Sebastian Moran, General Sternwood and his daughters, the League of Frightened Men, and so on.
Instead of a vehicle for observation and reasoning, the private eye became a device for evoking sympathy and pity:
Back in the day, private detectives were—as Raymond Chandler described Phillip Marlowe—errant knights. They drank whiskey, black coffee, had affairs with dangerous partners, ate rare steak, had more black coffee with scrambled eggs and sat in cars on stakeouts eating takeout or whatever they found under the seats.
Now, the modern private detective is seeing a therapist, going to Alcohol Anonymous, is on a diet or having a personal struggle with chocolate, or is getting messages from their cat, dog, the weather channel or a dead grandmother. They all have some depressing event that haunts them or some contrived block or problem that could spell either disaster or another session with the therapist or the tarot reader or the Amway distributor.
Referring to James Lee Burke’s celebrated Dave Robicheaux series, Ahearn identifies the smarmy, manipulative nature of this allegedly hardboiled, realistic form of writing:
the books are repetitive and filled with sympathy-inducing and manipulative devices that prey on base emotions and knee-jerk—almost sympathetic—responses. If he isn’t haunted by his alcoholism, his dead wife or the child he pulled from a sunken plane, it’s a senior moment where he forgets how to make a po’ boy sandwich or when to water the worms in his bait shop.
What is behind all of this, which Ahearn does not identify, is moral and philosophical relativism and a belief in determinism.
The authors of these tales are reluctant to admit that there are quite often fairly simple issues of right and wrong in the world outside of the shibboleths of progressive politics. Hence, they cannot confidently create character by describing what people do and allowing readers to judge for themselves.
Instead, in telling their essentially mawkish, soap-opera-level stories, the authors describe people not by what they do but by what they have. Ahearn mentions a novel by popular author 
Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River) as exemplifying both the sentimentality and superficiality of modern-day private eye fiction:
[T]he character is defined by descriptions of his car, his gun and some sorry ass infatuation with his partner who is—of course—beautiful and in a destructive relationship that he desperately wants to save her from. Cars, guns—and stereo systems, for that matter—are not indicative of character. That is not character; that is clutter.
Ahearn seems to sense that there is a philosophical problem behind the decline of the genre, although he cannot put his finger on it:
It isn’t about bad writing (although there’s plenty of that) it’s the utter and total lack of any kind of point of view on the part of the author other than descriptions of the characters and the locale. Which is why so many mysteries that I’m reading lately have become so forgettable.
What he is describing, of course, in mentioning "the utter and total lack of any kind of point of view on the part of the author" is moral and philosophical relativism. However, he is surely to be commended for identifying the things that have gone wrong with the genre.
The point is that the distinctiveness of the detective is not what’s wrong with contemporary private detection fiction, but that these writers are forced to believe that people are defined by what they possess, not what they do. Nearly everything in the genre, from the most hardboiled tales to the serial killer subgenre to the prissy cozies, reflects this inability to admit, or even recognize, that people actually make choices in life and that it is these choices that reveal character and make for real drama.
The choice of what kind of automobile to drive does say something about a person, but not nearly as much as what they do when confronted by the fact that their spouse is having an affair, or that a coworker is embezzling money from the firm, or that a real estate developer intends to use corrupt local officials to grab up their home at a deflated price in order to put up a strip mall.
To write wisely about such things, however, requires some moral courage, the willingness to judge things and stand up for what is right. Using them instead as cheap ploys to make readers feel sympathy for your characters is much easier, but it is, as Ahearn points out at great length, both unsatisfying to any reasonably deep person and contemptible on its face.
The literary problem will not be solved, you can be sure, until the philosophy behind it fades away.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, D. L.
Your claim that Hammett rebelled against Christie is not accurate. Hammett began publishing stories in 1923, and Christie started just three years earlier. They were simply two different points of view. The big influence on Hammett was Carroll John Daly (author of the first private eye narratives), and both of them were an offshoot of the American Western story. Their genesis was certainly not anything as petty as a reaction to someone writing in England.
Your claim that Holmes and others of the great detective school were simplistic moral absolutists is likewise incorrect. They were certainly not relativists (thank Heaven!), but the authors of the best of these writings were by no means simplistic, as you claim. Remember, as just the most obvious example, Holmes letting a criminal get away at Christmas time, as Holmes deems the miscreant’s redemption more important than following the law blindly.
Likewise, your characterization of Bill Ahearn and me as simplistic is false and itself a simplistic caricature. Of course we recognize that moral questions often have plenty of room for debate and nuance, as is perfectly evident in the works of Christie, Doyle, and other such authors. That is why we enjoy these writings. Careful reading of them, of Bill’s article, and of my writings on the matter will reveal that quite vividly.
The basic problem here is your characterization of people as absolutists and as thereby simplistic. Neither Bill nor I used the term absolutist to characterize ourselves or our position, and the the detective writers didn’t use that term either. Thus it is obviously a straw man here. Absolutism and oversimplification may be a characteristic of radical Muslims and Marxist Communists, but it does not apply to Doyle, Christie, Chesterton (to add an important person to the debate), or those of us who appreciate their writings and their philosophical position. This position is both philosophically and logically consistent and allows for much subtlety and nuance. Moreover, relativism is in fact an absolutist position: the claim that there are no absolute truths is an absolute proposition.
You accurately characterize the Rousseauian philosophy behind Red Harvest, but that philosophy is quite wrong, suffering from a logical inconsistency in failing to account for the origin of evil itself. (It cannot be a function solely of society if it is not in human nature, and if it is in human nature, then the real source of evil cannot be society but must be inherent in all people.)
I sense an aversion to Christianity and Judaism in your reaction to this article, and you are certainly welcome to your position on that, and I mean that quite sincerely. However, it is important to understand another’s position in full before dismissing it as irrational. In that spirit I strongly recommend Richard Swinburne’s The Coherence of Theism for your edification and pleasure.
Finally, I certainly agree with your opinion on modern private eye writing.
‘Red Harvest’ actually looks at the source of evil rather subtly. One of the main points of the story is strikebreaking and capitalist interests. In the world of ‘Red Harvest’, as in the real world, exploitation of one class over the other is the cause of evil. Hammett, being a communist, was well aware of the negative side of capitalism having encountered it first hand when he worked for the Pinkerton’s.
The idea that want and greed do not cause crime, ”evil” if you like, is a fallacy as the correlation between poverty and crime shows. Wealthier communities have less crime.
This is one of the most curious articles I’ve read in years. Hammett’s break from the English cottage murder mysteries of the Agatha Christie variety, philosophically speaking, consists in his heroes’ moral relativism–choosing the lesser of two evils in a world allowing no other knds of choice. The British amateur detective school which preceded him (Sherlock Holmes included) were ALL absolutists: morally pure individuals rooting out evil. Red Harvest (my favorite crime novel) lays out in great detail how the world “poisons” all who engage it–that’s the novel’s point. The problem here is the problem all people who imagine themselves “absolutists”–they’re kidding themselves. I have no reason to believe the poster is someone who, for nefarious reasons, wants to con anyone into believing him to hold values or beliefs absolutely: instead, like all such people, they’ve simply told themselves a lie. Can we take “Thou shalt not kill” as an absolute value? Sure, if we’re willing to allow the person who threatens to kill us to do so. Is this what you’re saying? I bet not. Likely your response to the sixth commandment goes something like, “well, Thou shalt not kill…unless!” This is how people who’ve convinced themselves that they are moral absolutists not only get around themselves and their own supposed moral absolutism, but make killing not only palatable, but holy. Do you think Osama Bin Laden thinks himself a moral relativist? Hell no. He’s figured out rationales getting around passages of the Koran that don’t suit him. What about people who kill doctors providing abortions? Think they don’t imagine themselves absolutists? I assume the person claiming to hold to a set of absolute values to sincerely believe that that’s what they are doing, that’s why there’s psychoanalysis, that’s why the private detectives of the post-war period all went on the couch, and that’s the price living in Poisonville. (By the way, you and Ahearn are right–modern detective fiction DOES suck).
The Crais example sounds like good writing, although that doesn’t validate everything in his books (as you admit) or the general concentration on possessions in current fiction. Here is the salient point. What makes fiction good, as Aristotle first pointed out, is the moral choices the characters make. In earlier detective fiction, before the rise of relativism in the society, the emphasis was on identifying the prior actions of the victims and suspects and the consequences of those actions. The emphasis was firmly on actions and consequences. In current detective fiction, the emphasis is on the detective’s emotional response to the present situation. As a result, there is less emphasis on what people actually do, and to compensate for that loss, writers refer more to what people have as a way of creating character. That approach is much weaker dramatically and less morally engaged. It does not mean that no writer today can create a good book, but it does mean that something important has been lost. We should not forget that.
I guess I don’t follow the jump from complaining about the psychologizing of detectives to claiming that all the writers are doing is talking about what the detectives possess. Those are two different things, and frankly I haven’t observed this concentration on possessions in contemporary detective stories. Sympathetic characters are what I demand, and I’ve found several in the contemporary canon.
Take for instance Robert Crais’ detective Elvis Cole. Crais started the series in what looked like the style you describe. Elvis Cole kept Disney memorabilia in his office. I thought that was over-cute, and I wasn’t much impressed with the early books.
What I failed to note was that the Disney memorabilia consisted of a Pinocchio clock and a Jiminy Cricket figurine. These weren’t chosen at random, I suspect. Crais was doing something with the character, something symbolized by those cartoon characters. Elvis Cole, who started as a stunted adolescent, has been learning, through the course of the books, to take moral responsibility. To listen to his conscience. And the more he’s grown up, the more I enjoy the books.
Of course that’s not what I meant, Lars. I explicitly state that the distinctiveness of the detective character is not the problem. What the problem really is, I said, is that these writers do not find it natural to define character by actions as much as by possessions. Note:
“Instead, in telling their essentially mawkish, soap-opera-level stories, the authors describe people not by what they do but by what they have. . . . The point is that the distinctiveness of the detective is not what’s wrong with contemporary private detection fiction, but that these writers are forced to believe that people are defined by what they possess, not what they do. Nearly everything in the genre, from the most hardboiled tales to the serial killer subgenre to the prissy cozies, reflects this inability to admit, or even recognize, that people actually make choices in life and that it is these choices that reveal character and make for real drama.
“The choice of what kind of automobile to drive does say something about a person, but not nearly as much as what they do when confronted by the fact that their spouse is having an affair, or that a coworker is embezzling money from the firm, or that a real estate developer intends to use corrupt local officials to grab up their home at a deflated price in order to put up a strip mall.
“To write wisely about such things, however, requires some moral courage, the willingness to judge things and stand up for what is right. Using them instead as cheap ploys to make readers feel sympathy for your characters is much easier, but it is, as Ahearn points out at great length, both unsatisfying to any reasonably deep person and contemptible on its face.”
You may disagree that this is true of Lehane, but I think it is clear that the philosophical problem behind much contemporary fiction is this strain of moral and philosophical relativism.
If I follow you correctly, you’re saying that in order for fiction to be moral, the characters must be one-dimensional. In my opinion, that’s piffle.
I’ll take Dennis Lehane’s GONE, BABY GONE as a piece of moral fiction over most anything written by that Communist Dashiel Hammet, who thought money and evil were the same thing. (I enjoy Hammet, but I don’t read him for enlightenment on right and wrong.)
But what do I know? It’s my opinion. Merry Christmas.
Money and evil are fundamentally the same thing, or more correctly evil and greed are. Capitalism is the course of most crime. People steal because they do not have, people kill because they were brought up in the rough environment that they cannot easily escape from. Note that crimes are more common and extreme in poverty stricken areas.
And I’d take Hammett as both great entertainment and moral fiction over any of the later pretenders to his crown, Lehane included. And you point that Hammett was an communist as if that means he cannot be moral! Stop living in the Cold War. One can easily say that all those who are Liberals or Conservatives are immoral because they support a system in which those who do more work (the proletariat) get less than those who do less work.