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Jim Thomsen's avatar

“‘People don’t want anything dark’ is the prevailing wisdom, though the “people” I know still admire James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block, wait anxiously for a new Tana French novel, get excited for what the genre can do. Those people might not be Nixon’s silent majority, but they’re out there, and I think they’re ill-served by a lot of book culture. But it’s also very hard to mobilize them.”

I’m a member of this tribe, so I feel seen here. But is it a tribe? My impression is that we’re a bunch of stubborn grumpy individualists who struggle to come together in the service of a good new crime novel of contemporary hard unstylized realism unless it’s canonical. Maybe there should be a con for us. But what would we call it?

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Madeleine G Harris-Callway's avatar

Well said, Sam! An old dinosaur like myself is considering the indie route because of time constraints. I share your belief that excellence in writing will survive, that art will prevail. Perhaps someone digging through the detritus of the internet will find gems that speak to them.

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