The return of Spero Lucas?

I recently found on YouTube this fascinating interview (in the form of a conversation) with George Pelecanos, my favourite crime writer, made during one of his visits in France, where I hope he is getting better known. Among the many interesting things he talked about, he discussed in details about his latest hero, private investigator and Iraq war veteran Spero Lucas, whom we have seen in The Cut, The Double and in one short story of The Martini Shot. In the latter, he was briefly mentioned in a story that was about his family. After finishing The Martini Shot, I am now up to date with all the published work of Pelecanos and need to wait until he publishes new novels or reread his old ones. And I am impatient to read more about Spero Lucas, who is a very modern take on the private eye archetype. And I learned in the interview that Pelecanos is actually working on the pilot of a TV series based on Spero Lucas. What can I say? That is uber-cool. I guess I might have to wait until the project gets made, if it ever gets made, but I keep my fingers crossed. Either on the screen or on a page, I think I can safely expect the return of Spero Lucas. And that is good news.

A new archetype in crime fiction?

I am reading at the moment Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan, in translation (because my mother bought it from me and thus it is translated). So am I trying to get used to a translated text, which I now find an odd reading experience, but I this is not the topic of this post. I was pondering a year and a half ago about the return of the private eye as archetype character in crime fiction. Now I am wondering if I had not been wrong. When I thought this, I was referring to Spero Lucas, George Pelecanos' latest (anti)hero. Well, Lucas is also and especially a veteran of the Iraq war, former Marine a who basically brought his war experience and psyche back home. His private activity is only pheripherical to his character. What he truly is is a former Marine. So is Neal Maven, the main character of Hogan's novel. Who is not at all a private eye. So I am wondering if the youngish yet already disgruntle war veteran is not the true archetype that is making a comeback here. The war veteran may not be an entirely new archetype, but he is certainly finding a new life in our time.

The criminal mind in a nutshell

I am reading The Double by George Pelecanos at the moment. It is the second novel featuring as protagonist private eye Spero Lucas. I already praised the return of the private eye character his the first novel featuring Lucas, a true return to form and also to the relevance of the private eye in the contemporary world. But there is something else always praiseworthy in Pelecanos's novels: his villains. The criminals are also so darn authentic, so genuinely chilling, even more since even though they are completely villainous, they are also completely plausible. The Double has a nasty little trio of villains. I will not spoil it for those who have not read the book yet, but I thought I would give you here a description of their motivations that struck me and stayed on my mind:

"They were thrill seekers. Serge knew no other way of life. Louis used the job to fight off his demons. Billy King had come to the D.C. area to have fun, steal what he could, and fuck and use as many women as he could. No bosses, no rush hour, no line at Starbucks in the morning, no crowded Metro cars. No responsibility.

It wasn't about the money. It was about having enough to stay in the game."

Is it only me, or isn't it the criminal mind in a nutshell? Written like each sentence is a powerful punch, or a precise stab, with efficiency, yet there is a kind of poetic evocation in this quote. It is just perfect.

The rebirth of the private eye?

Quick plug for a novel that has not yet been published: The Double by George Pelecanos will be released on October the 8th, 2013. This will be the second adventure of Spero Lucas, the first being The Cut, which I read already (well, of course). I am trying to keep up to date with my Pelecanos, who is by far my favourite crime writer (yes, more than Elmore Leonard, there I said it). Spero Lucas is his new hero, or antihero, a 29 years old Iraq war veteran turned private investigator. A private eye. It might sound like a cliché, a commonplace, but it is so not. Because Spero Lucas works in contemporary Washington D.C. Because he is scarred and haunted by contemporary events and belongs to our time and age, because he is not a living anachronism but has a history that belongs to our time, the background of a man his age, I think he just made the private eye a relevant archetype again. Although Spero Lucas is not an archetype. On the contrary, he is a full, grounded, complex character, in a complex world, a world that may sometimes be in black and white but has plenty of shades of grey. Thus, I think Pelecanos may have, consciously or not, given us the rebirth of the private eye. I was enthusiastic when I read the first novel, I am impatient to read the second one. And I am uploading here the preview (!) of the novel, to give people a foretaste of the character and his world. I am not a big fan of video trailers for novels, I think they don't belong to the same medium, but I don't mind this one.