crime fiction

i'm hardly a reader of detective novels.  i do like the occassional p.i. tv show.  the rockford files, starring james garner as the laid-back so cal private dick, is a classic tv show and a favorite character of mine.  jim rockford had buddha nature up the wazoo.  lately, anna and i have been bingeing on a canadian detective show, the republic of doyle, set in st. john/labrador and features a father/son team of goofballs that remind me of the aforementioned the rockford files in charm and chance.  also, the st. john/labrador accent is so quick to an irish brogue that anna and i were scratching our heads on the location of the characters.

but the reason why i'm thinking of crime fiction is the two clay blackurn novels, the channdler apartments and the incredible double, by berkeley poet owen hill.  i reread portions of the former when i want a quick pick-me-up, and i reread, for the second time, with great pleasure, the latter last weekend as i waited for our honda pilot to be serviced.

again, p.i. blackburn is a reluctant detective who would rather scout for second hand books and write poems than solve cases.  blackburn is also a hedonist who worships sex as a physical thing, loves to cook and eat, and really likes a strong drink.  he is surrounded by berekeley crazies and is assisted by anarchist/computer whizz marvin clarke and transexual ex-fbi agent bailey dao.  oh, and did i mention blackburn is a poet, so are many of the characters in these books, including many real bay area poets like the late, great, joanne kyger.

in short, these short detective novels are a delight to read.  perhaps i self-identify with clay blackburn.  i believe the character and i are about the same age.  in the chandler apartments blackburn is in his late 30s.  the incredible double happens about ten years later.  indeed, blackburn complains about being amazoned because the book scout business is drying up on account of the e-commerce giant.  what would blackburn say about today when amazon is even larger and many bookstores have shuttered.  the world has greatly changed in just a few short years.  we are now connected to, well, everything, by our smartphones.  and our political landscape rivals anything cooked up in the fevered brain of any berkeley loony.

so where is the third clay blackburn novel?  i really want to hang with the bisexual/book scout/poet.  i hope owen hill has another detective novel, or four, in the hopper.  and even if hill doesn't have another blackburn book to publish i am, almost, content with rereading these two wonderful novels.