“Did you ever hear what J. Edgar Hoover said about justice?” she asked.
“He probably said a lot, but I don’t recall any of it offhand.”
“He said that justice is incidental to law and order.”
I love detective fiction — especially L.A. detective fiction — but like every other kind of niche fiction, it’s almost all rubbish. The Black Echo is an exception to the rule.
I have just a couple of things to take exception to:
- Detectives should NEVER have a love interest. They should always be loners (cf. Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe).
- [SPOILER ALERT] It is absolutely impossible that Rourke wouldn’t know who Eleanor Wish is. He works for the FBI. The Federal Bureau of INVESTIGATION. He’s an INVESTIGATOR. And he knows nothing about this woman? Not even her maiden name?
P.S. Don’t tell me about Linda Loring in the last two Marlowe books. She was a terrible decision by Raymond Chandler but I blame the fact that he was cracking up at the time over the illness and death of his wife.