Beneath The Skin, page 8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max Rhodes was a minor character in a book I had written a number of years ago called The Customer. The book languishes on my computer hard drive, though somehow he managed to escape into the above story. He is, essentially, someone I can use to discreetly go around and metaphorically or actually knock heads together.
For one of my fiction writing classes we were asked to write a story where one person tells a friend of a crime they had committed. I varied from this by having Max discover the crime through an investigation. To make up for the fact that I took liberties with the assignment, I had Camille confess the crime to Max at the end of the story. I claim technical compliance to the assignment.
One of the interesting aspects of Hard-boiled detective fiction is that the detective ultimately decides the method of justice. Max has a sullen but grittily realistic persona when it comes to dealing with criminals and Camille offers him a choice of going by the letter of the law, or applying his own standards. Maybe he does both. I'm not sure.
____________________
