I have called this virus 'Desdemona' because it blew in with Storm Dennis.
Still immobile, I've become an expert in spotting racism in crime novels.
I stopped reading Lynda la Plante ages ago, and Peter Robinson is next on the scrapheap.
It's so carefully nuanced, sometimes: yes, there will be cops from different cultural backgrounds, but the sneery references to shops with 'foreign names' and mosques at the end of the street are a dead giveaway. What a surprise to find that one of the key protagonists reads the Mail on Sunday and The Express, and yearns for the days of the News of the World!
This is really irritating, because I enjoy good plotting and good writing. Maybe I've been doing too much writing myself recently; you have to be so self-critical as an academic writer, and it makes you pull things to pieces as you write.
1 comment:
you know the answer - write crime thrillers. You've done enough research for you academic works that all you'll need to do is change the names. Mickey Spillane meets the SCUM manifesto.
'The sex, the drugs, the sleazy sex pests, the obsessive fans.... "by day she was a mild-mannered academic, by night she played bass in the meanest band in town".
You might find it an amusing diversion from your normal work. I'd buy it.
Get well soon
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