![]() ![]() I like Freeling’s summary because it rings true in the real world, crimes aren’t solved by amazing leaps of logic or gathering everyone in the drawing room, but rather by an attention for detail, and not knowing when to quit. Written by Nicolas Freeling, creator of Dutch policeman Piet Van der Valk (a favourite series of mine, and well worth exploring), it is taken from Criminal Convictions, his non-fiction survey of the crime genre. The above description has long been a favourite of mine, emphasising as it does the grinding, exhausting and distinctly unglamorous realities of being a police detective. What they have is patience, tenacity, strength of character they will stay up all night at the crossroads because of the link which must exist between those two odd houses and that garage whose owner is over-glib and over-friendly. Crime is the business of the police, men poorly paid who worry about their shoes needing mending and the seats of whose trousers shine men often badly shaved and with dirty fingernails men who have come to work on a cup of coffee and who will make frequent dives into the pub to keep going: they have no time for proper meals and their teeth, like their digestion, are impaired. ![]()
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